Azure Weekly Issue 204: 9th December 2018
It's another bumper edition this week in Azure Weekly; the Connect() conference has brought us a lot of gifts. Plenty of announcements and updates in almost every area, and we're particularly excited about the constant improvements to Cosmos DB. A small feature that was eagerly anticipated at endjin has been implemented by the Cosmos team, and I've written a short post about it here: Cosmos DB – Request Units charged for processing a Gremlin API request. Otherwise, here are the rest of the updates:
AI + Machine Learning:
- Azure AI – accelerating the pace of AI adoption for organizations
- Announcing general availability of Azure Machine Learning service: A look under the hood
- New automated machine learning capabilities in Azure Machine Learning service
- Getting started with Cognitive Services Language Understanding container
- ONNX Runtime is now open source
- Custom Translation capability of Text Translator (now GA)
Analytics:
- Get up to speed with Azure HDInsight: The comprehensive guide
- Ask a question using natural language updates
- Power platform Summit Europe in Amsterdam, 27-29 March 2019
Compute:
- An easy way to bring back your Azure VM with In-Place restore
- Disaster recovery of zone pinned Azure Virtual Machines to another region
- Azure Functions gets better for Python and JavaScript developers
- Serverless Community Library
- Announcing the Service Fabric provider for Bosh
Containers:
- Bringing serverless to Azure Kubernetes Service
- Removing Kubernetes 1.7 and 1.8 support in AKS on November 30, 2018
- AKS clusters patched for Kubernetes vulnerability
- Azure Container Service Will Retire on January 31, 2020
Databases:
- Azure Cosmos DB Developer experience updates December 2018
- Azure Cosmos DB .NET SDK Version 3.0 now in public preview
- Azure Cosmos DB now supports Cross-Origin Resource Sharing CORS
- Azure SQL Data Warehouse Gen2 now supports lower compute tiers
- General availability of VNet Service Endpoints for Azure SQL Data Warehouse
- Migrate mission critical SQL workloads to the most economical cloud destination
- General availability: Increased compute in Azure Database for MySQL servers
- General availability: Increased compute in Azure Database for PostgreSQL servers
- the general availability of Azure Database for MariaDB
- Public preview: Virtual network service endpoints for Azure Database for MariaDB
Developer Tools:
- Azure Service Fabric 6.4 release
- Azure IoT Java SDK provides improved Android support
- Service Fabric Mesh Preview Refresh Release
- Making every developer more productive with Visual Studio 2019
- Visual Studio IntelliCode supports more languages and learns from your code
- Announcing .NET Core 2.2
DevOps:
- New Azure Pipelines announcements – VS Code extension, GitHub Releases, and more
- Linking your GitHub commits with Azure Boards
- Link GitHub commits and pull requests to Azure Boards work items and more - Sprint 144 Update
- Azure Lab Services: TLS 1.2 being enabled soon
Identity:
Internet of Things:
- Announcing key industrial IoT capabilities in Azure Time Series Insights
- Azure Stream Analytics on IoT Edge now generally available
- New Azure IoT offerings simplify IoT application development
- Accelerating IoT solution development and testing with Azure IoT Device Simulation
- Azure IoT Remote Monitoring extends operator capabilities to the edge
- Location intelligence for the enterprise: New pricing tier and SDK updates (Azure Maps)
Management and Governance:
- Microsoft Azure portal December 2018 update
- Apply the latest Azure Site Recovery capabilities with automatic agent update
- Application Insights is available in UK South
- Azure Backup simplifies data protection and protects against ransomware
Mobile:
- Connect() 2018 Xamarin Announcements
- The Future of Mobile Development: Xamarin.Forms 4.0 Preview
- The Ship List: Visual Studio App Center November Edition
Networking:
Security:
Storage:
Web:
Hopefully that will give you all something to sink your teeth into for the next week, or maybe even longer!
