Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #498

powered by endjin

If you have any content you'd like to contribute to the newsletter, please send a message on BlueSky to @azureweekly.endj.in or ping an email to AzureWeekly@endjin.com.

Interested in Power BI? Sign up to our sibling newsletter Power BI Weekly or follow on BlueSky @powerbiweekly.endj.in to receive all the week's Power BI news.

@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

• Panu Oksala writes about What is Microsoft.Extensions.AI Library and Will It Replace Semantic Kernel
• Mark Heath (@mark_heath) asks AI Coding - What is it good for?, describes Calling Azure OpenAI models from C# with Microsoft.Extensions.AI, describes Passing images to LLMs in C# with Microsoft.Extensions.AI and walks through Tracking Token Usage with Microsoft.Extensions.AI
• On the Azure blog, Sarah Bird explains how to Explore the business case for responsible AI in new IDC whitepaper
• Roy Kim (@roykimyyz) covers Building a Chat App using Azure AI Foundry SDK and AI Search
• Carlotta Castelluccio explains how to What's new for Azure AI Speech services - Community Roundtable
• Lo Kinfey (@Ljh8304) discusses Using Azure AI Agent Service with AutoGen / Semantic Kernel to build a multi-agent's solution
• Manoranjan Rajguru writes about My Journey of Building a Voice Bot from Scratch
• Marco Casalaina covers The Future of AI: Horses for Courses - Task-Specific Models and Content Understanding
• Mike Tholfsen walks through Reading Coach, the AI-powered fluency practice tool, is now generally available in 81 languages
• Nina Yang discusses Azure AI voices in Arabic improved pronunciation
• Priya Kedia blogs about Fine-Tuning Small Language Models for Function-Calling: A Comprehensive Guide and covers Evaluating Fine-Tuned Models for Function-Calling: Beyond Input-Output Metrics
• Savita Mittal describes The Leading AI Ecosystem Models: A Comprehensive Comparison
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) describes Summarising Teams Meeting Transcripts using Open AI and Python
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Zachary Teutsch describes Getting Started with the AI Dev Gallery
• Leo Visser (@autosysops) shows how to Use AI search in a power app to search an API
• Seth Patton blogs about Microsoft 365 Copilot Year In Review 2024
• On the Azure blog, Olivia Shone talks about Boost processing performance by combining AI models
• Farzad Sunavala talks about LlamaIndex TypeScript now supports Azure AI Search as a vector store
• Dieter Gobeyn explains how to Overcome Azure AI Services Limits: A Practical Guide
• Geert Baeke (@GeertBaeke) talks about Creating an agent with the Azure AI Agent SDK
• Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) chats with Sam Basu: Using AI for the User Interface - Episode 329
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Pamela Fox covers RAG Deep Dive: 10-part live stream series
• Sourabh Kumar Verma explains how to Make your own private ChatGPT
• Xinyu Wei talks about Microsoft Computer Vision Test and covers GraphRAG end to end PoC
• Ivan Tarapov describes Unlocking the Magic of Embedding Models: Practical Patterns for Healthcare AI
• Einat Gruda Idelovitch discusses Accelerating Healthcare Data Interoperability with Azure Text Analytics for Health FHIR Structuring
• Kailyn Sylvester talks about Tech Accelerator: Mastering Azure and AI adoption

