Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #370

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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

• The Azure Updates Team highlight the Public Preview announcements for March 2022 and April 2022 and announce that Azure Video Analyzer preview will be retired on 30 November 2022
• Jingyi Zhu presents Build an App for Diabetic Retinopathy Detection with Azure Custom Vision

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

• Maria Zakourdaev writes about Azure Databricks Version Control for Notebooks
• Craig Porteous (@cporteous) presents Design an Azure Data Platform that InfoSec will love – Azure Storage
• Koen Verbeeck (@Ko_Ver) presents an Overview of ETL Tools in the Microsoft Data Platform Part 1
• Sofia Ferreira describes how to Reuse ADF entities with dynamic parameters

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

• No content this week

Containers

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

• Geert Baeke (@GeertBaeke) provides A look at some of Azure Container Apps new features
• Andreas Helland blogs about Getting rid of credentials in Azure - Part 4 Kubernetes

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

• Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) blogs about Azure SQL News Update: May 2022
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Rajendra Gupta (@rajendragupta16) explains how to Configure and Query Change Data Capture CDC data for Azure SQL Database
• Anna Hoffman and Davide Mauri chat about How to Scale Your Apps in Azure SQL Database Data Exposed
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) describes How to configure Azure PostgreSQL to allow Cloud Shell connections
• Vladimir Ivanovic explains how to Maximize performance and scale with new SQL Managed Instance capabilities - Part 3
• Madhumita Tripathy blogs about Availability of Microsoft Information Protection labels for Azure SQL native data classification

Developer Tools

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

• No content this week

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 blogs about Reconfigure Azure DevOps Server to use Kerberos instead of NTLM
• Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) writes about More examples of using custom variables in Azure DevOps multi-stage YML
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) presents Azure DevOps – Tips and Tricks – 5 – How to pass values between Tasks in a Pipeline using task.setvariable Logging Command,  6 – Resolve Merge Conflicts using Pull Request Merge Conflicts Azure DevOps Extension and  7 – Resolve the While scanning a literal block scalar, found extra spaces in first line error.
• Daniel Stocker writes about Five Best Practices to Anticipate Failure
• Vanessa Segovia talks about Integrating Terraform and Azure DevOps to manage Azure Databricks
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) writes about If, elseif or else in Azure DevOps Pipelines
• Kevin Chant writes about One YAML pipeline for many Azure Synapse environments in Azure DevOps
• Joao Antunes blogs about ARM template conflict: Azure SQL Database Deployment Fails with ARM template setting AAD admin
• Rafferty Uy blogs about Operations Task Management Feedback Loop
• Sreedhar Ande describes how to Export Microsoft Sentinel Playbooks or Azure Logic Apps with Ease

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• On the Azure blog, Tanu Balla explains how to Streamline Azure workloads with ExpressRoute BGP community support
• Anirban Paul covers Networking services for Azure Stack HCI 2-node clusters: Part 1

Identity

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

• Alex Simons Azure covers Expansion of FIDO standard and new updates for Microsoft passwordless solutions
• Paul Robinson talks about Passwordless RDP with Windows Hello for Business
• Ankur Patel discusses Expanding the public preview of verifiable credentials
• Paul Reed blogs about Azure AD required for Update Compliance after October 15, 2022
• Gerasimos Alexiou explains how to Authenticate to Azure management API using az cli
• Rajat Luthra explains how to Generate strong passwords with Microsoft Authenticator
• On the AzUpdate podcast, Pierre Roman (@pierreroman) and Rick Claus (@RicksterCDN) cover Passwordless, Azure Key Vault, Azure Functions and Microsoft Authenticator
• Devin Knight (@knight_devin) describes Microsoft Graph API in Power Automate: Adding Guest Users to your Tenant

Integration

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

• The Azure Updates Team talks announce the Public Preview of Event Grid enables user authorization to create partner topics and Control the minimum TLS version used with Azure Service Bus
• Parth Shah announces that Logic Apps Consumption on Availability Zones is here

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

• No content this week

Learning

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

• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) presents Learn Live – Introduction to Azure Arc
• Sander van de Velde writes about Free Microsoft AZ-220 Azure IoT Developer Specialty renewal

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

• Joel Caro Lopez talks about Transferring Microsoft Sentinel scheduled alert rules between different workspaces using PowerShell
• On epsiode 191 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) and Scott Wlaschin discuss Domain Modeling Made Functional
• On episode 132 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren and Jussi Roine cover Microsoft Partner program updates for Azure

Media

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

• No content this week

Migration

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

• Zia Mansoor announces new investments to help accelerate your move to Azure

Mobile

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

• No content this week

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces the General Availability of: Enhancements to Azure Web Application Firewall and Virtual Network NAT health checks available via Resource Health
• On the Azure blog, Gunjan Jain (@gunjanjain123) writes about Intelligent application protection from edge to cloud with Azure Web Application Firewall
• Tanu Balla explains how to Customize your secure VM session experience with native client support on Azure Bastion
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) writes Azure Firewalls sidekick to join the BGP superheroes and talks about Azure Firewall rules for Office 365
• Jitendra Singh talks about SAPRouter configuration with Azure Firewall
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) walks through Combining AAD App Proxy with Front Door and Application Gateway for WAF
• Saleem Bseeu explains how to Validate SpringShell Vulnerabilities with Azure Network Security
• Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) talks about Azure Private Link advantages over Azure Service Endpoint

Security

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

• Snehil Sinha describes Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention Helps Detect and Prevent Exfiltration During Cyberattacks
• Benjamin Kovacevic discusses Using Microsoft Teams Adaptive Cards to enhance incident response in Microsoft Sentinel

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 writes about General availability: Object replication on premium blob storage and rule limit increased
• Anuraj Parameswaran explains how to Improve Angular performance with Gzip compression on Azure Storage

Web

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

• The Azure Updates Team talks about Public preview: Static Web Apps support for preview environments in Azure DevOps
• Marcelo Ricardo de Oliveira talks about Modernizing Python Apps and Data on Azure - Part 4: Azure Kubernetes Service,  Part 5: Data Modernization and Part 6: Becoming Cloud Native

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• No content this week

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"!