Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #368

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@HowardvRooijen | @endjin

AI + Machine Learning

Covering: Anomaly detector, Azure Bot Service, Azure Machine Learning, Azure Open Datasets, Bing APIs, Cognitive Services, Computer Vision, Content moderator, Custom vision, Data Science Virtual Machines, Face, Form Recogniser, Immersive Reader, Ink Recogniser, Language Understanding (LUIS), Machine Learning Studio, Microsoft Genomics, ML.NET, Personaliser, Project Cortex, QnA Maker, Speaker Recognition, Speech-to-Text, Speech translation, Text Analytics, Text to Speech , Translator Speech, Translator Text

• Xiaoyong Zhu (@zxzxy1988) discusses Feathr: LinkedIn's feature store is now available on Azure
• Amira Youssef describes Intel and Microsoft host Azure Percept Bootcamp to inspire partners creating Edge AI solutions
• Sherry Wang explains how to Accelerate your AI applications with Azure NC A100 v4 virtual machines
• Arthur Magnus blogs about Creating the next generation of smart refrigerators using Azure Percept

Analytics

Covering: Apache Spark for HDInsight, Apache Storm for HDInsight, Azure Analysis Services, Azure Data Explorer, Azure Data Share, Azure Databricks, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Synapse Analytics, Data Catalog, Data Factory, Data Lake Analytics, Event Hubs, HDInsight, .NET for Apache Spark, R Server for HDInsight, Azure Purview

• Steve Howard announces General Availability of Cross-Subscription Restore for Dedicated SQL Pools
• Fikrat Azizov writes about Incremental Ingestion of Fact Tables on Lakehouse using Azure Synapse Analytics Mapping Data Flow - Part 1 and Part 2
• Ron L'Esteve presents Getting Started with Databricks Delta Sharing
• Dany Hoter blogs about Merging ADX queries in Power BI
• Sanjay Raut describes Azure Synapse Analyzer Report to monitor and improve Synapse Dedicated Pool performance
• Arindam Mondal presents An Introduction to Flowlets in Azure Data Factory
• Kåre Rasmussen explains how to Send data from Node-RED to free Azure Data Explorer Kusto
• Lionel Pénuchot writes about Real-time data ingestion in Synapse SQL pool at scale
• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: Azure Databricks Delta Live Tables
• Louise Han announces Univariate Anomaly Detector in Azure Data Explorer

Compute

Covering: Azure CycleCloud, Azure Dedicated Host, Azure Functions, Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple, Batch, Cloud Services, Linux Virtual Machines, SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances, Service Fabric, Virtual Machines, Virtual Machine Scale Sets

• On episode 421 of The Azure Podcast Sidhanshu and Pujitha to talk about Project Flash
• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: DNS reservations to prevent subdomain takeover in Cloud Services deployments
• Chad Kittel covers Optimizing Azure Service Fabric Workloads with the Well-Architected Framework
• Xinyu Shan talks about Issues you may meet when upgrading Azure function app to V4

Containers

Covering: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Red Hat OpenShift, CNAB, CNCF, Container Instances, Container Registry, Porter, WSL, Web App for Containers

• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) covers Upgrade from WSL 1 to WSL 2 in Windows 10 to fix Docker
• Geert van Teylingen writes about Protecting applications on private Azure Kubernetes Service clusters with Astra Control Service
• On the Azure blog, Diana Gao covers Unlock cloud savings on the fly with autoscale on Azure
• The Azure Updates Team announces the Public Preview of Health probes support in Azure Container Apps and Managed identities support in Azure Container Apps
• Thorsten Hans (@ThorstenHans) explains how to use Managed Identities With Azure Container Apps

Databases

Covering: Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Database for MariaDB, Azure Database for MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database Edge, Azure Cache for Redis, SQL Data Warehouse, SQL Server on virtual machines, SQL Server Stretch Database, Table storage

