Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #389

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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

• Balamurugan Balakreshnan talks about Augmenting electrical infrastructure inspection with automated ML for Images
• Jingzhou Yang introduces AI-generated voices for Azure neural text to speech service
• Foteini Savvidou covers Serverless image classification with Azure Functions and Custom Vision – Part 1
• Marco Aurelio Cardoso blogs about Feature engineering and Machine Learning with IoT data
• João Carlos Santos talks about Moving from LUIS to CLU in Bot Composer Projects

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

• Emily Tehrani explains how to MERGE T-SQL for Dedicated SQL pools is now GA
• Ryan Majidimehr (@rmajidimehr) highlights Azure Synapse Analytics September Update 2022
• Gilles LHerault blogs about Demystifying Data Explorer
• Vincent-Philippe Lauzon presents a Kusto Emulator Installation Video
• Dany Hoter describes how to Use Excel to summarize values from Kusto for a list of Ids

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 announces the General Availabilty of: Azure Functions .NET Framework support in the isolated worker model and Azure Functions Linux Elastic Premium plan increased maximum scale-out limits
• The Azure Updates Team discusses Public preview: Java 17 Support in Azure Functions
• The Azure Updates Team writes about Generally available: Azure Red Hat OpenShift landing zone accelerator
• Jerry Morey explains how to Automate BeeOND Filesystem on Azure CycleCloud Slurm Cluster
• Madhura Bharadwaj covers Monitoring and troubleshooting apps in Azure Functions
• Ricky Diep blogs about Attention Developers: The Cloud-Scale Data for Spring Developers Quick Start Guide is Finally Here

Containers

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

• Paul Yu walks through how to Monitor Microservices App using Azure Managed Grafana

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 announce the Public preview: 128 vCore option for Azure SQL Database standard-series hardware and writes about General availability: Backup and restore in Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server
• The Azure Updates Team writes about General availability: Azure SQL Database Hyperscale reverse migration to general purpose tier
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Kyle Teegarden talks about RedisJSON Now Available in Preview
• N V Sudhir Kumar Raparla describes Read-access geo-zone redundant storage RA-GZRS now available for Azure SQL Hyperscale databases and writes about Long-term backup retentionLTR on Azure SQL Hyperscale service tier is now in preview
• The Azure Updates Team blogs about Azure SQL - Public preview updates for late September 2022 and blogs about Azure SQL- General availability updates for late September 2022
• Ajay Jagannathan talks about SQL Server 2022 Release Candidate 1 is now available
• Rahul Mehta blogs about Partition Key Best Practices in Cosmos DB
• Bashar Hussein presents a Checklist for troubleshooting and improving MySQL database performance
• Emre Gokoglu talks about Deleted Azure SQL Database with existing diagnostic settings
• Varun Dhawan explains How to enable query logging in Azure database for PostgreSQL
• Hugo Calzada Martin blogs about how Azure SQL idle sessions are killed after about 30 minutes
• Pieter Vanhove covers Ledger - Automatic digest upload for SQL Server without Azure connectivity
• On the Data Exposed show, Anna Hoffman @AnalyticAnna and John Miner @JohnMiner3 talk aboutFull Text Indexing Basics with Azure SQL Data
• Amit Khandelwal discusses Microsoft SQL Server on Ubuntu pro-The preferred choice for deploying SQL Server on Ubuntu in Azure

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, Iain Holmes writes about Visual Studio for Mac 17.4 Preview 2.1 is now available
• On episode 212 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) talks with Mark Miller about The Science of Great UI in Software

DevOps

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

• James Dawson (@James_Dawson) writes Publishing Scripts to the PowerShell Gallery
• Liam Mooney (@lg_mooney) shows how to implement Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions
• Daniel Krzyczkowski (@DKrzyczkowski) discusses DevSecOps on Azure - part5: Keep Azure infrastructure code secure
• Kevin Chant presents an Easier way to perform CI/CD for Azure Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) describes How to import an Azure DevOps Git repository From another Azure DevOps organization
• Marc Kean explains how to have Terraform locally run from Windows with State file in Azure Storage
• Marc Kean covers Terraform with Azure Cloud Shell & State file in Azure Storage
• Manoj Srinivas presents Azure Tips and Tricks - Remove Azure Secrets committed to GitHub

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Vladimir Ivanovic writes about General Availability of mem. opt. premium-series HW and 16 TB storage in BC in SQL Managed Instance
• Nevena Nikolic explains how to Improve your SQL Managed Instance performance with new TempDB configurations
• Zoran Rilak explains How to take secure, on-demand backups on SQL Managed Instance

