Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #451

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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

• Japhlet Nwamu covers Understanding how GitHub Copilot works
• Ron L'Esteve covers LangChain Prompt Templates with OpenAI LLMs
• Martin Bald explains How to Quickly and Easily Package, Deploy, and Serve ML Models to Edge Devices.
• Yoav Dobrin covers Azure Cognitive Services & Azure Machine Learning Cost Analysis

Analytics

Covering: Apache Spark for HDInsight, Azure Analysis Services, Azure Data Explorer, Azure Data Share, Azure Databricks, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Synapse Analytics, Data Factory, Event Hubs, HDInsight, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Fabric

• The Azure Updates Team announces General availability: Azure Data Explorer adds new geospatial capabilities
• Ed Elliott (@EdDebug) explores the Spark Connect gRPC API and walks through Using Spark Connect from .NET to run Spark jobs on Databricks
• Michael Olschimke and Dmytro Polishchuk cover Advanced Data Vault 2.0 Models on Synapse Data Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric
• Hauke Mallow walks through Visualizing narrow Kusto tables with Azure Managed Grafana
• Ed Freeman (@edfreeman_) announces his SQLBits 2024 Workshop - DataOps: How to Deliver Data Faster and Better with Microsoft Cloud. Book Now!

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 Automatic Image Creation using Azure VM Image Builder is now generally available
• On Visual Studio Magazine, David Ramel (@dramel) covers Use Azure Quantum 'Playground' to Explore New v1.0 Dev Kit
• Kofi Forson writes about Automatic Image Creation using Azure VM Image Builder is now generally available
• Mark Brimble (@BrimbleMark) describes how to Upgrade an Azure function from .NET 6 to .NET 8

Containers

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

• On episode 281 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) and Andrew Lock (@andrewlocknet) talk about Containers in .NET 8
• Kumar-Ashwin-Hubert discusses Public facing Azure Container Registry Reference Architecture
• Paolo Salvatori provides A Practical Guide to Zone Redundant AKS Clusters and Storage
• Fady Azmy writes about UnifyCloud - Modernizing your .NET apps to Windows containers on Azure Kubernetes Services

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

• Greg Low (@greglow) covers SQL: Understanding Change Data Capture for Azure SQL Database – Part 5 – Accessing CDC from another database
• Joe Gavin delves into SQL DROP DATABASE with SSMS, Azure Data Studio, T-SQL and PowerShell
• Prakash K walks through Configuration of Azure SQL Database Auditing
• Sasa Popovic covers Mastering Maintenance - Strategies for seamless auto-updates on Azure SQL Managed Instance

Developer Tools

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

• On Visual Studio Magazine, David Ramel (@dramel) describes 'All-in-One Search' Leads New Visual Studio Productivity Features and discusses Microsoft Asks Devs About Visual Studio Pet Peeves: 'Don't Get Me Started'
• Reena Joseph writes Elevate Your Salesforce Flows with Visual Studio VS Code
• On the Visual Studio blog, Leah Tran writes about Visual Studio productivity features in 2023
• Also on the Visual Studio blog, Peter Groenewegen (@pgroene) writes Code Faster and Better with GitHub Copilots New Features: Slash Commands and Context Variables
• Frank Boucher (@FBoucheros) describes WingetCreate: Keeping WinGet packages up-to-date
• On the Azure blog, Brianna McGovern walks through Quantifying the impact of developer experience

DevOps

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

• Andreas Helland discusses Infra in Azure for Developers - The How Part 1
• Frédéric Le Coquil talks about Using Azure Load Testing to test Multi-Tenant services and blogs about Load Testing Azure Event Hubs services with restricted public access
• Jared Holgate announces Azure Landing Zones Accelerators for Bicep and Terraform
• Nagarjuna Vipparthi describes Consolidating CSV results files in Azure Load Testing
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) covers Displaying Terraform Plan as a comment in Azure DevOps Repo PRs with Azure DevOps Pipelines
• John Kilmister (@johnkilmister) walks through Connecting Azure to Azure DevOps with Federated Credentials and Service Connections

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Adeel Ahmed discusses Securing the Clouds: Navigating Multi-Cloud Security with Advanced SIEM Strategies
• Matthew Bratschun blogs about Troubleshooting Azure Stack HCI 23H2 Preview Deployments
• Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) describes how to Check if network connectivity for Azure Connected Machine Agent is blocked - Azure Arc

Identity

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces the Generally availability: FHIR service integration with Azure Active Directory B2C
• Bhalchandra Atre describes MFA App ID deprecation in Exchange Online
• Silvio Di Benedetto (@s_net) explains How to configure Entra Private Access to avoid VPN clients

