• Major improvements
  • Added an EventHub stream provider based on the same code that is used in Halo 5.
  • Increased throughput by between 5% and 26% depending on the scenario. #1586
  • Migrated all but 30 functional tests to GitHub.
  • Grain state doesn't have to extend GrainState anymore (marked as [Obsolete]) and can be a simple POCO class.
  • Added support for per-grain-class and global server-side interceptors. #965 #963
  • Added support for using Consul 0.6.0 as a Membership Provider. #1267
  • Support C# 6. #1479
  • Switched to xUnit for testing as a step towards CoreCLR compatibility. #1455
• Codegen & serialization
  • Added support for generic type constraints in codegen. #1137
  • Added support for Newtonsoft.Json as a fallback serializer. #1047
  • Added generation of serializers for type arguments of IAsyncObserver<T>. #1319
  • Improved support for F# interfaces. #1369
  • Consolidated two compile time codegen NuGet packages into one Microsoft.Orleans.OrleansCodeGenerator.Build. Microsoft.Orleans.Templates.Interfaces and Microsoft.Orleans.Templates.Grains are now meta-packages for backward compatibility only. #1501
  • Moved to Newtonsoft.Json 7.0.1. #1302
• Programmatic config
  • Added helper methods for programmatic test configuration. #1411
  • Added helper methods to AzureClient and AzureSilo for easier programmatic config. #1622
  • Added extension methods for using programmatic config. #1623
  • Remove config filed from Server and Client NuGet packages. #1629
• Other
  • Improved support for SQL membership, reminders, and grain storage.
    #1060
  • Improved propagation of exception, so that the caller gets the originally thrown exception instead of an AggregateException wrapping it. #1356
  • Added a storage provider for Azure Blob (graduated from OrleansContrib). #1376
  • Start Reminder Service initial load in the background. #1520
  • Added automatic cleanup of dead client stream producers and consumers. #1429 #1669
  • Added GetPrimaryKeyString extension method for IAddressable. #1675
  • Added support for additional application directories. #1674
• Many other fixes and improvements.