Identity

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

• The Azure Updates Team talks about Public preview: Azure AD authentication with Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server
• Danny Guillory writes about New RBAC capabilities with Configuration Manager and Intune
• Sue Bohn announces the Microsoft Entra Partner Excellence Recognition for 2022
• Irina Nechaeva blogs about Microsoft named IAM Company of the Year
• Andreas Wolter (@AndreasWolter) covers Revamped SQL Permission system for Principle of Least Privilege and external policies – internals
• On the Data Exposed show, Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) is joined by Sravani Saluru to discuss How to use Windows Auth with Azure SQL Managed Instance 
• Tim McMichael talks about Hybrid Identity Management

Integration

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

• David Giard (@DavidGiard) speaks to Brian Gorman about Messaging, Queueing, and Eventing in Azure
• Tony Redmond (@12Knocksinna) gives a talk on how to Master the Graph for Exchange PowerShell

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 announces Generally available: Device Update for IoT Hub and writes about General availability: Azure Sphere version 22.09

Learning

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

• The Student Developer Team explains how to Join us at the student event of the year

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 blogs about Public preview: Billing has started for Azure Monitor Logs data archive
• On the Azure blog, Michael Flanakin (@flanakin) covers Cost Management updates—September 2022
• Andrew Coughlin describes How To Determine What Devices Are Connecting To a Storage Account
• Marc Kean discusses Azure Cost Optimisation
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) describes how to Start an Azure Automation Runbook with a Schedule or PowerShell

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

• Shikher Saluja covers Unified, at-scale discovery and assessment of SQL Servers with Azure Migrate

Mobile

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

• On the Xamarin blog, David Ortinau (@davidortinau) blogs about Fall 2022 Updates for Xamarin, Hello iOS 16 and Android 13

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 Public preview: Policy analytics for Azure Firewall and writes about General availability: ExpressRoute FastPath support for Vnet peering and UDRs
• Tim Anderson (@timanderson) discusses Microsoft to remove Azure Basic IP number and load balancer in favour of pricier options
• On the Azure blog, Jason Hogg writes about New Azure for Operators solution accelerator offers a fast path to network insights
• Jamie Scholfield blogs about Azure Private MEC – Enabling the 4G to 5G transition
• On the Azure blog, Aimee Littleton explains how to Ensure zone resilient outbound connectivity with NAT gateway
• Mark Gakman explains how to Strengthen your security with Policy Analytics for Azure Firewall
• Alan Kinane (@Azure_Alan) walks through Upgrading Azure Load Balancer from Basic to Standard SKU

Security

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

• David Giard (@DavidGiard) talks about GCast 132: Managing Azure Key Vault Secrets from a .NET App
• Tobias Zimmergren Jussi Roine writes about 153 - An early look at Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence
• Anna Chiang blogs about Public preview of out-of-the-box trainable classifiers with auto-labeling support
• Daniel Mozes describes Introducing the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Security Operations Guide
• Alex Weinert explains how to Defend your users from MFA fatigue attacks
• Brad Wyatt explains how to Improve your Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Notifications
• Ofer Inbar writes about Anomaly detection on the SAP audit log using the Microsoft Sentinel for SAP Solution

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: Azure NetApp Files new regions and cross-region replication and writes about General availability: Azure Policy built-in definitions for Azure NetApp Files

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 Generally available: Backup and restore updates for App Service and Public preview: Automatic backup for App Service Environment V2 and V3
• Jonathan George (@jon_george1) delves into Bye bye Azure Functions, Hello Azure Container Apps: Migrating from Azure Functions to ASP.NET Core
• Shubham Anand discusses Supporting ES6 import on Windows App Service Node.js/IISNode
• Asir Selvasingh (@asirselvasingh) presents Delete Passwords: Passwordless Connections for Java Apps to Azure Services
• On episode 439 of The Azure Podcast, the team (@AzurePodcast) are joined by Tom Kerkhove to talk about APIM Self Hosted Gateway V2
• David Giard (@DavidGiard) talks about Logging to Azure Application Insights from a Java Spring Boot Application

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• On the Redmond magazine site, Kurt Mackie (@kurmac) blogs about Azure Virtual Desktop Gets Tagging and Single Sign-On Previews
• David Belanger announces public preview of SSO and passwordless authentication for Azure Virtual Desktop
• Killian McCoy discusses Group costs by host pool with Cost Management now in Public Preview for Azure Virtual Desktop

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"!