Azure Weekly Issue 178: 10th June 2018
Unless you've been living under a rock last week, you'll know that Microsoft is to acquire Github for $7.5 billion. Huge news. Here's what Lori Lamkin from the VSTS team had to say about it.
Numerous announcements/updates this week, so let's take a look at those:
- Speech services now in preview
- Process more files than ever and use Parquet with Azure Data Lake Analytics
- Power BI Developer community May update
- Power BI Service and Mobile May Feature Summary
- Numerous updates in Corey Sanders' article: Why you should bet on Azure for your infrastructure needs, today and in the future, including:
- New VM capabilities
- Disaster recovery for Azure IaaS virtual machines general availability
- Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure now in public preview
- New VM Run command
- PostgreSQL 10.3 released on Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- SQL Data Warehouse PolyBase support for Azure Storage Encryption using customer-managed keys
- Azure SQL Data Warehouse SQL Operations Studio Extension Available
- Cognitive Services Speech SDK June 2018 update
- What's Next for Visual Studio
- Azure AD Conditional Access support for blocking legacy auth is in Public Preview
- Regenerative Maps alive on the Edge
- Use Azure Monitor to integrate with SIEM tools
- General availability: Azure mobile app for Android and iOS
- Microsoft Azure Stack expands availability to 92 countries
- Empowering developers to ship iOS apps that scale
- Detecting script-based attacks on Linux
- (Preview) Standard SSD Disks for Azure Virtual machine workloads
- Public preview: Storage Explorer in the Azure portal
- Azure Search is now certified for several levels of compliance
- App Service Deployment Center Preview
On the Azure blog, Rohan Kumar points out why Azure is the best place for analytics. Elsewhere, Aidan Finn writes an interesting aritcle about the Azure Traffic Manager: Geography Versus Latency, and our very own Ed Freeman highlights some key differences between the CALENDAR and CALENDARAUTO functions in Power BI.
Finally, if you attended Azure Saturday a couple of weeks ago, Thomas Janetscheck has posted all of the slide decks from the sessions for you to check out.
AI + Machine Learning
Covering: Azure Batch AI, Azure Bot Service, Microsoft Genomics, Machine Learning services, Machine Learning Studio, Cognitive Services, Bing APIs, Computer Vision API, Content moderator, Custom Services, Emotion API, Face API, Language Understanding (LUIS), Linguistic Analysis API, QnA Maker API, Speaker Recognition API, Text Analytics API, Translator Speech API, Translator Text API, Web Language Model API
- On the Azure blog, Grace Sturman writes that Speech services now in preview
- On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson (@darrenjrobinson) describes Utilising Azure Text to Speech Cognitive Services with PowerShell and Darren Doc Robinson describes Utilising Azure Speech to Text Cognitive Services with PowerShell
- On Channel 9, Seth Juarez (@sethjuarez) talks about Image and Text Moderation with Content Moderator with Greg Clark and talks about Video Moderation with Content Moderator with Sanjeev Jagtap
- On the .NET Curry blog, Gerald Versluis talks about Content Moderation using Azure Custom Vision and Xamarin
- On MSDN, Sheri Gilley explains how to Build Your Own Image Similarity Model
- On Code Project, Marius Bancila (@mariusbancila) describes Using Cognitive Services to identify persons
- Michael Crump (@mbcrump) writes Azure Tips and Tricks Part 129 - Using OCR to extract text from images from the Azure Portal
- Also on MSDN, Martin Kearn (@MartinKearn) describes the Bot Framework triage between Luis and QnA Maker with Toby Bradshaw
- Also on Channel 9, John Papa and Brian Clark present Episode 18: Five Things About Bots Five Things
- On the Revolution Analytics blog, David Smith (@revodavid) describes What's new in Azure for Machine Learning and AI
Analytics
Covering: Azure Databricks, HDInsight, Data Factory, Stream Analytics, Data Lake Analytics, Event Hubs, Power BI, Azure Analysis Services, Apache Spark for HDInsight, Apache Storm for HDInsight, R Server for HDInsight, Data Catalog
- On the Azure blog, Rohan Kumar writes that 'Azure is the best place for analytics'
