Azure Weekly
Issue #504 - 23rd February 2025
A lot of interesting articles this week. In AI: AI-Powered Customer Support: The Ultimate Multi-Agent System, and Supercharge Developer Workflows with GitHub Copilot Workspace Extensions, and Using Semantic Kernel to control a BBC Microbit.
In Analytics: Happy together paths to test semantic models in Microsoft Fabric feature workspaces with BPA, and Importance of shifting left when testing Microsoft Fabric deployments, and Data Streaming Databricks in Azure, and Introducing fabric-cicd Deployment Tool, and Encoding categorical data for Power BI: Label encoding vs one-hot encoding - which encoding technique to use?.
In Azure Networking: vWAN to vWAN Connectivity Options, and Managing Access to Multiple VRFs from Azure VNETs, and Azure Virtual Networks Do Not Exist.
In Compute: Implement App Service Best Practices into your Azure ARM/Bicep Templates with GitHub Copilot, and Azure Confidential VMs made easy, and Node.js, Azure Application Insights, and Fastify.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- Lee Stott blogs about The Launch of AI Agents for Beginners: Your Gateway to Building Intelligent Systems, describes Unlock the Power of AI with Azure AI Assistant Tool and discusses Unleashing the Power of AI Agents: Transforming Business Operations
- Pamela Fox RAG Deep Dive: Watch all the recordings
- On the Azure blog, Asha Sharma And Ashley Llorens announces that Introducing Azure AI Foundry Labs: A hub for the latest AI research and experiments at Microsoft
- Agustin Mantaras talks about Data Storage in Azure OpenAI Service
- Carlotta Castelluccio covers Getting started with AI Agents in Azure
- David Minkovski delves into AI-Powered Customer Support: The Ultimate Multi-Agent System
- Cedric Vidal explains how to Automate Quota Discovery in Azure AI Foundry: A Tale of 3 APIs
- John Metzger talks about Using Semantic Kernel to control a BBC Microbit
- PradyH uses Azure AI Foundry, GitHub Copilot, Fabric and more to Analyze usage stats from Utility Invoices
- Jake Wang discusses Enterprise Best Practices for Fine-Tuning Azure OpenAI Models
- Torin Didenko describes Clipchamp: Elevating work communication with seamless video creation in Copilot
🔎 Analytics
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Naama Tsafrir discusses What's new in OneLake catalog: Data governance and more and Brad Watts announces the launch of Fabric Catalyst: empowering partners with scalable knowledge and best practices
- Brad Watts announces RTI End-to-End Sample
- Jacob Knightley covers Introducing fabric-cicd Deployment Tool
- Josh Ndemenge covers Hack Together: The Microsoft Data + AI Kenya Hack
- Kevin Chant (@kevchant) writes about Happy together paths to test semantic models in Microsoft Fabric feature workspaces with BPA and dicusses the Importance of shifting left when testing Microsoft Fabric deployments
- Denise Schlesinger explains how to Talk to Fabric Eventhouse using Azure AI Agents – Natural Language to KQL
- Panu Oksala shows how to Use Microsoft Fabric GraphQL API with .NET App
- John Miner delves into Data Streaming Databricks in Azure
- Jessica Hill shares Encoding categorical data for Power BI: Label encoding vs one-hot encoding - which encoding technique to use?
