Azure Weekly
Issue #471 - 16th June 2024
A slimmer edition this week, partly due to a number of official Azure RSS feeds having suddenly vanished. There have been quite a few Microsoft Fabric articles though! First up and exiting announcement: Public Preview of Native Execution Engine for Apache Spark on Fabric Data Engineering and Data Science, and a video explaining how we achieved 10x Apache Spark performance improvement in Microsoft Fabric processing lots of small files. Microsoft Fabric RTI: Eventhouse and Real-Time Dashboards and Update Fabric Deployment Pipeline stages with DeploymentPipelines-DeployAll and YAML Pipelines.
An interesting post on RAG on structured data with PostgreSQL, and Seamless Recovery: How to Automate Azure VM Evictions Start Ups with Azure Functions, and .NET Aspire & Dapr: What are they and how they complement each other when building distributed applications, and finally App Service Web App for Containers vs Azure Container Apps.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- Dale Jacques writes about Technical Pattern: Build Your Own AI Assistant
- Alicia Frame covers Pricing Update: Token Based Billing for Fine Tuning Training
- Divya Swarnkar delves into Announcement Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Search connectors are now Generally Available GA
- On episode 301 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by Scott Forsyth to talk about Generative Artificial Intelligence
- Marco Aurelio Cardoso discusses Keeping your AI out of trouble
- Paolo Colecchia describes How to identify the most impactful GenAI use case
- Hristo Hristov explains how to Build Chatbot with Large Language Model LLM and Azure SQL Database
- Pamela Fox delves into RAG on structured data with PostgreSQL
- Abdulhamid Onawole talks about Integrating Azure AI and OpenAI for Smart App Development
- Panu Oksala talks about Unpacking AI and Copilot Studios
- Manoranjan Rajguru discusses Azure OpenAI Best Practices Insights from Customer Journeys
🔎 Analytics
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Estera Kot discusses Public Preview of Native Execution Engine for Apache Spark on Fabric Data Engineering and Data Science
- On the endjin blog, Ian Griffiths (@idg10) shows how he achieved a 10x Apache Spark performance improvement in Microsoft Fabric
- Koen Verbeeck (@Ko_Ver) explains How to Set Up Microsoft Fabric Database Mirroring for Azure Cosmos DB
- Kevin Chant explains how to Update Fabric Deployment Pipeline stages with DeploymentPipelines-DeployAll and YAML Pipelines
- Guy Reginiano blogs about Set alerts on Real-time Dashboards with Data Activator triggers preview
- Sander van de Velde (@svelde) talks about Microsoft Fabric RTI: Eventhouse and Real-Time Dashboards
- Sean Mirabile provides A Data Factory Pipeline Navigator Map to a Successful POC
- John Folberth (@j_folberth) introduces Deployment Stacks to Azure Data Factory
- On The New Stack, Joab Jackson discusses Snowflake, DataBricks and the Fight for Apache Iceberg Tables
- Michal Bar writes about ADX Web updates – May 2024
🖥️ Compute
- Thiago Almeida (@nzthiago) writes about Our latest work to improve Azure Functions cold starts
- Steven Ekren describes Hyper-V live migration network selection in Windows Server 2025
- Gerasimos Alexiou discusses Azure Linux virtual machine not booting – disk issue
- Werner Rall writes about Seamless Recovery: How to Automate Azure VM Evictions Start Ups with Azure Functions
- Raven Zhang walks through Steps to Manually Add PowerShell Modules in Function App
🚢 Containers
- On Diagrid Blog, Marc Duiker (@marcduiker) writes about .NET Aspire & Dapr: What are they and how they complement each other when building distributed applications
- Anthony Chu (@nthonyChu) talks about Azure Container Apps Newsletter – June 2024
- Harjit Dhaliwal blogs about Myths and misconceptions: Windows 11 and cloud native
- Shyam Yadav writes about AKS Networking Bring your own CNI plugin BYOC
🗄️ Databases
- Sravani Saluru writes about Efficient Time-Based Audit Log Filtering for Azure SQL Database
- Diana Putnam covers SQL Server 2022 is EAL 2 Common Criteria certified
- Gennady Kostinsky explains how to Prevent SQL Injection attacks on your PostgreSQL servers
- Matt Changchien walks through Tuning logical replication on Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server
- On the Microsoft Mechanics show, Jeremy Chapman (@deployjeremy) and Kirill Gavrylyuk talk about Vector Search using 95% Less Compute DiskANN with Azure CosmosDB
