Recently Microsoft announced Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise, a new managed service tier for the popular Java Spring application framework that is optimized for the needs of enterprise developers. The new enterprise tier is available in preview.
In September 2019, Microsoft launched Azure Spring Cloud, a fully managed service for Spring Boot apps into general availability (GA). The service offers capabilities such as dynamic scaling, security patching, and out-of-the-box instrumentation for monitoring. However, Microsoft learned from some customers leveraging Azure Spring Cloud that they need more. In collaboration with VMware, the company integrates the VMware Tanzu portfolio into the Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise tier to meet the demand.
The Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise is suitable for customers seeking to upgrade from Azure Spring Cloud Standard Tier, or are new to VMware Tanzu and fully adopted on Azure, or are using Tanzu and want an Azure native experience. The new Enterprise Tier is optimized for the needs of Spring developers through advanced configurability, flexibility, portability, and enterprise-ready VMware Spring Runtime 24x7 support.
Source: https://tanzu.vmware.com/content/blog/introducing-azure-spring-cloud-enterprise-tier
Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise includes commercial Tanzu components explicitly built to address enterprise requirements around configuration, integration, flexibility, and support. Components such as Tanzu Build Service, Tanzu Application Configuration Service, and Tanzu Service Registry are in preview with Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise. Julia Liuson, Corporate Vice President, Developer Division, stated in an Azure blog post on the Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise:
Customers will have the flexibility to select which Tanzu components they want during or after instance creation. In addition, Microsoft and VMware will continue to add more Tanzu components such as Tanzu Spring Cloud Gateway and Spring Cloud Data Flow to the service, providing increased value to customers.
Note that the Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise roadmap is not confirmed and is subject to change according to the same blog post.
Furthermore, Eli Aleyner, Lead Cloud Products, and Alliances at VMware Tanzu, stated in a recent VMware Tanzu blog post:
Enterprise Tier offers a premium experience for enterprise Spring developers, who may be utilizing Spring Boot for common use cases such as exposing APIs to internal and external customers or building business applications.
And in addition, Jonathan Cavell, Associate Partner at Kyndryl, said in a tweet:
These partnerships are critical for VMware/Tanzu if they want to compete with Red Hat for the hybrid cloud world (above the VM level).
Lastly, more details on Azure Spring Cloud are available in the FAQ PDF.