Azure Weekly
Issue #509 - 30th March 2025
An AI heavy editions this week! In AI: Unleashing the Power of Model Context Protocol MCP: A Game-Changer in AI Integration, and Best Practices for Requesting Quota Increase for Azure OpenAI Models, and Building a multimodal, multi-agent system using Azure AI Agent Service and OpenAI Agent SDK. There are also two posts About Responses API: Agentic P2P Automation: Harnessing the Power of OpenAI's Responses API and a set of samples: Responses API on Azure OpenAI.
In Azure Infrastructure there are two interesting posts: Subnet Peering and From zero to hero: Mastering storage in Azure Kubernetes Service AKS. Finally, one technology I'm particularly interested in gets an update: Hyperlight Wasm: Fast, secure, and OS-free.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- Guy Gregory shares some examples for Responses API on Azure OpenAI via GitHub.
- Sri Kantan writes about Agentic P2P Automation: Harnessing the Power of OpenAI's Responses API
- On epsiode 342 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) and Per Kops talk about the Architecture of Ollama and Local LLMs
- Deepak Kaaushik discusses Navigating the Enterprise LLM Life Cycle with Azure AI
- Lauren Tran discusses Best Practices for Structured Extraction from Documents Using Azure OpenAI
- Sharda Kaur writes about Unleashing the Power of Model Context Protocol MCP: A Game-Changer in AI Integration
- Shivam Goyal covers AI Agents: Mastering the Tool Use Design Pattern - Part 4
- On episode 515 of The Azure Podcast, the podcast team(@AzurePodcast) are joined by Matteo Pagani to talk about Building Copilots
- Ellie Nosrat writes about Best Practices for Requesting Quota Increase for Azure OpenAI Models
- Robert Rita explains how to Deploy Your First Azure AI Agent Service on Azure App Service and covers Building a multimodal, multi-agent system using Azure AI Agent Service and OpenAI Agent SDK
- Gia Mondragon covers RAG Time Journey 4: Advanced Multimodal Indexing
- Chris Noring (@chris_noring) explains how to Manage your LLM token spend
- Peyton Fraser announces the Extension of Some QnA Maker Functionality
🔎 Analytics
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Reminder - End of Limited Time Promotional Discounts on Azure Databricks Serverless Compute Services
- JeanC750 covers Runtime 1.1, based on Apache Spark 3.3, will be retired and disabled as of March 31, 2025
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Estera Kot discusses Fabric Espresso – Episodes about Data Warehousing - Storage Solutions in Microsoft Fabric
- Amar Digamber Patil announces backup storage billing for SQL database in Microsoft Fabric: what you need to know
- Sung Gun Lee explains how to AI Search Troubleshooting OneLake Files Connection via Wizard
- Someleze Diko explains how to Simplify data transformation and management with Copilot for Data Factory
- David Callaghan discusses Deletion Vectors in Delta Live Tables: Identifying and Remediating Compliance Risks
- Panu Oksala covers Part II: Microsoft Fabric GraphQL Performance
- On the Azure Developer Community Blog, arnuthal describes Scaling Cloud ETL: Optimizing Performance and Resolving Azure Data Factory Copy Bottlenecks
- Khushhal Garg describes Creating a AI-Driven Chatbot to Inquire Insights into business data
- Lindsey Allen writes about Anthropic State-of-the-Art Models Available to Azure Databricks Customers
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Anthropic Gen AI Models in Azure Databricks
🖥️ Compute
- The Azure Updates Team announces Retirement: Support for Desired State Configuration Extension for Azure Virtual Machines to Be Retired on March 31, 2028
- Temidayo Omoniyi blogs about Understanding Azure Functions for Microservice Architecture
- Xavier Pillons talks about Product Announcement: Open OnDemand Integration with Azure CycleCloud Workspace for Slurm
- Madhura Bharadwaj explains how to Keep Your Azure Functions Up to Date: Identify Apps Running on Retired Versions
🚢 Containers
- The Azure Updates Team announces Retirement: Docker Compose Feature for Azure App Service to Be Retired on March 31, 2027 – Replaced by Sidecars in Azure App Service, announces Retirement: Docker Content Trust on March 31, 2028 – Replaced by the Notary Project and Azure Key Vault and announces Retirement: Ubuntu 18.04 Node Pools in AKS
- On the Microsoft Open Technologies site, Yosh Wuyts And Lucy Menon discuss Hyperlight Wasm: Fast, secure, and OS-free
- Matt Goldman covers Fixing Docker Performance in .NET Aspire on Windows
- Ricardo Martins (@ricmmartins) writes about Embracing AKS built-in upgrade features and exploring custom solutions
- Ricardo Martins (@ricmmartins) writes From zero to hero: Mastering storage in Azure Kubernetes Service AKS
🗄️ Databases
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Long-Term Backup Retention for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server and announces Launched Generally Available: On-Demand Backups for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: Azure Database for MySQL Triggers for Azure Functions and announces In preview Public Preview: Point-in-Time Restore Capability for Multiregion Write Accounts in Azure Cosmos DB
- Kishore Vutukuru blogs about Optimizing Change Data Capture CDC on PostgreSQL for Enhanced Data Management
- Utsav Verma walks through Implementing Fuzzy Search in SQL Server Using New Inbuilt Functions
- Dimitri Furman (@DimitriFurman) blogs about ABORTQUERYEXECUTION query hint - public preview
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Jacqueline Widdis (@JacqWiddis) talks about Introducing Visual Studio Hub
