Modern applications are inherently distributed, ranging from monoliths communicating with a message queue or database to complex microservices. This course demonstrates how Aspire and containers revolutionize the local workflow by emulating dependencies directly on the developer's machine, eliminating manual setup and reducing developer onboarding from days to minutes. Topics: Introduction to Distributed Applications, Containers, Docker, Containerizing ASP.NET Core Apps, Building Distributed Applications with Aspire, Enhancing your Application with Pluggable Integrations, Synchronous Communication, Asynchronous Communication, Deployment of Containerized Apps.