Azure Weekly
Issue #512 - 27th April 2025
Apologies for the lack of a newsletter last week, I was making the most of the lovely weather over the Easter break, so there's a bumped editions this week. First up, in Analytics, there are a number of Microsoft Fabric updates, including that the FabCon Las Vegas keynote recording now available. Other highlights include: Build data-driven agents with curated data from OneLake, and Microsoft Fabric RTI:Azure Data Explorer CDC support, and Automate testing Microsoft Fabric Data Pipelines with Azure DevOps, and Creating Quality Gates in the Medallion Architecture with Pandera.
In AI, there are a couple of posts of interest: o3 and o4-mini: Unlock enterprise agent workflows with next-level reasoning AI with Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, and Introducing MAI-DS-R1 (a new open weights DeepSeek R1 model variant, developed by Microsoft AI).
Finally, other interesting articles this week include: Processing SFTP Events with Azure Function and Event Hub and Azure Container Registry Continuous Patching for Security, and Azure Deployment Stacks: Zero to Hero.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- The Azure Updates Team announce In preview Public Preview: Remote Model Context Protocol MCP support in Azure Functions and In preview Public Preview: Easy service upgrade and change service tier in Azure AI Search
- On the Azure blog, Steve Sweetman describes o3 and o4-mini: Unlock enterprise agent workflows with next-level reasoning AI with Azure AI Foundry and GitHub and the GPT-4.1 model series for Azure AI Foundry and GitHub developers
- Lisa Svensson highlights What's new in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app - April 2025
- John Mighell announces People Skills general availability and new Skills agent
- Srini Raghavan writes about Inside Microsoft: Reimagining HR and IT with Microsoft's Employee Self-Service Agent
- Naomi Moneypenny describes Expanding the Llama 4 Herd: New Models Now Available on Azure AI Foundry
- Samer Baroudi discusses Introducing MAI-DS-R1
- Pablo Salvador talks about Building AI-Powered Clinical Knowledge Stores with Azure AI Search
- Sudarsan Lakshminarayanan describes SLM Model Weight Merging for Federated Multi-tenant Requirements
- Alexander Mehmet Ersoy discusses Optimizing Azure Healthcare Multimodal AI Models for Intel CPU Architecture
- Alexandre Levret writes about Evaluating Agentic AI Systems: A Deep Dive into Agentic Metrics
- Faris Akbar blogs about Memory Management for AI Agents
- Farzad Sunavala talks about Azure AI Search: Cut Vector Costs Up To 92.5% with New Compression Techniques
- Jose Barreto blogs about Book of Archimedes, Copilot and SharePoint Agents
- Khye Wei talks walks through Building an Interactive Feedback Review Agent with Azure AI Search and Haystack
- Luca Stamatescu explains Everything You Need to Know About Reasoning Models: o1, o3, o4-mini and Beyond
- Matt Gotteiner writes about Bonus RAG Time Journey: Agentic RAG
- Michael Gannotti writes Copilot Agents Solutions Series – Connecting Veeva Vault PromoMats, and Copilot Agents Solutions Series – Policies and Procedures Agent for HR, and Agents with Azure AI Foundry - Webinar Series for Microsoft AI Agents Recording and Agents with Copilot Studio - Webinar Series for Microsoft AI Agents Recording
- Sri Kantan writes about Using Azure OpenAI's Computer Using Agent for procure to Pay Automation
- Gina Lee talks introduces the Evaluation API on Azure Open AI Service
- Hannah Abbott explains how to Integrate Custom Azure AI Agents with CoPilot Studio and M365 CoPilot
- Pascal Burume writes Step-by-Step Contact Center Chat Analysis with Azure OpenAI & Communication Services
- Sarah Young (@_sarahyo) discusses Understanding and mitigating security risks in MCP implementations
- Sharda Kaur blogs about Understanding Azure OpenAI Service Quotas and Limits: A Beginner-Friendly Guide
- Pablo Castano covers Tracing your Semantic Kernel Agents with Azure AI Foundry
🔎 Analytics
