Azure Weekly
Issue #524 - 20th July 2025
AI Agents are starting to cross the chasm from ideas to reality. There are two interesting posts from Geert Baeke: Deploying AI Foundry Agents and Azure Container Apps to support an Agent2Agent solution and Deploying a multi-agent solution with MCP and A2A to Azure Container Apps. Alli Parrett shares some useful guidance in Introducing Copilot Memory: A More Productive and Personalized AI for the Way You Work and Leo Visser has written a thoughful post - Why your AI might be biased (and what you can do about it).
Elton Stoneman publishes 10 Essential Claude Code Tips: Boost Your AI Coding Productivity in 2025 - I've been using Claude Code (Max) for the last month and completely agree with Elton's statement that his journey was: mildly sceptical to pleasantly surprised to thoroughly impressed to cannot live without. While I'm working on this edition of Azure Weekly, Claude Code running in a VS Code instance working on an idea I had last night for a new tool. It's currently in a performance improvement feedback loop, writing benchmarks and using the results to re-write the code to run faster and reduce memory allocations. Really awesome stuff.
There have been a number of Microsoft Fabric and OneLake announcements this week: Unified by design: mirroring Azure Databricks Unity Catalog to Microsoft OneLake in Fabric Generally Available, and Accelerating Insights from Unstructured Text with AI Powered OneLake Shortcut Transformations, and User Data Functions now support async functions and pandas DataFrame, Series types, and the third part in the series from James Broome Reading structured data from SharePoint in Synapse Notebooks, and Carmel Eve has published a Introduction to the Medallion Architecture talk.
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- Alli Parrett blogs about Introducing Copilot Memory: A More Productive and Personalized AI for the Way You Work
- AJ Bajada blogs about GitHub Copilot DevOps Excellence: Prompt Files vs Instructions vs Chat Modes
- Arunkumar Gopalan covers Organising the AI Foundry: A Practical Guide for Enterprise Readiness
- Malena Lopez-Sotelo delves into Fine-Tuning Together: How Our Developer Community Is Shaping the Future of Custom AI
- Leo Visser (@autosysops) writes Why your AI might be biased (and what you can do about it)
- Oleg Kokorin writes about Can Your LLM Handle an Invoice I Tested 5—Heres the Truth
- Mark Harrison writes about Smart AI Integration with the Model Context Protocol MCP ... part 5
- David Ramel (@dramel) describes Microsoft Brings Autonomous AI Research to Azure with Deep Research Agents
- Michael Goad describes Message Center Overload Try This Copilot Agent Complete walkthrough for Message Center Agent
- On Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott Hoag and Ben Stegink (@ciphertxt, @benstegink) covers Episode 406 – Agents of Insight: Copilot in Action and Sentinel on the Move
- Sharda Kaur highlights Model Mondays S2:E5 – Fine Tuning & Distillation with Dave Voutila
- Srini Raghavan explains How to scale AI: A look inside EYs journey with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents
🔎 Analytics
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Mirroring Azure Databricks Unity Catalog to Microsoft OneLake in Fabric, announces Launched Generally Available: Geo-Replication for Azure Event Hubs Premium and Dedicated and announces Retirement: Azure HDInsight – Enterprise Security Package
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Dipti Borkar announces Unified by design: mirroring Azure Databricks Unity Catalog to Microsoft OneLake in Fabric Generally Available, Premal Shah announces Access Amazon S3 Shortcuts Securely and Seamlessly with Microsoft Entra Service Principals Preview, George Guirguis announces Permission model improvements for Azure and Fabric Events, Brian Kernan announces Introduction of access limits in a Fabric workspace, Sunitha Muthukrishna announces User Data Functions now support async functions and pandas DataFrame, Series types, fabric Blog, Miquella de Boer announces Accelerating Insights from Unstructured Text with AI Powered OneLake Shortcut Transformations, on Microsoft Fabric Blog, Jai Maldonado announces Cosmos DB in Microsoft Fabric Featuring New Capabilities Preview and Alex Lin announces Secure Data Streaming with Private Endpoints in Eventstream Generally Available
- On the endjin blog, Carmel Eve (@Carmel_Eve) created a short Introduction to the Medallion Architecture and asks How does Delta Lake work?
