Technical requirements
You will need the following software installed to work with the exercises presented in this chapter:
- Visual Studio 2019 16.8 or higher (any edition is fine). This is needed to work with the sample .NET 5 applications that are included with this chapter's code.
- The .NET 5 SDK, which can be downloaded from here: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/5.0.
- ML.NET Model Builder is a Visual Studio extension. The instructions for installing and enabling this extension are provided in the Enabling ML.NET Model Builder section.
- A Microsoft Azure Subscription is an optional requirement, and only needed if you are planning to deploy the Azure function-based service we will develop in this chapter to the Azure cloud. A free account is sufficient for this purpose and you can create one at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/free/.
Note
It is helpful but not mandatory to complete the exercises provided in Chapter 6, Upgrading On-Premises Applications...