Azure Weekly
Issue #301 - 22nd November 2020
This week, on the Azure blog, Kevin Raines discusses Azure high-performance computing at Supercomputing 2020. Leslie Richardson and Sagar Shetty discuss performance profiling .NET object allocation using the tracking tool. This is an incredibly useful tool for aiding in low-allocation compute (which can provide huge cost savings when ising Azure Functions - for more on that check out this blog!).
Seth Juarez and Rafal Lukawiecki delve into reproducible data science with Machine Learning. Elsewhere, on Ctrl-Alt-Azure, Tobias Zimmergren and Jussi Roine run through the news in Azure for November 2020.
One of my favourite session from the recent dotnetconf was the .NET Interactive team's session "Remote Computer Science with Pi-Top smart rover , .NET interactive Microsoft Bot & Microsoft Teams". If you have 30 minutes spare, I'd highly recommend it - especially if you're trying to get children into STEM. It also shows the power of Microsoft's investments in Cloud, AI, IOT and Developer Tools over the last few years.
And finally, one of our major projects over the summer was to modernise many of our DevOps processes, to reduce the overhead of our ever growing (30+) open source projects. James Dawson continues his series on GitOps in: Does your GitHub Repo need 'Code Operations'?
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- On the DEV site, Christopher Harrison walks through Translating text with just a few lines of code using Azure Cognitive Services
- On Tech Community blog, Jeremy Howard (@jeremyphoward) discusses Fast.ai
- Also on Tech Community blog, Qinying Liao highlights Neural Text-to-Speech previews five new languages with innovative models in the low-resource setting
- On Channel 9, Rafal Lukawiecki (@rafaldotnet) talks about Reproducible Data Science with Machine Learning
- The Azure updates team announces Cognitive Services Speech adds new Neural TTS voices and general availability of Neural TTS in containers and that A new version of Text Analytics is now in public preview
🔎 Analytics
- On the MSSQL Tips site, Ryan Kennedy explains how to Execute Databricks Jobs via REST API in Postman
- On the Microsoft BI Tools blog, Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) covers how to Process Analysis Service with Firewall in ADF only
- On Channel 9, Miwa Hattori talks about Being a Data and Applied Scientist on Azure
- The Azure updates team announces that HDInsight HBase Accelerated Writes with Premium Data Lake Storage Gen2 is now generally available
🖥️ Compute
- On the Azure blog, Evan Burness (@evanburness) talks about improvements to MPI performance at Supercomputing in 2020 and Kevin Raines covers more announcements from Supercomputing 2020
- The Azure updates team highlights that Node.js 14 for Azure Functions is now available in public preview
- On the DEV site, Justin Yoo (@justinchronicle) writes about Open API Extension Support for Azure Functions V1
🚢 Containers
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Jay Gordon (@jaydestro) covers Azure Containers - Kubernetes, Container Instances, More
- Daniel Neumann (@neumanndaniel) runs through Troubleshooting Azure Kubernetes Service tunnel component issues
- On the Azure blog, Brendan Burns (@brendandburns) discusses Empowering developer velocity and efficiency with Kubernetes
🗄️ Databases
- On the MSSQL Tips site, Mohammed Moinudheen talks about Azure SQL Database TDE Customer Managed Keys
- On the Azure blog, Swati Sachdeva describes Azure Backup for Azure PostgreSQL long-term retention in preview
- Jose M Jurado (@jmjuradodiaz) solves an issue: Login Timeout Expired connecting to Azure SQL Database
- Also on the MSSQL Tips site, Carla Albanes discusses Building SQL Server Cluster on Azure with Storage Spaces Direct
- On the SQL Server Blog, the SQL Server Team (@SQLServer) discusses Microsoft Azure at Data Platform Virtual Summit 2020
- On Azure Tips and Tricks, Michael Crump (@mbcrump) discusses What database should you use in your next Azure Functions app
- On SQL Server Central, Sucharita Das provides An Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On Channel 9, Sagar Shetty talks about Performance Profiling .NET Object Allocation using Tracking Tool
- On the DEV site, Jasmine Greenaway (@paladique) discusses Working with Jupyter Notebooks in Visual Studio Code
- On the SQL Server Blog, Drew Skwiers-Koballa covers Building and sharing Jupyter Books in Azure Data Studio
- On the Visual Studio blog, Ruben Rios (@rub8n) highlights that GitHub accounts are now integrated into Visual Studio 2019
- Carole Logan, Laurent Bugnion,Jessica White, and David Whitney feature as guests on the The Cloud Skills Show and talk about all the latest .NET 5.0 announcements.
