Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #320

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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

• The Azure updates team writes about Cognitive Services - New Computer Vision API v3.2 now generally available and talks about Public preview: Cognitive Services- Anomaly Detector now supports multivariate anomaly detection
• On the DEV site, Henk Boelman (@hboelman) writes about 4 Sessions not to miss on the Global AI Student Conference
• Kelvin Chen explains how to Learn about Bot Framework Composers new authoring experience and deploy your bot to a telephone
• Dmitry Soshnikov covers Analyzing COVID Medical Papers with Azure and Text Analytics for Health
• Ayşegül Yönet (@AysSomething) talks about Integrating AI: Best Practices and Resources to Get Started with Azure Cognitive Services

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

• Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) shares his summary of findings from this excellent series Importing Data From ADLSgen2 Into Power BI.
• The Azure updates team share that Apache Spark 3.0 is now available for public preview in HDInsight 4.0. and explain how to Reduce dataflow execution time with cluster reuse public preview in Azure Data Factory
• Mark Kromer (@kromerbigdata) describes How to startup your data flows execution in less than 5 seconds Public Preview
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Ron L'Esteve talks about Getting Started with MLflow in Azure Databricks
• Vishal Ani describes how to register your Azure Synapse workspace in Azure Purview for at scale governance

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

• Jeff Brown walks through Getting Started with Azure Functions Tutorial Example-Driven Guide
• On Code Project, Glenn Prince (@Glenn_Prince) blogs about Creating a Complete Serverless Cloud Native Application on Azure
• Also on Code Project, Sander Rossel (@SanderRossel) explains how to Build a Complete Microservice
• On the Azure blog, Kevin Raines blogs about Microsoft powers transformation at NVIDIA GTC—GPU technology conference
• Orin Thomas blogs about Using the Serial Console on Windows IaaS VMs
• Athinanthny Senthil talks about Service Fabric Community Q&A call 53

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 writes about General availability: Create AKS clusters without local user accounts and writes about General availability: Encryption at host support in AKS
• Pixel Robots. blogs about Azure Key vault access on Azure Kubernetes Service using the new AKS add-on
• Anna Hoffman and Amit Khandelwal talk about how to Use Helm Charts from Windows Client Machine to Deploy SQL Server 2019 Containers on Kubernetes Data Exposed and Magdy Salem writes about How-To: Deploy Microservice application with Pod Identity using Helm Chart
• On Code Project, Glenn Prince (@Glenn_Prince) walks through Creating Your First Kubernetes Cluster On Azure and talks about Deploying Containers to Kubernetes on Azure

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 covers Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale Citus Basic in public preview, describes Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale Citus same region read replicas in public preview and talks about Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Hyperscale Citus maintenance schedules in public preview
• Onder Kalaci walks through Sharding Postgres with Basic tier in Hyperscale Citus, how why & when
• Jovan Popovic (@jocapc) discusses Query serverless SQL pool from an Apache Spark Scala notebook
• Jose M Jurado (@jmjuradodiaz) talks about Lesson Learned 169: Bulk Insert using Python in Azure SQL
• Melania Nitu covers Custom RBAC to access QPI's query text with minimal permissions
• Jakub Szymaszek (@JakubSzymaszek) blogs about Royal Bank of Canada using Always Encrypted with secure enclaves
• On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Kyle Teegarden provides Six reasons to join us at RedisConf 2021
• On the SQL Server Blog, Bob Ward (@bobwardms) discusses Azure SQL digital event: Innovate today with Azure SQL
• Haozhou explains how to Find out which On-premises Data Gateways are used by which API connection resources

Developer Tools

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

• The Azure updates team describes Public preview: Azure Machine Learning VS Code Integration
• On the Visual Studio blog, Justin Johnson writes that Visual Studio 2019 v16.10 Preview 2 Releases Today
• On the Visual Studio blog, Mark Downie (@poppastring) explains how to Managed Memory Dump Analyzers
• On Tech Community blog, Jason Yi explains how to Hidden Treasure Part 2: Mining Additional Insights from DiskSpd
• Kevin Chant describes T-SQL Tuesday 137 – Using Notebooks more with Azure Data Engineering services
• On Channel 9, Dan Wahlin Ayca Bas talks about Developer's guide to Microsoft Graph Learn Together: Building Apps with Microsoft Graph

DevOps

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

• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Angel Wong writes about Personal Access Token Lifecycle APIs now publicly available
• Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) talks to Paul Yuknewicz about Azure Development - Episode 136
• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Gloridel Morales blogs about Azure DevOps Server 2020.1 RC2 now available and blogs about April patches for Azure DevOps Server and Team Foundation Server
• Jay Gordon (@jaydestro) shares AzureFunBytes Episode – Intro to Azure Machine Learning with Henk Boelman and DevOps Fireside Chats – March 2021 Review
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) talks about Azure DevOps – Configure Self Hosted Agent for Azure Pipelines, covers Azure DevOps – This agent request is not running because you have reached the maximum number of requests, covers Azure DevOps – Copy Files from git Repository to Azure Storage Account and discusses Azure DevOps – Convert Classic UI Pipelines to YAML Pipelines
• On Channel 9, David Blank-Edelman and Victoria Almazova talk about Exploring the tools for DevSecOps in a CI/CD Pipeline on Azure Azure Enablement
• Lee Stott (@lee_stott) covers DevOps with Github Learning Path - GitHub Repo and Resources and writes about All Around Azure DevOps with GitHub Live Event 27th April 2021
• Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) discusses Deploying Azure Bicep using GitHub Actions

