Azure Weekly

Issue #169 - 8th April 2018

Before we get to the announcements, there has been Lots of New Region News in Azure, nicely summarized here by Aidan Finn. Have a look at the Microsoft partners who have played a critical role in transforming national computing fabric with Microsofts Azure Australia Central. Read more about the New Microsoft Azure regions available for Australia and New Zealand here.

Plenty of announcements to sink your teeth into this week:

Power BI:

Do you want to sell Azure but dont know where to start? Easy. Have a read through that article!

Read about the Top 4 announcements from Microsofts Government Tech Summit, and, if you're heading to Build 2018, have a look at the Search and Rescue Challenge.

Elsewhere, Gaurav Malhotra has written an interesting article explaining how to Ingest, prepare, and transform using Azure Databricks and Data Factory. And finally, if you're into Silicon Valley TV Series, you may appreciate this article: Not Hotdog: An R image classification application, using the Custom Vision API.

⚙️ AI + Machine Learning

On the Azure blog, Christine Alford announces that the BigDL Spark deep learning library VM now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace
On the Revolution Analytics blog, David Smith (@revodavid) describes Not Hotdog: An R image classification application, using the Custom Vision API
On MSDN, the European IIS team writes Fail to create bot with error 'Authorization_RequestDenied'
On TechNet, Sam McNeill writes about the AI Technology Assisting Deaf Students
Also on TechNet, the ML Blog Team covers the Inventory Optimization Solution in the Azure AI Gallery
On Channel 9, Seth Juarez and Luis Cabrera-Cordon talk about Understanding Text using Cognitive Services on the AI Show
On the risual blog, David Brass discusses Consuming your Azure Machine Learning Model

🔎 Analytics

On the Azure blog, Gaurav Malhotra, Program Manager - Azure Data Factory, writes Ingest, prepare, and transform using Azure Databricks and Data Factory
Also on MSDN, Jie Su describes Using the first job run to optimize subsequent runs with Azure Data Lake job AU analyzer
Ali Raza, Data Solution Architect, explains How to get going with Modern Analytics Sandpit Environment using Azure in no timePart 2
Also on the Azure blog, the Azure updates team highlights a number of updates: Power BI Embedded supports additional mobile gestures, the Bookmarks API, the API to track your free embed token, Get visual data and Q&A added to Edit and Create modes for report authors
Also on MSDN, the Azure Gov Team announces that Power BI Premium and Power BI Embedded available for Azure Government
Devin Knight (@knight_devin) posts Power BI Custom Visuals Class Module 97 – Enlighten Data Story and presents Power BI Monthly Digest – April 2018 with Manuel Quintana
On the Power BI blog, Nimrod Shalit writes a Power BI Developer community March update and Amanda Cofsky gives a Power BI Desktop April Feature Summary
Also on the Power BI blog, Charles Sterling (@chass) writes about the Week 4/11 Webinars: Load Testing Power BI Applications with Visual Studio Load Test and Getting Started with Model Driven Apps in PowerApps

🖥️ Compute

On the Azure blog, Tom Keane announces that Azure Availability Zones now available for the most comprehensive resiliency strategy
Also on the Azure blog, the Azure updates team announces the General availability: New regions for Red Hat Update Infrastructure and the General availability: Azure zone-redundant snapshots and images for managed disks
On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson writes Evaluating the migration of Azure Functions to Microsoft Flow – Twitter IoT Integration
On Channel 9, Rich Lander and Chris Gillum talk about Debugging and Diagnostics of Durable Functions
On MSDN, Amit Agarwal Amagar covers Azure Function Apps: Performance Considerations
Also on MSDN, Ben Perkins (@csharpguitar) writes a number of blogs on Azure Functions: An error occurred, Deploy an Azure Function created from Visual Studio, How to create an Azure Function in Visual Studio, How to connect to a database from an Azure Function and Publish failed
Also on MSDN, Maheshk (@MahesKBlr) gives an Intro to HPC and steps to setup CycleCloud in Azure
Sameera Perera (@sameera_man) explains How to Install GUI on a Red Hat 7.X Server in Azure
Also on MSDN, Julien Oudot writes Part 1: Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set and Windows Containers–Networking Tips
Also on MSDN, ejarvi blogs about Encrypting Data Disks on Linux with Azure Disk Encryption
Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) writes about the Different cases of Azure VM 'reboots'
Also on TechNet, Ripom writes about High Availability for Internet Access using VMSS

