Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #508

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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

• Asha Sharma describes Accelerating agentic workflows with Azure AI Foundry, NVIDIA NIM, and NVIDIA AgentIQ
• Omar Khan announces that Microsoft and NVIDIA accelerate AI development and performance
• Sharmila Chockalingam covers Unlock Performance Gains with NVIDIA Inference Optimizations on Azure AI Foundry and covers Model Mondays: Why Rerank Models Are the Secret Sauce of High-Quality Search
• On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) covers Azure AI Foundry Gets NVIDIA Tech
• Akshay Kakar announces the Responses API and Computer-Using Agent in Azure AI Foundry
• Andy Beatman covers Cutting digital curbs: How Azure AI Foundry is building a more accessible world
• Asma Khalid (@asmak) covers OpenAI Introduce Next-Gen Audio Models: The Future of AI-Powered Voice Technology
• Asma Ben Abacha discusses Image Search Series Part 2: AI Methods for the Automation of 3D Image Retrieval in Radiology
• Emmanuel Kibet covers Building Trustworthy AI Agents
• Jhoanna Machado talks about Exploring Azure AI Agent Service: A developer's guide and blogs about Building your first AI Agent with Azure AI Agent Service
• Manoranjan Rajguru blogs about Model Context Protocol MCP: Integrating Azure OpenAI for Enhanced Tool Integration and Prompting
• Mark Kashman explains how to Get to know Copilot – New episode of The Intrazone podcast
• Shivam Goyal explains how to AI Agents: Key Principles and Guidelines - Part 3
• Lee Stott explains how to Join the ONNX Generative AI Runtime teams for a discussion on the newest releases
• Lee Stott talks about The Future of AI: Unleashing the Potential of AI Translation
• Jake Wang blogs about Managing Traffic Jams with Azure OpenAI PTU Spillover
• Martin Ca announces new Phi pricing, Empowering Your Business with Small Language Models
• Mike Carter describes RAG Time Journey 3: Optimize your vector index for scale
• Sourav Bera discusses Enterprise Application Development with Azure Responses API and Agents SDK
• Ellie Nosrat writes about Best Practices for Leveraging Azure OpenAI in Code Conversion Scenarios
• Rania Bayoumy explains how to Advanced RAG Solution Accelerator
• Chris Noring (@chris_noring) describes Interacting with historical characters using Generative AI

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 Launched Generally Available: Azure Stream Analytics Integration with Schema Registry
• On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Matthew Hicks discusses Unlock the power of your Iceberg data in OneLake, Estera Kot blogs about Fabric Espresso – Episodes about Data Science & Machine Learning in Microsoft Fabric and Krishnakumar Rukmangathan writes about Powerful improvements for Copy Job
• David Callaghan discusses Delta Live Tables and Great Expectations: Better Together
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Jared Westover writes about Foreign Keys and Performance in a Microsoft Fabric Warehouse
• Sander van de Velde (@svelde) discusses Microsoft Fabric RTI:Adding table mapping to Real-Time telemetry ingestion
• arnuthal blogs about Medallion Architecture in Microsoft Fabric: Leveraging OneLake for Scalable Data Management
• James Morantus says Virtualize your Cloudera/Hadoop data estate into Fabric OneLake with Apache Ozone
• Kevin Chant (@kevchant) explains how to Operationalize fabric-cicd to work with Microsoft Fabric and YAML Pipelines
• PravakarG writes about Reliable B2B Tracking Database Schema and writes about Reliable B2B Tracking using Premium SKU Integration Account
• Clemens Schotte blogs about Azure Maps Visual in Power BI Now Supports Publish to Web
• Shannon Kuehn (@shankuehn) describes How to Find Log Ingestion Data Across All Log Analytics Workspaces Using KQL
• Katie Cummiskey writes about 6 critical phases to prepare for a successful Azure Databricks migration

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

• Timi Adebisi writes Hibernation is now Generally Available on GPU VMs
• Matt Vegas blogs about Accelerating the Intelligence Age with Azure AI Infrastructure and the GA of ND GB200 v6
• Hugo Affaticati talks about Unpacking the Performance of Microsoft Azure ND GB200 v6 Virtual Machines
• Nick Greenfield announces the public preview launch of Azure Functions durable task scheduler
• prasha01 talks about Resilience Testing with Azure Chaos Studio: Compute Failures
• Saswat Mohanty describes Running PowerShell Scripts on Azure VMs with Domain User Authentication using Azure Functions
• Sean Whalen describes Enhancing VM security: Azure's approach to safer connectivity for all users
• Chrissy LeMaire talks about Building an Intelligent Document Processor with Azure Functions

