Azure Weekly

Issue #240 - 1st September 2019

Amongst this week's updates, we've been informed that Azure is now available from new cloud regions in Switzerland, and that there are now 31 new Azure edge sites, to help optimize network performance around the world. Also in this week's edition, Bryan Soltis discusses Using a Custom Translator with Azure Cognitive Services, and Charbel Nemnom has described How To Enable Immediate Sync On Azure File Share With Azure File Sync.

⚙️ AI + Machine Learning

On the Azure blog, Prasanth Pulavarthi blogs about PyTorch on Azure: Full support for PyTorch 1.2
On the Premier Developer blog, Randy Park provides an Introduction to ML.NET with Permutation Feature Importance
Also on the Premier Developer blog, Bryan Soltis (@bryan_soltis) describes Using a Custom Translator with Azure Cognitive Services
On Channel 9, Qun Ying (@yingquncn) talks about Anomaly Detector v1.0 Best Practices
On Microsoft Cloud blogs, Manash Goswami and Faith Xu write Now available: ONNX Runtime 0.5 with support for edge hardware acceleration

🔎 Analytics

On the MSSQL Tips site, Fikrat Azizov blogs about the Azure Data Factory If Condition Activity
The Azure updates team highlights the Azure Data Factory Mapping Data Flows Adds SQL Scripts to Sink Transformation
Adam Marczak (@MarczakIO) talks about Azure Data Factory Parametrization
Also on the MSSQL Tips site, Ron L'Esteve discusses Using Azure Databricks to Query Azure SQL Database
Chris Webb (@cwebb_bi) walks through Setting Azure Analysis Services Server Properties Not Visible In SQL Server Management Studio

🖥️ Compute

Jason Roberts (@robertsjason) walks through Understanding Azure Durable Functions - Part 9: The Asynchronous HTTP API Pattern and Part 10 The Monitor Pattern
On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Arpan Shah (@arpanshah) writes about Azure and VMware innovation and momentum
The Azure updates team writes that Service Fabric Azure Files Volume Driver is now generally available

🚢 Containers

Sam Cogan (@samcogan) walks through Updating Windows Nodes in AKS Windows Preview
Daniel Neumann (@neumanndaniel) discusses Configuration options for CoreDNS in Azure Kubernetes Service

🗄️ Databases

On the Azure SQL Database blog, Jovan Popovic (@jocapc) describes how to Increase data file size to improve HammerDB workload performance on General Purpose Managed Instance and on the Azure SQL Database blog, explains how to Automate migration to Managed Instance using PowerShell
Also on the Azure SQL Database blog, Jeroen ter Heerdt (@jeroenterheerdt) highlights the New Data Exposed episode: Demo – Vnet Firewall Rules for SQL Database
Tobias Zimmergren blogs about Building scalable cloud systems with great performance using Azure Cache for Redis

🛠️ Developer Tools

Mike Pfeiffer (@mike_pfeiffer) presents 036: Azure vs. AWS with Tim Warner
On the Azure blog, Christine Alford (@heyalford) discusses Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 42
On Code Project, Glenn Prince (@Glenn_Prince) walks through Building a Discord Bot in Azure using Microservices
On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Tom Keane (@tomwkeane) writes that Microsoft Azure available from new cloud regions in Switzerland
Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) also highlights that Microsoft Azure Regions in Switzerland now available

🔩 DevOps

Mariano Gomez covers PowerApps | Introduction to Build Tools for Azure DevOps
Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) writes about Managing cloud training environments inside Azure and AWS
On the Black Marble blog, Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) writes about a Strange issue with multiple calls to the same REST WebClient in PowerShell
On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, the Industry Team describes How DeVry adopted Azure Lab Services to unify learning environments
On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Alessandro Segala (@ItalyPaleAle) talks about Enabling DevSecOps with Synopsys and Microsoft
Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Sasha Rosenbaum (@DivineOps) lists the Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community – 2019.08.23

🔌 Integration

Antariksh Mistry writes about Logic App / On-Premise SQL connectivity with & without Integration Service Environment ISE – Part 1
Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) covers The value proposition of AWS Eventbridge and Azure Event Grid
On the Serverless360 blog, Balasubramaniam Murugesan blogs about Azure Service Bus Session Enabled Message Processing

💡 Internet of Things

On the Azure blog, Chris Pendleton (@ChrisPendleton) talks about Harnessing the power of the Location of Things with Azure Maps
On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch (@obloch) describes how to Simplify and Automate Azure IoT Edge Devices Deployment in Global Projects with Sarah Beaudoin

⚖️ Management and Governance

On the Azure blog, Mayuri Gupta describes how to Track the health of your disaster recovery with Log Analytics
The Azure updates team provides a number of updates: Azure Cost Management – Save and share customized views, Azure Monitor Application Insights variable retention is now available in preview, Its now easier to share customized views in Azure Cost Management, Azure Site Recovery update rollup 39—August 2019 and Azure Backup now provides soft delete capability to help protect hybrid backups
On Bennett Adelson blog, Bennett Adelson Consulting (@Bennett_Adelson) covers Backup and Disaster Recovery
Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) writes Azure Monitor Alert Series Part 3
Stefan Roth (@stefanroth_net) talks about Azure Monitor – Application Insights Status Monitor v2 (Part 1)
Tobias Zimmergren writes Use the Azure Portal Desktop App

⚙️ Microsoft Azure Stack

On Microsoft Cloud Blogs, Kim Kischel (@KimKischel) and Alex Esibov write about Advanced security for any app in your organization

📱 Mobile

On Code Project, Ahmed Fouad (@MCC_Ahmed) writes a few blogs on Xamarin: Building a data form with validation in 3 minutes using AOP, Easy ListView With Load more in xamarin forms, Adding Loader/Progress to your xamarin App using Postsharp. and Boost Your Xamarin App Development With Meta Programming

🌐 Networking

Richard M. Hicks (@richardhicks) writes about an Always On VPN with Azure Gateway
On the Azure blog, Raman Deep Singh writes that Azure Load Balancer becomes more efficient
On the Azure blog, Yousef Khalidi (@YousefkAzure) writes that Latency is the new currency of the Cloud: Announcing 31 new Azure edge sites

📦 Storage

On the Premier Developer blog, Omer Amin writes that Azure Ultra Disk Storage is here
On the Serverless360 blog, Nadeem Ahamed writes about Azure Blob Storage vs File Storage
Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains How To Enable Immediate Sync On Azure File Share With Azure File Sync
The Azure updates team highlights the Storage Ultra Disks meter name change
Michael Crump (@mbcrump) posts Tip 221 - Use Blazor and C to host a static website in Azure Storage

🔗 Web

On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) provides some Azure API Management updates - serverless, schemas, and a new dev portal with Mike Budzynski