• The Azure Updates Team writes about General availability: Zone redundancy for Azure SQL Database general purpose tier, describes Public preview: Azure Cosmos DB API for MongoDB unique index re-indexing and writes about General availability: Azure Cosmos DB autoscale RU/s entry point is 4x lower
• Srini Acharya explains How to reverse migrate your Azure SQL Database from Hyperscale tier to General Purpose tier
• Emily Lisa talks about Zone redundancy for Azure SQL Database general purpose tier
• On the Azure blog, Diana Gao explains how to Optimize your cloud investment with Azure Reservations
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Rajendra Gupta (@rajendragupta16) discusses Azure Cosmos DB Continuous Backups Step By Step
• On the Data Exposed channel Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) and Bashar Hussein present Improve your database performance with Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server
• N V Sudhir Kumar Raparla discusses Azure SQL DB Backup History - View backups of your Azure SQL Database
• Shrushti Shah explains how to Create Azure SQL Server and DTU based SQL Database with TDE State Enabled using PowerShell script
• Sravani Saluru explains how to Configure Auditing for Azure SQL Database series - Part2
• The Azure Updates Team blogs about Azure SQL—Public preview updates for mid-April 2022
• The Azure Updates Team discusses Public preview: Azure SQL Database Hyperscale reverse migration to general purpose tier and writes about Generally available: Azure SQL Migration extension for Azure Data Studio
• On the SQL Server Blog, Timi Oshin explains how to Amplify your database development experience with Azure Data Studio
• Mohamed Kabiruddin (@mdkabir) announces Azure SQL Migration extension for Azure Data Studio - General Availability
• Madhumita Tripathy covers SQL data classification now offers Microsoft Informaton Protection labels in SSMS

Developer Tools

Covering: App Configuration, Azure Lab Services, CLIs, Developer tool integrations, SDKs, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio Online

• The Azure Updates Team covers Public preview: Visual Studio support for Azure Container Apps and Public preview: Visual Studio Code extension for Azure Container Apps
• On the Visual Studio blog, Harshada Hole blogs about View .NET collections with the new IEnumerable Debugger Visualizer
• Also on the Visual Studio blog, Taysser Gherfal (@taysser) talks about Supercharge your Git experience in VS
• Drew Skwiers-Koballa covers Microsoft.Build.Sql: the next frontier of SQL projects
• Kalyani Dhanda writes about API Connection Deployment via ARM Template with credentials in Key Vault
• Roger Best describes Running a PowerShell Shutdown script on Windows Lab Services machines.
• Phil Jirsa writes Just Give Me an Access Token

DevOps

Covering: Azure Artifacts, Azure Boards, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, Azure Repos, Azure Test Plans, Azure DevTest Labs, DevOps tool integrations

• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Angel Wong writes about Opt-in to Auditing on Azure DevOps
• On the Azure blog, Arti Gulwadi explains how to Enhance your data visualizations with Azure Managed Grafana—now in preview
• On episode 189 Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) and Mark Seemann (@ploeh) talk about Code That Fits In Your Head
• On episode 188 of the Azure DevOps podcast Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by Derek Comartin to discuss  A Software Architects Mindset
• Jack Roper blogs about Setting up Scalr with Azure DevOps—how to execute your Terraform code and create a workspace
• Ivan Porta writes about CI/CD of Power Platform using Azure DevOps and GitHub
• Panu Oksala describes How to Setup Different Test Environments in Azure DevOps Test Plans
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) presents Azure DevOps – Tips and Tricks – 2 – Pipeline Notifications – Custom notification Subscription., 3 – How to execute a Pipeline Task using Conditions, and Azure 4 – How to use ContinueOnError to Continue when the Task is failing
• Werner Rall describes how to Move Azure VM to a New Virtual Network Subnet Using Terraform
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) explains how to Analyze your Kubernetes YAML files and Helm Charts to ensure best practices using KuberLinter in Azure DevOps Pipeline
• Kevin Chant presents More tips about using Azure Test Plans with GitHub
• On episode 420 of the Azure Podcast, the team (@AzurePodcast) are joined by Sam Cogan to discuss Infrastructure as Code
• Mark Gray (@markg_msft) announces Azure Terrafy and AzAPI Terraform Provider Previews
• Gregor Suttie (@gregor_suttie) blogs about Grafana Alert Rules, Contact Points and Notification Policies with Azure
• On .NET Rocks, covers Comparing Infrastructure-as-Code with Chris Klug
• Kayode Prince discusses Enabling Full-stack Observability with Azure Monitor and Grafana
• Thakur Prasad Mishra describes Using PowerShell in ARM Template
• Ravikanth Chaganti (@ravikanth) covers Working with Azure Bicep Public modules registry

