Azure Weekly
Issue #505 - 2nd March 2025
Quite a busy edition this week - with a lot of varied content. Highlights include: in AI Custom Evaluators with AI Foundry and Claude 3.7 Now Available in GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio (I was using this last weekend, and have been deeply impressed by the step-change in usefulness of the Claude 3.7 Sonnet Thinking model - especially when working with C# code).
In Networking: Routing Is The Security Cabling of Azure and How Does Azure Routing Work. A Comprehensive Guide to Monitoring Azure WAF Metrics and Logs and Application Gateway for Containers: a not-so-gentle intro 1.
In Security and Identity: Setting Up a Secure Webhook in an Azure Monitor Action Group and From zero to hero with identity and access control in Azure Kubernetes Service and Deploying to Azure: Secure Your GitHub Workflow with OIDC.
Finally, a Practical Guidance Working with Azure Availability Zones and Physical Zones and Keeping .NET Base Docker Images Updated with Azure Container Registry, and Azure FinOps Essentials.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- On the Azure blog, Asha Sharma announces that Announcing new models, customization tools, and enterprise agent upgrades in Azure AI Foundry
- Carlotta Castelluccio blogs about Measure and Mitigate Risks for a generative AI app in Azure AI Foundry
- Garfield He describes Azure AI Speech text to speech Feb 2025 updates: New HD voices and more
- Sharmila Chockalingam discusses DeepSeek R1: Improved Performance, Higher Limits, and Transparent Pricing and writes about Better Search, Smarter AI: Cohere Rerank v3.5 Launches on Azure AI Foundry
- Mahsa Rouzbahman describes Code First Distillation with Stored Completions in Azure OpenAI Service
- Weizhu Chen describes Empowering innovation: The next generation of the Phi family
- Locky Ainley explains how to AI innovation starts here—join Microsoft at NVIDIA GTC
- Martin Ca describes Capacity's AI Answer Engine leveraged Phi to deliver better results for their customers, faster
- Lo Kinfey (@Ljh8304) writes Welcome to the new Phi-4 models - Microsoft Phi-4-mini & Phi-4-multimodal
- Dave Voutila announces Provisioned Deployment for Azure OpenAI Service Fine-tuning
- On episode 338 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined Scott Nichols to talk about Azure AI Foundry
- Carlos Mendible (@cmendibl3) talks about Custom Evaluators with AI Foundry
- David Giard (@DavidGiard) walks through Creating an Azure AI Foundry Project and Hub
- Pascal Burume walks through Transforming Static Learning into Interactive AI Experiences with Azure Prompt Flow & Flask
- Zachary Teutsch covers Pose Estimation with the AI Dev Gallery
- Joshua Huang covers Need inspirations Real AI Apps stories by Azure customers to help you get started
- Chrissy LeMaire writes about Local models mildly demystified
- Radu Vunvulea (@RaduVunvulea) discusses Cloud Modernization for AI: Serverless and Containerization Pill 3 of 5 / Cloud Pills
- Sharda Kaur blogs about Exploring Azure OpenAI Assistants and Azure AI Agent Services: Benefits and Opportunities
- Zachary Cavanell covers Copilot Control System explained
🔎 Analytics
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Mihir Wagle announces the launch of Microsoft Fabric Quotas, Arshad Ali writes about ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric Spark – Preview, Bogdan Blaga blogs about Admin API updates and upcoming definition changes and Nisha Sridhar blogs about TLS deprecation for Fabric
- Brad Watts announces Eventhouse OneLake availability migration
- On the Microsoft Mechanics show, Jeremy Chapman (@deployjeremy) and Daniel Hidalgo introduce the Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog
- John Miner writes about Engineering a Lakehouse with Azure Databricks with Spark Dataframes
- Mazen Manasseh explains How to Access Oracle Fusion Cloud Apps Data from Databricks and explains how to Accelerate the Replication of Oracle Fusion Cloud Apps Data into Databricks
🖥️ Compute
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: Azure Functions Support for Python 3.12
🚢 Containers
- The Dapr Project Maintainers announce Dapr v1.15 is now available
- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols blogs that Kubescape Achieves CNCF Incubation Status
- John Kilmister (@johnkilmister) discusses Keeping .NET Base Docker Images Updated with Azure Container Registry
- On episode 513 of The Azure Podcast, the podcast team (@AzurePodcast) do an Azure Container Apps Deep Dive
- Ricardo Martins (@ricmmartins) writes From zero to hero with identity and access control in Azure Kubernetes Service
- Jose Moreno (@erjosito) delves intp Application Gateway for Containers: a not-so-gentle intro 1
🗄️ Databases
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Azure SQL Updates for Late-February, and Launched Generally Available: Latest PostgreSQL Minor Versions Supported by Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server, and In preview Public Preview: Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure AI Extension Managed Identity Support, and In preview Public Preview: Azure Cosmos DB Rust SDK, and In preview Public Preview: Azure SQL Updates for Late-February and Launched Generally Available: Vaulted Backups by Azure Backup for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server in 5 Regions
- mhyon announces Availability metric for Azure SQL DB is now generally available
- Lance Wright explains how to Released: SCOM Management Packs for SQL Server, RS and AS 7.8
- Sravani Saluru announces Native Windows principals for Azure SQL Managed Instance are now generally available
- Abhiman Tiwari discusses Exciting new T-SQL features: Regex support, Fuzzy matching, and bigint support in DATEADD – preview
- Gayathri Paderla writes Turbocharge Your Azure PostgreSQL Database: Mastering the Art of Fast Inserts