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Arun Ulagaratchagan talks about FabCon Las Vegas keynote recording now available
- Josh Caplan (@JoshCaplan1984) explains how to Build data-driven agents with curated data from OneLake
- Yael Biss blogs about Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention policies for Fabric have been extended to KQL and Mirrored Databases Preview
- Yael Biss covers Purview DLP Policies with Restrict Access for Fabric Lakehouses Preview
- Estera Kot blogs about Fabric Espresso – Episodes about Performance Optimization - Compute Management in Microsoft Fabric
- Jonathan Garriss walks through Empowering businesses with smart capacity planning: Introducing the Microsoft Fabric SKU estimator Preview
- Jovan Popovic (@jocapc) blogs about BULK INSERT statement is generally available in Fabric Data Warehouse
- Lingxiao Li covers Best practices for Microsoft Fabric GraphQL API performance
- Andreas Bergstedt blogs about Mastering SKU Estimations with the Microsoft Fabric SKU Estimator
- Sunitha Muthukrishna (@mksuni) writes about Common use cases for building solutions with Microsoft Fabric User data functions UDFs
- Sunitha Muthukrishna (@mksuni) explains how to Develop, test and deploy a user data functions in Microsoft Fabric using Visual Studio Code
- Manoj Kumar talks about Building Healthcare Research Data Platform using Microsoft Fabric
- Ron L'esteve discusses Designing Microsoft Fabric Workspaces
- Henning Rauch (@cosh23) covers Azure Data Explorer's Advanced Geospatial Analysis: Breaking New Ground
- Julian Tanushi blogs about Fabric Data Agents: Unlocking the Power of Agents as a Steppingstone for a Modern Data Platform
- Sander van de Velde (@svelde) covers Microsoft Fabric RTI:Azure Data Explorer CDC support
- Kevin Chant (@kevchant) explains how to Automate testing Microsoft Fabric Data Pipelines with Azure DevOps
🖥️ Compute
- The Azure Updates Team announce Retirement: Azure Functions – Durable Functions support for Netherite will end on March 31, 2028 and announce Retirement: Support for Python 3.9 ends on October 31, 2025 – upgrade your Azure Functions apps to Python 3.11
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Microsoft Azure now available from new cloud region in Indonesia, andLaunched Generally Available: Azure SQL Trigger for Azure Functions in Consumption plan, and Launched Generally Available: Instance Mix for Virtual Machine Scale Sets and Launched Generally Avaialble: Azure NVads V710 v5-series virtual machines
- Brittany Rowe writes about General Availability: Instance Mix for Virtual Machine Scale Sets with Flexible Orchestration Mode
- Lucas Pickup walks through Accelerating DeepSeek Inference with AMD MI300: A Collaborative Breakthrough
- Luke Murray (@lukemurraynz) walks through Processing SFTP Events with Azure Function and Event Hub
- Simran Parkhe announces preview for the next generation of Azure Intel TDX Confidential VMs
- Mark Godfrey walks through Using Azure Functions to read AVS data via Powershell, PowerCLI, and the API
- Vinil Vadakkepurakkal describes Monitoring HPC & AI Workloads on Azure H/N VMs Using Telegraf and Azure Monitor GPU & InfiniBand
- On episode 518 of the Azure podcast, the podcast team (@AzurePodcast) are joined by Shubhra Sinha Kamath and Yagnesh Setti Subramanian to talk about Azure Confidential Ledger
🚢 Containers
- The Azure Updates Team announce Retirement: HELM chart-based onboarding workflow for the Azure Monitor Container Insights agent is retiring on October 1, 2025
- The Azure Updates Team announce In preview Public Preview: Rule-based routing in Azure Container Apps and In preview Public Preview: Multitenant managed logging in Container insights
- Tyson Freeman announces Public Preview of Larger Container Sizes on Azure Container Instances
- Luke Murray (@lukemurraynz) blogs about Azure Container Registry Continuous Patching for Security
- Dotanp discusses Monitoring Time Drift in Azure Kubernetes Service for Regulated Industries