Integration

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

• Sandro Pereira (@sandro_asp) writes about Visual Studio Logic App Consumption deployment: The subscription is not registered to use namespace Microsoft.Logic and discusses Azure Function to Apply Liquid Transformations
• Divya Swarnkar discusses Concurrency support for Service Bus built-in connector in Logic Apps Standard and Session support for Service Bus built-in connector Logic Apps Standard
• Mo Elaryan explains how to Build an Azure Logic App to send an alert when the provisioning state changes for your Azure VWAN
• Pedro Almeida delves into Key Vault policies affecting your Logic App Standard functioning
• Judy Gia Ying Chin writes about Empowering Healthcare with Innovative Solutions: A Microsoft Power Apps Project UCL x NHS

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

• Natalie Mickey presents The AI Study Guide: Azures top free resources for learning generative AI in 2024
• On the Visual Studio blog, Jessie Houghton writes Elevate Your Git and GitHub Skills in Visual Studio with the Intermediate and Advanced Series
• Liberty Munson explains how to Validate skills: New Dynamics 365 Business Central Developers certification

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 Private Preview: Support for Azure VMs using Premium SSD v2 in Azure Site Recovery, and Azure Advisor integration with Azure Monitor Log Analytics Workspace and Generally Available: Azure Monitor VM Insights Dependency Agent support for RHEL 8.6 Linux VMs
• The Azure Updates Team discusses Public Preview: Azure Automation Runtime environment & support for Azure CLI commands in runbooks
• Adeel Ahmed discusses Navigating the New Frontier: Information Security in the Era of M365 Copilot
• Nikita Bajaj describes Modernizing Azure Automation: A 2023 Retrospective and Future outlook
• Vlad Rodriguez writes about Sensitive info types are now available for non-M365 data assets
• Bindusar Kushwaha explains how to Collect Event Ids using Azure Monitor Agent
• Varun Dhawan discusses Advanced Monitoring for PostgreSQL Using Log Analytics
• On episode 222 of the the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren and Jussi Roine discuss Azure Updates
• Panu Oksala writes about Azure Dashboard

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

• Swati Devgan blogs about Rehosting On-Premises Process Automation when migrating to Azure

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

• Vandana Mahtani walks through Introducing Multi-region and Multi-VNets for Managed Virtual Network in Microsoft Purview
• On the Wired for Hybrid show, Pierre Roman (@pierreroman) covers What's New in Azure Networking - January 2024 edition
• Rohit Turambekar (@klic2rohit) writes From Chaos to Clarity: Simplifying Your Networking with Azure Container Apps
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) delves into Azure network monitoring with synthetic traffic

Security

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

• Phoebe Rogers describes Defender Experts recommendations for impactful security posture management
• Yaron Fruchtmann writes about Contextual Risk Estimation for Effective Prioritization

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

• Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains how to Create Analytic Rules to Query External Data in Microsoft Sentinel
• ManjunathS demonstrates Performing simple FILE Storage REST API operations using CURL

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 Public Preview: Circuit Breaker in Azure API Management, and Public Preview: Load Balancer in Azure API Management and Azure Spring Apps Feature Update Q4 2024: Spring Cloud Gateway supports a response cache and more
• Roman Mullier explains how to Enable GPT failover with Azure OpenAI and Azure API Management

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) explains how to Migrate AVD Insights to the New Azure Monitor Agent

Useful Links

• Azure Resource Inventory - Azure Resource Inventory - It's a Powerful tool to create EXCEL inventory from Azure Resources with low effort
• Azure Quick Review (azqr) - A command-line interface (CLI) tool specifically designed to analyze Azure resources and identify whether they comply with Azure's best practices and recommendations.
• AzSaveMoney - Clean-up and save money by identifying and marking unused Azure resources/groups as subject for deletion by tagging.
• Azure Cost CLI - CLI tool to perform cost analysis on your Azure subscription
• Azure Code Samples - Explore Microsoft's samples and discover the things you can build.
• 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.
• Cyber Security Demystified - ebook from Microsoft describing how to keep your organisation safe.
• Azure Resource Center - Whitepapers, code samples, solution architectures
• 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.
• Design scalable and performant tables - a guide from the storage team.
• Azure Speed Test 2.0 - a simple web tool that measures the latency between you and Azure Datacenters to suggest which might be fastest for you location.
• 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).
• Microsoft cloud for IT architects illustrations - These cloud architecture posters give you information about Microsoft cloud services, including Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and hybrid on-premises and cloud solutions.
• Whitepapers for Power BI - numerous whitepapers ranging various Power BI topics
• Farmer - This is a DSL for ARM template creation - "Making repeatable Azure deployments easy"!