Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #387

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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

• On the Azure blog, Kevin Raines discusses Microsoft shares what's next in machine learning at NVIDIA GTC
• Vinod Kurpad (@Kurpad) writes about General availability of Azure Form Recognizer v3.0

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

• Noelle Li covers Azure Data Factory August 2022 Monthly Update
• Barry Smart (@barry_j_a_smart) re-recorded his talk from Data Scotland 2022: Fake it 'til you make it - generating production quality test data at scale.
• Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) blogs about Sending test messages to Azure Event Hubs
• Jean Hayes explains how to Build a logical Enterprise Data Warehouse with ADLS and Synapse Serverless SQL pool
• Pantelis Apostolidis (@papostolidis) covers Azure Databricks With existing DNS, Azure Networks & on-premises network
• Maria Zakourdaev discusses Azure Cloud Data Orchestration, Ingestion and Data Preparation
• On the Azure Medium blog, Adam Bertram (@adbertram) describes How to Get Started with Azure Data Studio
• Liliam covers Understand Synapse dedicated SQL pool formerly SQL DW and Serverless SQL pool

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

• The Azure Updates Team discusses Public preview: Monitoring for Ampere Altra Arm–based VMs and AKS clusters
• Matthew Henderson writes about .NET on Azure Functions Roadmap Update
• On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) blogs about Azure Functions Support for .NET 7 Progresses
• On the Azure blog, Jason Zander (@jlzander), Corporate Vice President of Development for the Windows Azure team, announces that New Azure Space products enable digital resiliency and empower the industry
• Melony Qin walks through Building Serverless Go Applications with Azure Functions custom handlers
• Edi Wang describes how to Move CRON Expression from Hard Code to Configuration in Azure Function App

Containers

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

• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: Multi-instance GPU support in AKS and talks about Public preview: Soft delete in Azure Container Registry
• The Azure Updates Team describes Public preview: Azure Network Policy Manager for Windows server 2022 in AKS
• Lucille Xiong announces Windows Containers Log Monitor 1.2 Release
• On the Kubernetes Blog, Deep Debroy discusses Blog: Kubernetes 1.25: PodHasNetwork Condition for Pods
• Taiseer Joudeh (@TJoudeh) writes about Continuous Deployment for Azure Container Apps using GitHub Actions – Part 9
• Geert van Teylingen explains how to Develop and test easily on AKS with NetApp Astra Control Service and Azure NetApp Files
• Vinicius Apolinario (@vrapolinario) walks through Using WSL 2 on Windows Server 2022 to run Linux containers
• Steve Buchanan (@buchatech) explains how to Simplify your AKS IaC Deployments using the AKS Construction Helper tool
• Matthew Casperson walks through Using the Alpine Docker image
• Anthony Chu (@nthonyChu) covers Journey to the cloud with Azure Container Apps
• Jack Roper blogs about Kubernetes Ingress & Examples

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: Read replica for Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server, writes about Generally available: Fast restore for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server and writes about General availability: Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server data encryption with CMK
• The Azure Updates Team describes Public preview: Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server major version upgrade
• David Engel explains how to Released: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 4.1.1 and explains how to Released: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 4.0.2
• Mladen Andzic blogs about Data virtualization now generally available in Azure SQL Managed Instance
• David Engel describes Hotfix: JDBC Driver 11.2.1 for SQL Server Released
• Kevin Chant blogs about T-SQL Tuesday 154 – Azure Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022 testing
• Srinivasa Kolluri discusses Announcement: Azure Database Migration Service – MySQL online migration now in preview

Developer Tools

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

• On the Visual Studio blog, Marc Goodner writes about Visual Studio 2022 17.4 Preview 2
• Also on the Visual Studio blog, Uche Nkadi writes Its finally here. Bicep is in Visual Studio
• Elio Struyf discusses Creating a reusable auth provider in Visual Studio Code
• On epsode 210 of the Azure DevOps Podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by Rocky Lhotka the creator or CSLA.NET
• Rakia Segev talks about Azure Code Signing, democratizing trust for developers and consumers

