Azure Weekly

Issue #273 - 3rd May 2020

This week we'd like to highlight some content around CosmosDB. Firstly, the Azure team have announced that Spatial geometry in Azure Cosmos DB now generally available. We explored some of this as part of a recent project, it's powerful stuff and definitely worth a look if you're working with spatial data!

And, to assist with this, Deborah Chen has joined the team on the Azure Podcast to further discuss the new Cosmos DB Free Tier. We've mentioned this a few times, but I think it's really worth highlighting that you can now take advantage of the powerful features of Cosmos without breaking the bank.

The updates team has also announced that Managed identity support in AKS is now available. Managed identities mean that all of the credential management is done for you, and therefore massively reduce the security risks around authentication. It's great to see this feature become available in a wider range of services!

Alongside this, YAML CD features in Azure Pipelines are now generally available. We've been using YAML for our build and release definitions for a while now, and wholeheartedly recommend this as a way of managing CI/CD processes.

Finally, on the endjin blog, Carmel has written a blog around handling upheaval and navigating uncertain times. This isn't strictly Azure related, but I think it's important to recognise that many of are struggling to comprehend the scale of the current global changes. This post runs through a few general strategies for managing the extra mental workload.

And finally, if you're in the UK, please check out https://www.bytesforheroes.com and see if you can help.