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, Eric Boyd writes about Azure AI – accelerating the pace of AI adoption for organizations
- Also on the Azure blog, Venky Veeraraghavan announces the general availability of Azure Machine Learning service: A look under the hood
- Also on the Azure blog, Krishna Anumalasetty writes about the New automated machine learning capabilities in Azure Machine Learning service
- Also on the Azure blog, Henrik Frystyk Nielsen and Phani Mutyala describe Getting started with Cognitive Services Language Understanding container
- Also on the Azure blog, Faith Xu announces that the ONNX Runtime is now open source
- The Azure updates team talks about the Custom Translation capability of Text Translator (now GA)
- On Channel 9, Noelle Lacharite (@NoelleLaCharite) provides An Introduction to the Intelligent Kiosk AI Show
- On the Revolution Analytics blog, Hong Ooi writes about AzureVM: managing virtual machines in Azure
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, Dhruv Goel explains how to Get up to speed with Azure HDInsight: The comprehensive guide
- On MSDN, Ben Martens writes about Azure Data Explorer Functions and Control Commands
- Also on MSDN, Yujin Hong writes about Real-time Data Streaming with Event Hubs on Azure Government
- On the Power BI blog, Mohammad Ali (@mohaali45) explains how to Ask a question using natural language updates and Charles Sterling announces the Power platform Summit Europe in Amsterdam, 27-29 March 2019
- On TechNet, Karen Moen talks about Industry Accelerators and Power BI Dataflows: Join this months community call
- Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) describes Listing Windows Language Code Identifiers And Their Associated Date And Number Formats With M In Power BI/Power Query
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, Geetha Lakshmi G writes about An easy way to bring back your Azure VM with In-Place restore
- Also on the Azure blog, Sujay Talasila writes about the Disaster recovery of zone pinned Azure Virtual Machines to another region
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains how to Get The List of All VMs in HyperV Cluster and Their Virtual Hard Disks
- On TechNet, Amanda Buchholz points to some webinars to help Rapidly enhance your Azure IaaS and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure technical knowledge
- On the Azure blog, Daria Grigoriu writes that Azure Functions gets better for Python and JavaScript developers
- On the Kloud blog, John Downs blogs about Integration Testing Timer-Triggered Precompiled v2 Azure Functions
- On the Azure podcast, the Azure podcast team (@AzurePodcast) presents Episode 256 - Living in a Serverless world
- The Azure updates team highlights the Serverless Community Library
- On Microsoft + Open Source, Sudhanva Huruli announces the Service Fabric provider for Bosh
Containers
Covering: Container Registry, Container Instances, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Web App for Containers
- On the Azure blog, Sean McKenna announces Bringing serverless to Azure Kubernetes Service
- Sam Cogan (@samcogan) blogs about Using Managed Identity with Kubernetes in Azure
- Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) blogs about (Auto) Scaling dimensions inside Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- The Azure updates team writes Removing Kubernetes 1.7 and 1.8 support in AKS on November 30, 2018, writes that AKS clusters patched for Kubernetes vulnerability and highlights that Azure Container Service Will Retire on January 31, 2020
- On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) talks about Azure Container Registry Tasks: Build and deploy to Azure App Service with Steve Lasker
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
- On the Azure blog, Deborah Chen (@ChenDeborah) provides the Azure Cosmos DB Developer experience updates December 2018 and on the Azure blog, writes that Azure Cosmos DB .NET SDK Version 3.0 now in public preview
- Also on the Azure blog, Christopher Anderson highlights that Azure Cosmos DB now supports Cross-Origin Resource Sharing CORS
- Also on the Azure blog, Rafat Sarosh, Nikisha Reyes-Grange and Balamurugan Balakreshnan write that Johnson Controls tackles a $15b building industry problem with Azure Cosmos DB
- Also on the Azure blog, Anthony van Gemert writes that Azure SQL Data Warehouse Gen2 now supports lower compute tiers
- Also on the Azure blog, Kavitha Jonnakuti and Anitha Adusumilli write about the General availability of VNet Service Endpoints for Azure SQL Data Warehouse
