Sometimes it’s the smaller things in life that catch your eye or get you excited. Such is the case for me with the newly announced Azure Communications service. Why you may ask? Simple, this new service provides some basic features that until now developers were forced to “outsource” to 3rd parties such as Twilio & SendGrid. I am of course talking about SMS communications.
The newly announced service (currently in preview) allows developers access to not only SMS messaging but also to Voice and Video calling, Chat & optional integration of Azure supplied phone numbers.
All this meaning that developers can now access secured Azure API’s that also include a high level of encryption that are compliant, among others, to HIPPA & GDPR.
At a basic level, you can now use the service to send SMS notifications to your users, no more need to rely on a 3rd party provider.
Going a step further, you can also integrate chat directly into your site/application.
Both voice & video conferencing are also part of the service and coming soon (October) you will also be able to receive Phone Numbers allowing for both incoming and outgoing calls. These numbers can even be integrated into an existing on-prem SIP.
You can read the full documentation over here. And you can find examples for or group calling here, chat here and SMS here and the SDK here
Just think of a mix of this new service with existing services such as Cognitive Services, Bot Services, Functions & Logic Apps just to name a few and the options are endless
Gil Gross on Microsoft Azure 