Azure Weekly
Issue #23 - 25th April 2015
This week in the Azure ecosystem, Premium Storage and Stream Analytics entered general availability. There were new arrivals in the form of Docker Client for Windows (part of the Docker 1.6 release), the Universal Windows Apps SDK for Azure Mobile Engagement, Azure Media Player and Spanish language support for the Azure Media Indexer.
The Storage team described the Append Blob, coming in Q3 this year. Append Blobs can be modified by adding blocks to the end of the blob via a new 'Append Block' operation - the appended block will be accessible immediately. This is perfectly suited for logging & auditing scenarios.
There's new guidance from the Patterns & Practices team who have published a set of guides on GitHub, covering API Design, API implementation, Autoscaling, Background jobs, CDN, Caching, Data partitioning, Monitoring and diagnostics, Retry, Scalability and availability.
⚖️ Management and Governance
On the Azure blog, Ahmet Alp Balkan (@ahmetalpbalkan), Software Engineer - Azure Compute, announces that Docker Client for Windows is now available
The Windows Docker Client is also covered by Jessie Frazelle on the Docker blog, along with other updates in Docker 1.6
Also on the Docker blog, Ben Firshman writes about faster and better image distribution with Registry 2.0 and Engine 1.6, Aanand Prasad writes 'easily configure Apps for multiple environments with Compose 1.2 and much more', Steve Francia describes highlights from the Docker Projects first open-source-athon and Ben Golub discusses Docker's announcement of a $95m series D funding round
🖥️ Compute
On the Azure podcast, Hugh Valentine of Cloud Point shares some thoughts and observations on cloud adoption and migration strategies
🌐 Networking
On TechNet, 'Herbchung' answers the question is it possible to transit traffic through a Dynamic Gateway of an Azure Virtual Network?
John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) shares two videos on Azure Network Security Groups and Fault and Update Domains
💡 Internet of Things
On the Azure blog, Piyush Joshi announces the release of Universal Windows Apps SDK for Azure Mobile Engagement
Also on the Azure blog, Nir Mashkowski announces that Zend’s Z-Ray technology for PHP will soon be available as part of Azure App Service
On the endjin blog, Howard van Rooijen (@HowardvRooijen) describes endjin's open source SpecFlow Extensions for Azure Storage Emulator
Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) walks through orchestrating massive parallelisation of Azure WebJobs for fun and profit
On the Microsoft Open Technologies site, Martin Sawicki writes a tutorial on using Ant and Jenkins to automate the deployment of Java projects from the Azure Toolkit for Eclipse
Felix Rieseberg (@felixrieseberg) talks about building an Android Twitter Clone with Azure Mobile Services
Greg Duncan provides a roundup of stories about developing for the Microsoft Band
On Channel 9, Cory Fowler (@cfowlerMSFT) and Nazim Lala demonstrate how to configure static or dynamic IP restriction for Azure Web Apps
⚙️ Data and Analytics
On the Azure blog, Santosh Balasubramanian writes about the general Availability of Azure Stream Analytics
Also on the Azure blog, Stephen Baron writes describes how to easily import data to DocumentDB
On the Microsoft Openness site, the Openness Team invites you to register now for your local Big Data Hackathon. There are Hackathons coming up in Vancouver, New York, Copenhagen, Seattle, Frankfurt, Moscow, London, Zurich and Milan.
📦 Storage
On the Azure blog, Pehkeong Teh compares Azure SQL Database Built-in Backups to the Import/ Export Services
On the Azure blog, Mark Russinovich announces that Azure Premium Storage is now generally available and deep dives into the underlying architecture.
Mark Russinovich also talks about the General Availability of premium Storage on Channel 9's Edge Show
On the SQL Server Pro site, Grant Fritchey writes about Dynamic Management Views in Azure SQL Database v12
🎬 Media
On the Azure blog, Milan Gada announces that Azure Media Services is certified for CDSA - the Content Delivery and Security Association
Also on the Azure blog, Amit Rajput announces the Azure Media Player, a free player solution built to playback media content from Microsoft Azure Media Services
⚙️ Hybrid Integration
On the Just Azure blog, Matt Milner writes about part 3 of his series on Azure BizTalk Services, covering BizTalk in Azure Infrastructure as a Service
- Yung Chou (@yungchou) talks about Windows Azure Pack Express Installation
Robert Smit writes about using PowerShell to create and deploy Virtual Machines in VMM for Azure Pack and to place a custom Virtual Machine into an Azure Pack Subscription
⚙️ Identity and Access Management
On the Unity site, Dan Wahlin writes part 6 of his series on integrating AngularJS with Azure Active Directory Services and Office 365/SharePoint