Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #434

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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 episode 471 of the Azure podcast, the Podcast team (@AzurePodcast) are joined by Steve Selleny to talk about AI Trends in Financial Services
• Lucky Pamula provides An Introduction to LLMOps: Operationalizing and Managing Large Language Models using Azure ML
• Sabyasachi Samaddar discusses Revolutionizing SQL Queries with Azure Open AI and Semantic Kernel
• Freddy Dubon blogs about Azure OpenAI Private Endpoints: Connecting Across VNETs
• On the Azure blog, Jordan Davis covers Welcoming the generative AI era with Microsoft Azure
• Ben Roberts writes about Azure MLOps Challenge: Part 4
• Yeliz Kilinc covers SAS Code Migration into Open-Source Language by Using Azure OpenAI
• Holger Bruchelt (@@hobru) walks through Building GPT-4 powered bots for SAP enterprise data on Microsoft Teams: A Low-Code Approach

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, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Fabric

• On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Pawel Potasinski (@pawelpotasinski) highlights the Microsoft Fabric MVP Corner – August 2023
• On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Amir Jafari, Sheryl Zhao, Mark Hamilton and Nellie Gustafsson explain how to Harness the Power of LangChain in Microsoft Fabric for Advanced Document Summarization
• John Miner talks about Azure Synapse Analytics Serverless SQL Pools to Replace the Interactive SPARK Clusters
• Koen Verbeeck (@Ko_Ver) explains How to Pause or Start Microsoft Fabric Capacity Automatically
• Sally Dabbah walks through Implementing Pagination with the Copy Activity in Microsoft Fabric
• Harun Legoz (@hylegoz) asks Should You Migrate To Fabric? and blogs about Adopting Fabric: Moving From Synapse Analytics To Microsoft Fabric
• Miquella de Boer announces Service principal support to connect to data in Dataflow, Datamart, Dataset and Dataflow Gen 2
• Joji Varghese walks through Using Automation Runbook Webhooks To Alert on Databricks Status Updates

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

• Matthew Henderson writes about .NET on Azure Functions – August 2023 roadmap update
• The Azure Updates Team announces Generally Available: ASP.NET Core integration in Azure Functions and writes about Generally Available: Trusted launch as default for VMs deployed through the Azure portal
• The Azure Updates Team announces Public Preview: Azure Functions .NET worker cold start improvements and describes Public Preview: Azure Functions .NET 8 support in Linux plans
• Rachel Pruitt writes Ramp up with me... on HPC: Understanding Virtual Machines, CPUs, and GPUs

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 the General Availability of: Azure Container Apps support for UDR, NAT Gateway, and smaller subnets, and Azure Container Apps dedicated plan, and Auto-upgrade scheduled maintenance for AKS, and Azure Container Apps jobs and Anthony Chu writes about Generally Available of Azure Container Apps workload profiles, more networking features, and jobs
• The Azure Updates Team announces the Public Preview of: Azure Container Apps supports additional TCP ports and Azure Container Apps supports environment level mTLS encryption
• Shani Freund Menscher writes about Agentless Discovery for Kubernetes is now offered as part of Defender for Containers
• On IT Next, Maryam Tavakkoli explores Kubernetes Secret Management Solutions: A Comparative of External Secret Operator ESO

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 General Availavility of: Azure SQL updates for late-August 2023, and Latest PostgreSQL minor versions supported by Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server and Taryn Pratt announces General Availability of Azure Portal Experience to Deploy Multi-Subnet Availability Group
• The Azure Updates Team announces the Public Preview: Universal geo restore on Azure Database for MySQL- Flexible Server and Taryn Pratt announces Public Preview of enhanced patching for SQL Server on Azure VM with Azure Update Manager
• Claire Giordano (@clairegiordano) blogs about Whats new with Postgres at Microsoft August 2023
• Gennady Kostinsky covers DNS Zone linking is no longer enforced when creating Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server
• Aravind Mahadevan explains how to Released : Public Preview of Azure Update Manager Integration with SQL Server on Linux Azure VM's
• Brian Spendolini (@btspendo) announces External REST Endpoint Invocation is now GA
• Varun Dhawan blogs about Autoscaling Azure PostgreSQL Server with Automation Tasks

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 talks about Azure App Configuration - Public Preview release of snapshots feature
• On Visual Studio Magazine, David Ramel (@dramel) writes about Visual Studio Tool Lets Devs See Images, Not Just Text Strings, discusses Avalonia VS Code Tool Now in Preview for Everyone and writes about After Killing Visual Studio for Mac, Microsoft Reassures Fearful .NET MAUI Devs
• On the Visual Studio blog, Anthony Cangialosi writes about Visual Studio for Mac Retirement Announcement
• Carlos Mendible (@cmendibl3) covers AZQR: Azure Quick Review
• David Giard (@DavidGiard) talks about Using the Application Insights .NET SDK
• Leslie Richardson writes Learn about new and old VS tools on Visual Studio Toolbox
• Mads Kristensen (@mkristensen) writes Working with images just got easier in Visual Studio
• Erik Ejlskov Jensen writes From Azure SQL DB to EF Core Web API using only cross platform CLI tools
• Sayan Ghosh delves into Microsoft Dev Box – the superpower Financial Services development teams are quickly discovering