- Also on the endjin blog, James Broome (@jamesbroome_) blogs about Reading structured data from SharePoint in Synapse Notebooks
- Mazen Manasseh talks about Salesforce to Databricks: A Deep Dive into Integration Strategies
- Eric Melcher explains How to deliver trusted data to Microsoft Fabric with Profisee MDM in Azure Marketplace
- Ajay Kallur describes Using Copilot in Fabric with Confidence: Data Security, Compliance & Governance with DSPM for AI
- Jason Pereira And Anavi Nahar talks about Databricks runs best on Azure
🖥️ Compute
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: Orchestration versioning for Durable Functions and durable task SDKs, announces In preview Public Preview: Azure Functions Kafka trigger support in Consumption plan and announces Launched Generally Available: Durable Functions PowerShell SDK as a standalone module
- Rene van den Bedem describes Azure VMware Solution Broadcom VMSA-2025-0013 Remediation
- Ravi Sharma covers Scaling Azure Functions & PaaS - Concurrency, Async, Messaging.Insights from Python Log Analysis
- Vaybhav Shaw blogs about Kernel Dump based Online Repair
🚢 Containers
- The Azure Updates Team announces that the following are now GA: Cluster Extension Manager move to AKS control plane, and Virtual Machines node pools support in AKS, and Node auto-provisioning support in AKS and announces In preview Public Preview: Max blocked nodes allowed support in AKS
- Geert Baeke (@GeertBaeke) describes Deploying AI Foundry Agents and Azure Container Apps to support an Agent2Agent solution and talks about Deploying a multi-agent solution with MCP and A2A to Azure Container Apps
- Linda Lu discusses Access releases bug fixes in version 2506
- Kevin Friedemann blogs about Fishing for Syslog with Azure Kubernetes and Logstash
- Dor Serero writes about Your cluster, your rules: Helm support for container security with Microsoft Defender for Cloud
- Anchal Porwal explains how to Discover and Assess Kubernetes Clusters using Azure AI Agents and Model Context Protocol MCP
🗄️ Databases
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: Cosmos DB in Microsoft Fabric and announces Launched Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server: Indonesia Central
- Benny Liu talks about CampusSphere: Building the Future of Campus AI with Microsoft's Agentic Framework
- Hauke Mallow discusses Labeling Kusto Data in Azure Managed Grafana for Machine Learning Workflows
- Heather Cook discusses Event Recap - TechCon Seattle - June 2025
- Silvano Coriani blogs about Mirroring Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server behind VNET and Private Endpoint
- Sonali Solanki writes about Temporal Table Replication in SQL Server: Common Barriers and Solutions
- On SQL Server Central, Tonie Huizer talks about Getting In: Running External Code in a Locked-Down PaaS
🛠️ Developer Tools
- Elton Stoneman (@EltonStoneman) writes about 10 Essential Claude Code Tips: Boost Your AI Coding Productivity in 2025
- April Gittens says Learn Together: Building an MCP Server with AI Toolkit and asks How do I get my agent to respond in a structured format like JSON
- Alibek Jakupov blogs about Downloading tagged images from Azure Custom Vision
- Arya G blogs about Automating Watchlists in Microsoft Sentinel
- The Azure Updates Team announces In preview Public Preview: CLI command for migration from Availability Sets and Basic load balancer on AKS
- Asma Khalid (@asmak) explains How Pythons Memory Model Works: From Stack to Heap
🔩 DevOps
- Chris Bradshaw blogs Azure Policy Exemption on Management Group using Terraform.
- Andrew Wilson (@Andrew_DWilson) covers Bicep Tips and Tricks 1 Template Versioning and Applying to Azure Resource Tags
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Richard Cheney (@RichCheneyAzure) explains how to Terraform Provider for Microsoft Fabric: 1 Accelerating first steps using the CLIs
- Sarah Lean (@TechieLass) explains How to deploy Azure Key Vault with Terraform: A Step-by-Step Guide
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- Janine Patrick covers Hotpatching for Azure Arc–Connected Servers: General Availability and Subscription Details
- On the SQL Server Blog, Debbi Lyons (@debbilyons) explains how to Accelerate SQL Server Migration to Azure with Azure Arc
- Kirsten Megahan writes Microsoft is headed to VMware Explore 2025 in Las Vegas
- Varun Lakshmanan announces the preview of Software Defined Networking SDN on Azure Local
- Kawula Dave covers Tenant Breach porting to new tenant – Hybrid Configuration Wizard Fails with TimeoutException Exchange 2016 to Office 365
- Dr. Danimir Ljepava writes about New database migration experience for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc – Public Preview
🎭 Identity
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Microsoft Azure Cloud HSM
- Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons) writes that Smarter identity security starts with AI
- Wim Matthyssen (@wmatthyssen) describes Azure Update Manager: Register all required resource providers with a PowerShell script
- Benjamien De Ruyte talks about Configuring Fine-Grained Scopes in Azure B2C and Backend API Integration
- Zachary Cavanell writes about NEW Conditional Access Optimization Agent in Microsoft Entra + Security Copilot in Entraupdates
🔌 Integration
- Ashish Chhabria writes Geo-Replication is Here Now generally available for Event Hubs Premium & Dedicated
- Divya Swarnkar discusses Announcement Python Code Interpreter in Logic Apps is now in Public Preview
- Matt Egen walks through Automating Microsoft Sentinel: Playbook Fundamentals
💡 Internet of Things
- Sander van de Velde (@svelde) talks about Azure IoT Operations, building a custom module using the SDK
📚 Learning
- Bethany Jepchumba (@bethanyjep), Cloud Advocate, covers JS AI Build-a-thon: Project Showcase
- The Student Developer Team writes about From Student to Startup: Why Microsoft Isnt Just a Platform - Its a Partner in Possibility
- Heather Cook covers Microsoft at TechCon Atlanta - 2025 - Event Guide
- Mindy Rosenthal writes about Important Update: AI Course Labs Language Consolidation
- Mindy Rosenthal says DP-3028 Labs Delayed — Trainer Files Releasing Tomorrow
⚖️ Management and Governance
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Azure Backup standard policies support for Trusted Launch virtual Machines
- Tim Butters discusses Demystifying AMBA – Azure Monitor Baseline Alerts Notes from the field pt.1
- Christoph Dreymann blogs about Cloud forensics: Why enabling Microsoft Azure Key Vaults matters
- Luxmi Nagaraj writes about New in Microsoft AppSource: June 24-30, 2025
- Vipassana Mahale writes about 4 risks of not being crisis-ready, and how Avista in the Microsoft Teams app marketplace can help
- Sophie Ke writes about Secure and govern AI apps and agents with Microsoft Purview
🚌 Migration
- Jill Armour explains how to Accelerate cloud migrations with confidence - Join the Dr. Migrate Webinar
🌐 Networking
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: Hosted-On-Behald-Of HOBO Public IP model for ExpressRoute Gateways and announces Retirement: Azure Front Door classic and Azure CDN from Microsoft Classic SKU ending CNAME based domain validation and new domain/profile creations by August 15, 2025
- Mahesh Kshirsagar writes about New Automation enhancements in AVS Landing Zone for Migration-Ready Infrastructure
🔐 Security
- Chad Stout talks about Mastering Agent Governance in Microsoft 365
- Donna Lee writes about New tools for Security Copilot management and capacity planning
- Emily Blundo discusses Microsoft Purview Powering Data Security and Compliance for Security Copilot
- Giulio Astori covers Microsoft Defender for Cloud Adds Four New Regulatory Frameworks
- Jack Tracey (@Jack_Ref) provides A New Platform Management Group & Subscription for Security in Azure landing zone ALZ
- Luxmi Nagaraj explains how to Learn about odix's Microsoft 365 partner solution in Microsoft AppSource
- The Intune Support Team describes Microsoft Security Copilot in Intune deep dive - Part 3: Explore and act on your Intune data with AI
- Thomas Zou walks through Protecting Cloud Storage in the Age of AI
- Xinye Tang writes about Smarter Prompts for Smarter Investigations: Dynamic Prompt Suggestions in Security Copilot
- Rohan Brooker writes about Now Generally Available: Microsoft Security Copilot in Surface Management Portal
- On Microsoft Security blog, Dorothy Li discusses Improving IT efficiency with Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Entra
- On the Redmond magazine site, AUTHOR blogs about Microsoft Intune and Entra Receives Security Copilot Enhancement
📦 Storage
- The Azure Updates Team announces Launched Generally Available: GRS and CRR support for Azure VMs using Premium SSD v2 in Azure Backup availability in Norway and Japan and announces In preview Public Preview: AZNFS 3.0 for BlobNFS with FUSE for superior performance
- Vivek Singla writes about Generally Available: SSD storage account support for Ephemeral OS disks
- Silvio Di Benedetto (@s_net) announces Azure File Sync v21.2
🔗 Web
- Dan Wahlin (@DanWahlin) explains how to Join Us for an AMA on Improving Your MCP Servers with Azure API Management
- Justin Yoo (@justinchronicle) talks about Swagger Auto-Generation on MCP Server
- Anand Deshpande explains how to Discover and govern ChatGPT and other AI apps accessing Microsoft 365 with Defender for Cloud Apps
- Jordan Selig covers Building Agent-to-Agent A2A Applications on Azure App Service
- Kevin Guo covers Building Real-Time AI Apps with Model Context Protocol MCP and Azure Web PubSub
⚙️ Azure Virtual Desktop
- Chauncey Larsen covers The AI advantage, wherever work happens: Why 5G devices matter more in the age of AI