Just to clarify ... Armeen is correct in that you can call them from .Net framework applications like Winform & ASP.Net - however, the PB2018 .Net Assemblies would only support non-visual classes (ie business logic only) - no visual controls.

Hi Robert, 

Good question!  PowerBuilder 2018 offers both .NET assembly target and REST Web API target (which is basically a REST wrapper around your .NET assembly).  The .NET assembly target is so your other server-side .NET components and ASP.NET pages can natively call the .NET assembly for the fastest performance.  The REST Web API target is so native clients (e.g. PowerBuilder desktop client) and external apps/systems can consume your .NET assemblies over the network using an open-standard interface.

While PowerBuilder 2018 doesn't provide ASP.NET authoring tools, there are a lot of free and paid options out there.  Generally, the bulk of the work and heavy-lifting is the business and data-access logic, which PowerBuilder 2018 takes care of for you with far less coding effort than most alternatives, such as the Microsoft Entity Framework.  https://www.appeon.com/pb2018.html#productivity

Just to summarize, here are the paths forward to a pure cloud architecture that Appeon recommends customers consider and evaluate (which I think that is what you may be seeking since you mentioned ASP.NET):

1. Automatically convert your app with PowerServer Web, which a developer edition is now included free in PowerBuilder Universal Edition.  The entire UI would run in the browser or as an Installable Web App.  Over time, if you develop any new business logic create that as PB .NET assemblies rather than standard PowerScript NVOs.  PowerServer Web Apps can natively call the PowerBuilder .NET assemblies.
2. Rewrite your UI as ASP.NET pages (using any number of tools), and then port your business logic, DataWindows, embedded SQL, etc. to PowerBuilder 2018 C# .NET assemblies.  The ASP.NET pages could natively call the PowerBuilder .NET assemblies.
3. Rewrite your UI as a PB Desktop Cloud App (the new UI target we have planned for next major version after PB 2018), and then just like option #2 port your business logic, DataWindows, embedded SQL, etc. to PowerBuilder 2018 C# .NET assemblies.  PB Desktop Cloud Apps would be calling your PowerBuilder .NET assemblies through REST Web API.  The key advantage of this approach over #2 is that the porting effort should be significantly less and it should offer a richer UX since its native technology, but of course you give up having a zero footprint (that you get with HTML technology of #2).

Regards,
Armeen

Can assemblies created in PB 2018 be used by ASP.Net web applications developed in Visual Studio?

We have a PowerBuilder application and an ASP.Net web application developed by two separate groups of developers. Currently if the web app needs to execute PB code, they run windowless exes created in PB. It would be much more efficient if the PB developers could easily create assemblies that could be used by the web application developers.

Hi Robert;

     PB2018 is based on the .NET CORE technology and only supported the Assembly & Web API features at this time.

Regards ... Chris