DevOps

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

• Steven Ma highlights the Terraform on Azure August 2023 Update
• Ismael Oltra talks about SSIS CI/CD - Azure SQL Virtual Machine
• David Giard (@DavidGiard) talks about Increasing Developer Velocity
• Marc Fellman discusses Using Powershell to Query Azure DevOps

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• James van Den Berg blogs about Azure Update Management for Windows and Linux in Multi Cloud Azure Winserv Linux

Identity

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

• Rian Melton-Grace talks about Coming Soon – Platform SSO for macOS
• Robin Goldstein writes about Cross-Tenant Access Settings Improvements
• Sandeep Deo writes about Important: Update to deviceRegistrationPolicy Resource Type for MS Graph Beta API Version
• Brian Martel talks about Identity Management in Azure From Azure Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID
• On episode 201 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren (@zimmergren) and Jussi Roine (@JussiRoine) take A peek into a secure future with Microsoft Entra Global Secure Access
• Ashish Jain writes about Microsoft Entra Private Access: An Identity-Centric Zero Trust Network Access Solution

Integration

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

• No content this week

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

• Megha Tiwari blogs about Powering the next generation of Digital Operations with Windows IoT and Azure Kubernetes Service

Learning

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

• Shirleyse Haley announces new training courses: Learn the steps needed to protect your data and manage identity
• Shirleyse Haley announces new training courses: Learn the steps needed to protect your data and manage identity
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) talks with Simon Binder (@Bindertech) about The Impact of Live and Online IT Events for Career Development

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 Generally available: Azure Site Recovery Higher Churn Support, and Generally Available: Azure Monitor VM Insights using Azure Monitor Agent and the Public Preview: Azure Log Alerts support for Azure Resource Graph ARG
• Lior Bela talks about Whats new in Windows Autopatch: August 2023
• Surabhi Calla explains how to Enhance update management decisions with metadata and insights
• On episode 349 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott Hoag and Ben Stegink (@msclouditpro) discuss The War of the Policies
• Curtis Sawin discusses Application deployment in Windows 365: recommended practices
• Shilpa Bothra discusses Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention: Announcing general availability of several capabilities

Media

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

• Steven Stein talks about Whats New in Microsoft Teams August 2023
• Fredric Morgan announces more seamless collaboration in Microsoft Teams for multi-tenant organizations

Migration

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces the Public Preview – Azure Portal experience for Azure Database Migration Service

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 that Azure Firewall: Poland Central Region is now in general availability, and Azure Firewall: Explicit Proxy is now in public preview, and Azure Firewall: Auto-Learn SNAT routes feature is now in public preview and Azure Firewall Single-Click Upgrade and Downgrade is now in general availability
• Suren Jamiyanaa covers Azure Firewall: New Features and Region Availability
• Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) discusses Azure Infrastructure Announcements – July 2023
• Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) covers Azure Bastion with Azure Virtual Wan
• Patrick van Kleef (@patkleef) describes how to Secure Azure PaaS services with Azure Private Link and how to Centralize management with the hub-spoke network topology
• Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) walks through Using Linux VM For SNAT With ExpressRoute

Security

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

• Stefan Schachinger describes How Azure and Barracuda SecureEdge protect your business
• Andrew Mathu describes Enhancing Your Azure Security: Azure DDoS Sentinel Solution and WAF Playbook Integration
• Avery Kim covers Maximizing Effectiveness: Best Practices for Azure DDoS Protection and Application Resilience

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

• Amrinder Singh blogs about Performing Simple Queue Storage REST API operations using CURL
• Geert van Teylingen (@teylemans) writes about SAP HANA on Azure NetApp Files – System refresh & cloning operations with BlueXP backup and recovery

Web

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

• On the Azure blog, Brianna McGovern blogs about Upgrade to App Service Environment v3 today and unlock new capabilities
• On episode 260 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) and Nate Schutta (@ntschutta) talk about Thinking Architecturally
• Abhilash Konnur blogs about Handling concurrent requests with Python on Azure App Service Linux using Gunicorn and Flask
• Abhilash Konnur blogs about Handling concurrent requests with Python on Azure App Service Linux using Gunicorn and Flask
• Vinod Rawat discusses App Service Linux container amid conversations.
• David Giard (@DavidGiard) discusses Migrating Legacy ASP.NET Applications with Jonathan Tower
• Shashanka Malladi writes about QUIC based HTTP/3 with Application Gateway: Feature information Private Preview

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"!