Azure Sphere 19.10 - How does this affect your Starter Kit?

Useful 19.10 Links

Here's where to go to find-out more about the 19.10 release...

• The 19.10 OS will automatically get pushed to your device, provided that your Starter Kit is powered-up and has a Wi-Fi connection to the internet
  If your board is not connected to Wi-Fi, you can manually update the OS via your computer's connection to the internet using the following command
  azsphere device recover
  
  

• The 19.10 SDK however needs to be manually downloaded and installed on your development computer.
  Azure Sphere 19.10 SDK download
  Azure Sphere 19.10 Release Notes
  Azure Sphere 19.10 What's New page

What is not in the 19.10 Release!

First aspect to note, is that two items eagerly anticipated after mention of these in a Microsoft blog last month, will now be in a later release.
ie.

• Azure Sphere SDK for Linux (targeting Ubuntu 18.04 LTS)
• Azure Sphere Extension for Visual Studio Code (for both Windows and Linux)

Noteworthy 19.10 Features

• New user sign-in and authentication model. The 19.10 SDK supports a new user authentication model that enables role-based access control (RBAC).

  RBAC will make authentication simple and more flexible by supporting sign-in with any Microsoft or work/school account and enabling organizations to assign specific roles to individual users.

  If you already use Azure Sphere: It will be necessary to perform a one-time migration to the new RBAC model.

  If you are part of an organization: You will need to plan the migration carefully to avoid unnecessary disruption to other Azure Sphere users.

  For more information, please see the About Migration documentation for Azure Sphere 19.10 SDK

• New cloud management model. This makes cloud loading of applications to your Azure Sphere Devices significantly simpler. It's now easier to create deployments and organize devices.

  You need only create products, device groups, and deployments.  You no longer have to also set up SKUs, feeds and image sets for your applications.

  For more information on the new cloud management model, see Deployment basics.

• CMake by default. By default Azure Sphere apps are now built using CMake, a cross-platform build system that you can use for all your development: for high-level apps and real-time capable apps; for development in Visual Studio or the command line. All the Azure Sphere sample applications have also been updated to use CMake. The SDK will continue to support existing projects (based on msbuild and vcxproj), although these will no longer be supported in a subsequent release.

  This change to use CMake by default, prepares the way for upcoming preview releases of the Azure Sphere SDK for Linux and the Azure Sphere extension for Visual Studio Code.

• The SDK for Visual Studio is optimized for Visual Studio 2019, which has much improved support for CMake as well as other enhancements.

  Visual Studio 2017 will no longer be supported in a subsequent SDK release, so all users are encouraged to upgrade to Visual Studio 2019

New Sample Applications

Link

Three new sample applications demonstrate the use of Azure Sphere features:

• WiFi_HighLevelApp provides a comprehensive overview of Azure Sphere's Wi-Fi capabilities.
• DeferredUpdate shows how a high-level app can defer OS and application updates to avoid interrupting critical operations.
• HTTPS_Curl_Easy describes how to implement mutual authentication in a high-level app that uses web services.

CMake by Default

Link

By default, Azure Sphere apps are now built using CMake, a cross-platform build system that you can use for all your development: for high-level apps and real-time capable apps; for development in Visual Studio or the command line.

Note that all the Azure Sphere sample applications have now been updated to use CMake. For now, the SDK will continue to support existing projects that are based on msbuild and vcxproj ,although these will no longer be supported in a subsequent release.
The default use of CMake prepares the way for the upcoming preview releases of the Azure Sphere SDK for Linux and the Azure Sphere extension for Visual Studio Code.

New and Changed azsphere CLI Commands

Link

The azsphere CLI in the 19.10 SDK has significant changes from previous versions.

Commands have been added to list the devices in a tenant, device group, or product, There are also new commands to rename and update device groups.

Several commands have new or changed options, and the following commands have been removed or replaced. See the azsphere reference for details.

What Changed in the Previous 19.09 Release?

Azure Sphere OS 19.09 - New Capabilities for your Starter Kit!

Release Notes 19.09