Complete Guide to Dapr for .NET and Azure Developers: Building and Managing Microservices

5h 24mAdvanced2025-10-17

Authors

Rodrigo Díaz Concha

Solutions Architect, Microsoft Regional Director, and Microsoft MVP

Course details

In this course, Rodrigo Díaz Concha—Solutions Architect, Microsoft Regional Director, and Microsoft MVP—guides you through building distributed applications and microservices using Dapr. After an introduction to Dapr and the essential components and tools it uses, find out how to set up your development environment. Then dive into key Dapr building blocks, including service invocation, state management, bindings, secrets management, configuration, and observability. Learn how to upgrade existing Dapr applications to the latest version and enhance the development experience. Explore advanced features such as self-contained actors, workflows, and interacting with Large Language Models (LLMs) and deploy Dapr applications as fully containerized, testable microservices in a Kubernetes cluster or Azure Container Apps. This course equips you with the knowledge and practical skills you need to build and manage microservices with Dapr.

Learning objectives
Understand the main features of Dapr and explain its most common use cases.
Assess if Dapr is a valid option for your software projects.
Create robust distributed applications using Dapr and .NET and deploy them in Azure.
Architect microservices solutions using Dapr.

Concepts

Introduction

Build great microservices solutions with Dapr and .NET
What you are going to build - Introducing Wisdom Pet Medicine

Dapr Overview

Challenges of distributed applications and microservices
What is Dapr
The sidecar pattern
Dapr anatomy

Preparing the Dapr Environment

Installing the development tools
Installing and initializing Dapr
The Dapr CLI
Hello, world with Dapr
The Dapr dashboard

The Pub Sub Building Block

The pub sub building block
Publishing messages in the Pet microservice
Subscribing to messages in the Rescue microservice
Subscribing to messages in the Hospital microservice
Creating the Dapr component for Azure Service Bus
Testing the pub sub implementation

The Service Invocation Building Block

The service invocation building block
Creating the PetAggregator microservice
Implementing the service invocation logic
Projecting the results in PetAggregator
Testing the service invocation implementation

The State Management Building Block

The state management building block
Refactoring the PetAggregator microservice
Implementing state management in PetAggregator
Creating a component for state management with Azure Storage
Testing the state management implementation

The Bindings Building Block

The bindings building block
Implementing an input binding in the Pet microservice
Implementing an output binding in the Hospital microservice
Creating the Dapr components for bindings with Azure Storage
Testing the bindings implementation

The Secrets Management Building Block

The secrets management building block
Creating a local-file secrets management component
Retrieving secrets from the microservices
Referencing secrets in the Dapr components
Testing the secret references in the components
Creating the Azure Key Vault component
Testing the secrets management with Azure Key Vault

The Configuration Building Block

The configuration building block
Creating the configuration component for Redis
Get configuration items using Dapr SDK
Testing the configuration building block

The Observability Building Block

The observability building block
Distributed traces with Zipkin
Distributed traces with Jaeger
Distributed traces with New Relic

Upgrading to the Latest Version of Dapr and .NET

Upgrading the Dapr CLI and runtime
Upgrading the .NET projects and NuGet packages
Upgrading the components and verifying the secrets
Upgrading the Projector function
Testing the upgraded solution

Improving the Development Experience

Running multiple apps
Attaching the debugger to the application processes
Using the Dapr extension in Visual Studio

Implementing Resiliency Capabilities

Understanding the resiliency capabilities in Dapr
Creating and implementing retry resiliency policies
Creating and implementing timeout resiliency policies
Creating and implementing circuit breaker resiliency policies
Implementing app health checks
Challenge - Implementing resiliency capabilities
Solution - Implementing resiliency capabilities

Performing Cryptographic Operations

The cryptography building block
Creating the Azure Key Vault resource and key
Creating the cryptography component
Implementing cryptography in the app
Challenge - Decrypting data
Solution - Decrypting data

Scheduling Jobs

The jobs building block
Using the DaprJobsClient object for scheduling a job
Implementing the job handler
Challenge - Implementing job logic
Solution - Implementing job logic

Interacting with Large Language Models (LLMs)

The conversation building block
Creating the conversation component
Implementing a conversation with an LLM
Challenge - Using prompting techniques in Dapr
Solution - Using prompting techniques in Dapr

Providing Mutually Exclusive Access with Locks

The distributed lock building block
Creating the distributed lock component
Implementing the distributed lock
Running two instances to test the distributed lock

Automating and Orchestrating Tasks with Workflows

The workflow building block
Using a supported state store for actors and workflows
Implementing the workflow and its first activity
Invoking the workflow
Implementing a second activity
Challenge - Implementing a human-in-the-loop process
Solution - Implementing a human-in-the-loop process

Deploying in Kubernetes

Running Dapr on Kubernetes
Deploying the Kubernetes cluster and initializing Dapr
Containerizing the microservices with Docker Compose
Preparing and applying the component files in the Kubernetes cluster
Creating and applying the deployments and services in the Kubernetes cluster
Creating an ingress controller in the Kubernetes cluster
Exposing the services in the Kubernetes cluster
Testing the microservices in the Kubernetes cluster

Deploying in Azure Container Apps

Introduction to Azure Container Apps
Deploying the Container Apps environment
Preparing the solution to use Azure Container Apps
Deploying and testing the Pet microservice as a Container App

Conclusion

Learning more