Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #400

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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

• Allen Smith explains how to Listen to your favorite Microsoft Tech Community Blog articles, powered by Azure Speech Services
• Qinying Liao covers Azure Custom Neural Voice introduces new emotional styles to support brand voices
• On the Microsoft Mechanics show, Jeremy Chapman (@deployjeremy) is joined by Pablo Castro to discuss how to Use Natural Language & Prompts with AI Models Azure OpenAIService

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces the General availability of Stream Analytics no-code editor updates in December 2022 and the Public Preview of Log compaction support in Azure Event Hubs
• Estera Kot discusses Azure Synapse Runtime for Apache Spark 3.3 is now in Public Preview
• Snehal Sonwane discusses the Security Model in Lake Database within Azure Synapse Analytics
• Surya Teja Josyula covers Demystifying data consumption using Azure Synapse Data Explorer
• Guy Reginiano explains how to Ingest preexisting Event Hub events to ADX and discusses Azure Stream Analytics no-code editor for ADX
• Inder Rana describes how to Process Azure Event Hubs data using Azure Data Factory Mapping Data Flows
• Liliam Leme writes MSSparkUtils is the Swiss Army knife inside Synapse Spark
• Sally Dabbah explains How To Create Delta Format Files and Query Files Using Azure Synapse
• John Miner writes about Exploring Hive Tables with Spark SQL
• Sam Panda discusses Sharing Metadata Across Different Databricks Workspaces Using Hive External Metastore and covers Disaster Recovery Strategy in Azure Databricks using the Hive External Metastore SQL DB

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 Availability of: Azure Functions support for Java 17, and Azure Functions Extension Bundle v4, and Durable Functions support for Java and Azure Cosmos DB Azure Functions extension version 4
• The Azure Updates Team announces the General Availability of Azure Dedicated Host - Restart and FSLogix 2210
• The Azure Updates Team announces the Public preview of Azure Functions support for Python 3.10
• On the Q Sharp blog, Wim van Dam talks about Signing up for Azure Quantum from scratch
• On the Microsoft Mechanics show, Matt McSpirit (@mattmcspirit) covers Azure Dedicated Host
• On the Azure blog, Ashmi Chokshi blogs about Forrester study finds 228 percent ROI when modernizing applications on Azure PaaS
• Rene van den Bedem blogs about Azure VMware Solution Auto-Scale

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 announces Generally Available: Kubernetes 1.25 support in AKS
• On the Kubernetes Blog, Brandon Smith and Mark Rossetti talk about Kubernetes 1.26: Windows HostProcess Containers Are Generally Available and Patrick Ohly & Kevin Klues describe Kubernetes 1.26: Alpha API For Dynamic Resource Allocation
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) explains how to Build and push Docker Image to Azure Container Registry using GitHub Action and how to Deploy Container App and pull image from Azure Container Registry using Terraform and AzAPI

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 announces the Public Preview of Materialized view for Azure Cosmos DB for Apache Cassandra, and the General Availability of: Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server data encryption with CMK, and Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL now available in new regions, and JSON support in Azure Cache for Redis Enterprise tiers, and 32 TB storage in Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server, and Improved geo-replication for Azure Cache for Redis and Updated API names for Azure Cosmos DB
• Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) describes Azure SQL News Update: A Year in Review and Anna Hoffman, Marisa Brasile, Ebru Ersan, Bradley Ball, Silvano Coriani, Niko Neugebauer, and Pieter Vanhove talks about Azure SQL Year in Review & AMA 2022
• Gennady Kostinsky blogs about Customer Managed Key feature in Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server is GA in number of Azure regions
• On episode 83 of the SQL Down Under Podcast, Greg Low (@greglow) and Davide Mauri discuss Azure SQL Database
• Jose M Jurado (@jmjuradodiaz) describes Lesson Learned 248: Working with spwaitfordatabasecopysync and SQL Auditing.
• On the Data Exposed show, Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) and Carlos Robles (@crobles_10) describe How to migrate SQL Server to Azure SQL Database offline using Azure Data Studio
• Varun Dhawan covers Azure PostgreSQL connections performance – How to identify and resolve issues
• The Azure Updates Team blogs about Azure SQL—General availability updates for mid-December 2022

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 blogs about Public preview: New UX for the AKS DevX Extension for Visual Studio Code
• On the Visual Studio blog, Anthony Cangialosi explains how to Try out Visual Studio 2022 version 17.5 Preview 2
• Gerasimos Alexiou describes how to Containerize a.NET app with Docker and vscode
• On the Visual Studio blog, Leah Tran announces Sticky Scroll now in preview
• Ravikanth Chaganti (@ravikanth) writes about Keyless git commit signing using Sigstore gitsign in a VS Code devcontainer and Sigstore Cosign VS Code development container feature
• On the Visual Studio blog, Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi discusses updates to Dev tunnels in Visual Studio for ASP.NET Core projects
• Akhil Mittal (@AkhilMittal20) covers Visual Studio Extensibility Day 1: Creating Your First Visual Studio VSIX Package and Day 2: Deploying Visual Studio Extension on Staging Server and GIT via Continuous Integration

