Azure Weekly

Issue #214 - 3rd March 2019

We've got some more home-grown content for you this week. Technical Fellow Ian Griffiths has compiled (pardon the pun) an illuminating series of posts around some C# 8 surprising patterns, whilst Carmel Eve has written a helpful 101 around binary and hexadecimal numeral systems and also a brilliantly articulated beginner’s guide to agile estimation and planning, a delivery method we hold close to our hearts here at endjin.

Back to Azure now, and there has been a lot of announcements this week, particularly for Azure Data Factory. Let's take a look at those first:

And now for the rest:

⚙️ AI + Machine Learning

On the Azure blog, Neena Kamath announces Azure Spatial Anchors for collaborative, cross-platform mixed reality apps
On the Azure blog, Cornelia Carapcea and Lei Zhang write about the Latest enhancements now available for Cognitive Services' Computer Vision
On TechNet, Jamie Maguire (@jamie_maguire1) writes about Visual intelligence UX for search without key words

🔎 Analytics

The Azure updates team posts a number of Azure Data Factory updates: Quickly build data integration pipelines by using templates, Enhanced monitoring capabilities and tags/annotations, Code-free data transformation at scale, Parameterize connections to your data stores, Create alerts to proactively monitor your pipelines, Azure Functions now supported as a step in pipelines, Azure Data Factory visual tools integrated with GitHub, Support for Enterprise Security Package–enabled HDInsight clusters, Linked Resource Manager template support available for CI/CD in your data factories, Monitor pipelines by using Azure Monitor and Log Analytics and Self-hosted IR sharing across multiple data factories
the Azure updates team highlights the Machine learning-based anomaly detection functions in Azure Stream Analytics preview, the support of Azure SQL DB as reference data input in ASA and highlights that Azure Analysis Services web designer to be discontinued
On the Power BI blog, Santosh Chandwani (@santoshc1) discusses Python visualizations in Power BI Service, Kay Unkroth covers Tailoring help and support for Power BI users and David Magar writes that Power BI Premium Deployment and Management Whitepaper added!
Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) discusses Handling Different Granularities In Power BI Using Slicer Groups
On Geeks with Blogs, Darren Gosbell (@darrengosbell) talks about Fixing incorrect date formats in Power BI Report Server when using Chrome or Firefox
On TechNet, Amanda Buchholz says to Quickly grow and build your Power BI practice with new solutions and services
On the MSSQL Tips site, Scott Murray provides a Power BI Embedded Example

🖥️ Compute

On the Azure blog, Asavari Tayal announces the general availability of Java support in Azure Functions
Also on the Azure blog, Colby Tresness discusses Improving the TypeScript support in Azure Functions
Jason Roberts (@robertsjason) posts Improving Azure Functions Blob Trigger Performance and Reliability - Part 2: Processing Delays and Missed Blobs, Part 3: Using Event Grid to Respond to New Blobs and Part 4: Periodically Checking for Unprocessed Blobs
On TechNet, Neslihan Kalayci (@neslikalay) writes about Going Serverless with Azure Functions & Powershell: SendGrid
Mikhail Shilkov writes about Cold Starts in Azure Functions and provides a Comparison of Cold Starts in Serverless Functions across AWS, Azure, and GCP
Justin Yoo (@justinchronicle) talks about Performing Constructor Injections on Azure Functions V2
On the Serverless360 blog, Mohan Nagaraj talks about Azure Functions Live – Feb 2019
Also on the Azure blog, Sonia Gupta describes how to Instantly restore your Azure Virtual Machines using Azure Backup
The Azure updates team writes that M-series virtual machines VMs are now available in the Korea South region and talks about Azure Blockchain: Updated Hyperledger Fabric template 1.3 now available
On MSDN, Robert Jaffee and Diego Lapiduz provide Five tips for securing your IaaS workloads