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

• On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Aaron Merrill explains how to Define security on folders within a shortcut using OneLake data access roles
• Kevin Chant (@kevchant) writes about Four places you can visualize data in Microsoft Fabric
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Olivier Van Steenlandt explains how to Create SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric and Integrate into Project
• On Tech Community blog, Ayush explains How to Query Spark Tables from Serverless SQL Pools in Azure Synapse and writes about Robust data protection features of Azure Synapse
• Dharmendra Keshari provides A Practical Guide to Implement End-to-End Data Warehousing PoC Using Microsoft Fabric-Part2
• rabindori writes about Efficient Log Management with Microsoft Fabric
• Sandip Khandelwal explains how to Ingest Db2 data into Fabric Native SQL Database
• Slava Trofimov covers Decision Guide for Selecting an Analytical Data Store in Microsoft Fabric
• Laura-Jayne Adamson describes Overcoming Direct Lake Connection Hurdles
• On SQL Server Central, Jared Westover explains how to Convert Excel Workbooks to CSV with Microsoft Fabric
• Freddie Santos discusses Enhancing COPY INTO operations with Granular Permissions in Fabric Data Warehouse
• Greg Beaumont describes Fabric AI Skill - example AI Agent for your Data using Healthcare data
• Yan Liang explains How to Enable Zone Redundancy in Azure Data Factory
• Mohsen Jadidi explains how to Let's Build an MLOps Pipeline With Databricks and Spark - Part 2
• On the MSSQL Tips site, John Miner explains how to Create an Azure Databricks SQL Warehouse
• Ian Griffiths (@idg10) kicks of a series of posts about Working locally with Spark Dev Containers
• Carmel Eve (@Carmel_Eve) explains how to Simplify your Streamlit Python Development Experience with Dev Containers

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

• Lakshmi Jakka describes How to create multiple tasks under a job in Job Scheduler
• StephenMS talks about Building a Cryptographically Secure Product Licensing System on Azure Functions and Cosmos DB

Containers

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

• Bob Mital explains how to Deploy Smarter, Scale Faster – Secure, AI-Ready, Cost-Effective Kubernetes Apps at Your Fingertips
• On the Perficient blog, Sunil Talluri covers Create/Deploy Azure Kubernetes Service AKS Using Terraform Cloud Workspaces
• Joe Chen walks through Troubleshooting Azure Container App Networking Made Simple with Network Tester
• Paul Edwards blogs about Deploying ZFS Scratch Storage for NVMe on Azure Kubernetes Service AKS
• Daniel Neumann (@neumanndaniel) discusses Use Fluent Bit for Kubernetes events gathering on Azure Kubernetes Service
• Aritra Ghosh writes about Seamless Metric Export: Simplifying AKS Platform Metrics Routing to Any Destination
• On Diagrid Blog, John Allwright describes The State of Dapr 2024 Survey is Live, Luis Rascão blogs about Exposing Dynamic Resources in Diagrid Catalyst with NATS and Mauricio Salatino talks about Dapr For Spring Boot

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

• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) blogs about Azure SQL Database – Configure Job using Elastic Agents
• Ayush explains how to Remove unwanted partition data in Azure Synapse SQL DW
• David Lyth describes Optimizing Query Store Memory Usage for Ad hoc Workloads
• Oscar Garcia Ozkary (@ozkary) covers Cosmos DB for MongoDB: Tapping into Change Streams for Real-Time Integration
• Sam Garth covers Setting up SQL Managed Instance Link to an Availability Group
• Josephine (Branch) Bush describes How I Migrated to Azure PostgreSQL Flex from Single Server
• David Lyth discusses SQL unicode comparisons

Developer Tools

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

• Cynthia Zanoni (@cynthiazanoni) describes GitHub Copilot Bootcamp
• Neel Ball blogs about Leveraging GitHub Copilot for T-SQL Code Conversion: A Deep Dive into Code Explainability
• On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) lists the Top 10 GitHub Copilot Extensions, Led by Docker and PerplexityAI and writes about VS Code Python Devs Get 'Full' Language Server Mode for Pylance
• Also on the Visual Studio blog, Leah Tran explains how to Go to line anywhere with Code Search for Visual Studio 2022 and covers Dock the Code Search window in Visual Studio 2022
• Also on the Visual Studio blog, Nik Karpinsky blogs about Benchmarking with Visual Studio Profiler
• On the Visual Studio blog, Harshada Hole discusses Unlocking insights with Meter Histogram in the profiler
• Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) chats with Aaron Powell: .NET Aspire Community Toolkit - Episode 330
• Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) chats with Brady Gaster: Upgrading .NET apps - Episode 331
• Amit Khandelwal describes SQL Server Containers and SQL Server on Linux Now Available on Windows via WSL