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Mayuri Gupta blogs about Azure Arc enabled Open Service Mesh is now Generally Available
• The Azure Updates Team writes about General availability: Windows Server guest licensing offer for Azure Stack HCI
• On the Azure Medium blog, Andre Camillo writes Why Azure Arc is a big deal to Workload Operations Management
• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) blogs about SSH access to servers running anywhere using Azure Arc
• Danny Maertens writes about In preview: SSH access to Azure Arc-enabled servers
• Bapi Chakraborty explains how to Deploy apps to Azure-Arc enabled Kubernetes cluster using 'Cluster Connect' and 'GitHub Actions'

Identity

Covering: Azure Active Directory (AD), Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Active Directory Domain Services

• Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons) describes Azure AD RBAC: Dynamic administrative units now in public preview for users & devices
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) writes about AAD Application Proxy: Where is my WAF
• Yannick Reekmans (@yannickreekmans) explains how to Use Power Automate to force sync an Azure AD user to Dataverse
• Damien Bowden (@damien_bod) explains how to Implement Azure AD Continuous Access Evaluation in an ASP.NET Core Razor Page app using a Web API
• Daniel Krzyczkowski (@DKrzyczkowski) presents Modern Identity Platform powered by Azure cloud Azure AD B2C/CIAM
• Anuraj Parameswaran explains How to secure Azure Functions with Azure Active Directory B2C
• Mark Heath (@mark_heath) explains how to Create downloadable blob links with Azure Functions and App Service authentication
• Sue Bohn writes Make Azure AD Identity Governance work for you
• Ricky Simpson covers Updating best practices for Domain Controllers
• Liz Willets explains how to Safeguard your people and data across new ways of working, with Communication Compliance

Integration

Covering: Azure API for FHIR, Event Grid, Logic Apps, Service Bus

• Sean Feldman (@sfeldman) walks through Impersonating Events in Azure Service Bus
• David Burg (@david_burg) writes about Stateful sessions calling Azure Logic App from SAP
• On the Azure Medium blog, Andre Camillo explains How to automate Azure with Low-Code and Robotic Process Automation
• Devin Knight (@knight_devin) covers Microsoft Graph API in Power Automate: Registering the App in Azure

Internet of Things

Covering: Azure Digital Twins, Azure IoT Central, Azure IoT Edge, Azure IoT Hub, Azure IoT solution accelerators, Azure Maps, Azure Sphere, Azure Time Series Insights, IoT DevKit, WildernessLabs, Windows 10 IoT Core Services

• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: Customize application text labels in Azure IoT Central, writes about Generally available: Migrate devices across templates at scale in Azure IoT Central and writes about General availability: Azure Sphere OS version 22.04
• Ben Brauer writes Introducing Azure Well-Architected Framework for Internet of Things IoT

Learning

Covering: Microsoft Certifications, Azure Certifications, Microsoft Learning Paths, Certification Pathway Information

• Liberty Munson blogs about Exam DP-500 beta: Prove your skills as an Azure enterprise data analyst
• Lee Stott (@lee_stott) writes about Technical Resources for Academic Communities