🚢 Containers

On the Azure blog, Cristy Gonzalez writes that Create Service Fabric Clusters from Visual Studio now available
On MSDN, the Service Fabric Team announces the Service Fabric 6.1 Refresh Three Release
Also on MSDN, the Service Fabric Team provides a Service Fabric Customer Profile: SiriusIQ
On Channel 9, Corey Sanders (@CoreySandersWA) talks about Open Sourcing Microsoft Service Fabric with Vaclav Turecek
Also on MSDN, Monu Bambroo writes Docker Blog Series Part 6 – How to use Service Fabric Reverse Proxy for container services
Mark Heath (@mark_heath) covers Serverless CI Builds with Cake and Azure Container Instances
Also on Channel 9, Alena Hall presents Part 4 of 4: Use Azure Container Registry on the Open Source Show
Vincent-Philippe Lauzon gives an Overview of Docker Containers in Azure
Jessica Deen (@jldeen) describes Codefresh+Azure: DevOps, Kubernetes, Helm Webinar
Also on Channel 9, Donovan Brown talks about Metaparticle - A standard library for cloud-native applications on Kubernetes with Brendan Burns

🗄️ Databases

On the Azure blog, Alexander Sasha Nosov describes A flexible new way to purchase Azure SQL Database and writes about the SQL Database: Long-term backup retention preview includes major updates
Also on the Azure blog, Ninar Nuemah (@NinarNuemah), Program Manager - SQL Azure, writes about the Improvements to SQL Elastic Pool configuration experience
On the Azure blog, the Azure updates team announces the Public preview: Read scale-out support for Azure SQL Database
On MSDN, Jose M Jurado posts Lesson Learned 35: How to transfer the login and user from OnPremise to Azure SQL Database, Lesson Learned 36: Best Practices connecting and executing queries using Azure SQL Database, Lesson Learned 37: How to use distributed transactions in Azure SQL Database and Lesson Learned 39: Best Practices using BCP in Azure SQL Database
On the Database Journal site, Marcin Policht gives an Introduction to Azure SQL Managed Instance
Also on the Azure blog, Kuber Sharma explains how to Accelerate Data Warehouse Modernization to Azure with Informaticas AI-Driven Platform
Also on MSDN, Shau Phang writes Ready to migrate MySQL workload to Azure Database for MySQL?
On TechNet, Sumit Sengupta writes about Azure Cosmos DB

🛠️ Developer Tools

On the Azure blog, Rob Caron writes about the Essential tools and services for building mobile apps
On MSDN, Vlad Vinogradsky writes about the Important changes to OpenAPI import and export
On the Azure blog, the Azure updates team highlights the Deployment Groups and build completion trigger – VSTS Sprint 132 Update
Also on MSDN, Michael S. Hansen writes about Granular VSTS/TFS Deployment Privileges using Service Principals
Michael Crump (@mbcrump) writes Azure Tips and Tricks Part Part 110 - Day 9 - An end to end scenario with Azure App Service, API Apps, SQL, VSTS and CI/CD
Also on MSDN, Chandan Anjani describes How to undelete releases of a release definition
Simon Foster (@funkysi1701) discusses Code Reviews
Also on MSDN, Omer Amin describes the Exam Prep for 70-533, Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
On Channel 9, James Montemagno talks about Building the New MSN News App with Xamarin with Matt Perzel and Sleiman Vierira

🎭 Identity

K. Scott Allen (@OdeToCode) blogs about Separating Concerns with Key Vault
On MSDN, Bernarldo Ellis gives an Azure Government AAD Authority Endpoint Update
Also on MSDN, thudandblunder talks about Azure Security Center – Custom Alerts
On TechNet, Aaron Guilmette writes Change from AD FS authentication to Seamless SSO
On the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Ben Stegink and Scott Hoag present Episode 56 – An Overview of Azure Security Center
Clemens Reijnen (@ClemensReijnen) blogs about The 4 focus areas of DevSecOps.