- Zhidi Shang explains how to AI Toolkit for Visual Studio Code Now Supports NVIDIA NIM Microservices for RTX AI PCs
- Junyu Wang blogs about Debugging with the AI-powered IEnumerable visualizer
- Joseph Guadagno explains how to Add and Customize Oh My Zsh in a Linux Development Container and walks through Working with dotnet 10 Without Mucking Up Your Machine
- Julia Kasper walks through Boosting The Developer Experience with Azure API Management: VS Code Extension v1.1.0
🔩 DevOps
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Azure Chaos Studio Auto-Tagging of Experiment Resources for Private Networking Now Available
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Angel Wong writes about New Overlapping Secrets on Azure DevOps OAuth
- Ritesh Modi delves into Terraform State Management: A Deep Dive Beyond the Basics for Azure Deployments
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) writes about Save on Azure SQL with Azure Hybrid Benefit
🎭 Identity
- Farooque Mohammad blogs about Passwordless Authentication with FIDO2 Security Key for Remote Desktop Connection
- Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) explains How to Remove a Domain Controller from Windows Active Directory Step-by-Step Guide
🔌 Integration
- Parth Shah blogs about Public Preview Refresh: More Power to Data Mapper in Azure Logic Apps
- Jacky Hsu explains how to Create pages with Copilot in SharePoint
- Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) writes You need to wait longer when restarting Logic Apps
- Afnan Ahmad Shafai covers Power Fx in Power Automate Desktop
- Gyanendra Kumar Gautam talks about March 24, 2025 Weekly Update on Microsoft Integration Platform & Azure iPaaS
💡 Internet of Things
- The Azure Updates Team announces Retirement: Azure Maps Route APIs Version 1.0 to Be Retired on March 31, 2028
📚 Learning
- Jaspreet Dhamija announces the Webinar Series for Microsoft AI Agents
⚖️ Management and Governance
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Log Analytics Delete Data API
- Nathalia Borges announces Alert Triage Agents in Microsoft Purview, powered by Security Copilot
- Bruno Gabrielli covers Azure Monitor: How To Create Overrides for Log Search Alerts
- On the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott Hoag and Ben Stegink (@ciphertxt, @benstegink) describes Episode 398 – PowerShell and Intune with Harm Veenstra
- Jianguo Ma explains how to Observe Quarkus Apps with Azure Application Insights using OpenTelemetry
- Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) explains how to Recover your Azure cloud environment with Cloud Rewind
- sbal provides A guide to Azure Storage and Virtual Machines cost optimization
🚌 Migration
- Ajith Krishnan blogs about Migration Dashboard for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc
- On the Check your Logs blog, Cristal Kawula writes about New Release – Migrating to Server 2025 and Azure – Hands on Lab Guide
- Bhaskar Bandam explains how to Migrate IBM mainframe applications to Azure with TmaxSoft OpenFrame
- Bhaskar Bandam explains how to Refactor mainframe applications with Amdocs
- Bhaskar Bandam writes about Rehost mainframe applications by using NTT DATA UniKix
🌐 Networking
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Azure Firewall Updates - Parallel IP Group Updates and announces Launched Generally Available: New Regions for Azure Front Door Premium with Private Link Enabled Origins
- On episode 283 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) talk about Getting started with Azure Firewall
- Andrew Mathu covers Mastering Regex with GitHub Copilot for Enhanced Azure WAF Security
- Marc de Droog explains Subnet Peering
- Sourav Bera covers Azure ExpressRoute Resiliency: Best Practices for Production-Critical Workloads
- Yuval Pery explains how to Protect against Next.js CVE-2025-29927 with Azure Web Application Firewall WAF
- Daniel Neumann (@neumanndaniel) describes Azure Load Balancer Health Event Logs
🔐 Security
- Liz Tesch talks about Blog Series: Charting Your Path to Cyber Resiliency
- Seth Patton introduces the Copilot Control System
- Shahar Bahat walks throigh Securing your organization from 'IngressNightmare' using Microsoft Security capabilities
- Yash Narendra writes All Key Vaults Are Critical, But Some Are More Critical Than Others: Finding the Crown Jewels
- Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) covers Azure immutable backups: Protecting your data from ransomware and insider threats
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) explains how to Forward Logs to Microsoft Sentinel with a Private Link
- Sean Whalen blogs about Microsoft Azure Cloud HSM is now in public preview
📦 Storage
- The Azure Updates Team announces Retirement: Azure Storage Data Movement Library v2 Announcement
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: Azure NetApp Files Flexible service level
- Haitham Qaffesha walks through Recovering Large Number of Soft-deleted Blobs Using Storage Actions
- Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) discusses Backing Up Home Assistant to Azure Files
🔗 Web
- Damien Bowden (@damien_bod) writes about ASP.NET Core delegated Microsoft OBO access token management Entra only
- Denver Brittain devles into Getting Started with Java WebJobs on Azure App Service
- Yan Liang writes about Azure API Management with Call Chain of Backend APIs
⚙️ Azure Virtual Desktop
- Hilary Braun explains how to Prepare for the Remote Desktop client for Windows end of support
- Ron Coleman talks about Azure Virtual Desktop metadata database available in Southeast Asia