Partner Center SDK for CSP

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Good news for partners, participating in Microsoft CSP Direct program. Last week Partner Center SDK and new REST APIs were released. Official announcement is available here.

Partner Center SDK is an evolution of CREST APIs, which allows any CSP Direct (1-tier) partner to automate common tasks during Microsoft cloud services management. It includes:

  1. Microsoft CSP Managed API libraries for use with Visual Studio 2015 or Visual Studio 2013.
  2. Sample web application using Managed CSP APIs to quickly configure and publish a website.
  3. Sample code for service applications or console applications using the Managed APIs.
  4. Full documentation and training material, with MSDN forums and other support options.
  5. Partner Center REST APIs which can be used by developers who have other development environments and other programming languages.

New REST APIs dramatically simplify billing automation. Previously billing of Azure services for not a walk in the park. Service providers could use Azure Usage API to calculate usage for customers, and Azure RateCard API to get prices. To calculate the cost of used services by every CSP customer, you just need to multiply used amount of resources with its price, and get the sum for all resources.

With new Partner Center REST APIs it becomes much easier. There are new APIs to get the cost of used services for a subscription for the last day, last month, and in total. And the coolest thing - it works not only for Azure, but also for Office 365, CRM Online and other services, available in CSP.

But there are other great improvements. Some of the new features included in Partner Center SDK and the REST API are:

  1. Simplified onboarding to the API
  2. Functionality in sync with the Partner Center website
  3. New direct API to list customers
  4. List available offers and add-ons
  5. Validate proposed new tenant name availability
  6. Validate VAR MPN ID and lookup the partner name
  7. Raise and manage support tickets
  8. Access invoice details
  9. Azure rated usage
  10. Subscription Upgrades

Also, with the Partner Center SDK you get identity token management, network connection management, and an object collection based managed API interface.

If you've already started the integration using CREST API, then don't worry, it is still supported. But you must understand, that the future is Partner Center SDK and Partner Center REST API, which you can use right now as an addition to CREST API. If you are a CSP Direct partner and wish to provide Microsoft public cloud services to your customers in the automated way - then Partner Center SDK should be your first step. Try it today.