Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #286

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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 Channel 9, Seth Juarez (@sethjuarez) talks about Trove - Connecting AI/ML developers for sharing high-quality data for training their Computer Vision AI projects
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Fikrat Azizov explains how to Create an Azure Data Factory inventory using Databricks
• On the Azure Medium blog, Luca Zavarella explains How To Create Custom Docker Base Images For Azure Machine Learning Environments

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

• The Azure updates team announces How to start with Azure Data Explorer (A new online course), that 1-click now supports mapping transformations in Azure Data Explorer and that Azure Data Explorer Streaming Ingestion is generally available
• On Channel 9, Anna Hoffman and Ron Sewell discuss How to Use .NET Interactive Jupyter Notebooks in Daily Work-Life
• On Azure Medium, Inderjit Rana discusses Azure Synapse Data Load using Polybase or Copy Command from VNET protected Azure Storage

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

• Gregor Suttie (@gregor_suttie) walks through Changing Azure VMs Default Locale
• On the Azure podcast, Chris Gillum (@cgillum) describes Durable Functions

Containers

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

• On the DEV site, Abhishek Gupta (@abhi_tweeter) writes about Kafka on Kubernetes, the Strimzi way (Part 4)
• Also on the DEV site, Jay Gordon (@jaydestro) discusses Azure Containers with Erik St. Martin

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 that A performance optimization change to default settings is coming soon in Azure SQL Database
• On the Azure blog, John 'jg' Chirapurath lists Eight ways to optimize costs on Azure SQL
• On the DEV site, Abhishek Gupta (@abhi_tweeter) describes How to use Azure Go SDK to manage Azure Data Explorer clusters
• On Channel 9, Shreya Verma (@ShreyaVermaKale) talks about Automated Backups in Azure SQL (Part 2)

Developer Tools

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

• June Castillote (@junecastillote) describes How to Set Up Visual Studio Code to Work with GitHub
• On Microsoft + Open Source, Pui Chee Chan And Mark Gray introduces Azure Tools, a new blog community for Azure command line tools

DevOps

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

• Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) discusses Infrastructure as Code with Joe Duffy
• Henry Been (@henry_been) walks through Managing Azure DevOps YAML Environments through the REST APIs
• Tim Anderson (@timanderson) describes Wrestling with Azure DevOps Pipelines
• As always, on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Steven Murawski (@StevenMurawski) lists the Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community
• On the Premier Developer blog, Andrew Kanieski discusses Measuring Concurrent Jobs Over Time in Azure DevOps
• On Channel 9, Frank Boucher and Abel Wang discuss Variables (ARM Series #5)

Hybrid

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) blogs about Managing Your Hybrid Cloud using Azure Arc and covers the launch of the The Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions Video Series
• On the Azure blog, Auston Li walks through Monitoring Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes and servers

Identity

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

• Mariano Gomez discusses Working with Microsoft Graph API and Teams Connector
• The Azure updates team announces that Azure Active Directory Registration Service is ending support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1
• On the Azure SQL Database blog, Mirek Sztajno announces a public preview of Support for Azure AD user creation on behalf of Azure AD Applications for Azure SQL
• Also on the Azure SQL Database blog, Shoham Dasgupta announces Enhanced support for Azure AD Guest Users for Azure SQL

Integration

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

• On the Azure podcast, Clemens Vasters discusses Messaging Services
• Mike Pfeiffer (@mike_pfeiffer) writes about Building Self-Service Cloud Environments

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 announces that Azure Sphere update 20.07 is now available
• On the DEV site, Dave Glover (@dglover) explains how to Build an Air Pollution Monitor with a Raspberry Pi, a Particulate Matter sensor and IoT Central
• Gregor Suttie (@gregor_suttie) provides a QuickStart on How to get started with Azure Maps
• On the IoT Dev blog, Ricardo Minguez (@ridomin) discusses the fact that Advanced authoring for Digital Twins models is now in Visual Studio and VS Code
• The Azure updates team highlights that you should Migrate to the new version of the Azure Time Series Insights Gen2 APIs and announces that IoT Plug and Play new features are now in public preview

