Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #318

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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, Neta Haiby talks about how to Extract information from your documents with new capabilities in Form Recognizer
• The Azure updates team announces some Form Recognizer new features in Cognitive Services
• Zachary Cavanell runs through how to Build Semantic Search into your apps Latest in Azure Cognitive Search
• Lee Stott (@lee_stott) highlights the Microsoft AI Hackathon

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

• On the Premier Developer blog, Orrin Edenfield talks about Adding source control to Azure Synapse Analytics Studio and Using COPY command with Azure Synapse Analytics SQL Dedicated Pool
• Linda Wang writes about ADF connector updates: Azure Data Explorer, SFTP, REST and HTTP

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 Virtual machine VM level disk bursting available on all Dsv3 and Esv3 families
• Shakthi Shythanya talks about how to Upgrade public ip address and Load balancer from Basic to Standard in Azure Service Fabric

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 that Azure Kubernetes Service now supports node image autoupgrade in public preview, the Public preview of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) run-command feature, and announces Kubernetes v1.20 support in AKS, Enabling IBM WebSphere on Azure Kubernetes Service and talks about Open Service Mesh OSM add-on for AKS
• Phill Gibson announces the Announcing Public Preview of the Open Service Mesh (OSM) AKS add-on
• On SQL Server Central, Carla Abanes covers some Considerations for Running SQL Server on Kubernetes

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: Public preview: Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server now connects with Azure CLI, and Public preview: Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server now connects with Azure CLI, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server public preview available in new regions, and Insights and workbooks for Azure Cosmos DB now in public preview
  and Public preview: Zone redundant configuration for Azure SQL Database serverless compute tier
• On Channel 9, Gaston Cruz (@gastonfcruz) talks about Easy Ways to Refresh Tabular Models

Developer Tools

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

• Mark Heath (@mark_heath) covers Bicep - Why do we need yet another way to deploy stuff in Azure?
• Yannick Reekmans (@yannickreekmans) explains how to Add Developer PowerShell and Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio to Windows Terminal
• Zachary Cavanell explains how to Automate note-taking in Microsoft Teams with meeting transcription
• Garry Trinder highlights the CLI for Microsoft 365 v3.8
• Hailey Ding walks through Using AZ module to manage your Azure Service Fabric cluster
• Jon Gallant (@jongallant) discusses how to use Azure REST APIs with Postman's OAuth 2.0 Provider

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 Changes coming to Azure Pipelines free grants
• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Peter De Tender (@pdtit) discusses Controlling Release Pipelines with Gates and Azure Policy Compliance
• On Channel 9, Aaron Powell (@slace) talks about Deploying packages with GitHub Actions
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Ricardo Duncan writes about Modern Application Development
• Also on the Azure Developer Community Blog, Sagar Lankala highlights: DevTest Labs Decommissioning preview API's '2015-05-21-preview' & '2017-04-26-preview' in 90 days
• Kevin Chant writes about how to Clear up confusion about different versions of Azure DevOps

Hybrid

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Jose Moreno (@erjosito) discusses Using Route Server to firewall onprem traffic with an NVA
• The Azure updates team announces that Stream Analytics now runs on Azure Stack Hub and A performance optimization change to default settings is coming soon for Azure SQL Managed Instance
• On the Premier Developer blog, Orrin Edenfield runs through Integration with On-Premises Data Sources in Azure Synapse Analytics
• Bartek Graczyk (@graczykbartek) explains how to Optimize your Azure SQL Managed Instance cost with Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework
• Molishvinayagan R explains how to Get Started with Azure Stack HCI using VMM

Identity

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

• Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) discuss Azure spring cleaning
• Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons) runs through the March identity updates
• Russ Rimmerman explains how to Create your own custom Endpoint Administration Console using Microsoft Power Apps
• Gregor Reimling highlights that Azure AD Connect Release 1.6.2.4 is available
• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Peter De Tender (@pdtit) provides an Intro to Service Principals
• On Channel 9, Julie Fryer talks about Better app token security through Application Roles
• On the DEV site, Aaron Powell (@slace) blogs about Making Auth Simpler for Static Web App APIs

