One of the most interesting announcements, at least in my mind, this week from Ignite 2016 was the news that Microsoft is adding support for Microsoft Graph API in hybrid deployments.
This means you can call the Microsoft Graph API like you would normally for Office 365 based mailboxes, for example, but have it actually connect with a mailbox that resides in an on-prem exchange server!
Let that sink in for a moment. That is pretty sweet!
Typically, if you have an application that is not deployed behind the firewall, i.e. inside the orgnaizations network, you couldnt call things like SharePoint or Exchange APIs without doing network gymnastics like VPN, reverse proxy or putting holes in your firewall (yuk).
Now with this hybrid support in the graph you can simply call internet based REST APIs and Microsoft is doing the work of facilitating that communication back to the on-prem resource.
Currently in Preview the graph only supports Mail, Calendar and Contacts in this hybrid configuration right now, however I can only imagine that more support for other endpoints like Users, SharePoint etc… will come at some point.
You also have to have Exchange 2016 CU3 servers deployed on-prem to get this support and sync your AD to Azure AD as authentication is managed this way.
You can read more about these re-reqs here: http://graph.microsoft.io/en-us/docs/overview/hybrid_rest_support
I think this is a huge benefit for those who are looking to build applications or cloud services that connect to data wherever that sits.
Couple of interesting scenarios to think about:
- Mobile app that works outside the firewall was either not possible or too hard due to connectivity issues.
- Cloud service web apps that you want to connect to on-prem data
- Tools and Apps that can now work with data either in Office 365 or on-prem
This to me is a huge step in the right direction for Microsoft in their quest to make developers lives better in a hybrid world.
Hybrid is not a transitional state. For many it’s the end state.
– John Ross and Randy Drisgill
I’m looking forward to more endpoints coming online in the months ahead!
-CJ