- Dimitri Furman (@DimitriFurman) blogs about Improving Azure SQL Database reliability with accelerated database recovery in tempdb
- Nevena Nikolic discusses When to Choose Zone Redundancy in Azure SQL Managed Instance
- Anil Kota discusses Modernizing large-scale Text-Search from legacy data systems to Azure SQL
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Jessie Houghton covers Leverage vision in Copilot Chat and describes Catch issues before you commit to Git
- Rhea Patel describes Claude 3.7 Now Available in GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio
- Ron Glums highlights the AI Toolkit for VS Code February Update
- On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) covers C# Dev Kit Previews .NET Aspire Orchestration
- Elio Struyf (@eliostruyf) provides Useful Visual Studio Code settings for better coding demos
- Saeed Zarinfam writes about 5 reasons that convinced me to use VS Code for Java development
- Tobias Fenster walks through Using WireMock to mock Business Central
- Daniel Calbimonte explains How to use the Azure Emulator to create blob containers, queues and tables
🔩 DevOps
- Steven Bucher explains how to Upcoming Breaking Change in Az SSH for Arc Connections Extension
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Configure Notifications in Azure Load Testing
- Nikita Nallamothu covers Introducing Notifications in Azure Load Testing: Stay Updated in Real-Time
- Katie Sanford explains how to Tell your Projects Story using Azure DevOps Queries and Dashboards
- Jim Lane discusses a Case Study: Data Driven DevOps with ADO
- Nagarjuna Vipparthi talks about Supporting Managed Identity based authentication flows in Azure Load Testing
- Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) blogs about Deploying to Azure: Secure Your GitHub Workflow with OIDC
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- Brady Bumgarner discusses Embracing the multicloud advantage: a guide to replicating your app from AWS to Azure
🎭 Identity
- Aditya Sindhu discusses Microsoft Security in Action: Deploying and Maximizing Advanced Identity Protection
- Robin Goldstein describes how to Simplify frontline workers sign-in experience with QR code authentication
🔌 Integration
- Sean Keegan highlights the Azure Communication Services February 2025 Feature Updates
- Wagner Silveira talks about Exporting Logic App Standard to VS Code
- Sean Feldman (@sfeldman) describes Service Bus subscriptions - ARM client vs ServiceBusAdministrationClient
- Elio Struyf (@eliostruyf) delves into RealTime News Updates in SharePoint Online with SPFx
- Sep Beheshti describes The Claim-Check Pattern: Optimising Message Processing in Azure Applications
- Mahesh blogs delves into Enabling SharePoint RAG with LogicApps Workflows
💡 Internet of Things
- Justine Coates (@iotgirl) explains How Urban Planning and GIS with Azure Maps Assist Local Governments
- Pabhanda blogs about Empowering Telcos and Connected Industries: Shaping the Future at MWC with AI and Microsoft
- John Lian (@jlian) writes about Automatic IoT Edge Certificate Management with GlobalSign EST
📚 Learning
- Pamela Fox writes Supercharge your Python with Gen AI Skills from our free six-part YouTube series
- Ryan Williams provides a Skilling snack: Windows driver update management
⚖️ Management and Governance
- Scott Sawyer discusses Whats new in Microsoft Intune: February 2025
- The Intune Support Team describes Microsoft Intune Connector for Active Directory security update
- Anushka Khare discusses Removal of DES in Kerberos for Windows Server and Client
- Andrew Citera provides Practical Guidance Working with Azure Availability Zones and Physical Zones
- Tao Yang (@MrTaoYang) discusses Log Analytics Queries for Billable Data per Subscription
- Jeff Pigott covers Azure Update Manager – Patching .NET Core
- Andrew Redman walks through Setting Up a Secure Webhook in an Azure Monitor Action Group
- Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) talks about Hotpatch for Windows Server: Zero-Downtime Patching Explained
- Dieter Gobeyn delves into Advanced KQL Queries for Logic Apps in Application Insights: A Practical Guide
- On episode 279 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) talk about Backing up the cloud
- Michiel van Oudheusden (@mivano) covers Azure FinOps Essentials
- Marina Liu describes how to List all the web apps runtime and stack version under a subscription
🚌 Migration
- Erich Barnstedt explains how to Enable an Industrial Dataspace on Azure
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: Unified Migration Experience in Azure Database Migration Service
🌐 Networking
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Azure Load Balancer Health Event Logs
- Aditya Kumar describes Enhancing Azure Private DNS Resiliency with Internet Fallback
- Saleem Bseeu provides a Comprehensive Guide to Monitoring Azure WAF Metrics and Logs
- Sean Whalen explains How Proactive Network Security Helps Secure Azure Workloads
- Aidan Finn (@joe_elway) explains How Does Azure Routing Work, explains why Routing Is The Security Cabling of Azure and asks How Many Azure Route Tables Should I Have
- Tanya Dhariwal covers Service Tags for Azure Bot: Simplifying IP Management
🔐 Security
- Murat Demirbas writes about Smart Casual Verification of the Confidential Consortium Framework
- Abhishek Sharan explains how to Automate MDE Extension Status Checks with PowerShell
- Jared Graff provides a Sentinel Notebook: Guided Hunting – Anomalous Process Network Connections
- Giulio Astori discusses Strengthening Cloud Compliance and Governance with Microsoft Defender CSPM
📦 Storage
- On the Azure blog, Aung Oo covers Azure NetApp Files: Revolutionizing silicon design for high-performance computing
🔗 Web
- Sabyasachi Samaddar writes about Securely Integrating Azure API Management with Azure OpenAI via Application Gateway