Azure Weekly

Issue #167 - 25th March 2018

The most notable news in this week's edition, which the majority of you may have already picked up, is that Service Fabric is going open source. Just another move that shows Microsoft's commitment to open source!

Another exciting announcement this week is the Common Data Service for Analytics which is coming soon to PowerBI, which will serve to simplify business data analytics processes, offering: a multitude of connectors, the ablility to set standard schema, and Out-of-the-Box solutions. Similarly, read here about the Common Data Service for Apps Spring update.

Here's some other noteworthy news from the past week:

For you Cosmos DB enthusiasts, take a look at the Azure Cosmos DB query cheat sheets and have a read of Real-World Partitioning CosmosDb by Peter Rombouts.

A couple of other interesting articles are: Microsoft helps launch worlds first blockchain-based investment product, and Yousef Khalidi talks about SONiC, the network innovation powerhouse behind Azure.

Finally, we'd like to point out the Global Azure Bootcamp 2018 taking place on Saturday, 21st April. Get involved at your local event by either organizing, volunteering, sponsoring, promoting or just attending the event!

⚙️ AI + Machine Learning

Also on MSDN, the Nav Team posts Smart solutions 6: Income predictor for Dynamics NAV
On Channel 9, Seth Juarez talks about Experimentation using Notebooks in Azure ML with remote compute [Part 3/4] with Parashar Shah on the AI Show

🔎 Analytics

Tony Smith (@tpsmith99) and Alice Kupcik write about GDPR – Implementing a Taxonomy in Azure Data Catalog Step by Step
On the Power BI blog, Arun Ulag writes Coming soon to Power BI: Common Data Service for Analytics
Also on the Power BI blog, Amanda Cofsky gives a Power BI Report Server Update – March 2018
Chris Webb (@Technitrain) describes Improving The Performance Of Aggregation After A Merge In Power BI And Excel Power Query/Get&Transform and writes about the Power BI Roadmap Announcements In the Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release Notes
On The SQLBI Blog, Marco Russo describes Capturing Power BI queries using DAX Studio
Devin Knight (@knight_devin) presents Power BI Custom Visuals Class Module 94 – Count Down Timer
Also on the Power BI blog, Charles Sterling (@chass) points out the Week of 3/19 webinars: Advanced Tricks on manipulating structured JSON with Flow and Enhance Power BI Visualization with R
On TechNet, Rachel Mason highlights the Data & Analytics technical webinars – March, April & May

🖥️ Compute

On the Azure blog, Raman Sharma points to the Serverless computing recipe book for your cloud applications
On MSDN, Pete Rodriguez describes Changing the License Type for an existing Virtual Machine Scale Set to use the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit
On TechNet, Adam Lichtenberg blogs about Course 2 of 11: – Provision and Manage Virtual Machines
John Savill walks through Deploying an Azure IaaS VM using PowerShell
Mark Heath (@mark_heath) describes Managing Azure Functions Keys
Also on MSDN, Lee Stott (@lee_stott) and Kristjan Košič describe Using Microsoft Azure to setup ARK Blockchain for Hacks and Blockchain Challenges
Also on the Azure blog, Cody Born announces that Improved multi-member Blockchain networks now available on Azure

🚢 Containers

On Channel 9, Alena Hall has a Treehouse discussion: submitting Spark jobs using Kubernetes scheduler on AKS with Bernd Verst on the Open Source Show and presents Part 2 of 4: Create an Azure Container Instance with the container image on the Open Source Show
Also on MSDN, the Service Fabric Team provides a Service Fabric Customer Profile: Honeywell
On the Revolution Analytics blog, David Smith (@revodavid) covers R and Docker

🗄️ Databases

On the Azure blog, Tobias Ternstrom announces the General availability of Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL, on the Azure blog. Here are the Name changes: Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Name changes: Azure Database for MySQL
Also on the Azure blog, Kevin Farlee announces the Columnstore support in Standard tier Azure SQL Databases
Also on the Azure blog, Ye Gu highlights the Azure Redis Cache feature updates
Also on the Azure blog, Mark Bolz writes Securing Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL and describes the Compliance offerings for Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Also on MSDN, Yochanan Rachamim explains how to Stop / Cancel ongoing Azure SQL DB scale operation
On TechNet, Theo van Kraay discusses Azure Cosmos DB – Tunable Consistency
Peter Rombouts delves into Real-World Partitioning CosmosDb

