Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #367

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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

• On the Azure blog, Aimee Garcia discusses Azure delivers strong MLPerf inferencing v2.0 results from 1 to 8 GPUs
• Kevin Raines provides A quick start guide to benchmarking AI models in Azure: MLPerf Inferencing v2.0
• Steve DeMarco talks about Form Recognizer Solution Accelerator
• Foteini Savvidou explains how to Build an AI web app with Azure Cognitive Services and Flask

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 the General Availabilty of: Apache Spark 3.1.2 in Azure HDinsight and Apache Kafka 2.4 in Azure HDinsight
• The Azure Updates Team announces the General Availability of: Azure Data Explorer supports Azure private endpoints and Azure Data Explorer Inline script deployment with ARM Template
• Ron L'Esteve blogs about Getting Started with Databricks Delta Live Tables
• ashokanms talks about Performance Optimizations for Applications using Azure Data Explorer
• Vincent-Philippe Lauzon covers ARM Deploy Azure Data Explorer DB with Event Hub connection
• On SQL Server Central, Arindam Mondal discusses Understanding Azure Data Factory Pricing
• Dany Hoter talks about Sampling the results of a query to be visualize in a line chart
• Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) discusses Azure SQL April 2022 New Updates Data Exposed
• Guy Reginiano writes about Multiple databases per data connection Multi DB data connection

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 Public preview: Arm64-based Azure VMs can deliver up to 50% better price-performance and Public preview: Azure Virtual Machines DCsv3 available in Switzerland and West US
• Paul Nash writes about Now in preview: Azure Virtual Machines with Ampere Altra Arm-based processors
• Jerry Morey explains how to Deploy Multi-Region HPC clusters in Azure with CycleCloud
• Priya Shan announces that Increase remote storage performance with Azure Ebsv5 VMs - now generally available and Pam Lahoud announces general availability of the Ebdsv5 series Azure VMs
• The Azure Updates Team announces Generally available: Azure Virtual Machines increase storage throughput by up to 300%
• Mengyang Chen talks about Azure Functions V4 Versus V3

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 Public preview: Capacity reservation support in AKS
• Richard Hooper (@Pixel_Robots) talks about Bring your own Container Network Interface CNI plugin with Azure Kubernetes Service AKS PREVIEW
• The Dapr Maintainers (@daprdev) announce Dapr v1.7 is now available
• On Dapr Blog, Javier Vela & Adolfo Gonzalez explains How Dapr helped Dedalow accelerate development on AWS and 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

• On the Azure podcast Episode 419 Abhishek Tiwar chats about Azure Front Door
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Koen Verbeeck (@Ko_Ver) discusses Snowflake vs Azure SQL Database
• Rajendra Gupta (@rajendragupta16) blogs about Price Differences for Azure Cosmos DB Provisioned or Serverless Throughput Cost
• Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) blogs about Azure SQL News Update: April 2022
• Jose M Jurado (@jmjuradodiaz) describes Lesson Learned 195: Performance Best Practices for Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance.
• Mustafa Ashour covers Tips & Tricks 2: SQL Server Profiler xEvents for Azure SQL DB
• Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) explains how to Develop applications faster with Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server Data Exposed
• Danimir Ljepava (@danimir) blogs about Online Database Move and Copy for SQL Managed Instance Private Preview
• Sabrin Alsahsah describes How to avoid VA alert VA1219: Transparent data encryption should be enabled and describes How to mitigate VA alert VA1219: Transparent data encryption should be enabled

Developer Tools

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

• On the Azure blog, Tom Keane (@tomwkeane) walks through Empowering space development off the planet with Azure
• John Reilly (@johnny_reilly) talks about ESLint your C# in VS Code with Roslyn Analyzers
• On the Visual Studio blog, Nik Karpinsky blogs about CPU Usage Tool Improvements
• Tobias Zimmergren (@zimmergren) writes about Favorite Visual Studio Code extensions

DevOps

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

• Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) describes Fix for Azure DevOps deployment to an environment stuck in Job is pending state
• Nitin Garg explains How to Create a Test Plan Using Azure DevOps
• Devops Dojo discusses Lean Product – Part 2
• Jack Roper describes Setting up Scalr with Azure DevOps—Picking a workflow and Setting up Scalr with Azure DevOps—Add Azure credentials
• Praveen Kumar Sreeram (@PrawinSreeram) talks about Azure DevOps Tips – Create bulk Variables to Variable Groups using Azure DevOps CLI
• Antti K. Koskela (@koskila) blogs about Azure DevOps incoming webhook just wont fire Easy stupid fix
• Akshay Attota covers CI-CD for Synapse Dedicated SQL Pool using YAML templates
• Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) talks about Azure Resource Manager ARM Template Specs