- Also on the Azure blog, Borko Novakovic and Eric Hudson tell us to Migrate mission critical SQL workloads to the most economical cloud destination
- On MSDN, Jovan Popovic also highlights that Azure SQL Managed Instance Business Critical tier is Generally Available
- Also on the Azure blog, Ganesh Radhakrishnan and Parikshit Savjani explains how to Modernize your Java Spring Boot application with Azure Database for MySQL
- The Azure updates team highlights the General availability: Increased compute in Azure Database for MySQL servers and for PostgreSQL servers
- Also on the Azure blog, Sudhakar Sannakkayala announces the general availability of Azure Database for MariaDB
- The Azure updates team highlights the Public preview: Virtual network service endpoints for Azure Database for MariaDB
- Also on MSDN, Vitor Faria Tomaz (@vitortomaz) describes how to Move to Azure Resource Manager REST APIs for Azure SQL Database
Developer Tools
Covering: Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, SDKs, Developer tool integrations, CLIs, Blockchain Workbench
- On MSDN, the Service Fabric Team highlights the Azure Service Fabric 6.4 release and writes about the Service Fabric Mesh Preview Refresh Release
- On the Azure blog, Yi Zhong writes that the Azure IoT Java SDK provides improved Android support
- On the Black Marble blog, Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) talks about the Azure Pipeline YAML support on VSCode
- Also on MSDN, John Montgomery (@JohnMont) writes about Making every developer more productive with Visual Studio 2019
- Also on MSDN, Jon Chu writes about Visual Studio Live Share for real-time code reviews and interactive education
- On the Visual Studio blog, Mark Wilson-Thomas (@MarkPavWT) highlights that Visual Studio IntelliCode supports more languages and learns from your code
- Also on MSDN, Rich Lander (@runfaster2000) announces .NET Core 2.2
- Also on MSDN, Wriju Ghosh (@wrijugh) highlights the Azure REST API Explorer
DevOps
Covering: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), Azure DevTest Labs, DevOps tool integrations, Azure DevOps Projects, Azure Lab Services
- On the Azure blog, Jeremy Epling writes about the New Azure Pipelines announcements – VS Code extension, GitHub Releases, and more
- Also on the Azure blog, Aaron Bjork walks through Linking your GitHub commits with Azure Boards
- The Azure updates team describes how to Link GitHub commits and pull requests to Azure Boards work items and more - Sprint 144 Update
- On MSDN, Edward Thomson lists the Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2018.11.30
- On the Black Marble blog, Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) describes Programmatically adding User Capabilities to Azure DevOps Agents
- Robb Schiefer provides an Azure Pipelines (VSTS) Quick Tip – CI Trigger Build Batching
- Callon Campbell introduces the Azure DevOps Service Status Portal
- Vincent-Philippe Lauzon (@vplauzon) talks about Using Azure DevOps REST API to start multiple releases
- On the Codit blog, Toon Vanhoutte explains how to Authenticate Azure DevOps Against its Own REST API
- Also on MSDN, Wu Shuai explains how to Get Started with AKS CI / CD in Azure DevOps
- Also on MSDN, Tanmayee Kamath discusses Azure Lab Services: TLS 1.2 being enabled soon
Identity
Covering: Azure Active Directory, Multi-factor Authentication, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory B2C
- On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Kim Kischel writes that MCAS brings its real-time CASB controls to on-prem apps
- On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson (@darrenjrobinson) talks about Microsoft Graph and the $whatIf option
- On the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Ben Stegink and Scott Hoag present Episode 102 – Azure AD Goes Down Again
- On TechNet, Edward Jones writes that New Azure Role-based Certifications have arrived
- Also on TechNet, Gowdhaman Karthikeyan writes about Intune Device Management – Renaming Windows 10 Devices
Integration
Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid
- On the Black Marble blog, Riccardo Viglianisi describes Logic App Flat File Schemas and BizTalk Flat File Schemas
- On MSDN, David Burg (@david_burg) writes a number of blogs about Logic Apps: Azure Logic Apps connected to SAP, and now what, Why the new SAP connector for Logic Apps, Fix for Logic Apps Log Analytics B2B solution Oops Looks like we couldnt get the data and AS2, EDIFACT connectors updates for Azure Logic Apps
- On the Serverless360 blog, Steef-Jan Wiggers (@SteefJan) asks Logic Apps or Durable Functions: Which workflow solution approach suits me best?