- Simone Rodigari writes about eBPF-Powered Observability Beyond Azure: A Multi-Cloud Perspective with Retina
- Levi Masonde explains how to Build Microservice Architecture with Azure
- On Diagrid Blog, Bilgin Ibryam (@bibryam) writes about 8 patterns to build powerful AI-driven systems with Dapr Agents
- Melanie Kraintz describes Azure Red Hat OpenShift: April 2025 Update
🗄️ Databases
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Support for Mongo 8.0 on vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB, announce Launched Generally Available: Latest PostgreSQL minor versions supported by Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server, announce Launched Generally Available: PostgreSQL 17 performance management server parameters now modifiable on Azure Database for PostgreSQL, announce Launched Generally Available: Azure SQL updates for mid-April 2025, announce Launched Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Azure Data Factory service principal authentication and announce Launched Generally Available: Support for time-series databases in the migration service for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- The Azure Updates Team announce In preview Public Preview: Versionless customer managed keys in Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible Server and In preview Public Preview: Sharded DiskANN in Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL
- On the Redmond magazine site, Chris Paoli discusses Microsoft's MCP Server Preview for Azure PostgreSQL To Streamline AI Integration
- Kanchan Bharati writes about On-Demand Backups in Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server Now Generally Available
- Derek Wilson talks about Database compatibility level 170 in Azure SQL Database and SQL database in Microsoft Fabric
- Heinrich Gantenbein writes about New: Versionless CMK in Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- Jared Westover walks through SQL Export to Excel via Power BI XMLA
- Josephine Branch Bush talks about Using Cron in Postgres Flex
- Anoj Thomas walks through Migrating from Azure Database for MariaDB to Azure Database for MySQL using MyDumper/MyLoader
- Ramkumar Chandrasekaran walks through Using Terraform to deploy Azure Database for MySQL with Private Endpoint
- Sravani Saluru explains How to enable Auditing in Azure SQL Databases to Storage account and store logs in JSON format
- Shreya R. Aithal introduces the Model Context Protocol MCP Server for Azure Database for PostgreSQL Preview
- Amit Khandelwal covers Decoding Your SQL Server on Linux Deployment Options
- Ben Johnston discusses Managed Instance Gotchas – Error Conditions
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Katie Savage blogs about GitHub Copilot Highlights in Visual Studio 17.14 Preview 3 Available Now
- Leah Tran writes about Effortless adjustments with an adaptive paste
- Cynthia Zanoni (@cynthiazanoni) writes about VS Code Live: Agent Mode Day Highlights
- Matt Hernandez writes about Major Updates to VS Code Docker: Introducing Container Tools
- ychenu discusses Azure CLI Breaking Change Pre-Announcement
- Makena Barickman announces the Release of SSMS 21 Preview 6
- On episode 286 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) take A look at GitHub Copilot in practice in 2025
🔩 DevOps
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Support for Managed Identity based authentication flows in Azure Load Testing
- On the Microsoft DevOps blog, Angel Wong discusses Spring Cleaning: A CTA for Azure DevOps OAuth Apps with expired or long-living secrets
- Also on the Microsoft DevOps blog, Dan Hellem describes Azure Boards + GitHub: Recent Updates
- Shijo Joy covers Azure Native Integrations: Public Preview of LambdaTest HyperExecute on Azure
- Jack Tracey (@Jack_Ref) writes about An Update on Bicep Azure Verified Modules for Platform Landing Zone ALZ
- Gayatri Ram explains how to Automate creation of work items in ADO and Export/Import workflow packages
- Dan Rios (@danonazure) talks about Azure Deployment Stacks: Zero to Hero