- Also on the Azure blog, Michael Rys (@MikeDoesBigData) writes Process more files than ever and use Parquet with Azure Data Lake Analytics
- Also on the Azure blog, Sid Ramadoss writes 8 reasons to choose Azure Stream Analytics for real-time data processing
- Vincent-Philippe Lauzon (@vplauzon) talks about Event Hubs ingestion performance and throughput
- Dan Rosanova (@DanRosanova) discusses Serverless Big Data
- On the Power BI blog, Nimrod Shalit covers Power BI Developer community May update, Christopher Finlan explains how to Subscribe others to email subscriptions in Power BI, Amanda Cofsky covers Power BI Desktop June Feature Summary and Nikhil Gaekwad describes the Power BI Service and Mobile May Feature Summary
- On the endjin blog, Ed Freeman (@edfreeman_) blogs about Using CALENDAR vs CALENDARAUTO to generate Date table for year-on-year comparisons
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) blogs about Using Email Attachments As A Data Source In Power BI
- Devin Knight (@knight_devin) covers Power BI Custom Visuals Class Module 106 – Ring Chart MAQ Software and provides the Power BI Monthly Digest – June 2018 with Manuel Quintana
- On MSDN, Charles Sterling (@chass) points to Various Power BI, PowerApps and Flow Conferences and Events around the world
Compute
Covering: Virtual Machines, Functions, Batch, Service Fabric, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Cloud Services, Linux Virtual Machines, SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances
- On the Azure blog, Corey Sanders (@CoreySandersWA) writes about Why you should bet on Azure for your infrastructure needs, today and in the future
- Also on the Azure blog, Anurag Mehrotra writes that Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure now in public preview
- On the Azure podcast, the Azure podcast team presents Episode 231 - IaaS VM options
- On MSDN, Dave Glover talks about Ubuntu desktop setup for Azure Developers
- On Code Project, Gunnar Siréus blogs about Using NServiceBus in Azure Service Fabric
- Also on MSDN, Lukas Steindl explains how to Submit a simple Job to Azure Batch with Node js minimal example, describes How to get the status of an Azure Batch Job with Node.js and explains how to Remove all Jobs from an Azure Batch Account with Powershell
- On Channel 9, Corey Sanders (@CoreySandersWA) describes how to Combine Azure scheduled events with Event Grid with Ziv Rafalovich
- Also on Code Project, Brandon H (@bc3tech) explains how to Make Serverless Music – Orchestrate your workflow with Azure Part 4 – Durable Functions
- Also on MSDN, Jeff Sanders (@jsandersrocks) writes Failed to update web app settings: The storage URI is invalid
- Also on Code Project, Akhil Mittal discusses Setting up Ethereum Blockchain on Azure
Containers
Covering: Container Registry, Container Instances, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Web App for Containers
- On MSDN, Michael S. Hansen writes about Private Kubernetes Cluster in Azure Government
Databases
Covering: Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, SQL Data Warehouse, Redis Cache, SQL Server Stretch Database, SQL Server on virtual machines, Table storage, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Database for MySQL
- The Azure updates team writes that PostgreSQL 10.3 released on Azure Database for PostgreSQL and writes about the SQL Data Warehouse PolyBase support for Azure Storage Encryption using customer-managed keys
- On MSDN, Tim Salch writes that Azure SQL Data Warehouse SQL Operations Studio Extension Available
- On the Database Journal site, Marcin Policht blogs about Azure SQL Database and GDPR Compliance
- On MSDN, Nick Lopez blogs about Providing the server name explicitly in user names Part 2: DNS alias for Azure SQL Database
- On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) talks about Horizontal Partitioning in Azure Cosmos DB with Carey MacDonald and provides some Tips for using the Gremlin API with Azure Cosmos DB with Jayanta Mondal
Developer Tools
Covering: Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, SDKs, Developer tool integrations, CLIs, Blockchain Workbench
- On the Azure blog, Jenny Jiang announces that Azure Data Lake Tools for VSCode supports Azure blob storage integration