🖥️ Compute
- Garima Singh blogs about Linux and Open Source on Azure Quarterly Update - February 2025
- Roelf Zomerman (@RCZ_Jag) describes Azure Confidential VMs made easy
🚢 Containers
- Carlos Mendible (@cmendibl3) walks through Installing Chaos Mesh on AKS with Terraform
- Debjyoti Ganguly walks through Deploying WebJobs to Azure Container Apps
- Guilherme França presents a Reference Architecture for a High Scale Moodle Environment on Azure
- On Diagrid Blog, Bilgin Ibryam (@bibryam) writes about 10 New Features Making Dapr Operations Easier with Conductor
- Srinivas Jasti blogs about Securing Microservices with Cilium and Istio
🗄️ Databases
- Shreya R. Aithal blogs about Azure Database for MySQL - January 2025 updates and latest feature roadmap
- James Serra (@JamesSerra) covers Azure SQL offerings
- David Lyth delves into SQL Unicode comparisons
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Rhea Patel blogs about Unlocking More Power: Tool Calling in GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio
- Also on the Visual Studio blog, Tina Schrepfer LI describes VisualStudio.Extensibility: Tagger support and updates to settings
- Simona Liao walks through Introducing Code Referencing for GitHub Copilot Completions in Visual Studio
- Shreyan Fernandes discusses Igniting AI Innovation: The VS Code Toolkit -First of AI Sparks Episode
- On The New Stack, David Eastman explains how to Augment Code: An AI Coding Tool for Real Development Work
- On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) blogs about Microsoft's Rust Embrace Continues with Azure SDK Beta and writes about VS Code Copilot Previews New GPT-4o AI Code Completion Model
- David Minkovski describes how to Supercharge Developer Workflows with GitHub Copilot Workspace Extensions
- Luke Murray (@lukemurraynz) covers Getting Started with Azure Developer CLI azd
🔩 DevOps
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Dan Hellem talks about GitHub Copilot for Azure DevOps users
- Katie Sanford discusses The DevOps Boards
- Jordan Selig explains how to Implement App Service Best Practices into your Azure ARM/Bicep Templates with GitHub Copilot
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) covers Azure Local licensing explained
- Jake Walsh (@jakewalsh90) discusses Testing GPU access with Azure Local and AVD
- Jeff Pigott blogs about Understanding Windows Server 2012 Extended Security Update Options with Azure Arc
- Daniel Mauser explains how to Achieve high-bandwidth, private, and seamless Microsoft Azure connectivity
🎭 Identity
- Nitika Gupta (@_nitika_gupta) writes about New Microsoft-managed policies to raise your identity security posture
- Richard M. Hicks (@richardhicks) explains how to Configure Entra Conditional Access for Always On VPN
- Farooque Mohammad writes about Protecting Workload Identities Using Conditional Access Policy in Entra
🔌 Integration
- Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) writes about Getting current date and time in Azure Logic Apps using utcnow
📚 Learning
- On episode 278 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) discuss Microsoft Tech Updates
- Bethany Jepchumba (@bethanyjep) writes about Translating AI and ML for Beginners Curriculums in less than a day
⚖️ Management and Governance
- Swati Devgan discusses Log Analytics Agent-based Azure Management Services: Shut down starting 28 February 2025
- Gayathri Paderla describes how to Boost Your Postgres server on Azure with Enhanced Azure Advisor Performance Recommendations
- Sunayana Singh walks through Ingestion of Managed Prometheus metrics from a private AKS cluster using private link
- The Intune Support Team covers Blocking and removing apps on Intune managed devices Windows, iOS/iPadOS, Android and macOS
🚌 Migration
- Sai Kondapalli blogs about Public Preview announcement - Unified migration experience in Azure DMS
🌐 Networking
- Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) writes Azure Virtual Networks Do Not Exist, covers Beware Of The Default Rules In Network Security Groups and asks How Many Subnets Do I Need In An Azure Virtual Network
- Roy Kim (@roykimyyz) talks about Azure Verified Module Storage Account: Firewalls and Virtual Network Configuration
- Adam Torkar delves into vWAN to vWAN Connectivity Options
- Daniele Gaiulli talks about Managing Access to Multiple VRFs from Azure VNETs
- Jerry Zhang describes Way to minimize the impact of Allocation Failure issue in Cloud Service Extended Support
- Gustavo Modena explains how to Fortify Your Azure Firewall: Custom Public IP Configuration on Secured Virtual Hub Deployments
🔐 Security
- Eitan Shteinberg writes about New and enhanced multicloud regulatory compliance standards in Defender for Cloud
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains how to Monitor Summary Rules in Microsoft Sentinel
- Abhi Singh blogs about Protecting Azure AI Workloads using Threat Protection for AI in Defender for Cloud
- AlexanderZ blogs about Integrating API data into Microsoft Security Copilot using custom logs and KQL plugins
📦 Storage
- Tehzeeb Versey-Patel blogs about Microsoft 365 Archive Eliminates Reactivation Fees by March 31, 2025
🔗 Web
- Milosh Djuric (@mdjxkln) talks about Azure AppService Deployment Error 400 When Using Zip Deploys
- On episode 337 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by Shaun Walker to talk about Seven Years of Blazor
- John Reilly (@johnny_reilly) delves into Node.js, Azure Application Insights, and Fastify
⚙️ Azure Virtual Desktop
- Dagmar Heidecker writes about Seamless Security: Smartcard Logon from Entra-Only Machines to domain-joined Servers or AVDs