- Also on Tech Community blog, Damien Caro provides a Postmortem of the Az 5.0 release
🔩 DevOps
- On the endjin blog, James Dawson (@James_Dawson) asks Does your GitHub Repo need 'Code Operations'?
- Geert Baeke explains how to Deploy and bootstrap your Kubernetes cluster with Azure DevOps and GitOps
- On the Black Marble blog, Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) describes How to export Azure DevOps Classic Builds and Release to YAML
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Abel Wang (@abelsquidhead) runs through What's New in Azure DevOps Docs For October
- Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Jessica Deen (@jldeen) highlights some Things to consider when running visual tests in CI/CD pipelines: Container Pipeline Edition
- Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Steven Murawski (@StevenMurawski) lists the Top Stories from the Microsoft DevOps Community
- On Tech Community blog, Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) discusses Azure DevOps Boards and Excel
- Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) walks through Deploying ARM Templates using Azure DevOps Pipelines
- Kevin Chant explains how to Deploy SQLWATCH to SQL Server using GitHub Actions
- On SQL Server Central, Ron L'Esteve discusses Securing Secrets in Azure DevOps
- On the Perficient blog, David Hwang describes How to Generate .DACPAC File in Your Build Artifact for Azure SQL Deployment
- On the Azure DevOps podcast, Scott Nichols talks about The State of Azure
🧬 Hybrid
- James Serra (@JamesSerra) discusses Azure Stack and Azure Arc for data services
- Tiberiu Radu (@rctibi) discusses Cloud Assert (Azure Stack Hub Partner Solutions Series)
- On the Azure blog, David Dennis highlights that Azure Hybrid Benefit is now generally available for Linux
- On The Azure Podcast, Sujithotmail.com Sujit D'Mello describes Episode 355 - Multi party trusted data with Splunk and Azure
🎭 Identity
- On the DEV site, Waldek Mastykarz explains how to Configure your Azure AD application with Integration assistant
- On the Premier Developer blog, Marius Rochon covers Claims encryption for B2C tokens
🔌 Integration
- Mark Heath (@mark_heath) writes about Simple Messaging Between Microservices with Rebus and Azure Storage Queues
- On the Serverless360 blog, Sandro Pereira (@sandro_asp) describes How to get Key-values from Azure App Configuration within Logic Apps
- The Azure updates team announces the Public preview of Azure Log Analytics in Germany West Central, UAE North, and Switzerland West and the General availability of Azure Log Analytics in Brazil Southeast and Norway East
- On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Sagar Lankala writes about Shutdown Notifications for DevTest Labs in Teams Chat Messages
💡 Internet of Things
- On the DEV site, Jim Bennett discusses how to Control holiday lights with Python, Azure IoT and Power Apps
- On Channel 9, Teo De Las Heras provides a Behind the scenes of a retail solution
- Sander van de Velde walks through Expanding Raspberry PI I/O using I²C on Azure IoT Edge
- On the Azure blog, Miriam Russom (@Ryiamey) discusses Connecting urban environments with IoT and Digital Twins
📚 Learning
- Adam Marczak (@MarczakIO) continues his series on AZ-900, covering Azure Resource Locks
- Pantelis Apostolidis (@papostolidis) explains how to Learn Azure for Free using Sandbox!