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, Dan Hellem writes about New Boards Hub, Sprint 214 Update
• On episode 223 of The Azure DevOps Podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by David Pine to talk about NET Content Development
• John Folberth covers Azure DevOps Pipelines: Tasks, Jobs, Stages
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) covers Working YAML sample of a remote repository CI trigger in Azure DevOps
• On The New Stack, B. Cameron Gain writes  Argo CD and Flux Are CNCF Grads: But What Now
• Saudh Mohammed covers Azure Automanage for Virtual Machines – Configuring with Terraform
• Mauro Contreras provides an Introduction to Comprehensive End-to-End Testing in Azure

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• The Azure Updates Team talks about Public preview: Azure Arc enabled Azure Container Apps, writes about General availability: Azure Arc-enabled servers in Azure China and Public Preview of Viewing SQL Server Databases - Azure Arc
• Andrew Westgarth blogs about Azure Container Apps on Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes – Run your container apps anywhere
• Bhavna Appayya talks about Announcement: Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance Public Preview is here
• Eleanor Cohen covers Whats new for Azure Stack HCI in Windows Admin Center v2211
• PD Dutta explains how to Accelerate your edge workloads with affordable NVIDIA GPU-powered Azure Stack HCI solutions
• Trung Tran describes Windows Admin Center version 2211 is now generally available
• James van Den Berg blogs about Azure Arc enabled SQL Server Health Assessment AzureHybrid AzureArc SQLServer and discusses  Azure Defender for Cloud with AzureArc enabled SQL Server AzureHybrid Security
• Silvio Di Benedetto discusses From Storage Space Direct to Azure Stack HCI with Veeam Backup
• John Miner explains how to Deploy and Configure Azure SQL Managed Instance

Identity

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

• The Azure Updates Team writes about General availability: Azure AD authentication with Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server, writes about General availability: Azure Cosmos DB Azure Functions extension version 4, writes about Generally available updates for mid-December 2022 and blogs about Azure SQL—General availability updates for mid-December 2022
• David Giard (@DavidGiard) walks through Granting Azure Active Directory Permissions to an Application Registration
• Cyrille Visser blogs about Azure AD authentication for MySQL - Flexible Server from end-to-end
• Shirley Kochavi discusses Azure Active Directory Identity Protection user account enrichments removed: how to mitigate impact
• Tarek Dawoud blogs about End user passwordless utopia

Integration

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

• The Azure Updates Team announce the Public preview of Performance improving features for Azure Service Bus premium
• Kent Weare describes Announcement: BizTalk Server Migration to Azure Integration Services Architecture Guidance and describes Announcement: Introducing Azure Integration Services Landing Zone Accelerator
• Harold Campos discusses Azure Integration Services for Mainframes and Midranges Modernization Partners Survey
• Paolo Salvatori describes how to Use an Azure Event Grid Custom Topic as a Message Broker
• Mziwenhlanhla Mngadi explains how to Build a Gift Declaration solution with the Power Platform
• Robin Goldstein introduces enhanced company branding for sign-in experiences in Azure AD
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) explains how to Send Email with SendGrid and 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 writes about General availability: Yocto recipes for IoT Edge 1.4 LTS
• Nicole Kuntjoro blogs about Advantech Partners with Azure Certified Device Program to Highlight At-Scale Edge Solutions

Learning

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

• Lanna Teh explains how to Develop your network integration skills with our new ramp guide and writes about New ramp guide available to skill up on Azure networking
• On episode 164 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure Podcast, Tobias Zimmergren and Jussi Roine talk about how to Get certified as a Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator SC-300
• Nicole Singh presents an Azure Learn Article: Deploy private 5G networks on Azure
• Priyanka Rawat talks about Microsoft Azure CLX: A personalized program to learn Azure

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 announces the Public Preview: Azure Site Recovery Higher Churn Support
• Christophe Fiessinger explains how to Identify business conduct violations with Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance
• Daniel Kim writes 'Winter is Coming - Keep your Azure services up to date.'
• Bruno Gabrielli discusses Azure Monitor: Manage Data Access for Your Log Analytics Workspace
• Praveena Jayanarayanan covers Monitoring and Observability in Azure Services

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

• The Azure Updates Team describes Public preview: Build a business case with Azure Migrate
• On the Data Exposed show, Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) and Melody Zacharias (@SQLMelody) discuss 3 tools to help you move to Azure
• Kasun Indrasiri discusses Migrating data from Kafka clusters to Azure Event Hubs using MirrorMaker 2 MM2

Mobile

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

• Jeanine Park writes about Modern device strategy: How Surface helps retailers navigate second wave of digital transformation

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 writes about General availability: Feature enhancements to Azure Web Application Firewall WAF
• Milosh Djuric (@mdjxkln) delves into DNS Name Resolution In Azure

Security

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

• Liana Tomescu announces New express configuration for Vulnerability Assessment in Microsoft Defender for SQL
• Linh Hoang describes how to Leverage advanced hunting to better understand your discovered devices
• Lior Tamir blogs about Whats new: Run playbooks on entities on-demand
• Kavish Bakshi covers What's New: More NEW Microsoft Sentinel SOAR solutions

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 blogs about Public preview: Azure NetApp Files cross-zone replication
• John Miner writes about Secure File Transfer Protocol SFTP support for Azure Blob Storage
• Thorsten Hans covers Azure Blob Storage using the Azure SDK for Go

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: Static Web Apps Diagnostics
• Hanli Ren explains how to Investigate Azure Spring Apps Networking Issue with the new Connect feature
• Shubham Anand talks about Using Operation Results API to check the progress of deployment slots swap operation in App Service
• Abhishek Reddy discusses WordPress on Azure App Service - Top features you must know about

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"!