- The Azure updates team writes about Cognitive Services Speech SDK June 2018 update
- On the Visual Studio blog, John Montgomery (@JohnMont) discusses What's Next for Visual Studio
- On MSDN, Robert Green talks about The Present and Not-too-distant Future of Visual Studio Part 2 with Amanda Silver, Kendra Havens and Anthony Cangelosi
- On the Kloud blog, Nivlesh Chandra talks about Enabling Source Control for locally stored code using Git, Visual Studio Code and Sourcetree
- On the Daily Dot Net Tips blog, Abhijit Jana (@AbhijitJana) explains how to Disable local Application Insights for Asp.Net Core Projects
- On the Azure podcast, the Azure podcast team and guest Asir Selvasingh (@AzurePodcast) presents Episode 232 - Java on Azure
- Thomas Janetscheck highlights all the Azure Saturday 2018 – Slide decks
- Michael Crump (@mbcrump) writes Azure Tips and Tricks Part 128 - Download all Azure Documentation for offline viewing
DevOps
Covering: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), Azure DevTest Labs, DevOps tool integrations, Azure DevOps Projects, Azure Lab Services
- On MSDN, Lori Lamkin talks about VSTS and GitHub
- Also on MSDN, Edward Thomson lists the Top stories from the VSTS community – 2018.06.01
- Also on MSDN, Deepak Khare describes Migrating a large collection from on premise TFS to Azure hosted service (VSTS)
- On Code Project, Habibur Rony covers Building a DevOps CI/CD Pipeline for ASP.NET Core with VSTS
- James van Den Berg writes about Microsoft Azure DevOps Projects and Infrastructure as Code
- On the Daily Dot Net Tips blog, Abhijit Jana (@AbhijitJana) writes about the Azure DevOps Integration Tutorial Reference
Identity
Covering: Azure Active Directory, Multi-factor Authentication, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory B2C
- On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons) writes that Azure AD Conditional Access support for blocking legacy auth is in Public Preview
- On MSDN, Frank Hu writes about the GUID Table for Windows Azure Active Directory Permissions
- Also on MSDN, Mike Duddington (@Dudders1) discusses Blocking Legacy Clients with Azure AD Conditional Access
- Also on MSDN, Anuj Chaudhary describes PowerShell sample for Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for Azure AD Roles
Integration
Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid
- On the Azure blog, Barry Luijbregts (@azurebarry) describes How I choose which services to use in Azure
- Roy Kim (@roykimyyz) covers Azure Logic Apps for Document Content Approval
- On the Daily Dot Net Tips blog, Abhijit Jana (@AbhijitJana) delves into Cloning Azure Logic App to create a new one and describes how to Quickly rollback Azure Logic Apps to the Previous Version
- On TechNet, Senthilkumar Pandurangan writes about Intune: Bulk Enroll Surface Hubs to Microsoft Intune
Internet of Things
Covering: IoT Hub, IoT Suite, IoT Edge, IoT Central, IoT solution accelerators, Time Series Insights, Azure Maps, Azure Sphere
- On the Azure blog, Chris Pendleton writes Regenerative Maps alive on the Edge
- On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch (@obloch) talks about Azure IoT Hub device SDK for Python with Zoltan Varga and talks about the STMicroelectronics Starter kits for Azure IoT with Manuel Cantone
Management and Governance
Covering: Backup, Site Recovery, App Insights, Azure Advisor, Sceduler, Automation, Log Analytics, Azure Monitor, Security & Compliance, Protection & Recovery, Automation & Control, Insight & Analytics, Azure Service Health, Microsoft Azure portal, Azure Resource Manager, Cloud Shell, the Azure mobile app, Azure Policy, Cost Management, Azure Managed Applications
- On the Azure blog, John Kemnetz writes Use Azure Monitor to integrate with SIEM tools
- The Azure updates team writes about the General availability: Azure mobile app for Android and iOS
- Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) explains how to Aggregate on More Than One Column for Azure Log Search Alerts
- On the Catapult Systems blog, Cameron Fuller discusses Updating the Azure Automation Solution for Log Analytics to the new query language
- On TechNet, Anthony Watherston describes how to Export / Import Variables to Azure Automation