- Sam Cogan (@samcogan) describes Taking the CKA Exam as an Azure User
⚖️ Management and Governance
- On Tech Community blog, Kenieva discusses Using GitHub for Azure Policy as Code
- Also on Tech Community blog, the Intune Support Team introduces New Policy Reports & more in Microsoft Endpoint Manager Reporting
- The Azure updates team has made a few announcements:
General availability of Application Insight in Australia Central, Brazil Southeast, and Norway East,
Azure Monitor for Virtual Machines Guest Health is in public preview,
Azure Backup for SAP HANA databases now supports Incremental backups – Public preview,
Azure Backup for SAP HANA backup - User management improvements,
Azure Site Recovery - Support for increased disk size in Azure VM disaster recovery is now generally available
and Public preview of Application Insight in UAE North - On the Sharegate blog, the Sharegate Team covers how to Build an efficient cloud cost management strategy for your business
- On System Center Automation, Billy York explains How to Import Azure Monitor, Sentinel Workbooks
- Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) explains how to Manage updates and patches for your Azure VMs
- Simon Waight (@simonwaight) walks through Understanding Azure Availability Sets and Availability Zones
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) runs through Finding Diagnostic Settings Configuration for Azure Resources
- Marcel Zehner (@marcelzehner) describes How to master Azure resources
🚌 Migration
- On Channel 9, Gaurav Seth (@segaurav) talks about how you can Migrate and modernize your .NET applications on Azure
- Nicolas Bonnet (@nico_bonnet) discusses Veeam and Azure
- On Tech Community blog, Jasmine Henry discusses New Azure Migrate Resources
- Also on Tech Community blog, Bhalchandra Atre writes about Best practices for public folder preparation before migrations
- Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) provides some Tools, templates and assessments for the "Ready" phase of the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework and for the "Plan" phase of CAF Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework
🌐 Networking
- On the Azure blog, Mark Russinovich (@markrussinovich) provides part 2 of "Advancing global network reliability through intelligent software"
- The Azure updates team announces the General availability of VPN over ExpressRoute private peering and that Azure Firewall Premium is in public preview
- Jose Moreno (@erjosito) discusses Virtual WAN: secure hubs in multiple regions
🔐 Security
- On Channel 9, Corey Sanders (@CoreySandersWA) talks about How a global financial institution shuts down cyberthreats at scale with Microsoft Azure Sentinel
- On Microsoft Security blog, Jenny Erie describes how Azure Sentinel delivers 201 percent ROI over 3 years
- Also on Channel 9, Sarah Young (@_sarahyo) talks about Monitoring AKS with Azure Sentinel
- Also on Microsoft Security blog, Lauren Goodwin covers the Key layers for developing a Smarter SOC with CyberProof-managed Microsoft Azure security services
- Also on the DEV site, Dean Bryen (@deanbryen) discusses Azure Security
- Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) run through the News in Azure for November 2020
- On the DEV site, Pierre Roman (@pierreroman) discusses Azure Key Vault
📦 Storage
- Francisco Navarro explains How to Set up Azure File Sync
- The Azure updates team announces that SMB Multichannel preview is now available on Azure Files premium tier, Performance tiers for Premium SSDs is now generally available and on the Azure blog, Gunjan Jain discusses how you can Boost your client performance with Azure Files SMB Multichannel
- Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) describes How to create an Azure Windows Server FCI File Cluster If you dont want to use Azure Files
- On the Revolution Analytics blog, Hong Ooi describes an R interface to Azure table storage service (AzureTableStor)
🔗 Web
- On Code Project, Duncan Edwards Jones (@Merrion) demonstrates Event Sourcing, Azure Functions and a Blazor UI in his CloudBank demo and Dealing with optional content in an Azure function
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Abel Wang (@abelsquidhead) writes about Static Web App PR Workflow for Azure App Service using Azure DevOps: But what if my code is in GitHub?
- On the Azure podcast, Wayne Overcash talks about the NORAD Santa Tracker
- Also on Code Project, Eugene Lee (@g96b10) blogs about how to Deploy a React app to Azure App Service