Azure Weekly Issue 231: 30th June 2019

This week, Kunal Chandratre has written a detailed FAQ about Azure Virtual Machines, and Mads Kristensen has provided some very handy Visual Studio tips and tricks. Our favourite announcement this week is that Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 integration with Azure Event Grid is in preview (we've been waiting for EG integration with ADLS Gen 2 for a long time!) Here are the rest of this week's announcments:

• Preserve ACLs when upgrading from ADLS Gen1 to Gen2 using Azure Data Factory
• Now available: Ingest data from Oracle database performantly using Azure Data Factory
• New connectors available in Azure Data Factory: SAP Table and SAP BW via Open Hub
• Clean up files by built-in delete activity in Azure Data Factory
• General availability: Azure Data Factory in China East 2
• Azure Data Factory enriches PolyBase support for loading data into SQL DW
• Security Advisory: Patching Azure HDInsight clusters to address Linux Kernel TCP vulnerabilities
• Azure Monitor for virtual machine scale sets are now in preview
• M-series VMs are now available in the South Africa North region
• Azure Container Registry is now generally available in South Africa North
• Enhanced management capabilities to release unused subnets and create databases available for Azure SQL Database managed instance
• New Managed Instance Contributor role enhances security of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
• New Active geo-replication optimization is coming to production soon in Azure SQL DB
• Storage auto-grow for Azure Database for MySQL now generally available
• Storage auto-grow for Azure Database for PostgreSQL now generally available
• Storage auto-grow for Azure Database for MariaDB now generally available
• Java on Visual Studio Code June Update
• Auditing for Azure DevOps is now in Public Preview
• What's new in Azure DevOps Sprint 153 with Alex Nichols
• Update 19.06 for Azure Sphere public preview now available for evaluation
• New PCI DSS Azure Blueprint makes compliance simpler
• Log Analytics Agent for Windows 10.20.18001 now available
• Log Analytics Agent for Linux 1.11 now available
• Public preview: Azure Log Analytics in SOUTH AFRICA NORTH, BRAZIL SOUTH, UK WEST and NORTH CENTRAL US
• Application Insights Availability in Central US Region
• Azure Data Box Disk now available in Southeast Asia and Azure Government
• Announcing Preview Refresh for Azure DNS Private Zones

AI + Machine Learning

Covering: 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 Revolution Analytics blog, David Smith (@revodavid) provides the AI, Machine Learning and Data Science Roundup: June 2019
• On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, David Houlding (@davidhoulding) writes about Using natural language processing to manage healthcare records and describes Solving the problem of duplicate records in healthcare

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

• The Azure updates team highlights lots of updates: Preserve ACLs when upgrading from ADLS Gen1 to Gen2 using Azure Data Factory, Now available: Ingest data from Oracle database performantly using Azure Data Factory, New connectors available in Azure Data Factory: SAP Table and SAP BW via Open Hub, Clean up files by built-in delete activity in Azure Data Factory, General availability: Azure Data Factory in China East 2, Azure Data Factory enriches PolyBase support for loading data into SQL DW and Security Advisory: Patching Azure HDInsight clusters to address Linux Kernel TCP vulnerabilities

Compute

Covering: Virtual Machines, Functions, Batch, Service Fabric, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Cloud Services, Linux Virtual Machines, SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances

• The Azure updates team highlights that Azure Monitor for virtual machine scale sets are now in preview and writes that M-series VMs are now available in the South Africa North region
• Kunal Chandratre writes about Azure Virtual Machine – Frequently asked questions – not easily answered
• Simon Waight (@simonwaight) writes about Customised Serverless using Azure Functions, Docker and Kubernetes Event-driven Architecture (KEDA)
• Henry Been (@henry_been) discusses Loading settings for an Azure Function binding from a Key Vault

Containers

Covering: Container Registry, Container Instances, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Web App for Containers

• The Azure updates team writes that Azure Container Registry is now generally available in South Africa North
• Mark Heath (@mark_heath) describes Copying Azure Blobs Between Containers the Quick Way

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, Tim Sander, Shweta Mishra and Vinil Menon blog about Azure Cosmos DB: A competitive advantage for healthcare ISVs
• The Azure updates team provides a number of updates: Enhanced management capabilities to release unused subnets and create databases available for Azure SQL Database managed instance, New Managed Instance Contributor role enhances security of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, New Active geo-replication optimization is coming to production soon in Azure SQL DB, Storage auto-grow for Azure Database for MySQL now generally available, Storage auto-grow for Azure Database for PostgreSQL now generally available and Storage auto-grow for Azure Database for MariaDB now generally available
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Mohammed Moinudheen explains how to Restore SQL Server Databases on Azure VM (IaaS) using Azure Backup - Part 2

Developer Tools

Covering: Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, SDKs, Developer tool integrations, CLIs, Blockchain Workbench

• On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Brenda Lee highlights the Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.7.0 integration with Azure Blockchain Service
• On the Visual Studio blog, Xiaokai He (@XiaokaiHe) provides the Java on Visual Studio Code June Update
• On the Visual Studio blog, Mads Kristensen (@mkristensen) highlights some Visual Studio tips and tricks
• On Channel 9, Donovan Brown (@DonovanBrown) provides An introduction to Azure Tips and Tricks with Michael Crump
• On the Azure podcast, The Azure podcast team (@AzurePodcast) presents Episode 285 - The Azure Journey
• On Microsoft Cloud Show, Andrew Connell and Chris Johnson (@mscloudshow) present Episode 308 | Cloud News and Giveaways!
• Jason Roberts (@robertsjason) writes Microsoft Feature Toggle Feature Flag Library: A First Look