🚢 Containers

On MSDN, Steve Read (@swread) covers Running Micro Focus Enterprise Server 4.0 in a Docker Container in Azure
On the Premier Developer blog, Julien Oudot (@JulienOudot) writes about Why you should consider VS Code for your Kubernetes/Docker work – Part 2
Vincent-Philippe Lauzon (@vplauzon) talks about Network Policies with Calico in AKS
Mark Heath (@mark_heath) answers Should I containerize my cloud app?
Sam Cogan (@samcogan) writes about Windows Containers and Azure
Tobias Zimmergren describes Azure Container Instances - Using Managed Identity to access Key Vault secrets with C#

🗄️ Databases

On the Azure blog, Shau Phang describes Creating IoT applications with Azure Database for PostgreSQL
The Azure updates team provides a number of updates: Instantly provision GraphQL on Azure with Hasura and Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Database for MySQL: Read replica now generally available, Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL: New compute options are now available, Azure SQL DB as reference data input and Database rename is now supported in Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
On the MSSQL Tips site, Ray Barley walks through Using Azure Storage and Azure SQL Database for SSIS Development
Jeremy Lindsay (@jeremylindsayni) talks about Getting started with Azure Cosmos DB and .NET Core: Part 1 – Installing the Cosmos emulator, writing and reading data
On MSDN, David Engel writes that Drivers 5.6 for PHP for SQL Server Released and writes that OLE DB Driver 18.2 for SQL Server Released

🛠️ Developer Tools

On the Azure blog, Leon Romaniuk writes about the Cognitive Services Speech SDK 1.3 – February update
On the Premier Developer blog, Rick Caudle describes Using Go Lang with Azure
On the Visual Studio blog, John Montgomery (@JohnMont) writes that Visual Studio 2019 Release Candidate RC now available
Also on the Visual Studio blog, Mads Kristensen (@mkristensen) describes how to Use your favorite extensions with Visual Studio 2019
Also on the Visual Studio blog, Xiaokai He (@XiaokaiHe) writes about Dependency Autocompletion, Performance Improvements and More for Java on Visual Studio Code
On Channel 9, Burke Holland (@burkeholland) talks about Five Ways You Can Interact with Data from VS Code with Julie Lerman
Also on Channel 9, Marc Mercuri and Chris Segura talk about Handling media and documents on the blockchain
Bill Zack (@WilliamHZack) introduces The Nashville edition of the 2019 Global Azure Bootcamp
On MSDN, Sarah Arnold blogs about Microsoft Azure Next Up Exam Camp
Also on the Azure blog, Christine Alford (@heyalford) highlights the Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 32
On the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Ben Stegink and Scott Hoag present Episode 114 – Answering Why Cloud with Sarah Lean
On Microsoft Cloud Show, Andrew Connell (@andrewconnell) presents Episode 292 | Microsoft Azure + Office 365 News & Updates

🔩 DevOps

On the Azure blog, Tanmayee Kamath announces the general availability of Azure Lab Services
On the Premier Developer blog, Art Garcia (@artgarciafl) highlights that Azure Lab services scheduling now available
On MSDN, Paul Breuler provides an Introduction to DevOps for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement using YAML Based Azure Pipelines
On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Edward Thomson (@ethomson) lists the Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2019.02.22
On Code Project, Florian Rappl (@FlorianRappl) blogs about Azure Pipelines Building GitHub Repositories By Example
Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Jamie Cool highlights the Cloud-based load testing service end of life
Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Joe Bourne provides some Hosted Pipelines Announcements: VS 2019, Mojave, and more
The Azure updates team discusses the Azure DevOps CLI preview and feature updates in Pipelines - Sprint 148 Update
Gunnar Peipman (@gpeipman) writes about ASP.NET Core code coverage reports on Azure DevOps
On the .NET Curry blog, Gouri Sohoni discusses Jenkins integration with tools for SCM, Build Management and Test Management (Covers Azure DevOps)

🎭 Identity

On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson (@darrenjrobinson) describes the Azure AD/Active Directory User Security Evaluation Reporter
Roelf Zomerman blogs about ImmutableID – mS-DS-ConsistencyGuid – AADConnect – ADMT – part 3a
On TechNet, Matt Soseman covers AzureAD: Setup SSO to G-Suite for free, and govern access! (Google Apps)