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 Retirement: Kubenet Networking for Azure Kubernetes Service to Be Retired on March 31, 2028
• Cary Chai announces GA for Azure Container Apps Serverless GPUs
• The Azure Updates Team explains how to Launched Generally Available: Serverless GPUs in Azure Container Apps with NVIDIA NIM Support
• Cory Skimming describes Azure at KubeCon Europe 2025 London, UK - April 1-4
• Chaminda Chandrasekara writes about Gracefully Shut Down dotnet 8 IHostedService App - Deployed as a Windows Container in AKS - While Scale In or Pod Deallocations
• Roy Kim (@roykimyyz) describes Exploring Azure Verified Module for Azure Kubernetes Service
• Hieun Hu covers Monitor OpenAI Agents SDK with Application Insights
• Ringe Chen explains how to Deploy Dynatrace OneAgent on your Container Apps
• On Diagrid Blog, Marc Duiker (@marcduiker) talks about State of Dapr 2025 Report
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) discusses Azure Fleet load balancing: not what you think

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

• On SQL Server Central, Frank A. Banin talks about Fabric Analytics for SQL folks: Part 1 - Fabric demystified
• Greg Low (@greglow) covers SQL Interview: 27 Copy only backups in SQL Server, and SQL Interview: 28 When computed columns are calculated in SQL Server, and SQL Interview: 29 Add column to middle of SQL Server table and SQL Interview: 30 Temporary stored procedures in SQL Server
• Kalyan Kaki describes Oracle DatabaseAzure adds support for Base Database Service, Exadata Exascale, & other enhancements

Developer Tools

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

• Chrissy LeMaire explains how to AI automation with AI Toolkit for VS Code and GitHub Models: A visual guide
• On the Visual Studio blog, Jessie Houghton explains how to Enhance Pull Request Reviews with In-Depth Feedback
• Leah Tran explains how to Find the IDE features you need with GitHub Copilot and Search
• Ruben Rios (@rub8n) describes Boost your GitHub productivity with our new multi-account support
• Sinem Akinci Allie Barry describes Introducing automatic documentation comment generation in Visual Studio
• Wassim Chegham talks about Building a DeepSeek Extension for GitHub Copilot in VS Code
• John Stallo writes about AI-Powered Load Testing in VS Code with Azure Load Testing & GitHub Copilot
• Muhammad Samiullah explains how to Deploy Your First App Using GitHub Copilot for Azure: A Beginners Guide
• On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) explains how to AI's Takeover of Software Development Gets a Name: 'Vibe Coding'
• Nate Tennant writes about Quickly add approval workflows to any list or library in Microsoft 365

DevOps

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Azure Load Testing Now Supports Locust
• The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: New Built-In Role for Azure Chaos Studio
• Shubham Agarwal Eric van Wijk blogs about Upcoming Updates for Azure Pipelines Agents Images
• Igor Najdenovski covers Introducing Java, JS and Python support in Test Plans
• Seif Bassem covers Subscription Vending, now and beyond
• Alex Mihaiuc points to an article about Troubleshooting Azure DevOps Pipelines with Sysinternals: Introducing the ProcDump Task
• Jorge Bernhardt explains how to Terraform - Getting Started with Azure Chaos Studio
• Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) blogs about Patrick Escarcega: Software Engineering Principles - Episode 341
• Roy Kim (@roykimyyz) walks through Exploring The Azure Naming Terraform Module

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Local

• John Joyner (@john_joyner) explains how to Enable Management Services for Azure Arc Machines
• Saniya Islam talks about Azure Local Performance Metrics Dashboard
• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) describes Windows Server 2025 Security Baseline and App Control

Identity

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

• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) discusses Promoting an Azure VM to a Windows AD Domain Controller – Best Practices & Considerations

Integration

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

• PravakarG writes about Reliable B2B Tracking using Premium SKU Integration Account

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

• Clemens Schotte describes Path Layer for Azure Maps Visual in Power BI and writes about Why Upgrading to the Latest Azure Maps APIs Matters
• Justine Coates (@iotgirl) talks about Using Vector Tiles for Large-Scale Geospatial Applications

