This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Marcel.L
Microsoft Ignite 2025 for Devs & DevOps: My Top Announcements
This years Microsoft Ignite 2025 is very clearly the "agentic AI" edition. The Book of News is packed with updates about agents, MCP, Copilots and end-to-end lifecycle tooling.
If you live in the world of GitHub, Azure, IaC and DevOps, there's a lot to unpack, but you don't need every announcement to understand how your day-to-day work is about to change.
In this post I'm focusing on the pieces that matter most for:
- Developers shipping cloud apps on Azure
- DevOps / SRE teams running infra at scale
- Teams doubling down on GitHub & GitHub Copilot
Here's the quick hit list of the top announcements for this crowd:
- Microsoft Foundry as the agentic developer platform, with a unified MCP tool catalogue.
- Foundry Agent Service as a hosted, multi agent runtime with built-in memory and integration with Microsoft 365 and Agent 365.
- Foundry Control Plane to operate agents with enterprise grade observability, governance and security.
- The next phase of Azure Copilot embedded across portal, PowerShell and CLI for deployment, migration, optimisation and troubleshooting workflows.
- Native integration between Microsoft Defender for Cloud and GitHub Advanced Security for runtime aware DevSecOps.
- Azure DocumentDB (GA), SQL Server 2025 (GA) with GitHub Copilot integration, Azure HorizonDB (PostgreSQL, preview) and Fabric databases (GA) as an AI ready data layer.
Why It Matters
Three big themes jump out for engineering teams:
Agentic dev platforms are now real products, not slideware.
Microsoft Foundry + Foundry Agent Service + Azure Copilot form a stack for building and running AI agents with real governance, observability and runtime guarantees.The data layer has gone fully "AI ready" for builders.
You get an open Azure DocumentDB service, an AI powered SQL Server 2025, a new Azure HorizonDB (PostgreSQL) for vector workloads and Fabric databases as a unified SaaS database experience.Security and GitHub are stitched directly into the pipeline.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud now natively integrates with GitHub Advanced Security, connecting code → build → runtime and even using Copilot Autofix/GitHub Copilot to propose fixes.
Taken together, this is a pretty major reshape of the Dev/DevOps toolchain: agents and Copilots become first class participants in your pipelines, while GitHub sits at the center of secure SDLC.
Key Concepts or Pillars
Here are the core building blocks from Ignite that I'd highlight for any Dev/DevOps team.
1. Microsoft Foundry: the agentic developer platform
Microsoft Foundry is Microsoft's "factory" for AI apps and agents, and Ignite 2025 upgrades it significantly:
- Unified MCP tool catalogue (preview). Developers get a single, governed catalogue of Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools – public and private – discoverable and managed from one secure interface in Foundry.
- Deep business integration via Logic Apps. Connectors to 1,400+ systems (SAP, Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) are exposed as MCP tools, so agents can act on real enterprise data and workflows without custom plumbing.
- Prebuilt AI services as MCP servers. Transcription, translation, voice, document processing and more ship as ready made tools.
- Custom tool extensibility. You can securely expose any API or function via API Management as MCP tools – perfect for wrapping existing line of business logic.
On top of that, the model router in Microsoft Foundry is now GA and can auto select from a pool of models (GPT-4.1, GPT-5, DeepSeek, Llama, Grok, etc.), optimising for cost, latency and quality, with reported up to 40% faster responses and 50% lower costs in early use.
For developers, this means:
"Pick the tools and guardrails, not the specific model per prompt."
2. Foundry Agent Service: hosted, multi agent runtime
Foundry Agent Service is evolving into an agent native runtime that hides a lot of "yak shaving" for infra and orchestration. New in preview:
- Hosted agents: Deploy agents built with Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, CrewAI or OpenAI Agents SDK without managing containers or infra.
- Built-in memory: Agents get persistent, secure memory across sessions for context, preferences and history.
- Multi agent workflows: Coordinate multiple specialised agents across long running processes (onboarding, approvals, supply chain, etc.) with either a visual designer or an API.
- Microsoft 365 + Agent 365 integration: Deploy agents directly into Microsoft 365 apps via Agent 365, with governance and enterprise deployment patterns baked in.
The new Microsoft Agent Framework unifies previous work like Semantic Kernel + AutoGen into a single open-source SDK, with durable execution for more resilient agents.
This is very relevant for DevOps: it's basically "Kubernetes for agents" – but managed for you.
3. Foundry Control Plane: DevOps for agents
Foundry Control Plane (preview) extends Agent 365 so developers get visibility, security and control over agents running in the Microsoft Cloud.
Key ideas:
- One place to see health, performance, usage and cost for agents.
- Behavioural guardrails and policies applied centrally.
- Built on Entra Agent ID, with Defender watching runtime activity and Purview protecting data flows.
If you currently treat microservices as deployable units, expect to treat agents as another fleet you observe, budget and secure.
Deep Dive: Azure Copilot + GitHub in the DevOps Loop
For infrastructure and app modernisation, the next phase of Azure Copilot is a big deal.
Azure Copilot now:
- Lives directly inside the Azure portal, PowerShell and CLI as specialised agents (private preview).
- Evolves chat into a full screen command centre, powered by GPT-5 reasoning, ARM-driven scenarios and artifact generation.
