Microsoft Azure and Xamarin

Azure App Services features are easy to add to Xamarin apps, including cloud data storage and cross-platform push notifications

Evolve 2016: Developing Connected Apps Using Azure and Xamarin

Connected Services in Visual Studio for Mac

The new Connected Services feature of Visual Studio for Mac helps developers to quickly and easily add Azure functionality to mobile applications from within the IDE. Currently available for testing in the Alpha channel.

Azure App Services

There is a collection of Azure Mobile Apps documentation that guides you through the process of implementing the Azure Mobile Client. Xamarin also offers an Azure Messaging NuGet packages for iOS and Android to help implement push notifications across platforms.

Configure your apps on the Azure App Services portal to access Mobile Apps, Web APIs, Storage, and much more. Learn about how app services are different and watch in these videos from Microsoft.

Active Directory Authentication

Azure Active Directory can be used to login users to Xamarin apps. The apps can then access additional services like Office 365.

WebAPI

Microsoft's Web API exposes a REST-like interface that can be easily consumed by Xamarin applications. You can easily spin-up an Azure Website and build a WebAPI-based app to connect to Xamarin apps.

Introduction To Web Services

This tutorial introduces how to integrate REST, WCF and SOAP web service technologies with Xamarin mobile applications. It examines various service implementations, evaluates available tools and libraries to integrate them, and provides sample patterns for consuming service data. Finally, it provides a basic overview of creating a RESTful web service for consumption with a Xamarin mobile application.

Samples

In addition to the documentation samples, the following complete applications demonstrate various Azure features incorporated into Xamarin apps: