Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #314

powered by endjin

If you have any content you'd like to contribute to the newsletter, please tweet @AzureWeekly or ping an email to AzureWeekly@endjin.com.

Interested in Power BI? Sign up to our sister newsletter Power BI Weekly 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

• The Azure Updates Team announces that Azure Percept is in public preview, discusses the Azure Machine Learning - Public preview announcements. and Azure Machine Learning - Generally available announcements, as Ignite.
• Jamie Maguire talks about Using Azure Text to Speech
• On the Azure blog, Eric Boyd (@eric_boyd) explains how to Apply AI to your most critical business needs with new Azure AI capabilities
• Also on the Azure blog, Rohan Kumar blogs about how to Harness the power of data with Azure Data and AI

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, Azure Purview

• The Azure Updates Team announces that a Power BI Connector for Azure Databricks is now generally available
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Fikrat Azizov explains how to Ingest and process real-time data streams with Azure Synapse Analytics
• Also on the MSSQL Tips site, Ron L'Esteve explores the Capabilities of Azure Synapse Spark External Tables
• The Azure Updates Team announces that Azure Stream Analytics Dedicated is now generally available
• Sumit Sarabhai and Ravinder Singh discuss Considerations of Data Partitioning on Spark during Data Loading on Clustered Columnstore Index
• Chenye Charlie Zhu explains how to Retrieve and Reference Trigger Metadata in Pipeline
• On SQL Server Central, Kumar Sanjeev blogs about Microsoft Azure ADF - Dynamic Pipelines
• Sid Ramadoss highlights the Exciting Stream Analytics updates from Spring Ignite 2021
• Wee Hyong Tok highlights the Azure Data Factory Ignite 2021 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

• The Azure Updates Team announces that a New orchestration mode for Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets now in public preview and On-demand capacity reservations in public preview
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) explains How to fix "Missing value for AzureWebJobsStorage in local.settings.json" when youre debugging Azure Functions locally

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:
  General availability: Just-In-Time Access support in AKS,
  General availability: Deploy WebLogic on Azure Kubernetes Service AKS using custom Docker images,
  Public preview: Dynamic IP allocation & enhanced subnet support in AKS,
  General availability: Encrypted customer managed keys policy for AKS,
  General availability: App Gateway ingress controller add-on for AKS,
  Public preview: Planned maintenance windows in AKS,
  Confidential computing nodes DCSv2 on Azure Kubernetes Service AKS is generally available,
  Public preview: Calico Windows support in AKS
  and General availability: Conditional Access feature integration with AKS
• Geert Baeke (@GeertBaeke) discusses Azure Policy: Kubernetes pod security baseline
• On the DEV site, Abhishek Gupta (@abhi_tweeter) walks through Autoscaling Redis applications on Kubernetes
• Michael Withrow writes about Just-in-Time Access to Azure Kubernetes Service
• Ping Wu talks about Application Troubleshooting - Stateless/Stateful Services Cannot Be Started In Service Fabric

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:
  Advance notifications for Azure SQL Database now in public preview,
  Azure Cosmos DB: Continuous backup with point in time restore in public preview,
  Azure Synapse Link for Azure Cosmos DB: Azure Synapse serverless SQL pool support in general availability, Azure Cosmos DB API for MongoDB supports version 4.0
  and Public preview: Maintenance window for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance
• Jose M Jurado (@jmjuradodiaz) describes How to reduce the time spent of downloading a large resultset
• Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) provides an Azure SQL News Update: March 2021
• On the Microsoft BI Tools blog, Mark de Groot talks about Pausing/resuming Dedicated SQL Pools from Synapse
• On SQL Server Central, Randheer Parmar describes Using ADF to Upload Disparate CSV Files into Azure MySQL

Developer Tools

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

• Adam Bertram (@adbertram) provides A Beginners Guide to Visual Studio Code and Git
• The Azure Updates Team announces that the Azure API Management extension for Visual Studio Code now generally available
• On the DEV site, Brian Benz (@bbenz) discusses CLI Goodies and GitHub Codespaces
• Sam Cogan (@samcogan) talks about Using the Azure SDK with Pulumi
• On the Visual Studio blog, Anne Gao discusses Intelligent Visual Studio Search Service

DevOps

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

• Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) highlights that he's Added Manual Test Plan support to his Azure DevOps Cross-Platform Release notes Task
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) walks through how to Delete a git repository in Azure DevOps
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) explains How to run Robot tests on an Azure DevOps hosted agent