- On the Data Exposed show, Anna Hoffman (@AnalyticAnna) Davide Mauri talk about Azure SQL DB Vector Functions Private Preview
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Ashok Kamath writes about Visual Studio 2022 – 17.10 Performance Enhancements
- Also on the Visual Studio blog, Jessie Houghton discusses Catch up on the latest Git tooling features in 17.10 GA
- Justin Royal covers M365 Developers Update June 2024 Edition
- On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) writes about Visual Studio Devs Quick to Sound Off on Automatic Updates: 'Please No'
- Gaurav Seth (@segaurav) talks about Upcoming Changes to Supported Versions of Visual Studio for Remote Debugging with Azure App Service
- Shreyan Fernandes covers Visual Studio Code AI Toolkit: Run LLMs locally
🔩 DevOps
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Gloridel Morales blogs about June patches for Azure DevOps Server
- Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Jihye Eom describes Test & Feedback Extension in Manifest V3
- Debjyoti Ganguly blogs about Boosting Code Security with GHAS Code Scanning in Azure DevOps & GitHub
- Kelly Johnson blogs about Whats new from Teams Rooms and Devices at InfoComm 2024
- Surbhi talks about Azure Chaos Studio supports new fault for Azure Event Hub
🎭 Identity
- Irina Nechaeva explains how to SAP Identity Management to Microsoft Entra ID Migration Guidance Now Available
- Andrea Katsivelis covers Fight fraud across the full identity lifecycle with Transmit Security and Microsoft
- Deniz Sezer writes about Effective strategies for conducting Mass Password Resets during cybersecurity incidents
🔌 Integration
- Divya Swarnkar blogs about Templates for Azure Logic Apps Standard: Seeking Your Feedback on UI Wireframes
- Gyanendra Kumar Gautam discusses June 10, 2024 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS
- Harold Campos talks about Implementing Mission Critical Solutions with the Azure Logic Apps Rules Engine
- Kent Weare (@wearsy) talks about Integration Environment Update: Introducing Unified Monitoring and Business Process Tracking Update
- Luis Rigueira provides a Friday Fact: Consistency in Logic App Trigger Names Ensures Successful Resubmissions
💡 Internet of Things
- The Azure Sphere Team blogs about Azure Sphere OS version 24.06 is now available for evaluation
⚖️ Management and Governance
- Varun Dhawan talks about Azure Advisor Integration with Troubleshooting Guides for enhanced performance
- Yoav Barzilay describes Expanding Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform MDEP support to new devices and form factors
- Diana Hoffman covers Whats new in Windows Autopatch: June 2024
- Gregor Wohlfarter describes How to budget your Azure cloud spend with Microsoft Cost Management
- On the Azure Enablement show, Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) discusses Azure Pricing: How to navigate Azure pricing options and resources
🌐 Networking
- Andrea Michael describes Azure Virtual Network Manager AVNM mesh and direct connectivity are generally available
- Sowmya Mahadevaiah writes about General availability of Azure WAF Bot Manager1.1 Ruleset
- Craig DuBose blogs about Controlling Data Egress in Azure
- David Frazee provides A Closer Look at Azure WAFs Data Masking Capabilities for Azure Front Door
- Wim Matthyssen (@wmatthyssen) delves into Azure Bastion: Solving VM Connection problems caused by NSG on AzureBastionSubnet when using the Azure Bastion Premium SKU
🔐 Security
- Madhurika Ravela discusses Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Shadow IT Discovery Capabilities Now Support MacOS
- Shawn Hays writes about NIST CSF 2.0 - Protect PR - Applications for Microsoft 365 Part 1
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) covers Microsoft Sentinel Sizing and Pricing – Optimize Costs and Enhance Security
- Gary Bushey walks through Debugging Playbooks
- Saar Cohen explains how to Detect suspicious processes running on hidden desktops
🔗 Web
- On the Microsoft Reactor show, Renee Noble and Pamela Fox explain how to Create and deploy a web app with Python and Azure
- John Kilmister (@johnkilmister) covers App Service Web App for Containers vs Azure Container Apps
- Skyler Hartle (@skylerhartle) explains how to Create a Retrieval-Augmented Generation RAG app instantly with React, FastAPI, and Qdrant
⚙️ Azure Virtual Desktop
- Jim Moyle discusses App attach for Azure Virtual Desktop now generally available