- Siddhi Singh describes Syncing Secrets Between HashiCorp Vault and Azure Key Vault with Terraform
- Thomas Thornton (@tamstar1234) blogs about Ensuring Terraform State Security with Ephemeral Values and Write-Only Outputs
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- Wim Matthyssen (@wmatthyssen) talks about Azure Arc: Securely connect to an Azure Arc-enabled Windows Server with RDP over SSH
- Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) Video: Windows Server App Control and Azure Arc
- Sebastian Gernert explains how to Configure App-V Server to use HTTPS
🎭 Identity
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Route-maps for Azure Virtual WAN, announce Launched Generally Available: Microsoft Azure Available from New Azure for U.S. Government Secret Cloud Region in the US and announce Launched Generally Available: Metadata Cache for Azure SSD Premium SMB
- The Azure Updates Team announce In preview Public Preview: Azure Backup enables vaulted backup for Azure Data Lake Storage for comprehensive data protection and announce In preview Public Preview: Managed Identity for Azure Red Hat OpenShift
- The Azure Updates Team writes about In preview Private Preview: DCesv6 and ECesv6 series confidential VMs with Intel TDX
- Shirling Xu blogs about Service principal required for Microsoft Entra ID
- Didier Van Hoye provides a Script to Bulk Invite Guest Users to Azure Entra ID
- Aaron Tsang writes about Best Practices for Securing Access to VMs
- Dishan Francis provides a Step-by-Step Guide : How to enable QR code authentication for Microsoft Entra ID Preview
- Kawula Dave writes Microsoft Entra ID Token Protection Misfire Leads to Mass Account Lockouts
- Stefan Roth (@stefanroth_net) covers Azure PIM for Groups – PIM configuration object not being deleted after group deletion
🔌 Integration
- Wagner Silveira blogs about Announcement: Azure Logic Apps Standard Automated Testing Public Preview
- Temidayo Omoniyi presents Azure Function Event Grid Trigger Example and HTTP Post Request
- Parth Shah covers AI Procurement assistant using prompt templates in Standard Logic Apps
- Sourabh Jain blogs about Streaming and Analyzing Azure Storage Diagnostic Logs via Event Hub using Service Bus Explorer
- Varun Hariharan explains how to Forward Azure VMware Solution logs anywhere using Azure Logic Apps
- Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) talks about Microsoft 365 vs. Azure: Choosing the Right Service for High-Volume Emails
- Jonas Ohmsen explains How-To Use Graph Object Change Notifications
- Sudeshna Bhattacharyya provides Tips for Migrating Azure Event Hub from Standard to Basic Tier Using Scripts
💡 Internet of Things
📚 Learning
- On the Azure Developer Community Blog, Lee Stott discusses Week 2 . Microsoft Agents Hack Online Events and Readiness Resources and Week 3 . Microsoft Agents Hack Online Events and Readiness Resources
- Lee Stott highlights Microsoft at the European AI and Cloud Summit 2025- Dsseldorf, Germany Microsoft Event Guide and Mastering Getting Started with Agents: Your On-Demand Resource Hub
- On the Azure blog, Anavi Nahar (@AnaviNahar) discusses Upskill your team on Azure Databricks with an on-demand webinar and Microsoft Learn
- On episode 345 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by Jerry Nixon to talk about .NET Aspire and Databases
- On episode 346 of the Azure DevOps podcast, Jeffrey Palermo (@jeffreypalermo) is joined by April Yoho to talk about GitHub in 2025
- On episode 287 of the Ctrl+Alt+Azure podcast, Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) cover Microsoft Tech Updates
⚖️ Management and Governance
- The Azure Updates Team writes about In preview Public Preview: Metrics Usage Insights
- Pooja Acharya announces Public Preview: Metrics usage insights for Azure Monitor Workspace
- Andrej Radinger writes about Point-in-time restore snapshot health indicator generally available
- David Robbins walks through Getting started with the new Purview Content Search
- Daniel Neumann (@neumanndaniel) talks about Identifying values for the Azure Policy field parameter
