Azure Weekly
Issue #487 - 6th October 2024
Highlights this week in AI: The Azure Multimodal AI & LLM Processing Solution Accelerator and Code referencing now generally available in GitHub Copilot and with Microsoft Azure AI.
In Cloud Native: Optimize Azure Landing Zone with Azure Virtual Network Manager IP Address Management, and Azure Kubernetes Service Baseline - The Hard Way, Part Deux.
In Analytics: Recap of Data Factory Announcements at Fabric Community Conference Europe, and About the DP-700 exam for the new Microsoft Fabric Data Engineering certification, and Checklist for the DP-700 beta exam for the new Microsoft Fabric Data Engineering certification.
Finally, In the 2nd part of the series on the benefits of "AI Age Materials" Ian Griffiths cuts through the hype and focuses on the fundamental limitations and practicalities of modern compute hardware.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- Garfield He writes about New HD voices preview in Azure AI Speech: contextual and realistic output evolved
- On the GitHub blog, Yalini Prabhakaran talks about Code referencing now generally available in GitHub Copilot and with Microsoft Azure AI
- Steve Sweetman announces new products and features for Azure OpenAI Service including GPT-4o-Realtime-Preview with audio and speech capabilities
- April Speight writes about New Responsible AI Features for Building Trustworthy AI
- Erdal Cosgun talks about Genomics + LLMs: A Case Study on adding variant annotations to LLMs through RAG and Fine-tuning
- James Croft covers Using Structured Outputs in Azure OpenAIs GPT-4o for consistent document data processing
- Sarosij Ray talks about Integrating Azure AI Speech Services into Unity for a Seamless Speech-to-Text Experience
- Hugo Affaticati writes about Optimizing Language Model Inference on Azure
- Pablo Castro (@pmc) blogs about VoiceRAG: An App Pattern for RAG + Voice Using Azure AI Search and the GPT-4o Realtime API for Audio
- Marco Casalaina discusses The Future of AI: Single Agent or Multi-Agent - How Should I Choose
- Artem Lovan blogs about RAG On PDF With Text And Embedded Images, With Citations Referencing Image Answering User Query
- Michael Tremeer talks about The Azure Multimodal AI & LLM Processing Solution Accelerator
🔎 Analytics
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Miguel Llopis talks about Recap of Data Factory Announcements at Fabric Community Conference Europe
- Rie Merritt highlights the Fabric Influencers Spotlight September 2024
- Jose Barreto writes about Step-by-step: Microsoft Fabric Gather a detailed dataset on SharePoint Sites using MGDC and MGDC for SharePoint FAQ: How do I join File Actions with Files
- Dennes Torres blogs about Microsoft Fabric and PySpark: Coding tricks to improve your solutions
- Matt Basile covers OneLake shared access signatures SAS now available in public preview
- Joost van Rossum (@ssisjoost) discusses Synapse - Invalid notebook reference
- John Miner writes about What is Databricks?