Hybrid + Multicloud

Covering: Azure Arc, Azure Stack

• Steve Buchanan (@buchatech) talks about Co-hosting in an Azure Hybrid Cloud Study Hall Series and Thomas Maurer explains how to Learn Live: Azure Hybrid Cloud Study Hall
• On the Azure Medium blog, Andre Camillo explains How to achieve End-to-End encryption in times of Hybrid environments
• On Code Project, Ben Hallio covers Deploying to Azure Arc via Azure Application Services Part 1: Getting Started with Azure Application Services, and Part 2: Running Azure Functions Anywhere and Part 3: Deploying a Multi-cloud Azure App Service Web App

Identity

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

• The Azure Updates Team announces Update: Azure AD Graph retirement date
• Damien Bowden (@damien_bod) describes Implementing OAuth2 Client credentials flow APP to APP security using Azure AD non interactive
• Anuraj Parameswaran discusses Block Azure B2C Users with Microsoft Graph and ASP.NET Core
• Alex Weinert writes about Holistic compromised identity signals from Microsoft
• Dilip Radhakrishnan writes about Remote help: enterprise-grade assistance tool now available
• Kristina Hotz explains how to Understand the state of devices across your organization in seconds
• Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) explains how to Create Azure credentials for use in GitHub Actions
• Monojit Datta explains how to Automate Secret Rotation in Key Vault

Integration

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

• Simon Waight (@simonwaight) explains How to consume GraphQL APIs from Azure Logic Apps
• Sander van de Velde talks about Event Grid custom Event Source and Handler
• Stefan Georgiev (@stg3orgi) blogs about Azure API Management networking explained

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 Generally available: Support for copying tiles added to Azure IoT Central and Generally available: Support for Private Link in Azure IoT Central
• Sander van de Velde walks through Adding context using EventData properties in Azure Stream Analytics
• Anthony Chen announces Public Preview for NXP i.MX 8M on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise
• Howard Ginsburg talks about Batch Integration for Azure Digital Twins with Azure Data Factory
• Ramit Malhotra delves into The Azure IoT Java Device SDK just got in shape for the summer Update Now
• Taylor Anderson talks about Creating Dashboards with Azure Digital Twins, Azure Data Explorer, and Grafana

Learning

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

• Gita Sharma writes about Ready to renew your Microsoft Certification Get started with our top FAQs.
• Nancy Tandy describes Microsoft Power Platform lights up a young learners passion for tech
• Sonia Cuff (@soniacuff) blogs about The top technical skills for the modern IT Pro

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 Generally available: Diagnostic audit logs for Automation accounts
• Debpriya Bose explains how to Achieve cost-effectiveness using vault-archive tier for Azure Backup
• Edoardo Zonca provides A Starting Point for Monitoring Azure
• Rahul Bagaria talks about Azure Monitor Tech Community rebranded to Azure Observability
• Roy Gal blogs about Log Analytics results upgrade
• Shravana Mukherjee talks about The journey to cloud-based device management
• Zachary Cavanell discusses Updates to Windows management with Endpoint Manager Cloud attach, remote help, drivers & more
• Aria Carley writes about Seamless update experience for organizations on Windows 11
• Lior Bela discusses Windows Autopatch FAQ
• Martin Pankraz writes about Of Kings & Queens and SAP scans to identify the right lineage for a marriage proposal
• Yvette O'Meally explains how to Update 2203 for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager current branch is now available

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

• Yi Yang explains How To Migrate Cloud Services Classic Across Subscriptions

Mobile

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

• Chris Palmer describes Checklist for advanced calling experiences in mobile web browsers

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

• Jose Varela talks about Optimizing Azure Application Gateway with the Well-Architected Framework

Security

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

• Liana Tomescu covers Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Cloud- which dashboard should you use?
• TJ Banasik writes about Next Evolution of the Microsoft Sentinel Zero Trust TIC 3.0 Solution
• The Azure Updates Team describes Public preview: Azure Bastion support for Kerberos authentication

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 General availability: Azure Backup now supports vault-archive tier for Azure VMs
• The Azure Updates Team announces Generally available: Azure storage table access using Azure Active Directory
• The Azure Updates Team announces Public preview: Azure Backup supports metrics and metric alerts for Azure Blobs
• Jerome Liu covers Guidance for copy blobs between storage accounts with network restriction
• Shruti Pathak talks about Azure Cache for Redis TLS: Upcoming migration to DigiCert Global G2 CA Root

Web

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

• Hanli Ren discusses Use php-fpm log to troubleshoot PHP 8 Linux Azure App Service
• Justin Yoo (@justinchronicle) talks about Azure Apps Autopilot 2 - Deployment Script
• Aaron Powell (@slace) blogs about Accessing a Static Web Apps Url From GitHub Actions
• John Metzger walks through Migrating Active Server Pages applications to Azure App Services
• Xinyu Shan writes about ASEv3 VS ASEv2 - Difference Overview

Azure Virtual Desktop

Covering: Azure Virtual Desktop

• Tristan Scott covers Whats next in Windows 365 for hybrid work
• Eugenie Burrage describes The endpoint manager's guide to what's coming in Windows 11
• Zachary Cavanell talks about Windows 365 updates

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"!