Azure Weekly
Issue #37 - 1st August 2015
This week, Azure announced the Azure SDK 2.7 for Visual Studio 2013 and 2015, released to co-incide with Visual Studio 2015. Changes include sign in improvements, Cloud Explorer for Visual Studio 2015, remote debugging for VMs created via ARM in Visual Studio 2015, updates to ARM tools, Azure App Service Tools, HDInsight tools, and Data Factory tools. VS 2015's Application Insights Tools supports new project types: ASP.NET 5, Windows Apps and windows 8.1 Universal.
Azure Media Services Premium Encoding became generally available. The service includes automated decision-making logic, support for additional formats such as MXF, and codecs such as DNxHD, support for higher output resolutions – up to 4K in AVC, support for closed captions, among other features (like the ability to add overlays to the video). The announcment blog includes a decision tree for choosing between the the premium or standard media encoder.
An Azure Mobile Connector SDK for Dynamics CRM Online was announced, which supports apps that work offline and sync data with Dynamics, and integrate with Active Directory and the Azure App Service.
There were also new regions, samples and datasets for Azure Search.
And finally, the PowerBI Team released a new Security whitepaper.
⚖️ Management and Governance
On the Docker blog, Michael Crosby shares a Open Container Format Progress Report, Ben Golub writes that open governance and collaboration in the ecosystem is trending and Adam Herzog announces Docker Global Hack Day 3
On the Redmond Magazine site, Jeffrey Schwartz covers the launch of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation Launches To Oversee Container Standards
- Pierre-Luc Maheu writes about ASP.NET 5 Support for Visual Studio Application Insights
- On the Azure blog, Tiander Turpijn talks about leveraging the OMS Search API in an Azure Automation Runbook
On TechNet, Stefan Stranger starts a series on how to integrate solutions with Azure Automation with Part 1 - Wunderlist
Also on TechNet, Ian Farr shares a one liner to Stop and Deallocate Azure Virtual Machines
Herve Roggero covers monitoring Alerts For Azure Virtual Machines
- Trond Hindenes (@trondhindenes) writes about certificate-based authentication to Azure Resource Manager using Powershell
Rajinder Singh (@rajsinghper) lists resources to learn Azure Resource Manager ARM Language
🖥️ Compute
On Channel 9, Corey Sanders, Director of Program Management on the Windows Azure Compute team talks about recent Linux announcements and stuff on ARM Templates in Tuesdays with Corey: Linux Announcements and MOAR ARM
On the Microsoft Openness site, Openness Team partner spotlight Alter Way, in 'Alter Way delivers innovative, open source-based solutions on Microsoft Azure'
On the Redmond magazine site, Jeffrey Schwartz writes about Rackspace's support for Microsoft Azure Cloud
On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) writes about ASR failback of a physical server and Rod Trent writes that U.S. Air Force is making a big Investment in the Microsoft Cloud
On the TechKB blog, Mike Coutanche blogs about using an Azure Virtual Machine as an Azure RemoteApp Template
🌐 Networking
- On the Kloud blog, Lucian Franghiu talks about Azure VNET gateway: basic, standard and high performance
On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) writes about Azure VM network egress speeds
💡 Internet of Things
Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) writes about the release of Visual Studio 2015, and the ASP.NET 5 Roadmap
On the Azure blog, Donna Malayeri (@lindydonna), Program Manager - Azure Mobile Services, explains how to build a Mobile Data Sync Experience for Dynamics CRM with Azure App Service
Also on the Azure blog, Brady Gaster (@bradygaster) announces the Azure SDK 2.7 for .NET
Also on the Azure blog, Dimah Zaidalkilani describes Application Insights Tools in Visual Studio 2015 RTM
- On the Perficient blog, Chris Pietschmann discusses Azure, IoT and the Future Enterprise Data Center
- On Channel 9, Cory Fowler (@cfowlerMSFT) explains how to buy domains directly in Azure Web App
Also on Channel 9, the keynote for the Visual Studio 2015 release event is available, with speakers Brian Harry, S. Somasegar, Scott Hanselman, Amanda Silver and Beth Massi
Nino Crudele (@ninocrudele) covers Logic Apps - Whats New
⚙️ Data and Analytics
On the Azure blog, Anand Subbaraj, Senior Program Manager on the Azure Data Factory team, announces the Azure Data Factory Visual Studio Extension for authoring pipelines
Also on the Azure blog, Liam Cavanagh, SR Program Manager Azure Search, announces Azure Search - New regions, samples and datasets
On the Revolution Analytics blog, David Smith (@revodavid) blogs about the announcment of the KDD Cup 2015 winners, and Joseph Rickert writes using Azure as an R datasource Part 3: Pulling data from MySQL/MariaDB to Linux
Jen Underwood (@idigdata) talks about the Evolution of Azure Data Catalog
📦 Storage
On the Azure blog, Anoob Backer, Program Manager, Cloud + Enterprise, writes about about how to recover VMs in Azure with volumes greater than 1TB using Storage Spaces
Mark J Brown (@markjbrown) writes 'Could Azure SQL DB Transparent Data Encryption have helped Ashley Madison'
Also on the Azure blog, Guy Haycock writes about the upcoming retirement of Azure SQL Database Web and Business edition on September 12th, 2015
On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) describes VM sizes to use with Azure Site Recovery and On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) describes how to copy content from one Azure Storage account to another
🎬 Media
On the Azure blog, Anil Murching, Senior Program Manager, Azure Media Services, announces the general availability of Premium Encoding
⚙️ Hybrid Integration
Marc van Eijk (@_marcvaneijk) writes 'get more value out of your Windows Azure Pack environment'
⚙️ Identity and Access Management
The Azure Active Directory team have announced a series of Customer Training Webinars covering the following topics: Azure AD Premium Prerequisites, Azure AD Premium SaaS Application Integration, Azure AD Premium Multi-Factor Authentication, Azure AD Premium Self-Service Password Reset, Azure AD Premium Reporting and Azure AD Premium Quick Wins
On the Kloud blog, Lucian Franghiu writes 'ADFS sign-in error: An error occurred. Contact your administrator for more information.' and 'Azure AD Connect: Connect Service error stoppedextensiondllexception' and describes how to provision Azure Active Directory Connect
- Tom Kerkhove (@TomKerkhove) writes about securing sensitive data with Azure Key Vault