🔌 Integration

On the Azure blog, Kevin Lam (@kevinlam_msft) announces the Azure Integration Service Environment for Logic Apps
On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) talks about Introduction to Azure Integration Service Environment for Logic Apps with Kevin Lam
The Azure updates team highlights a few announcements: Azure Event Grid Availability in Azure US Gov regions, blogs about Azure Maps events in Azure Event Grid and writes about New features are now generally available in Event Grid
On the Serverless360 blog, Kent Weare explains how to Automate Cyber Security Processes using Azure Logic Apps and Microsoft Graph Security APIs
The Azure updates team describes FastTrack for Azure

💡 Internet of Things

On the Azure blog, Justin Slade talks about IoT in Action: New innovations making IoT faster and simpler
Also on the Azure blog, Phani Mutyala and Emmanuel Bertrand write about Running Cognitive Services on Azure IoT Edge
Also on the Azure blog, Sarah Hubbard writes about the New device modeling experience in Azure IoT Central
Also on the Azure blog, Sam George (@samjgeorge) writes that Microsoft and SAP extend partnership to Internet of Things
Also on the Azure blog, Sam George (@samjgeorge) discusses MWC 2019: Azure IoT customers, partners accelerate innovation from cloud to edge
On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch (@obloch) talks about Azure Maps - The Microsoft Azure Enterprise Location Platform with Chris Pendleton
Also on Channel 9, Pamela Cortez (@hello_techie) presents an IoT Deep Dive Live with Chafia Aouissi and Joseph Biron: Building End to End Industrial Solutions with PTC ThingWorx and Azure
On the Tech Radar site, Mike Moore writes that Microsoft Azure Kinect could power the next generation of VR

⚖️ Management and Governance

On the Azure blog, Yaniv Lavi announces Azure Monitor AIOps Alerts with Dynamic Thresholds (PP)
The Azure updates team provides a number of updates: Azure Policy root cause analysis and change tracking features, Azure Policy non-compliance reasoning and change history features, Remove Application Insights connections via PowerShell, Public preview: Azure Log Analytics is available in new regions in Australia and Introducing the Azure portal how to video series
Gregor Suttie (@gregor_suttie) discusses Using Azure Recovery Vault to backup SQL Server within your Virtual Machines

⚙️ Microsoft Azure Stack

On the Azure blog, Tiberiu Radu and David Armour post Azure Stack laaS – part two

🚌 Migration

The Azure updates team highlights the Data Migration Assistant support for Cassandra to Azure Cosmos DB assessment

📱 Mobile

On the Xamarin blog, Suresh Mohan describes how to View PDF Files within Your Xamarin.Forms Apps Using the Syncfusion PDF Viewer
Also on the Xamarin blog, James Montemagno provides a Quick Tip: Debugging Local ASP.NET Core Web APIs on Android Emulators
On Channel 9, James Montemagno talks about Maps (Xamarin.Essentials API of the Week) and provides a Xamarin.Forms 101: Control Reference Binding (View-to-View)
On Code Project, Chandru BK talks about Xamarin Forms - Theming Made Simple

🌐 Networking

The Azure updates team writes that Virtual network service endpoints for Azure Database for MariaDB are now generally available and that Azure Container Registry firewall rules and Virtual Network in preview
Sameera Perera (@sameera_man) covers Azure VWAN Monitoring Features
On the Tech Radar site, Anthony Spadafora highlights that Microsoft and VMware reportedly planning cloud partnership

🔐 Security

On the Azure blog, Eliav Levi discusses introduces Microsoft Azure Sentinel, intelligent security analytics for your entire enterprise
Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) takes a First look on the new Azure Sentinel cloud-native with Azure Notebooks free service

📦 Storage

On MSDN, Walter Novoa (@warnov) walks through Working with AZCopy 10 and Azure Storage Blob Access Tiers
Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) describes how to Use Azure File Sync to bridge your storage SMBs and NFS needs with Azure Files Cloud Storage for Windows Virtual Desktop, Citrix Virtual Desktops and other DaaS workloads on Azure

🔗 Web

The Azure updates team writes about Azure App Service - WildFly on Linux is in preview