🔌 Integration

On the Azure blog, the Azure updates team writes about the GUID migration: Azure Service Bus and the GUID migration: Azure Service Bus, US Government regions
On MSDN, Christian Wolf writes that New metrics for Queues and Topics emitted
On .NET Rocks, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell present The Microsoft Business Application Platform with Vishwas Lele
On TechNet, Basim Majeed writes Run your Python script on demand with Azure Container Instances and Azure Logic Apps
Sean Feldman covers Azure Service Bus Subscriptions with Correlation Filters

💡 Internet of Things

On the Azure blog, Sam George (@samjgeorge) writes that Azure IoT Hub is driving down the cost of IoT
On TechNet, Dave Rendón describes how to Create an IoT Hub and connect your IoT Device
Also on the Azure blog, Yi Zhong describes How to get support for Azure IoT SDK and speaks about it with Olivier Bloch on Channel 9
Also on the Azure blog, the Azure updates team gives a March update for Azure IoT Edge
Sam Cogan (@samcogan) writes Stream SmartThings data to Cosmos DB and PowerBI and Part 2 – Data Storage
On Code Project, Duncan Edwards Jones (@Merrion) describes Connecting a serverless function to an event grid custom topic

⚖️ Management and Governance

Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) writes about the Lots of New Region News in Azure
Also on MSDN, Sarah Weldon writes that Dynatrace Managed Instance now available for Azure Government
Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) blogs about Azure Policy - An excellent tool for resource governance inside Azure
Steve Buchanan (@buchatech) covers Azure Cost Management Cloudyn and covers Azure Policy
Sameera Perera (@sameera_man) writes about Azure Cost Optimization Results in Action
On MSDN, CliveW writes about Log Analytics: Usage and Estimated Costs
Stefan Roth (@stefanroth_net) writes about the Azure Dashboard – Execute Azure Log Analytics Queries
On the Azure blog, Shiva Sivakumar writes Introducing a new way to purchase Azure monitoring services
Also on MSDN, Wriju Ghosh (@wrijugh) covers Migrating from Azure Service Manager ASM Virtual Machines to Azure Resource Manager ARM VM
Jose Moreno walks through Migrating VMs to the cloud: send or remake
On TechNet, Arnab Mitra writes a Step-By-Step: Cloud Management Gateway on ARM
John Savill walks through Using the Azure PS Drive
Steve Buchanan (@buchatech) writes about Native Cloud Management in Azure and blogs about Azure Management Groups
On the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Ben Stegink and Scott Hoag present Episode 57 – News and Updates for Azure and Office 365
On the Azure podcast, the Azure podcast team and guest Sean Watson present Episode 222 - Azure Portal Update

⚙️ Microsoft Azure Stack

Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) reveals that he is Speaking about Azure Stack at the Global Azure Bootcamp Switzerland 2018

🌐 Networking

On the Azure blog, Mario Lopez announces that Application Security Groups now generally available in all Azure regions
Also on the Azure blog, the Azure updates team writes about the General availability: Azure Network Watcher Connection Monitor in all public regions and announces that Microsoft peering on ExpressRoute Standard SKU now available
On MSDN, David-Sanchez discusses the Azure Standard Load Balancer with HA ports – what it means for your network and security stack
Thuan Soldier explains how to Defend your Azure virtual network with Defense In Depth strategy

📦 Storage

On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) talks about Backup and Recovery with Azure Files with Mike Emard

🔗 Web

On MSDN, David Burg writes about the PHP Fatal error: Class TwigLoaderFilesystem not found
Sacha Barber writes Azure WebApp : Checking the deployed WebApp file system
Michael Crump (@mbcrump) writes Azure Tips and Tricks Part Part 111 - Deployment Slots for Web Apps using the Azure CLI
Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) writes Deploying My Sites On Azure App Services
Also on MSDN, Michael S. Hansen describes Local Debugging of .NET Core Web App with Easy Auth and talks about Azure Active Directory Authentication Easy Auth with Multiple Backend APIs