DevOps

Covering: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), Azure DevTest Labs, DevOps tool integrations, Azure DevOps Projects, Azure Lab Services

• On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Anisha Pindoria (@anishapindoria) describes What's new in Azure DevOps Sprint 153 with Alex Nichols
• The Azure updates team describes how to View linked GitHub activity from the Kanban board - Sprint 153 Update
• Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Edward Thomson (@ethomson) lists the Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2019.06.21
• Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Octavio Licea Leon (@olicea) writes that Auditing for Azure DevOps is now in Public Preview
• Justin Yoo (@justinchronicle) blogs about Building Azure DevOps Extension on Azure DevOps – Design
• On the DragonSpears blog, David Henry (@DragonSpearsApp) provides A CI/CD Pipeline with Azure DevOps and AWS Managed Kubernetes
• Jessica Deen (@jldeen) writes about Azure Pipelines: Featuring Bash, YAML, JFrog and a custom Slack app
• Sam Cogan (@samcogan) talks about Testing Packer Images with Pester
• Donovan Brown (@DonovanBrown) describes Using Release Gates to verify DNS Propagation

Identity

Covering: Azure Active Directory, Multi-factor Authentication, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory B2C

Integration

Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid

• On the Azure blog, Sumant Mehta writes about Event-driven analytics with Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
• Mark Brimble (@BrimbleMark) talks about Azure – cXML DTD Messages
• On the Serverless360 blog, Nadeem Ahamed discusses a Azure Logic Apps Use Case – Black Friday

Internet of Things

Covering: IoT Hub, IoT Suite, IoT Edge, IoT Central, IoT solution accelerators, Time Series Insights, Azure Maps, Azure Sphere

• The Azure updates team writes that Update 19.06 for Azure Sphere public preview now available for evaluation
• On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch (@obloch) talks about Engineering Azure IoT Solutions with L&T TS with Hari Natarajan
• Daniel Neumann (@neumanndaniel) talks about Installing Helm and Azure IoT Edge on a k3s Kubernetes cluster on Raspbian

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

• Also on Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Lily Kim writes that the New PCI DSS Azure Blueprint makes compliance simpler
• On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Nick Leimer (@LeimerNick) writes about A solution to manage policy administration from end to end
• The Azure updates team provides a number of updates: Log Analytics Agent for Windows 10.20.18001 now available, Log Analytics Agent for Linux 1.11 now available, Public preview: Azure Log Analytics in SOUTH AFRICA NORTH, BRAZIL SOUTH, UK WEST and NORTH CENTRAL US and Application Insights Availability in Central US Region
• Also on Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Rosemary Wang (@joatmon08) covers Migrating to HashiCorp Terraform 0.12 on Microsoft Azure

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

Migration

Covering: Azure Database Migration Service, Azure Migrate, Data Box

• The Azure updates team writes that Azure Data Box Disk now available in Southeast Asia and Azure Government

Mobile

Covering: App Service (Mobile), Notification Hubs, Mobile apps, API apps, Visual Studio App Centre, Xamarin

• On the Xamarin blog, Adam Patridge (@PatridgeDev) explains how to Get Started with Free Xamarin Training on Microsoft Learn
• Also on the Xamarin blog, Jonathan Peppers (@JonathanPeppers) writes about Faster Xamarin.Android Builds & Smaller Dex Files
• On Channel 9, James Montemagno (@JamesMontemagno) talks about Email (Xamarin.Essentials API of the Week)
• Also on Channel 9, James Montemagno (@JamesMontemagno) talks about 4 Awesome Things In Xamarin.Forms 4.0 with David Ortinau
• Also on the Xamarin blog, David Ortinau (@davidortinau) walks through Migrating MacOS Apps to 64-bit Before the Apple Transition

Networking

Covering: ExpressRoute, Azure DNS, Virtual Network, Traffic Manager, Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Application Gateway, Network Watcher

• The Azure updates team announces Preview Refresh for Azure DNS Private Zones
• David O'Brien (@david_obrien) blogs about Azure Bastion for RDP and SSH Access
• Richard M. Hicks (@richardhicks) writes about Always On VPN Options for Azure Deployments
• Christiaan Brinkhoff (@Brinkhoff_C) talks about Heads up! The future of storing your Microsoft / FSLogix Profile Container on Azure Files as platform service (lowest TCO) for Windows Virtual Desktop

Security

Covering: Azure Information Protection, Key Vault, Security Center, Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Advanced Threat Protection

• Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) describes How to Configure Just-In-Time VM Access for Azure Firewall in Azure Security Center

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, Tad Brockway (@tadbrockway) announces the general availability of Azure premium files

Web

Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service

• On the Azure blog, Liam Cavanagh (@liamca) covers Leveraging complex data to build advanced search applications with Azure Search
• Michael Crump (@mbcrump) shares Tip 203 - Delivering static content via Azure CDN