- Stefan Denk provides A journey from Excel to FinOps hubs
- Jake Walsh (@jakewalsh90) writes about 5 ways Azure Copilot enhances your Azure Administration
- Kawula Dave discusses Getting Started with Veeam Data Cloud Azure Blob: My VeeamON Lab Adventure
- Nicolas Bonnet (@nico_bonnet) talks about Veeam for Azure Part 2
🚌 Migration
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Cross-Region Data Transfer Capability in Azure Data Box Devices, announce Launched Generally Available: Announcing the Next generation Azure Data Box Devices and on Tech Community blog, Anusha Subramanian announces General Availability of Next generation Azure Data Box Devices
- Vutukuri Divya writes about Seamless Transitions: Unlocking Workstation Migration with Identity Migration Service IMS
- Collin Brian covers Data Migration with RIOT-X for Azure Managed Redis
- Robby Millsap talks about Migrating from EKS to AKS: What Actually Matters
🌐 Networking
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Azure Front Door custom cipher suite and announce Launched Generally Available: ExpressRoute Metro Peering locations and Global Reach are now available in more regions
- Christopher Fields announces the general availability of Route-Maps for Azure virtual WAN.
- Jose Moreno (@erjosito) delves into Azure Firewall and Service Endpoints
- On eisode 517 of The Azure Podcast, the podcast team (@AzurePodcast) are joined byEvan Basalik to talk about ExpressRoute Gateway Resiliency Validation
- Amit Mishra introduces Subnet Peering in Azure
- Dileep-G writes about Harnessing the multicloud advantage: Comparing AWS and Azure network designs
- Gopi Kannan writes about Introducing XFF header for Azure Firewall: Gain crucial insights to help stay secure
- Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) explains how to Secure VM Access with Azure Bastion Step-by-Step Deployment & Demo
🔐 Security
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) covers Enhancing Security Visibility with Microsoft Sentinel Summary Rules for Fortinet Logs and Threat Intelligence
- Saksham Kumar discusses Combating Digitally Altered Images: Deepfake Detection
- Saleem Bseeu covers Optimizing DDoS Protection Costs: Adding IPs to Existing DDoS Protection Plans
- Sophie Ke describes How to deploy Microsoft Purview DSPM for AI to secure your AI apps
- Steve Labeau talks about Microsoft Defender for Identity: Detecting Insider Threats Before They Strike
- Jon Shectman describes Transitioning from the HTTP Data Collector API to the Log Ingestion APIWhat does it mean for me
📦 Storage
- The Azure Updates Team announce Launched Generally Available: Performance Plus for Azure Disk Storage, announce In development Private Preview: Azure Backup for AKS Now Supports Azure File Share-based Persistent Volumes, announce Launched Generally Available: ACLs Access Control Lists for Local Users in Azure Blob Storage SFTP, announce Launched Generally Available: Azure Ultra Disk Storage is now available in Spain Central and announce Launched Generally Available: Azure Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disk Storage is now available in Australia Central 2 and Norway West
- The Azure Updates Team writes about In development Private Preview: Azure Backup for AKS Now Supports Azure File Share-based Persistent Volumes
- On the Azure blog, Raji Easwaran covers Azure Files: More performance, more control, more value for your file data
- Navpr Singh describes Building a Scalable Web Crawling and Indexing Pipeline with Azure storage and AI Search
🔗 Web
- Fabio Padua writes about AI Resilience: Strategies to Keep Your Intelligent App Running at Peak Performance
- Frank Boucher (@FBoucheros) talks about Getting Started with .NET on Azure Container Apps
- Jordan Selig covers Host Remote MCP Servers in Azure App Service
- Julia Kasper writes about Enhancing AI Integrations with MCP and Azure API Management
- John Kilmister (@johnkilmister) talks about Exploring Container Sidecars on App Service Plans