Management and Governance

Covering: Automation, Azure Advisor, Azure Backup, Azure Blueprints, Azure Lighthouse, Azure Managed Applications, Azure mobile app, Azure Monitor, Azure Policy, Azure Resource Manager, Azure Service Health, Azure Site Recovery, Cloud Shell, Cost Management, Microsoft Azure portal, Scheduler, Azure Purview

• On the Azure blog, Jessica Hawk writes 'Azure Purview is now Microsoft Purview'
• Daniel Perlovsky describes Business glossary integrated in Azure Purview data catalog search
• James Havens writes Microsoft Purview- Paint By Numbers Series Part 0a - Permissions and discusses Part 1 - Sensitive Information Types
• Talhah Mir describes Adapting for the new workplace with updates from Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management
• Talhah Mir joins Jeremy Chapman on the Microsoft Mechanics channel to discuss how to Manage Data Risks from Employee Insiders with Microsoft Purview
• Daniel Hidalgo announces continuous assessments in Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager
• Martin Berzin describes Microsoft Purview Information Protection: General availability of 51 new sensitive information types
• Emma Jones describes The future of compliance and data governance is here: Introducing Microsoft Purview
• The Azure Updates Team announces the General Availability of new result set grid in Azure Monitor log analytics and Glossary terms in Azure Purview data catalog search
• The Azure Updates Team announces the Public Preview of: Support for Windows clients using Azure Monitor agent, and Azure Monitoring Agent supports custom and IIS logs, and Metrics and alerts support in Azure Container Apps, and Azure Monitor and Azure Managed Grafana integrations and Azure Monitor activity log insights
• On Ctrl+Alt+Azure  episode 129 - Azure Reservations with Tams Gmesi and 130 - Structured Azure Functions deployments and monitoring with Andrew Connell
• Luise Freese (@LuiseFreese) describes How to query Azure Monitor Log Analytics in Logic Apps with a Managed Identity

Media

Covering: Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Media Analytics, Media Services, Video Indexer

• The Azure Updates Team writes about In development: Azure Media Services low-latency live streaming

Migration

Covering: Azure Database Migration Service, Azure Migrate, Data Box

• Steven Marturano discusses Database Migration Service at Scale
• On the Data Exposed channel Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) and Mohamed Kabiruddin (@mdkabir) cover Assess, Get Recommendations & Migrate SQL Server to Azure using Azure Data Studio Data Exposed

Mobile

Covering: App Service (Mobile), Mobile apps, Notification Hubs, Visual Studio App Centre, Xamarin

• On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) writes about .NET MAUI Release Candidate Ships with 'Go Live' Support and undefined writes about With Microsoft OpenJDK Build, Azure App Service Adds Java 17 and Tomcat 10.0

Networking

Covering: Application Gateway, Azure Bastion, Azure DNS, Azure ExpressRoute, Azure Firewall, Azure Firewall Manager, Azure Front Door, Azure Internet Analyzer, Azure Private Link, Content Delivery Network, Load Balancer, Network Watcher, Traffic Manager, Virtual Network, Virtual WAN, VPN Gateway, Web Application Firewall

• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) covers Azure NAT Gateway
• Tobi Otolorin blogs about Bring your own IP addresses BYOIP to Azure with Custom IP Prefix
• Roelf Zomerman (@RCZ_Jag) describes Availability Zones Gateway Conversion

Security

Covering: Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Information Protection, Azure Sentinel, Key Vault, Security Center

• On the Azure Medium blog, Andre Camillo describes How can a SIEM provide Entity Insights
• Erica Toelle announces multi-stage retention in Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management
• Innocent Wafula announces the search and filter UI enhancements in Watchlists in Microsoft Sentinel.
• Jon Nordstrm explains how to Identify organizational use/misuse of sensitive information using Microsoft 365 and Sentinel
• Kimberly Murphy describes Skill up on cybersecurity with a White House Summit-inspired collection
• Patrick David explains how to Become a Insider Risk Management Ninja and explains how to Become a Communication Compliance Ninja
• Shay Amar explains How to demonstrate the new containers features in Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Shilpa Bothra announces general availability of Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention for macOS endpoints
• Tewang Chen writes about New Reporting Functionality for Device Control and Windows Defender Firewall
• Tobi Otolorin discusses Azure DDoS Protection for BYOIPs now available