DevOps

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

• John Reilly (@johnny_reilly) explains how to Slash command your deployment with GitHub Actions
• AJ Bajada describes DevOps and AI Series: Landing Zones
• Clayton Kanyika writes about Important: Switching CDN providers
• Pallavi Koramkar walks through Building Azure DevOps CD Processes for SPFx and covers Building Azure DevOps CI Pipelines for SPFx
• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Angel Wong walks through Reducing personal access token PAT usage across Azure DevOps
• On the Visual Studio blog, Brady Gaster (@bradygaster) delves into Security updates to Azure publishing from Visual Studio and explains how to Connect securely to your Azure resources
• Yixiao Li covers Azure Lab Services - Upcoming maintenance update on February 8, 2025
• AJ Bajada discusses DevOps and Azure IaC Series: Deploy
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) discusses Getting Started Using Terraform Tests with Azure example
• ankitankit writes about Advanced Terraform Techniques: Navigating Complex Scenarios
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) walks through Implementing Inheritance in Azure Bicep: A Workaround Using Global and Module-Specific Tags
• Luke Murray (@lukemurraynz) covers Deploying Azure Managed Redis with Bicep
• Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) talks about Testing Data Processing Azure Bicep Functions Easily

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Local

• Geert van Teylingen (@teylemans) describes Getting started with the NetApp Connector for Microsoft Copilot and Azure NetApp Files
• Hang Wang explains how to Simplify Full-stack Java Development with JHipster Online, Terraform and Bicep
• Brad Wyatt writes about Automated Deployment of a Zero Trust Azure Automation Environment

Identity

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

• Shobhit Sahay covers Microsoft Entra: Top 50 features of 2024
• Programmer in Development explains How to Configure Microsoft Entra ID as a Login Provider in Your Next.js App
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) explains how to Create Database-Scoped Users for Microsoft Entra Security Groups
• Farooque Mohammad covers Entra ID Continuous Access Evaluation unfold and Farooque blogs about Passkeys Authentication Across Platforms and Devices using Entra ID
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) discusses Mastering Microsoft Entra Private Access: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide

Integration

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

• Dieter Gobeyn explains How to Fix Logic App Standard Runtime Version Error Quickly and explains how to Overcome Azure AI Services Limits: A Practical Guide
• Andrew Wilson blogs about Key Vault Reference Logic and Function Apps using User-Assigned Managed Identity and describes Logic App Try-Catch Pattern, Nested Scopes, And Compensating Transaction Pattern
• Abbas Nandwani explains how to Streamline Automation: Using Logic Apps to Trigger Desktop Flows
• Andrew Bryson talks about Automating Logic Apps connections to Dynamics 365 using Bicep
• Karishma Sharma explains how to Empower retail organizations and the frontline with Windows 365
• Serena Li writes about Cross-tenant secure integration of Azure resources based on logic app standard and virtual WAN
• Sindy Park explains how to Expand your business with ISV to CSP private offers in the marketplace
• Srikantan blogs about Exploring Azure AI Agent Service: A Leap in Conversational AI
• Wagner Silveira talks about Logic Apps Aviators Newsletter - January 2025
• Nikita Mittal blogs about Microsoft Graph connectors Ignite 2024

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

• Sander van de Velde (@svelde) blogs about Azure IoT Operations: Reading OPC-UA server tags and describes Azure IoT Operations: Reading OPA-UA server tags

Learning

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

• Bethany Jepchumba (@bethanyjep), Cloud Advocate, explains how to Prepare and get ready for AI-900 Certification
• On the Azure podcast, Azure Podcast (@AzurePodcast) covers Semantic Kernel and File Shares
• On The New Stack, Adrian Cockcroft blogs about Cloud PUE: Comparing AWS, Azure and GCP Global Regions
• Matt Graven explains how to Learn New Skills in the New Year
• On the Q Sharp blog, Nikita Hurkadli highlights an Important Update: blog migration to quantum.microsoft.com
• Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) discusses Cloud Myths: Cloud is One Size Fits All Pill 3 of 5 / Cloud Pills
• Gregor Suttie (@gregor_suttie) highlights the Festive Tech Calendar 2024 YouTube Videos
• Tiffiany Law explains how to Get Started with the Microsoft Nonprofit Technology Acceleration NTA Program
• Kenelle Moore covers What's Included with Microsofts Granted Offerings for Nonprofits
• Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) chat about Microsoft Tech Updates

