Azure Weekly
Issue #48 - 17th October 2015
This week, Azure Backup expanded to support SQL Server, Hyper-V VMs, SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange and Windows Clients.
Redis Cache has a new Premium tier in public preview, offering better performance over Standard-tier Caches, bigger workloads, data persistence, and enhanced security.
DocumentDB now supports an atomic Upsert operation, which avoids the need to carry out an initial check of whether a resource exists and then decide whether to Create or Replace. Azure SQL Data Warehouse is introducing data auditing, where relevant events are written to Azure Table Storage. This feature is already available for Azure SQL Database.
There are new MySQL Premium tiers from ClearDB. ClearDB now supports dedicated database clusters through the Azure Preview Portal.
On the Azure blog, there is an AzureCon follow up which makes the case for Azure, summaring last week's announcements including Pre-Purchase billing, and announcing 'Bring Your Own Licenses' (BYOL) for Azure. The blog also featured a follow up to last week's Azure Data Lake news, with a post about creating big data pipelines using Azure Data Lake and Azure Data Factory.
Finally some events news:
⚖️ Management and Governance
On the Azure blog, Ahmet Alp Balkan (@ahmetalpbalkan), announces an ARM template to deploy Docker Swarm Clusters on Azure
Also on the Azure blog, Beckylin Orooji publishes a case study: Adding Application Insights to a website
Also on the Azure blog, Rajesh Goli explains how to back up your IaaS VMs in five minutes
On MSDN, Travis Plunk explains How to use WMF 4 with Azure DSC Extension in Azure Resource Manager
Also on MSDN, Thomas W Shinder highlights some Free Azure Security Training
Adarsha Datta (@AdarshaDatta) writes Part 4 of his series Docker: Containerize your startup
On TechNet, 'Horizonnet' writes about Availability Testing With Microsoft Application Insights
Also on TechNet, Sharon Bennett writes a Step-By-Step guide to shutting down Azure VMs without scripting
Shawn Gibbs discusses Windows Server Containers, what are they and where do they fit
- Trond Hindenes (@trondhindenes) writes about What we know about migrating v1/classic Azure resources to v2/azure resource manager
On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) explains how to Keep Azure PowerShell up-to-date
Episode 97 of the Azure podcast covers the management and adoption of Cloud Technologies
🖥️ Compute
On the Azure blog, Corey Sanders (@CoreySandersWA), Director of Program Management Azure, highlights some of the Microsoft Applications available on Azure
Also on the Azure blog, Sunitha Muthukrishna walks through Using Varnish as front end cache for Azure Web Apps, with a Linux VM
On the Azure blog, Byron Tardif (@bktv99), announces new MySQL Premium tiers from ClearDB
Herve Roggero describes How To Install Couchbase In Microsoft Azure For Test Purposes
On Channel 9, Tuesdays with Corey features John Ashenden, Head of Design at Mesosphere
On the Microsoft Openness site, Mark Hill writes that open source software took center stage at AzureCon
On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) talks about Using a jump box for Azure RDP access and discusses Custom Azure image creation
On MSDN, Eric Orman writes about September updates to Azure RemoteApp
🌐 Networking
On TechNet, Mark O'Shea writes Part 1 and Part 2 of a series on the Windows Server Essentials Tech Preview 3 - Integration With Azure Virtual Networks
On the Windows IT Pro site, John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) answers the question How many virtual networks can I connect to an ExpressRoute circuit?
💡 Internet of Things
On the Azure blog, Jeff Hollan describes expanding the Microsoft Band through Logic Apps and Power BI
Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) writes 'Penny Pinching in the Cloud: Your web app doesn't need 64-bit' and introducing ASP.NET WebHooks Receivers - WebHooks made easy
On the Falafel blog, Kris Lankford covers the Microsoft Azure SDK in Day 6 of their Visual Studio 2015 series
On MSDN, 'Gpillai' writes a step by step on getting started with the Azure Internet of Things (IOT) Suite
- Also on MSDN, Jeff Sanders explains how to Remove Server and X-Powered-By headers from your Azure Mobile Apps
On Channel 9, the DEV-intersection show with Matt Nunn, describes developing for the Cloud
Also on Channel 9, Haishi Bai, Mat Velloso, Chris Risner, Elio Damaggio and Oliver Block talk about IoT Hub in Episode 188 of the Azure Cloud Cover Show
On Code Project, Intel write about setting up the Intel Edison Board with the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite
Also on Code Project, Gordon W Beeming describes Load testing using Azure
⚙️ Data and Analytics
On the Azure blog, Pranav Rastogi, Program Manager - Azure ASP.NET and Cache, announces the public preview of the new Premium tier for Azure Redis Cache
- Also on the Azure blog, Wee Hyong Tok blogs about Getting started with Azure Data Factory and Azure Machine Learning
- Also on the Azure blog, Gaurav Malhotra explains how to Create big data pipelines using Azure Data Lake and Azure Data Factory
Also on the Azure blog, Ryan Crawcour announces that DocumentDB's support for the atomic Upsert operation, which avoids the need to carry out an initial check if a resource exists and then decide whether to Create or Replace
Also on the Azure blog, Rashim Gupta blogs about using Hue for query authoring with Hadoop on Azure HDInsight
Also on the Azure blog, Matt Usher announces that Azure SQL Data Warehouse is introducing data auditing
On MSDN, Jovan Popovic blogs about querying JSON documents in SQL Server 2016 and DocumentDb
On the Perficient blog, Andrew Tegethoff describes Data and Event Ingestion with Cortana Analytics
On TechNet, the Brandon Rohrer of the Machine Learning Team discusses Getting Dollars from Data: Fueling Business Value with Data Science, by operationalising models through an API
Also on TechNet, Andrew Fryer writes 'Data, no use at all without a catalog'
Robert Mitchell provides two SQL tips of the day; on SQL Database Elastic Pools and TDE with SQL Azure
On the Database Journal site, Marcin Policht writes about Azure SQL Database Row-Level Security
📦 Storage
On the Azure blog, Mark Russinovich follows on from the recent GA of Azure File Storage with a peek inside the service
Also on the Azure blog, Samir Mehta announces that Azure Backup can now back up SQL Server, Hyper-V VMs, SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange and Windows Clients
Marius Sandbu (@msandbu) describes and reflects on recent additions to Azure Backup
On the Journey to SQL Authority blog, Pinal Dave covers the steps to Backup SQL Server to Windows Azure storage
Radu Vunvulea writes about What to do when you hit the throughput limits of Azure Storage Blobs
🎬 Media
- None this week
⚙️ Hybrid Integration
On the Azure blog, there's a short post about how to set up a hybrid cloud environment for testing
On TechNet, Nick Johnson blogs about Hybrid data centers and Considerations for your hybrid data center practice
⚙️ Identity and Access Management
- On the .NET Curry blog, Kunal Chandratre writes about Using Auth0 in ASP.NET MVC to achieve multiple ADFS authentication in Azure
On MSDN, Roopesh Nair describes automating Azure Resource Group deployment using a Service Principal in Visual Studio Online
The AAD Graph Team write about new Azure AD Graph API consent permissions
The Visual Studio Online Team describes a workaround for resolving issues with searching Azure AD users and groups in VSO
On TechNet, Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons), Director of Program Management, Microsoft Identity and Security Services Division, announces that Azure Authenticator now supports iOS Touch ID