Learning

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

• Lauren Tran writes about Best Practices for Leveraging Azure OpenAI in Constrained Optimization Scenarios
• Lee Stott explains how to Take Your Startup from Campus to the Cloud at the European AI and Cloud Summit
• Lee Stott blogs about The Startup Stage: Powered by Microsoft for Startups at European AI & Cloud Summit
• Joshua Huang blogs about Unlocking Java and AI Potential: Learning Plan, JavaOne, and JDConf 2025
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Joshua Huang talks about Power AI App Development with Java and Azure at Microsoft JDConf 2025
• Heather Cook highlights the EVENT RECAP ESPC 2024 - Stockholm, Sweden
• Lee Stott covers Microsoft AI Agents Hack April 8-30th 2025
• Lanna Teh explains how to Build your own conversational AI agent and share $50K in prizes with Microsoft AI Skills Fest
• Alyse Maguire discusses Prep for tests with Microsoft 365
• Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) talks about Post Event Azure AI Connect, March 2025
• Lee Stott says Build, Innovate, and #Hacktogether

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 Launched Generally Available: Azure Monitor Managed Service for Prometheus for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes
• On the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) chat about 282 - Microsoft Tech Updates
• Dan Rios (@danonazure) describes Azure Policy: Deny Log Analytics Workspaces creation without Daily Quota
• Blesson John writes about 1000 Data Map Collections
• Mahesh Sundaram discusses Azure Monitor Private Link Scope AMPLS Scale Limits Increased by 10x
• Mohit Kanojia covers Infrastructure Landing Zone - Implementation Decision-Making:
• Pete Daderko blogs about Microsoft Teams at Enterprise Connect 2025: Leading the Future of Collaboration
• Zachary Cavanell covers Introducing Copilot in the Microsoft 365 admincenters
• Michael Flanakin talks about Microsoft Cost Management updates - March 2025 summary
• Sonia Cuff walks through Managing the cost of AI: Leveraging the FinOps Framework
• Dinusha Kumarasiri blogs about Optimizing Your Cloud Spending: Planning Resource Group Costs for the Next Year

Media

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

• Anuj Bhatia writes about Conversational AI applications with Azure Communication Services and the Azure OpenAI Realtime API
• Paul Mason blogs about Customer engagement can be revolutionized with Microsoft Teams and Solgari in Azure Marketplace
• Alex Magginetti covers Copilot in Azure is now integrated in the Voice and Video Insights dashboard
• James Cadd delves into Teams Phone extensibility powered by Azure Communication Services

Migration

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

• Shreya Baheti writes about Canonical Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Reaching End of Standard Support

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

• alishamb explains how to Automated Deployment of Cross-Tenant Azure Virtual Hubs Virtual Networks Connection
• Cynthia Treger covers Combining firewall protection and SD-WAN connectivity in Azure virtual WAN
• Brendan Grill discusses Enabling Private DNS Zones with Internet Fallback
• Charlotte Forster covers The Deployment of Hollow Core Fiber HCF in Azures Network
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) describes Grafana and VNet Flow Logs

Security

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

• Belle Kriger talks about Sensor Disconnection Notifications with Microsoft Defender for IoT and Microsoft Sentinel
• Eyal Haik talks about Level up your defense: protect against attacks using stale user accounts
• Karen Chen describes Public Preview: Key Attestation for Azure Managed HSM
• Kunal Parmar talks about Microsoft Purview – Data Security Posture Management DSPM for AI
• Rajat Rajput covers Cloud Security Made Easy: Protect Your Apps with Microsoft Azure
• Yoann David Mallet blogs about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps - Ninja Training
• Mahi Choudhary covers Attestation readiness verifier for TPM reliability
• Dileep-G describes Security in AWS vs Azure: A detailed comparison
• Helmut Wagensonner describes Deprecation of Microsoft Defender Application Guard: Transitioning to Enhanced Security 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 announces Launched Generally Available: Azure NetApp Files Application Volume Group for Oracle and Launched Generally Available: Azure NetApp Files Application Volume Group for SAP HANA – Extension 1
• Trinadh Kotturu (@f2003629) writes about General Availability: Vaulted backup for Azure Files - Boost your data security and compliance
• Roy Kim (@roykimyyz) covers Resolving Errors In Azure AI Search Indexer Against Blob Storage Account

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 Retirement: Azure Spring Apps to Be Retired on March 31, 2028 and In preview Public Preview: Managed Developer Portal in Azure API Center API Center Portal
• The Azure Updates Team announces Retirement: Extended Support for Node 20 LTS Ends on April 30, 2026
• Julia Muiruri explains how to Improve LLM backend resiliency with load balancer and circuit breaker rules in Azure API Management
• Gopa Ravi describes Exposing Azure AI Foundry Endpoints with Azure API Management
• Chris Noring (@chris_noring) writes about API teams and Platform teams for better API management
• Robert Rita explains how to Deploy Your First Azure AI Agent Service on Azure App Service

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• Eric Orman explains how to Discover Azure Virtual Desktop Quickstart—now generally available
• Seneca Friend writes about In public preview: Multiple personal desktops with Azure Virtual Desktop

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"!