- Adi Eldar covers Time Weighted Average and Value in Azure Data Explorer
🖥️ Compute
- Ian Griffiths (@idg10) shares the 2nd post in his series on AI (and Cloud) Age Modern Compute: Unavoidable Practicalities
- MingJiong Zhang announces GA of new Mbv3 Virtual Machines
- Nitin Nagarkatte discusses Microsoft launches latest Azure virtual machines optimized for AI supercomputing, the ND H200 v5 series
- Garima Singh explains how to Modernize Your Infrastructure with Azure: Special promotional offer on Linux VMs
- On the Redmond magazine site, Gladys Rama discusses Microsoft Brings More AI-Optimized VMs to Azure
🚢 Containers
- Hang Wang explains how to Build and deploy full-stack Java Web Applications on Azure Container Apps with JHipster
- Peter Lithner explains Azure Kubernetes Service Baseline - The Hard Way, Part Deux
🗄️ Databases
- Varun Dhawan covers PostgreSQL 17 Preview on Azure Postgres Flexible Server
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Harshada Hole writes about Effortless Instrumentation profiling with Persistent Target Selection and explains how to Discover Hidden Insights with Profilers External Code Decompilation
- On the Visual Studio blog, Mads Kristensen (@mkristensen) writes about Visual Studio 2022 – Recent performance enhancements
🔩 DevOps
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Eric van Wijk blogs about Deprecation of the macOS-12 Hosted Pipeline Image
- On episode 317 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) and Jeff Sutherland discuss The History of Agile
- Dan Rios (@@danonazure) talks about Getting started: Continuous deployment with Azure Bicep and Azure DevOps
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- On Arinco Blog, Brendan Grill describes Using Azure Arc to maximise your Defender for Server Plan 2 investment with Azure Update Manager
🎭 Identity
- Adam Bertram (@adbertram) explains How to Create Azure Service Principals in PowerShell and describes How to Create Azure Service Principal with Certificates PowerShell
🔌 Integration
- Luis Rigueira provides a Friday Fact: Missing Environment Variables Can Break Your Logic App Standard Workflows
- Sandro Pereira (@sandro_asp) blogs about BizTalk Server Logic App Adapter Login Error: The remote name could not be resolved, describes Logic App Standard deploy issue: Error 403 – Forbidden and BizTalk Server debug map issue: Prefix ns2 cannot mapped to namespace reserved for xml or xmlns
📚 Learning
⚖️ Management and Governance
- Eduardo Noriega writes about Making Searching and Curating Data Assets in Microsoft Purview easier.
- Richard Pesenko provides A Quick Introduction to Microsoft's Support for Mission Critical Offering
- Vinil Vadakkepurakkal writes about Comprehensive Nvidia GPU Monitoring for Azure N-Series VMs Using Telegraf with Azure Monitor
- Meenakshi Balekar walks through Creating a Custom Policy to Check Last Activity on Azure Bot Channel
- Shikha Ghildiyal delves into Custom Policy- Reusable Logs Templates and discusses Azure Backup and DR: Cross-Region Restore - Exploring Solutions
- Dolev Shor talks about Azure Snapshots: Simplify Management and monitoring
- Harjit Dhaliwal talks about Windows 11, version 24H2: Whats new for IT pros
🎬 Media
- Fernando Aznar Cornejo talks about Introducing the Azure NMads MA35D: Exclusive Media Processing Powerhouse in the Cloud
🚌 Migration
- Shriram Natarajan blogs about Public Preview of Azure Migrate from VMware to Azure Stack HCI
- Marco Netto covers HPC Lift and Shift Cloud Migration: Architecture and Best Practices
🌐 Networking
- Ram Balakrishnan discusses ExpressRoute guided configuration of multi-site circuits and connections is generally available
- Raghavender Mareddy writes 'ExpressRoute Metro is now generally available'
- Jay Li explains how to Optimize Azure Landing Zone with Azure Virtual Network Manager IP Address Management
- Ramkumar Chandrasekaran shows how to Transition from VNET integration to public access or Private Link using the Azure CLI
- Steven Shell talks about Unmasking DNS Timeouts: The Hidden Culprit in Azure Virtual Networks
- Jose Moreno (@erjosito) writes about Azure Subnet Peering
- Hannes Lagler-Gruener talks about Network architecture in your enterprise scale framework
🔐 Security
- On episode 258 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren and Jussi Roine discuss Approaching security assessments for your Microsoft tenant
- Efrat Kliger provides Guidance for handling CUPS remote code execution vulnerability using Microsoft Security capabilities
- On epsiode 385 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott Hoag and Ben Stegink (@ciphertxt, @benstegink) discusses Microsoft Sentinel: Deployment, Management, and Cost Optimization
- Maayan Mazig talks about Security settings management is available for multi-tenant environments in Microsoft Defender XDR
- Heike Ritter writes about Microsoft Defender XDR Monthly news - October 2024
📦 Storage
- Adam Groves announces UNLIMITED Public Preview of Metadata Caching for Azure Premium SMB/REST File Shares
- Anthony Mashford (@anthonymashford) discusses Azure NetApp Files Dynamic Service Level Change Enhancement
- Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) talks about Azure Files Share with NFS:A Step-by-Step Tutorial
🔗 Web
- Abhishek Reddy explains How to Migrate from WP Engine to WordPress on App Service
- Andrew Wilson discusses Azure API Management Function App Backend