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, Sceduler

• On the Azure blog, Michael Flanakin (@flanakin) walks through the Azure Cost Management + Billing updates
• The Azure updates team walks through the Azure Site Recovery update rollup 48, highlights that the Azure Log Analytics saved searches functionality is moving to query explorer, and that Azure Monitor Log Analytics Quick Start content is moving to the Overview page and announces that Azure Monitor Community Repository is now available
• Steve Buchanan (@buchatech) highlights that the "Inside Azure Management" sessions are now on YouTube
• Barry Luijbregts (@azurebarry) discusses Evaluating and Controlling Cloud Costs: Executive Briefing

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

• On the SQL Server Blog, John 'jg' Chirapurath writes about More ways to save when you migrate SQL Server data to Azure SQL
• On the Azure blog, Erin Rifkin discusses Creating cloud ready environments with Azure landing zones
• On the Azure blog, Naga Surendran provides Three reasons to migrate your ASP.NET apps and SQL Server data to Azure

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 HDInsight now supports virtual network service endpoint policies and that Azure IoT Device Provisioning Service VNET ingress support is now available
• Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) discusses Connectivity in Azure Virtual WAN
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) writes about Two Azure IP Addresses You Need to Know About

Security

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

• Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains how to Protect Hybrid Workloads from Threats using Azure Security Center
• Stephane Lapointe (@s_lapointe) writes about How-to use customer-managed keys with Azure Key Vault and Azure Storage encryption using ARM Templates

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

• On the Azure blog, Yuan Zheng highlights that NFS 3.0 support for Azure Blob storage is now in preview
• The Azure updates team announces that you can now Allocate resources automatically for Azure Blob Storage data connection in Azure Data Explorer and that Network File System 3.0 protocol support in Azure Blob storage is now in preview
• On the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott Hoag and Ben Stegink (@msclouditpro) present: "Are You Inspired Yet?" - All the announcements from Inspire
• The Azure updates team announces that Azure Autoscale is now generally available in China North 2 and China East 2 regions

Web

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

• Anthony Chu explains how to Authenticate Blazor WebAssembly with Azure Static Web Apps
• Nitya Narasimhan writes about Inclusive Design For Emerging Markets: A Static Web Apps Discussion
• Nori Suzuki has shared a talk on Azure Static Web App Manga
• Suzanne Chen (@suzannechen) highlights talks on Observability in serverless applications
• Wassim Chegham (@manekinekko) explains Why static sites are back
• Chris Noring (@chris_noring) blogs about talks on The inner workings of a static web app
• Suzanne Chen (@suzannechen) highlights talks on A11y for everyone: Building inclusive and accessible web applications

Learning

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

• Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) discusses Studying for AI-900
• Adam Marczak (@MarczakIO) discusses AZ-900 Episode 7 - Geographies, Regions & Availability Zones
• Mike Pfeiffer (@mike_pfeiffer) writes about How to Become a Certified Azure Solutions Architect

Windows Virtual Desktop

Covering: Windows Virtual Desktop

• On the Azure blog, Kam Vedbrat highlights that New Windows Virtual Desktop capabilities now generally available
• The Azure updates team announces that Windows Virtual Desktop Azure portal and Microsoft Teams integrations are generally available and that Remote Desktop client for Android now supports Windows Virtual Desktop connections
• On Channel 9, Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) talks about Enabling secure remote work using Windows Virtual Desktop
• And, on his blog, Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) provides a WVD technical deployment walkthrough

Useful Links

• 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!
• Azure Quickstart Templates - Learn how to deploy to Azure using ARM Templates. Over 850 examples in this repo.
• 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.
• A-Z of the Azure ecosystem - a slide deck outlining current Azure services.
• 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"!