Hybrid

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) provides an Azure Arc Jumpstart Project
• On the Azure blog, Arpan Shah (@arpanshah) explains how to Innovate across hybrid and multicloud with new Azure Arc capabilities
• The Azure Updates Team announces: Event Hubs on Azure Stack Hub for disconnected scenarios is now GA, Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes is now GA, Windows Server 2022 is now available in preview., Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra service now in public preview, Azure Machine Learning - Arc enabled machine learning
  and Azure SQL auditing of Microsoft operations is now GA
• Mousa Janini describes Monitor replication lag for Auto-Failover Groups in SQL Managed Instance
• Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) blogs about Windows Admin Center Capabilities
• Shreya Verma (@ShreyaVermaKale) discusses Long-term backup retention on Azure SQL Managed Instance
• Vin Yu (@tiger_vin) describes Azure Arc Enabled SQL Managed Instance High Availability
• On SQL Server Central, Additional Articles walks through Using Azure SQL Data Sync to Replicate Data

Identity

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

• On the MSSQL Tips site, Rajendra Gupta covers Azure AD Authentication for Azure SQL Databases
• The Azure Updates Team announces Role-based access control RBAC with Azure Active Directory (AAD) on Azure Cosmos DB in public preview
• Damien Bowden (@damien_bod) covers Using Azure AD groups authorization in ASP.NET Core for Azure Blob Storage
• Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons) runs through Whats new in Azure AD at Microsoft Ignite
• Mirek Sztajno talks about Azure Active Directory only authentication for Azure SQL
• On Microsoft Security blog, Teri Seals-Dormer discusses Identity at Microsoft Ignite: Strengthening Zero Trust defenses in the era of hybrid work

Integration

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces Public preview: Azure Communication Services interoperability with Microsoft Teams
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Derek Li announces a Logic Apps Public Preview Refresh
• On the Serverless360 blog, Arunkumar Kumaresan blogs about Understanding the consumer side of Azure Event Hubs (Checkpoint, InitialOffsetProvider, EventProcessorHost)

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: Azure Sphere OS version 21.02 Update 1 is now available for evaluation, Device Update for IoT Hub in public preview, Azure Sphere version 21.02 is now available, Azure Remote Rendering is now GA and Azure Object Anchors is now in public preview
• Muhammad Nabeel (@abrsazi) discusses AI on IoT Edge with NVIDIA, Jetson Nano and the new Azure SDKs
• Rachel Peters discusses Driving Innovation with Azure Mixed Reality Services
• On Microsoft Security blog, Teri Seals-Dormer describes how Microsoft brings advanced hardware security to Server and Edge with Secured-core
• On the Azure blog, Roanne Sones discusses Azure Percept: Edge intelligence from silicon to service

Learning

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

• Sudarshan Krishnamurthi writes: Is your certification expiring soon? Renew it for free today!
• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) highlights the New Microsoft Security Certification Exams in Beta

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: Azure Site Recovery update rollup 54 is now generally available - February 2021, Azure Monitor Alerts for Azure Backup is in public preview,
  General availability: Application insights no-code enablement on Node.js Linux App Service Environments, General availability of Persistent Volume monitoring & Reports tab in Container Insights, Public preview: Scan and classify Amazon AWS S3 data using Azure Purview, Scan and view lineage of data stored in Teradata, SAP ERP, and Oracle DB using Azure Purview, Public preview: Azure Purview Data Catalog now supports hierarchical glossary, Public preview: Azure Purview Resource Set configuration enhancements,
  Public preview: Register Azure subscriptions and Resource Groups with Azure Purview,
  Public preview: Azure Purview Bulk Edit enhancements, Limited preview: Azure Backup now supports archive tier for backup of Azure Virtual Machines and SQL Server in Azure VMs,
  General availability: Announcing private Azure Marketplace, Public preview: Announcing new capabilities for Azure Automanage, Improve Azure Spot Virtual Machines runtime and simulate evictions with new features in public preview, Public preview: Azure Purview powered search in Azure Synapse Analytics workspaces, and Azure SQL auditing to Log Analytics and Event Hub are now generally available
• On the Microsoft BI Tools blog, Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) walks through how to Change PowerShell version in YAML
• Pierre Roman (@pierreroman) covers Azure Blueprints vs Azure Resource Manager template specs
• Cameron Gardiner provides a SAP on Azure General Update – February 2021
• On System Center Automation, Billy York blogs about Azure Application Change Analysis
• Kavya Chandra highlights that Purview now supports Non-Microsoft sources - Teradata, Oracle DB, SAP S/4HANA and SAP ECC
• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) covers Hotpatch for Windows Server Azure virtual machines VMs
• On the Azure blog, Bernardo Caldas explains how to Accelerate IT innovation with new Windows Server on Azure updates
• Chunhua Gu runs through how to Bring SSIS ETL lineage into Azure Purview Data Map
• John Kilmister (@johnkilmister) discusses Working with Tags in Azure Resource Graph Explorer
• Damien Caro highlights that AzureRM will retire by 29 February 2024
• Naga Yenamandra explains how to Organize Azure Purview Business glossary terms using hierarchies.

