Azure Weekly
Issue #36 - 25th July 2015
The big event this week was the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference held in Orlando. There were a number of announcements, the biggest being the Cortana Analytics Suite. The overview site is heavy on marketing, light on technical details at the moment, but it appears to be a new offering which stitches togther many of the existing Azure services (Azure Data Factory, HDInsight, Machine Learning, PowerBI) to deliver a set of pre-configured vertical solutions.
To celebrate the Azure Batch Service reaching General Availablity last week, we at endjin have released an interesting little video, of a scale test experiement we performed to spin up a pool of 16,000 A1 Virtual Machines on Azure Batch to do 12,000 core compute hours worth of work. The original experiment lasted 45 minutes, but we've sped the video up so it only lasts 30 seconds.
⚖️ Management and Governance
On the Docker blog, Adam Herzog blogs about Docker Online Meetup 22: Docker Networking. Also on the Docker blog, Steven Chen writes about over 200 Docker Meetups
On the Azure blog, Kyle Wilson writes that Azure Marketplace announces new features and functionality, also on the Azure blog, Christine Avanessians talks about working with Marketplace Images on Azure Resource Manager
- On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) answers the question Is there an easier way to call Azure Automations from the Azure Scheduler and answers the question What time zone is used with a schedule for an Azure Automation
🖥️ Compute
- On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) walks through rendering 3D Modelled Scenes with Azure Batch with Karan Batta
Episode 85 of the Azure podcast covers Azure for non-Microsoft people
On the Azure blog, Mahesh Thiagarajan announces new and improved DataStax Cluster deployment experience on Azure Marketplace
On the Perficient blog, Michael Toole asks Did You Know Azure RemoteApp, Access Apps from Any Device
- Kristin L. Griffin covers Azure RemoteApp Core Skills Training Now Available
Mat Velloso (@matvelloso) announces the first alpha of AzureLens.net - an interesting open source tool for visualising architectures deployed in Azure
- On the Microsoft Openness site, Openness Team describes expanding Linux and OSS customer support for Azure and talks about building Email Solutions in an Open Environment
On the Redmond magazine site, Kurt Mackie covers the announcement that Microsoft expands Tech Support for Linux on Azure
- On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) answers the question How can I easily stop and start an Azure VM at certain times
🌐 Networking
Lewis Roberts continues his series about configuring Azure site to site connectivity using Vyos behind a NAT. See also parts 1, 2 & 3
On the Azure blog, Nazim Lala (@nazimlala), Software Engineer on Azure Websites, blogs about configuring Barracuda Web Application Firewall for Azure App Service Environment
💡 Internet of Things
- On the .NET Curry blog, Punit Ganshani blogs about internet of Things IoT, JavaScript and Azure The Way Ahead
- Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) writes about A/B Testing and Testing In Production with Azure Web Apps
On the Azure blog, Pranav Rastogi, Program Manager - Azure ASP.NET and Cache, writes about extensible Triggers and Binders with Azure WebJobs SDK 1.1.0 alpha1
On MSDN, Martin Schray (@mschray) blogs about Azure Web Sites A/B testing the easy way
- On MSDN, Dan Rosanova (@DanRosanova) describes how exactly does Event Hubs Throttling Work
⚙️ Data and Analytics
- On the Azure blog, Stephen Baron covers importing Data to DocumentDB Just Keeps Getting Better
- On Channel 9, Chriscaldwell Technet Radio Tommy Patterson Keith Mayer talks about part 4 Open Source + Microsoft Azure Implementing Big Data Solutions with Hadoop on Microsoft Azure
- On the Kloud blog, Peter Reid blogs about Using Azure Machine Learning to predict Titanic survivors
On MSDN, Ray Fleming writes about two ways to use Azure Machine Learning in education
On the Perficient blog, Andrew Tegethoff blogs that Microsoft HDInsight has joined the BAA for HIPAA Compliance
- On the Hortonworks blog, Vinay Shukla writes A Spark is Lit in HDInsight
On the Microsoft Openness site, Openness Team announces that a preview is available of Apache Spark for Azure HDInsight
📦 Storage
- On the Azure blog, Abhishek A. Hemrajani announces that Azure Site Recovery GA: Move VMware, AWS, HyperV and Physical Servers to Azure
On the Redmond magazine site, Kurt Mackie blogs about Microsoft Rolls Out Site Recovery and Other Azure Tools
🎬 Media
On MSDN, The Schray' blogs about Azure CDN Links and Azure Media Services
⚙️ Hybrid Integration
- On the Azure blog, Jim Dial explains how to integrate your on-premises infrastructure with Azure
⚙️ Identity and Access Management
On the Perficient blog, Glenn Martin discusses Azure Active Directory Reporting APIs Now Available which is also covered on the Redmond magazine site, by Kurt Mackie in Microsoft Previews Azure Active Directory Reporting APIs