- Respects existing RBAC, Azure Policy and compliance and requires explicit confirmation before changing resources.
Agent capabilities are very DevOps flavoured:
- Deployment: Generate architectures and deployments aligned with the Well Architected Framework.
- Migration: Discover workloads and generate AI powered IaaS/PaaS recommendations, with GitHub Copilot integration to help modernise .NET and Java apps and turn inventory into actionable code blueprints.
- Optimisation: Surface cost + carbon aware actions and walk you through execution.
- Observability & troubleshooting: Combine metrics, traces and logs (Azure Monitor / Application Insights) to diagnose fullstack issues and suggest mitigation, auto create support tickets when needed.
This effectively wires GitHub Copilot ↔ Azure Copilot ↔ ARM into a loop:
- GitHub Copilot helps you define and refactor app + infra code.
- Azure Copilot proposes target architectures, migration plans and optimisations.
- Microsoft Foundry / Agent 365 manage agents and automations that keep that environment continuously modernised.
GitHub & Security: DevSecOps from Code to Runtime
The most GitHub specific security announcement is:
Native integration of Defender for Cloud + GitHub Advanced Security (preview)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud now natively integrates with GitHub Advanced Security to protect cloud native apps across the full app lifecycle, from code to runtime.
Highlights:
- Runtime context + code linkage. Runtime threats are mapped back to the exact code in GitHub, helping teams prioritise exploitable issues rather than just noisy findings.
- Real time collaboration. Security teams can create campaigns that notify GitHub repo owners, open GitHub issues directly from Defender, and track remediation status without leaving the security portal.
- AI assisted fixes (Copilot Autofix + GitHub Copilot coding agent). The integration can generate suggested fixes with Copilot, reducing mean-time-to-remediate while keeping developers in familiar GitHub workflows.
For DevOps teams, this is basically DevSecOps with runtime awareness: CI/CD, repos, and runtime all feed a single security picture.
The Data Layer: AI Ready Databases for Builders
Ignite also brings several important updates to the data platform that directly impact developers.
Azure DocumentDB (GA)
- First managed service built on the opensource DocumentDB standard under the Linux Foundation, compatible with MongoDB.
- Multicloud ready, AI friendly with vector + hybrid search, instant autoscale and independent compute/storage scaling.
SQL Server 2025 (GA) – with GitHub Copilot integration
- Access to AI models on-prem or in the cloud.
- Native JSON support, REST APIs, and change event streaming.
- Near real time analytics via mirroring data into Microsoft OneLake/Fabric.
-
GitHub Copilot integration in VS Code and SQL Server Management Studio 22, plus a new cross platform Python driver (
mssql-python).
Azure HorizonDB (PostgreSQL, private preview)
- Azure HorizonDB is a new PostgreSQL cloud database optimised for mission critical and AI workloads:
Fabric Databases (GA)
- Fabric databases merge SQL DB + Cosmos DB into a unified SaaS database in Fabric with native vector and RAG support for real time, intelligent apps.
GitHub Copilot in the Wider Stack
- Dataverse MCP Server (GA) + SDK for Python (preview).
- Azure Copilot migration workflows.
The pattern is clear: GitHub Copilot becomes the coding surface, while Microsoft Foundry, Azure Copilot and Dataverse MCP provide the context and tools around it.
Additional Insight: How This Changes a Real DevOps Workflow
Imagine a fairly typical scenario:
You have a fleet of legacy .NET apps, some SQL Server workloads and a growing list of "let's build an agent for this" asks from the business.
- Assess & plan with Azure Copilot.
- Refactor with GitHub Copilot + App Service Managed Instance.
- Modernise data with SQL Server 2025 / Azure HorizonDB / Fabric.
- Introduce agents with Foundry Agent Service.
- Secure the pipeline with Defender + GitHub.
- Operate agents with Foundry Control Plane + Azure Copilot.
Practical Steps or How-To
If you want to start this month, here's a pragmatic checklist:
- Get hands-on with Foundry Agent Service (where available).
- Enable GitHub Advanced Security + Defender integration in a pilot repo.
- Trial Azure Copilot in your infra lifecycle.
- Pick one data workload to modernise.
Tips, Tricks, or Best Practices
- Design for MCP from day one.
- Treat agents as production workloads, not "experiments".
- Keep GitHub as the single source of truth.
- Start with one or two golden paths.
Conclusion
Microsoft Ignite 2025 signals a major step forward for developers and DevOps teams building on Azure and GitHub. The rise of agentic platforms, AI ready data services, and integrated DevSecOps workflows means that teams can deliver more intelligent, secure, and efficient applications than ever before.
- Agent platforms (Microsoft Foundry, Foundry Agent Service, Agent 365)
- AI-ready infra and data (Azure Copilot, Azure DocumentDB, SQL Server 2025, Azure HorizonDB, Fabric databases)
- A tighter GitHub centric DevSecOps loop (Defender + GitHub Advanced Security + Copilot)
Embracing these tools and concepts will be key to staying competitive in the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud development and operations.
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Date: 19-11-2025
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Marcel.L
Marcel.L | Sciencx (2025-11-19T17:20:05+00:00) Microsoft Ignite 2025 for Devs & DevOps: My Top Announcements. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/19/microsoft-ignite-2025-for-devs-devops-my-top-announcements/
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