Integration

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

• The Azure updates team announces that Azure Event Grid now provides support for delivery headers and additional advanced filters among other updates and that Azure Communication Services is generally available
• Linishya Vaz highlights a video series on Security & Compliance within the Azure API for FHIR and one on Ingesting data into FHIR from your EMR

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 highlights that Azure Sphere OS version 21.03 is now generally available
• On Tech Community blog, James Scott runs through Building a Balancing Robot with Azure Sphere
• Lee Stott (@lee_stott) discusses the Azure Sphere Balance Bot - Academic Engagement around IOT and Embedded services
• Em Lazer-Walker discusses Exploring the Whole World in VR with Bing 3D Maps and MRTK
• Sudhanva Huruli discusses Azure Sphere

Learning

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

• Adam Marczak (@MarczakIO) continues his series on AZ-900, covering SLA in Azure and Composite SLA

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

• On the Azure blog, Michael Flanakin (@flanakin) runs through the Azure Cost Management and Billing updates – March 2021
• The Azure updates team announces ExpressRoute monitoring in Azure Monitor network insights
• Naga Yenamandra explains how to Modify at scale annotations and contacts for data assets using bulk edit capabilities.
• On System Center Automation, Billy York provides some Azure Cost Management JSON Body Examples
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) talks about Importing Terraform State in Azure
• Stas Lebedenko (@angry_stas) walks through How to do health checks for Azure functions and Web Apps.
• Heyko Oelrichs discusses Globally distributed load tests in Azure with Locust

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

• Brandon Wilson writes about Why Hyper-V Live Migrations Fail with 0x8009030E
• Sakshi Budhraja writes about Collective expertise to help you move your SAP landscape to the cloud
• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) talks about Cloud Adoption Framework Enterprise-Scale Series and Livestream

Mobile

Covering: App Service (Mobile), Mobile apps, Notification Hubs, Visual Studio App Centre, Xamarin

• On Channel 9, Andrew Hoefling talks about Platform Perfect Popups - Part 2
• Arjav Dave (@arjavdave) walks through How To Set Up Azure DevOps CI/CD Pipelines for Android

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 Private Link for Azure Cache for Redis in general availability
• Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) covers how to Use Azure VPN Gateway To Route Traffic Between Spoke Networks
• Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) discusses Controlling Azure SQL Firewall Rules
• Tobi Otolorin talks about Role Based Access Control for Azure Firewall
• Vishal Ani describes how to Use private endpoints for your Azure Purview account

Security

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

• The Azure updates team announces that Encryption scopes in Azure Storage now generally available, and Networking for Key Vault references on Windows in App Service and Azure Functions and highlights that Wire Data 2.0 preview will be retired on 31 March 2022
• Mohit Kumar writes about New Detections for Azure Firewall in Azure Sentinel
• Yuri Diogenes (@yuridiogenes) walks through Detecting who is changing Alert Suppression rules in Azure Defender
• On Microsoft Security blog, Emma Jones blogs about Securing our approach to domain fronting within Azure
• Anthony Bartolo (@WirelessLife) blogs about Zonal Capabilities for Azure Site Recovery, Azure Security Center Compliance and more
• Natalia Godyla and Tanya Janca discuss How to build a successful application security program

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 Data Explorer external tables and that Backup for Azure Managed Disk is now generally available
• Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) discusses Pricing up Azure Files
• On the Trailhead blog, Rachel Hagerman runs through some Dos and Donts for Streaming File Uploads to Azure Blob Storage with .NET MVC
• On the Codit blog, Gonçalo Chaves explains How to Use Azure API Management Service as Frontstage of a Blob Storage Account
• On the Azure blog, Tad Brockway (@tadbrockway) highlights that you can Discover cloud storage solutions at Azure Storage Day on April 29
• Michael Crump (@mbcrump) runs through How to use Blob versioning in Azure Storage

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 that Azure Static Web Apps now supports deployment with Azure DevOps and Service Tags for User Defined Routing
• Hailey Ding describes How to troubleshoot CORS error in Azure API Management service

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.
• 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"!