🛠️ Developer Tools

On .NET Rocks, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell present Surviving Microservices with Michele Bustamante
On the Azure blog, Yaron Prigal writes Deploying WordPress Application using Visual Studio Team Services and Azure – Part two
On the Black Marble blog, Richard Fennell writes Using VSTS Gates to help improve my deployment pipeline of VSTS Extensions to the Visual Studio Marketplace
On MSDN, Dave Harrison describes How Microsoft Does DevOps – an Interview with Aaron Bjork, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services VSTS
Also on MSDN, Keith Beller describes how to Use Visual Studio Team Services VSTS to host your private package server
Also on MSDN, Matthew Mitrik writes about the TFVC Windows Shell Extension for VSTS and TFS 2018
Michael Crump (@mbcrump) continues the Azure Tips and Tricks 'An end to end scenario with Azure App Service, API Apps, SQL, VSTS and CI/CD' series with Part 104 - Day 4 and Part 105 - Day 5
Tobias Zimmergren gives an Azure Tip: Installing and using the Azure CLI in VSCode

🎭 Identity

On the Azure blog, Shalini Pasupneti writes about the Azure Security Center and discovery of partner solutions
Also on TechNet, Yuri Diogenes (@yuridiogenes) blogs about Detecting Suspicious PowerShell Activity in Azure Security Center
Sam Cogan (@samcogan) describes Changing an Azure Subscriptions Tenant
Also on TechNet, Troy Arwine writes that DISA STIG Requires Privilege Access Workstations PAW for Cloud Tenant Administration
Rob Kuehfus writes about Storing your Private SSH key in Azure Key Vault
Also on TechNet, the US Partner Team discusses Azure Security and Management – Part 1: Capabilities of Hybrid Cloud

🔌 Integration

On the Adatis blog, Jose Mendes discusses Azure Event Grid in a Modern Data Warehouse Architecture
On TechNet, the Intune Support Team blogs about Using O365 APIs and PowerShell to access Intune messages from Message center in Office 365 Part 1
On the risual blog, Mollie Sutton describes How to optimise when you get into the Microsoft cloud and covers Reasons to move to the Microsoft Cloud
On the Azure podcast, the Azure podcast team and guest Kevin Lam present Episode 220 - Logic Apps Update with Kevin Lam

💡 Internet of Things

On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson discusses Integrating Azure IoT Devices with MongooseOS MQTT and PowerShell
On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch is joined by Sam Vanhoutte whereby Codit share their experience building IoT applications with Azure IoT Edge

⚖️ Management and Governance

On the Azure blog, Kiran Madnani announces that The next generation of Azure Alerts has arrived
On the MSSQL Tips site, Joe Gavin describes an Easy Way to Build an Azure Log Analytics Query
On MSDN, Michael S. Hansen blogs about Using Postman with Azure Resource Manager API – Commercial and Government
On TechNet, Bruno M. Afonso writes about the Heartbeat Metric Alerts for Log Analytics
On the Cloud Administrator blog, Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) describes Using Custom Log Search Alerts Based on Metric Measurement for Event Based Logs and explains Top 10 Charts in Azure Log Analytics and Application Insights

🌐 Networking

On the Azure blog, Dilip Lukose writes about Global performance acceleration with Azure Traffic Manager
On MSDN, Jeff Sanders (@jsandersrocks) walks through Using Azure Traffic Manager probes with IP Restrictions protecting the App
Also on MSDN, 'David-Sanchez' writes about the Azure WAF to protect your Web Application
John Savill describes Using Azure Application Gateway to publish applications

📦 Storage

Aidan Finn writes about Faster & Bigger Azure Backup for Azure VMs and posts a Video–Azure File Sync
On TechNet, Tim Tetrick provides an Introduction to Azure Backup
On the Xamarin blog, Brandon Minnick explains how to Add Cloud Storage to Xamarin Apps with Azure Blob Storage

🔗 Web

On MSDN, Crystal Tenn provides an End-to-end from Code Project, to VSTS CI/CD, to Azure
Also on MSDN, Giles Davies (@gdavi) writes Azure DevOps: automate App Service slot swaps in your VSTS release pipeline
Also on MSDN, Kenneth Teo blogs about Azure App Service – Options Method (and other HTTPS Verb) disabled / not working in Azure Web App
On the Azure blog, the Azure updates team writes Deprecating Service Management API support for Azure App Service
Also on MSDN, Christina Compy (@ccompy) writes that BizTalk Hybrid Connections going end of life May 31, 2018
Also on the Azure blog, David Holladay describes how to Build your next iOS and Android game with $2,500+ of gaming services