- Also on the Serverless360 blog, Mohan Nagaraj summarizes the Azure Integration Services Ask Me Anything – Dec 2018
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, Chandrika Shankarnarayan announces key industrial IoT capabilities in Azure Time Series Insights
- Also on the Azure blog, Jean-Sbastien Brunner writes that Azure Stream Analytics on IoT Edge now generally available
- Also on the Azure blog, Sam George (@samjgeorge) writes that New Azure IoT offerings simplify IoT application development
- Also on the Azure blog, Troy Hopwood writes about Accelerating IoT solution development and testing with Azure IoT Device Simulation
- Also on the Azure blog, Hector Garcia Tellado announces that the Azure IoT Remote Monitoring extends operator capabilities to the edge
- Also on the Azure blog, Justin Slade writes about IoT in Action: 4 innovations that are revolutionizing IoT
- On Code Project, Intel Corporation explains how to Get Started with the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO Toolkit and Microsoft Azure IoT Edge
- On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch (@obloch) talks about Deployment and UI customization of an IoT Remote Monitoring solution with Ashley Donaldson and Mary Ellen Chaffin, talks about Device Simulation with Azure IoT with Troy Hopwood and talks about Azure Time Series Insights – end-to-end solution for industrial IoT analytics with Chandrika Shankarnarayan
- Also on the Azure blog, Chris Pendleton and Ricky Brundritt announce the Location intelligence for the enterprise: New pricing tier and SDK updates (Azure Maps)
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, Peri Rocha and Leon Welicki provide the Microsoft Azure portal December 2018 update
- Also on the Azure blog, Rajani Janaki Ram explains how to Apply the latest Azure Site Recovery capabilities with automatic agent update
- The Azure updates team highlights that Application Insights is available in UK South and writes that Azure Backup simplifies data protection and protects against ransomware.
- Barry Luijbregts (@azurebarry) explains how to Find the status of Azure services on azureoverview.com
- Mark Heath (@mark_heath) writes: This resource group will self destruct in 30 minutes
- Callon Campbell talks about Moving your Azure Resources to Another Subscription or Resource Group
- On MSDN, Wriju Ghosh (@wrijugh) talks about Azure for Enterprises
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
- Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) highlights some Considerations for deploying apps and services on Azure Stack and blogs about Using Azure Update Management on Azure Stack
Migration
Covering: Azure Database Migration Service, Azure Migrate, Data Box
- On MSDN, the AzureCAT team points to some resources relating to Datacenter Migration on Azure – Portal
Mobile
Covering: App Service (Mobile), Notification Hubs, Mobile apps, API apps, Visual Studio App Centre, Xamarin
- On the Xamarin blog, Joseph Hill highlights the Connect() 2018 Xamarin Announcements
- Also on the Xamarin blog, David Ortinau writes about The Future of Mobile Development: Xamarin.Forms 4.0 Preview
- Also on the Xamarin blog, Jayme Singleton highlights the Xamarin and .NET Developer Events in December
- On the Azure blog, Rob Caron (@RobCaronMSFT) writes that Cincinnati Childrens has a great app development experience with Azure services
- On MSDN, James S White writes about The Ship List: Visual Studio App Center November Edition
Networking
Covering: ExpressRoute, Azure DNS, Virtual Network, Traffic Manager, Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Application Gateway, Network Watcher
- On the Azure blog, Yousef Khalidi talks about SONiC: Global support and updates
- James van Den Berg writes about the Microsoft Azure virtual datacenter HUB-Spoke Model: A network perspective
Security
Covering: Azure Information Protection, Key Vault, Security Center, Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Advanced Threat Protection
- On the Azure blog, David Burt writes that Azure obtains automotive industrys TISAX compliance
- On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Jason Wilson explains how to Reduce your potential attack surface using Azure ATP Lateral Movement Paths
- On MSDN, Karina Homme (@karinalhomme) provides a Meetup replay: Women Leading Government Cybersecurity
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, James Baker writes about the Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 preview – More features, more performance, better availability
- On the Kloud blog, Anupam Phoghat writes Windows 2016 fileserver cluster on Microsoft StorSimple – Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4
- Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) explains how to Extend you File server with Azure File Sync and Migrate with Windows Admin Center
Web
Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service
- On the Azure blog, Vladimir Vinogradsky writes about Azure API Management for serverless architectures
- On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) talks about Azure API Management for serverless applications with Mike Budzynski
- On the Kloud blog, John Downs covers Low-Cost Rate Limiting for Azure Functions APIs with API Management's Consumption Tier
- On the Codit blog, Maxim Braekman writes about the Azure API Management: Consumption Tier
- On MSDN, Yi Liao writes that WordPress on Linux Updated
Azure Weekly Archive
If you would like to read more interesting articles from the Azure ecosystem check out our archive where you will find all of the back issues.
Contribute Content
If you would like to contribute any content to the Azure Weekly newsletter, please email azureweekly@endjin.com