- On the Daily Dot Net Tips blog, Abhijit Jana (@AbhijitJana) explains How to instantly check the health of your Azure services, describes how to Tag multiple Azure Resources from Azure Portal and explains how to Locate Azure resources tags easily in Azure Portal
- Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) writes about This Subscription Is Not Registered With The Microsoft.Insights Resource Provider
- On MSDN, Srikantan Sankaran describes how to Use Azure policy Service to manage Azure Resources and stay compliant with corporate standards
Media
Covering: Media services, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Media Analytics, Video Indexer
Microsoft Azure Stack
Covering: Azure Stack
- On the Azure blog, Talal Alqinawi writes that Microsoft Azure Stack expands availability to 92 countries
- On Cloudify Blog, Jeremy Hess discusses The Cloudify Azure Plugin with Azure Stack Support
Migration
Covering: Azure Database Migration Service, Azure Migrate, Data Box
- On MSDN, Jim Toland writes about the Seamless migration of PostgreSQL apps to Azure Database for PostgreSQL with minimum downtime and the Seamless migration of MySQL apps to Azure Database for MySQL with minimum downtime
Mobile
Covering: App Service (Mobile), Notification Hubs, Mobile apps, API apps, Visual Studio App Centre, Xamarin
- On the Azure blog, Tareq Aljaber talks about Empowering developers to ship iOS apps that scale
- On the Xamarin blog, Jayme Singleton writes about the Xamarin and .NET Developer Events this June
- Also on the Xamarin blog, Tom Opgenorth writes about the Xamarin.Android Firebase Job Dispatcher: Background Scheduling for all Android Devices
- On the Trailhead blog, Valeriy Kovalenko writes about the Expandable UITableView with XamariniOS
- On Visual Studio Magazine - Columns, Peter Vogel walks through Choosing a Xamarin Strategy
- On the Xamarin blog, David Ortinau writes Build 2018: Conference Vision Demo App
- On Code Project, Sid Sharma explains how to Add Video Calling in Xamarin apps using Agora.io
- On Channel 9, James Montemagno (@JamesMontemagno) talks about Mobile Chest X-Ray Analysis, a Microsoft Garage Project with Robert, Jacky and Noah
Networking
Covering: ExpressRoute, Azure DNS, Virtual Network, Traffic Manager, Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Application Gateway, Network Watcher
- Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) writes about the Azure Traffic Manager: Geography Versus Latency
- On the Azure blog, Ben Cotton writes that Mellanox uses Azure to accelerate network design
- On MSDN, David Sanchez covers Site-to-Site VPN between pfSense Firewall and Azure using BGP
Security
Covering: Azure Information Protection, Key Vault, Security Center, Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Advanced Threat Protection
- On the Azure blog, John Booth blogs about Detecting script-based attacks on Linux
Storage
Covering: Storage, StorSimple, Data Lake Store, Blob Storage, Disk Storage, Managed Disks, Queue Storage, File Storage, Storage Explorer, Archive Storage
- On the Azure blog, Sirius Kuttiyan writes about the (Preview) Standard SSD Disks for Azure Virtual machine workloads
- Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) writes about the Azure Preview – Standard SSD Disks
- The Azure updates team writes about the Public preview: Storage Explorer in the Azure portal
- Nicolas Bonnet describes Azure File Sync
Web
Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service
- On the Azure blog, Liam Cavanagh (@liamca) writes that Azure Search is now certified for several levels of compliance
- On MSDN, Byron Tardif (@bktv99) writes about the App Service Deployment Center Preview
- Also on MSDN, 'PuneetG' blogs about App Service Diagnostics – Profiling an ASP.NET Web App on Azure App Service
- Also on MSDN, Ben Perkins (@csharpguitar) talks about Web Deploy ERROR_DESTINATION_NOT_REACHABLE Azure Web App
- Also on MSDN, Mariusz Kolodziej (@mariuszdotnet) writes about the Enterprise Deployment of an Internal Load Balancer with an App Service Environment v2
- Also on MSDN, Madhura Bharadwaj talks about Azure App Services: Understanding URL Re-write
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