Storage

Covering: Archive Storage, Avere vFXT for Azure, Azure Data Lake Store, Azure FXT Edge Filer, Azure HPC Cache, Azure NetApp Files, Blob Storage, Disk Storage, File Storage, Managed Disks, Queue Storage, Storage Accounts, Storage Explorer, StorSimple

• The Azure Updates Team announces General availability: Azure Archive Storage now available in Switzerland North
• Mark Heath (@mark_heath) explains how to Update Your Azure Functions Table Storage Bindings
• Pierre Roman (@pierreroman) describes Azure Backup Monitoring and Alerting

Web

Covering: API apps, API Management, App Service (Web), Azure Cognitive Search, Azure SignalR Service, Azure Spring Cloud, Web apps

• The Azure Updates Team announces teh General Availability of: Azure Static Web Apps support for private endpoints, and Java 17 and Tomcat 10.0 on Azure App Service, and App Service - Networking capabilities added to Basic pricing tier and IBM WebSphere on Azure with evaluation licensing
• The Azure Updates Team announces teh Public Preview ofL Stable URLs for preview environments in Azure Static Web Apps and App Service - Configure networking in Azure Portal during app creation
• Hanli Ren provides A Simple Network Connection Test Tool for Azure Spring Cloud
• Hilda Sun explains How to create an API in APIM programmatically using Azure SDK for .Net
• Jordan Selig writes about Generally available: Enhanced network security features for App Service Basic SKU
• Tirumalesh Sriram explains how to Enable HTTPS setting on Azure App service using Azure policy
• Anuraj Parameswaran walks through Introducing Azure Load Testing

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) blogs about Recording – Windows 365 Cloud PC managed by 10ZiG and Microsoft Endpoint Management MEM
• Tim Anderson (@timanderson) discusses Microsoft moves towards UDP in place of TCP for Azure Virtual Desktop, claims lower latency and higher reliability