DevOps

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

• On the Octopus Deploy Blog, Ella.pradellaoctopus.com Octopus Deploy describes Octopus 2022 Q3: Safe, reliable, and auditable pipelines
• On the Premier Developer blog, Andrew Redman discusses Getting secrets from Key Vault in YAML pipeline
• Tao Yang (@MrTaoYang) describes how to Programmatically Generate Cloud Resource Names - Part 1 and Part 2
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) presents Azure DevOps – Tips and Tricks – 8 – Improve YAML template development experience and productivity using YAML Template Editor currently preview
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) explains how to Manage Azure Automation Runbooks with Git Source Control

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) describes Microsoft Azure Arc-enabled Servers Survey 2022
• Sarah Cooley writes about AKS on Azure Stack HCI and Windows Server - August 2022 update

Identity

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

• Damien Bowden (@damien_bod) describes how to Setup application client in Azure App Registration with App roles to use a web API

Integration

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

• On the Azure blog, Geralyn Miller covers Azure API for FHIR and Microsofts Power Platform help universities tackle COVID-19
• On the Redmond magazine site, Kurt Mackie (@kurmac) talks about Azure Orbital Ground Station Service Commercially Released
• Hilda Sun walks through Troubleshooting Service Bus Message Abandon Issue when using JMS Listener
• Bill Baer talks about Using the Microsoft Graph connectors SDK to integrate your line of business data with Microsoft 365

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 General availability: Azure Sphere OS version 22.09 expected on September 22
• Joseph Lloyd describes Battery Powered Azure Sphere MT3620 OS insights

Learning

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

• Kevin Chant writes about New GitHub certifications for Azure partners

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

• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: Built-in Azure Monitor alerts for Azure Backup
• Aakash Basavaraj blogs about Breaking Change notice: Upgrade to latest version of Operations Manager agent MMA by 1 Nov 2022
• Anthony Watherston blogs about Azure Enterprise Policy as Code – A New Approach

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

• Andy Chan discusses NetApp Cloud Volume ONTAP CVO for Azure – EDA Benchmark and Best Practices

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 talks about Public preview: API Server VNET Integration for AKS private cluster
• On The New Stack, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols delves into Ubuntu Linux and Azure DNS Problem Gives Azure Fits
• Cesar De la Torre Llorente presents a Cheat-sheet: The new 5G application paradigms and Microsoft Azure
• On episode 438 of The Azure Podcast, the Azure Podcast team (@AzurePodcast) are joined by Aimee Littleton to discuss Azure NAT Gateway
• Gustavo Modena discusses Exploring Azure Firewall Policy Analytics
• Jitendra Singh discusses Integration of Signavio with SAP Solution Manager hosted on Azure using Azure Application Gateway.

Security

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

• Ed Gardner blogs about Microsoft Sentinel customizable machine learning based anomalies is Generally Available
• Matt McElreath explains how to Ensure Success by Learning Azure Key Vault Best Practices
• David Giard (@DavidGiard) walks through Managing Secrets in an Azure Key Vault
• Michael McReynolds describes how to Create and delete incidents in Microsoft Sentinel
• Vani Asawa presents an Introduction to Machine Learning Notebooks in Microsoft Sentinel
• On episode 151 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren and Jussi Roine discuss Back to basics: Securing Azure in 3 steps
• On the Microsoft Mechanics show, Jeremy Chapman (@deployjeremy) is joined by Mike Ferron-Jones to discuss how to Protect data in use with Azure Confidential Computing and Intel SGX
• Brad Wyatt covers Block Outdated Operating Systems with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Cloud App Security

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: Standard network features for Azure NetApp Files, writes about Generally available: Azure Dedicated Host support for Ultra Disk Storage and writes about Generally available: Reserved capacity for Azure Backup Storage
• The Azure Updates Team talks about Public preview: Encrypt managed disks with cross-tenant customer-managed keys

Web

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

• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: API Management DevOps Resource Toolkit v1.0.0
• The Azure Updates Team covers Public preview: gRPC support in Azure App Service
• The Azure Updates Team talks about Public preview: Azure Load Testing in UK South
• Abhishek Reddy describes How to run Bash scripts in WordPress on Azure App Service
• Mayunk Jain (@mayunkj) presents Three reasons why you should prioritize migrating to App Service Environment v3 for your business
• Jeffrey Chilberto explains How To: Send requests to Azure Storage from Azure API Management

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"!