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

• Erwin de Kreuk (@erwindekreuk) explores Microsoft Purview’s New Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Model for Data Governance
• Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) chat about Lessons learned with Azure Policy
• Tao Yang (@MrTaoYang) talks about Policy Restriction REST API for Azure Policy
• James van Den Berg explains how to Deploy Windows Server 2025 security baselines locally with OSConfig
• Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) discusses Cloud Myths: Cloud is Cheaper Pill 1 of 5 / Cloud Pills and Cloud Myths: Migrating to the cloud is quick and easy Pill 2 of 5 / Cloud Pills
• Gregor Suttie (@gregor_suttie) explains how to Get TenantId for any Azure Subscription and writes about Festive Tech Calendar 2024 YouTube Videos
• Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) writes about NOW AVAILABLE Mastering Windows 365: The ultimate guide to designing and managing Cloud PCs with Intune Suite and Copilot for Windows 365

Media

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

• On the MSSQL Tips site, Koen Verbeeck (@Ko_Ver) covers Azure Communication Services Email Configuration and Sending Emails
• Luke Murray (@lukemurraynz) discusses Using Azure Communication Services and UMI PowerShell to Send Emails
• K. Ramachandra discusses Windows 10 end of support for Teams Rooms on Windows

Migration

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

• 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

• Srini Thumala blogs about Azure Private Endpoint vs. Service Endpoint: A Comprehensive Guide

Security

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

• Heike Ritter writes about Microsoft Defender XDR Monthly news - January 2025
• Yura Lee describes Microsoft Defender for Cloud Customer Newsletter
• Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) discusses Mastering Microsoft Sentinel Playbooks for Enhanced Security
• Daniel Mozes explains how to Build custom email security reports and dashboards with workbooks in Microsoft Sentinel
• Jeremy Tan explains how to Unified coverage management across SIEM and XDR in SOC optimization
• Megha Priya blogs about Exciting News: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Extends Support to ARM-Based Linux Servers
• Naomi Christis describes How to successfully evaluate the SAP for Sentinel solution and implement it in production Part 2
• Saleem Bseeu discusses Understanding the Evolving Threat of DDoS Attacks in 2024
• Santosh Pargi describes Creating a Custom Sentinel GCP WAF /Load balancer Data Connector
• Vic Perdana discusses Strengthening ISVs in the Era of AI: Introducing the ISV Security Series
• Giulio Astori talks about Considerations for risk identification and prioritization in Defender for Cloud

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

• Vybava Ramadoss talks about Azure Files provisioned v2 billing model for flexibility, cost savings, and predictability
• Vishal Kugaji covers Granting List-Only permissions for users in Azure Storage Account using ABAC
• Geert van Teylingen (@teylemans) explains how to Provide remote access to Azure NetApp Files volumes using F5 Distributed Cloud

Web

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

• Farzad Sunavala announces the Azure AI RAG Vercel Next.JS Template
• John Metzger blogs about Calling APIs hosted in Azure App Service protected by Easy Auth
• Ringe Chen covers Connection Between Web App and O365 Resources: Using Mail as an Example
• Ringe Chen talks about Connection Between Web App and Other Resources: Using SharePoint as an Example
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) describes Azure – Assign API Permissions to Managed Identity using PowerShell

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• Ravi Sharma discusses Maximizing Virtual Desktop Performance: Uniting Azure Virtual Desktop with Citrix Solution
• Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) blogs about Unlocking the Power of Windows 365 in 2025: Your Ultimate Learning Guide

Community 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 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
• 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.
• Farmer - This is a DSL for ARM template creation - "Making repeatable Azure deployments easy"!