Useful Links

• Azure Resource Inventory - Azure Resource Inventory is a powerful script written in PowerShell to generate an Excel report of any Azure Environment you have read access
• Azure Quickstart Templates - Learn how to deploy to Azure using ARM Templates. Over 850 examples in this repo.
• Azure CNAB Quickstarts Library - You can deploy to the Cloud, on Prem and on the Edge using CNAB & Porter. This library provides a number of quickstart templates to help you get started, fast!
• Power BI Weekly - Interested in Power BI? Sign up to our sister newsletter Power BI Weekly to receive all the week's Power BI news.
• Azure Resources - A fantastic collection of resources contained in this repo. Issue a PR if you have resources to share. Managed by Azure MVP Gregor Suttie.
• Azure Charts - Azure Charts is a set of auto-rebuilt charts to keep you updated on Azure changes, news, stats. Public updates, RSS channels and web pages are used as data sources
• The Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Azure (2nd Edition) - ebook from Microsoft showcasing architectural approaches and common design patterns you face when building modern applications.
• Azure Virtual Datacenter - ebook from Microsoft highlighting an approach to isolation, security, and trust in the Microsoft cloud.
• Cyber Security Demystified - ebook from Microsoft describing how to keep your organisation safe.
• Microsoft's What is Azure poster - a visual overview of Azure's services and features.
• Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure - a free ebook from Microsoft Press, by Michael S. Collier and Robin E. Shahan.
• Data Science in the Cloud with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and R - a free ebook on Azure Machine Learning, by Stephen F. Elston.
• Protecting Data in Microsoft Azure - a whitepaper that describes the various mechanism you can you can leverage for managing sensitive data in the Azure platform.
• Azure Architecture Center - guidance from the Patterns & Practices team covering API Design, API implementation, Autoscaling, Background jobs, CDN, Caching, Data partitioning, Monitoring and diagnostics, Retry, Scalability and availability.
• Azure Architect's Reference - if you are an architect responsible for building an application on Azure, or are trying to figure out how you could migrate an application and need to dig deep into the workload, cost, security, capacity, availability, deployment and operational modelling this invaluable resource should be your first stop. An open source project, with contributions from several experienced architects, it gathers data from many different references into a single, useful guide that is constantly updated by the community.
• Azure Table Storage Design Guide - a guide from the storage team.
• Azure infrastructure services implementation guidelines - key design and implementation guidelines for deploying an IT workload in Azure infrastructure services.
• Azure Speed Test - a simple web tool that measures the latency between you and Azure Datacenters to suggest which might be fastest for you location.
• Azure Websites Cheatsheet - everything you need to know about configuring & managing Azure Websites on a single page.
• Data Migration Assistant - enables you to upgrade to a modern data platform by detecting compatibility issues that can impact database functionality on your new version of SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. It recommends performance and reliability improvements for your target environment.
• Azure SQL DTU Calculator - a tool to help you determine the number of DTUs for your existing SQL Server database(s) as well as a recommendation of the minimum performance level and service tier that you need before you migrate to Azure SQL Database.
• Microsoft Azure Symbol/Icon Set - a set of Visio and PowerPoint shapes for use in architecture diagrams / presentations.
• Service Bus Explorer - a free and open source tool for managing and exploring Azure Service Bus(including Event Hubs).
• Best practices for designing Azure Resource Manager Templates - guidance based on the whitepaper 'World Class ARM Templates Considerations and Proven Practices'.
• Microsoft Cloud Networking for Enterprise Architects - a downloadable guide to Azure networking, covering topics such as cloud migration and networking for PaaS and SaaS services
• Whitepapers for Power BI - numerous whitepapers ranging various Power BI topics
• Azure Serverless Computing Cookbook - ebook from Microsoft, including use cases, hands-on steps, and tutorials for quickly configuring your own serverless environments.
• Executive Summary: Enterprise Cloud Strategy - executive summary of the 140-page e-book from Microsoft. Learn about the basics of adopting a cloud computing strategy for your enterprise.
• Migrating SQL Server to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance—A Step-by-Step Guide - ebook from Microsoft providing breakdown of tactical steps for implementing a quick, simple, and low-impact data migration with Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.
• Azure Backup Deep Dive Whitepaper - a deep dive by Adin Ermie and Charbel Nemnom describing Azure Backup
• Azure Stack: An extension of Azure - whitepaper from Microsoft detailing how you can extend Azure Stack to make Azure services available on-premises
• Azure Strategy and Implementation Guide - For Azure users - ebook from Microsoft outlining recommended general architecture and cloud design principles, DevOps, approaches to service management, and overall governance.
• Azure Data Factory: SSIS in the Cloud - eBook from Microsoft explaining why you would want to migrate your existing SSIS workloads to Azure Data Factory and addressing common considerations and concerns. Includes technical details of creating an Azure-SSIS IR and then walk-throughs of how to upload, execute, and monitor your packages through Azure Data Factory
• Parallel Virtual File Systems on Microsoft Azure - ebook from Microsoft documenting the results of a series of performance tests on Azure to see how scalable Lustre, GlusterFS, and BeeGFS are
• Build and deploy a multi-container application in Azure Service Fabric - ebook from Microsoft which shows how to create a sample multi-container application using ASP.NET Core and Docker and deploy it on an Azure Service Fabric cluster.
• Azure ebook/whitepaper resources - White papers, analyst reports, and e-books landing page with an abundance of extra resources.
• Farmer - This is a DSL for ARM template creation - "Making repeatable Azure deployments easy"!