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces:
  Public preview: Containerize and migrate apps to Azure Kubernetes Service with Azure Migrate: App Containerization, General availability: Assessments for migration to Azure VMware Solution, Public preview: Announcing Azure Synapse Pathway: Accelerate your data warehouse migration, Generally available: Plan your migration to Azure VMware Solution using Azure Migrate and Public preview: At scale discovery and assessment for SQL Server migration to Azure SQL
• On the Hanu blog, Dave Sasson discusses Unlocking the Power of SQL on Azure Cloud
• Steve Buchanan (@buchatech) describes How to get started with SAP on Azure Including Hands-On
• Also on the Azure blog, Donovan Brown (@DonovanBrown) discusses how they're Empowering every developer to innovate with Azure
• On the Azure blog, Erin Chapple (@erinchapple) walks through Improving agility, performance, and resilience with new Azure infrastructure capabilities
• Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) covers Everything You Need to Know About Azure Infrastructure – February 2021 Edition
• On The Azure Podcast, Jeff Mitchell and Rob Kuehfus discuss Enterprise Scale Landing Zones

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 annnnounces:
  Public preview: Azure Route Server, Azure Load Balancer support for IP-based backend pool management is now generally available, Azure Spring Cloud: General availability of Managed Virtual Network and Autoscale, Multiple new features for Azure VPN Gateway in public preview,
  General availability: Public IP per node capability in AKS and General availability: New Simplified NSX networking experience for Azure VMware Solution
• Henry Yan highlights that Technical Sessions now available on key Azure Networking services
• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) covers Azure Route Server: super powers for your Network Virtual Appliance

Security

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

• The Azure updates team announces:
  Azure Security Center: Public preview updates for February 2021, Azure Backup for SAP HANA: Incremental backup is now generally available, Azure Security Center: General availability updates for February 2021, General availability: Azure API Management now has named values integration with Azure Key Vault and Azure trusted launch for Virtual Machines now in public preview
• On Azure Sentinel blog, Sarah Fender (@sarahfender), Principal Program Manager - Azure Cybersecurity, discusses What's New in Azure Sentinel (Microsoft Ignite 2021)
• Also on Azure Sentinel blog, Tamer Salman talks about how to get Visibility of Azure key vault activity in Sentinel Azure Key Vault Workbook
• Preeti Krishna (@PreetiKr007) highlights 30+ New Azure Sentinel Data Connectors
• John Reilly (@johnny_reilly) writes: Goodbye Client Affinity, Hello Data Protection with Azure
• Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) discuss Security Operations in Azure
• Matt Lowe explains how to Utilize Watchlists to Drive Efficiency During Azure Sentinel Investigations
• Alym Rayani discusses Securing and governing data in a new hybrid work reality
• Vasu Jakkal describes 4 ways Microsoft is delivering security for all in a Zero Trust world

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: Azure Backup: Operational backup for Azure Blobs is now in public preview, Public preview: Automatic key rotation of customer-managed keys for encrypting Azure managed disks, Public preview: Change performance tiers for Premium SSD managed disks with no downtime and Zone Redundant Storage ZRS option for Azure managed disks in limited preview
• Amrinder Singh walks through Troubleshooting connectivity to Blob Storage using Azure Storage Explorer with Private Endpoint and Leveraging Storage Analytics Logs to analyze who accessed the Storage Account
• Henry Yan covers Whats New in Azure Disk Storage at Microsoft Ignite 2021
• On Azure Sentinel Blog, Tom McElroy describes Blob and File Storage Investigations (Microsoft Ignite 2021)
• On the Serverless360 blog, Ezhilarasi Chezhiyan asks: Will Azure Blob Storage Rule the Unstructured Data Storage Space?
• Inderjit Rana walks through Sharing Data between Azure Subscriptions (Azure Storage, Azure SQL or Azure Synapse)

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 New Enterprise and Enterprise Flash tiers for Azure Cache for Redis now generally available
• Janani R walks through Troubleshooting 4xx and 5xx Errors with Azure APIM services
• Sajeetharan Sinnathurai describes How he built Serverless App 'MentorMe' with Azure Functions and Cosmosdb
• Marcel Zehner (@marcelzehner) talks about Azure Front Door Health Probes
• Yutang Lin announces App Service Managed Certificate (Preview) Now Supports Apex Domains

Windows Virtual Desktop

Covering: Windows 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.
• 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"!