Hybrid

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• On Channel 9, Sarah Lean, Brian Blanchard & Jeff Amels talk about Preparing your cloud strategy with technical considerations Azure Enablement

Identity

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

• The Azure updates team covers Azure Automation support for System Assigned Managed Identities is now in public preview
• Nicolas Bonnet (@nico_bonnet) talks about Defender for Identity
• Jay Gordon (@jaydestro) discusses AzureFunBytes Episode 39 - Microsoft Identity with ChristosMatskas
• Tobias Zimmergren Jussi Roine writes about Ctrl+Alt+Azure Episode 077 - Publishing with Azure AD Application Proxy
• Sonia Cuff (@soniacuff) writes about Dynamic Groups in Azure AD and Microsoft 365
• Yanelis Lopez explains how to Eliminate Password-Based Attacks on Azure Linux VMs

Integration

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

• Trevor Davis (@vtrevordavis) talks about Azure VMware Solution & Azure Service Health
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) describes How to fix LinkedAuthorizationFailed when deploying an Azure Logic App

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 announce that Azure Maps Weather Services are now generally available
• On the Azure blog, Christoph Berlin explains how to Build secure manufacturing operations with nesting capabilities for Azure IoT Edge
• The Azure updates team covers Azure IoT Edge 1.2.0 release is now generally available, and General availability: Azure IoT Central new and updated features—March 2021, and Azure IoT Edge nesting capabilities are now generally available, and General availability: Event source start options in Azure Time Series Insights Gen2 and General availability: Azure Sphere version 21.04 expected on April 29, 2021
• On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch Ricardoesway talks about Nested IoT Edge devices and offline dashboards Internet of Things Show

Learning

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

• Jen Looper (@jenlooper) talks about Making Games with Autistic Students: A Partnership between the National Museum of Computing, Track.org, and Azure Advocates

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

• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) discusses Azure Advisor: How to Improve performance, security, and reliability of your Azure VMs
• Thuan Nguyen explains how to Deny Azure Role Assignment with Azure Policy
• The Azure updates team describes Log Analytics Windows Agent for Winter 2021 now generally available, and General availability: Log analytics workspace name uniqueness is now per resource group, and General availability: New Azure Policy built-in definitions for data encryption in Azure Monitor and Public preview: Functions upgrade in Azure Monitor log analytics
• The Azure updates team talks about MSIX app attach in Azure portal now generally available
• Christine Alford (@heyalford) blogs about Azure Marketplace new offers - Volume 130
• Wan Chung Huang describes How Cloud Computing benefits IT Budgeting and Financial Report
• Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) writes about Effective March 31, 2021, the Azure portal will no longer support Internet Explorer 11. Start using the new Microsoft Edge for speed, security and privacy
• Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) talks about Azure Unblogged - Azure Update Management
• The Azure updates team discusses Public preview - Support for multiple currencies on Retail Rates API for all Azure products/services
• The Azure updates team covers User data through Azure Instance Metadata Service now generally available

Media

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

• Haim Sabo writes about New ways to train custom language models – effortlessly
• Itai Norman covers Getting started with Video Indexer v2 API
• Yonit Hoffman explains how to Combine the Power of Video Indexer and Computer Vision

Migration

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

• On Channel 9, Damian Brady and Day Gordon talk about On Prem To The Cloud: Migrating to Azure SQL episode 7 The DevOps Lab

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

• Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains how to Deploy Azure Network Address Translation NAT Gateway
• Camila Martins describes Azure Web Application Firewall: WAF config versus WAF policy
• Mahesh Kshirsagar explains How does Azure Policies in Enterprise-scale Landing Zone help
• Nick Banks blogs about Making MsQuic Blazing Fast

Security

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

• Banu Jafarli talks about De-risk your lateral movement paths with Microsoft Defender for Identity
• Ely Abramovitch covers Whats new: Azure Sentinel Incident timeline
• Stanislav Belov discusses Security Control: Implement security best practices
• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) explains how to Stop typing PowerShell credentials in demos using PowerShell SecretManagement

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 writes about General availability: Azure Blob storage supports objects up to 200 TB in size and General availability: Lustre HSM tools now available to import from or export to Azure Storage.
• Henry Yan explains how to Discover cloud storage solutions at Azure Storage Day April 29
• Sandro Pereira (@sandro_asp) provides A fish out of water: Azure Storage Emulator Could not find a LocalDB Installation

Web

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

• The Azure updates team discusses Azure API Management support for Availability Zones now generally available
• Meghali Chakraborty walks through Setting up Client Certificate Authentication for WCF Service hosted as an Azure Web App
• Vesa Juvonen (@vesajuvonen) describes Microsoft 365 Developer Community Call recording – 15th of April, 2021

Windows Virtual Desktop

Covering: Windows Virtual Desktop

• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) explains how to Deploy Windows Virtual Desktop WVD Session Hosts with Azure DevOps
• Freek Berson (@fberson) talks about Bicep code snippets for WVD
• Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) writes about Microsoft meets Community: Windows Virtual Desktop fourth – One Year Anniversary edition recap and content sharing

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"!