Azure Weekly
Issue #530 - 7th September 2025
Firstly, Josh Caplan kicks off a series of blog posts about OneLake with OneLake: your foundation for an AI-ready data estate.
Next, a few announcements and updates: Gpt-realtime is now available on Azure AI Foundry and There is a new Azure AI Translator API (in public preview), and there has been an update on the Azure SRE Agent Preview.
On tooling, here is a summary of what's new in Microsoft 365 Copilot - August 2025. There are also a load of announcements from the updates team around Azure Logic Apps, which are detailed in the "Integration" section below. And, here's a summary of what's new in Fabric Warehouse - August 2025. This article highlights the upcoming FabCon Europe conference - a few of us here at endjin will be in attendance, so keep an eye out and let us know if you're around! On the same vein, Akshat Kakar highlights that you can now register for Azure Dev Summit.
And finally, a reminder of the Azure CDN retirement, and the need to migrate to Azure Front Door on December 1, 2025!
⚙️ AI + Machine Learning
- The Azure Updates Team announces Expanded support for the Model Context Protocol MCP in Azure API Management (Public Preview)
- On the MSSQL Tips site, Eduardo Pivaral showcases an AI Image Generator with Azure OpenAI and SQL Server
- Lee Stott highlights that you can Level Up Your Python Game with Generative AI Free Livestream Series This October
- Bobur Umurzokov explains how to Build a smart shopping AI Agent with memory using the Azure AI Foundry Agent service
- Cormac Garvey provides a Performance analysis of DeepSeek R1 AI Inference using vLLM on ND-H100-v5
- Dave Jacobs announces gpt-realtime on Azure AI Foundry:
- Jacques Guibert De Bruet runs through how to Build Intelligent, Goal-Driven AI That Acts Autonomously using Azure AI Foundry Agents
- Krishna Doss announces a new Azure AI Translator API (Public Preview)
- Nandini Muralidharan highlights that Fine-tuning gpt-oss-20b is Now Available on Managed Compute
- Shruti Pathak explains how to Orchestrate multi-LLM workflows with Azure Managed Redis
- Krishna Doss discusses The Future of AI: Creating a Web Application with Vibe Coding
- Mohamed Elghazali blogs about The Future of AI: Vibe Code with Adaptive Custom Translation
- Ikshita Sathanur writes about Secure Model Context Protocol MCP Implementation with Azure and Local Servers
- Chris Barry blogs about Accelerating AI adoption for the US government
- lakshay Malik writes about MultiAgent Orchestration with Azure AI Foundry: From Idea to Production
- Lea Kassab describes How Microsoft Dragon Copilot Uses The Azure Health Data Services De-Identification Service
- Manoranjan Rajguru writes about Proven Methods to Optimize RAG for Production
- Matt Gotteiner writes about Agentic Retrieval Updates in Azure AI Search
🔎 Analytics
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Josh Caplan (@JoshCaplan1984) discusses OneLake: your foundation for an AI-ready data estate
- Greg Beaumont explains how to Unify cloud data sharing across Snowflake, Databricks, and Fabric
- Shiva Velmurugan and Anasheh Boisvert discuss Schema Registry: Creating type-safe pipelines using Schemas and Eventstreams (Preview)
- Sukhwant Kaur runs through Accelerating Data Movement by using Fast Copy to unlock performance and efficiency during data ingestion from SQL database in Fabric
- Sowmya Sivaraman covers What’s new in Fabric Warehouse – August 2025 Recap
🖥️ Compute
- The Azure Updates Team announces: Azure Ultra Disk Price Reduction in Central US (GA), Azure Ultra Disk Price Reduction in West US 2 (GA), Azure Ultra Disk Price Reduction in UK South (GA) and Upgrade existing Azure Gen1 VMs to Gen2-Trusted launch (GA)
- Ajay Kundnani blogs about how to Increase security for Azure VMs: Trusted launch in-place upgrade support now available
- Christophe Herrbach talks about the Broadcom VMware Licensing Changes: What Azure VMware Solution Customers Need to Know
🚢 Containers
- Chaminda Chandrasekara describes how to Setup Redis Standalone with JSON and Search Modules on AKS with Binami Redis Using Custom Image to Allow Local Development
- Hieun Hu describes Enterprise AKS Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) vLLM Deployment Guide
- Jian S. talks about Transforming Enterprise AKS: Multi-Tenancy at Scale with Agentic AI and Semantic Kernel
- Agustin Mantaras describes Azure Speech: Dynamic Language Switching with Connected/Disconnected Containers
🗄️ Databases
- The Azure Updates Team announces Near-zero-downtime maintenance in Azure Database for MySQL (GA)
- Jose Barreto describes Using Copilot (GPT-5) to turn schema into SQL and write queries
- Paula Berenguel provides The definitive guide to Bi-directional Replication in Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- Vandhana Mehta runs through a August 2025 Recap: Azure Database for MySQL
- Ggauri Kasar provides a August 2025 Recap: Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- Elendil Zheng highlights that Azure Database for MySQL 8.4 is Now Generally Available
🛠️ Developer Tools
- On the Visual Studio blog, Jessie Houghton describes how to Boost Your Copilot Collaboration with Reusable Prompt Files and how to Make Sense of Your Output Window with Copilot
- On Visual Studio Magazine - Blogs, David Ramel (@dramel) describes how Microsoft Supercharges Visual Studio Debugging/Profiling with Copilot
- Seth Patton blogs about What's new in Microsoft 365 Copilot - August 2025
🔩 DevOps
- John Reilly (@johnny_reilly) delves into Azure DevOps: merging pull requests with conventional commits and merging pull requests and setting autocomplete with the API
- Richard Fennell (@richardfennell) writes about Another confusing Azure DevOps Pipelines YAML error message using StringList parameters
- Panagiotis Liaros highlights the New Test Run Hub in Azure Test Plans
- Mayunk Jain provides an Update on the Azure SRE Agent Preview - Enterprise-Ready and Extensible
⚙️ Hybrid + Multicloud
- The Azure Updates Team announces Logic Apps Hybrid Deployment Model (GA)
- Amir B. describes Enhanced Audit in Azure Security Baseline for Linux (GA)
- Shireen Isab introduces Azure Local Training: Empowering You to Succeed
🎭 Identity
- Santosh Pargi explains how to Update Entra ID Device Extension Attributes via PowerShell & Create Dynamic Security Groups.
- On SQL Server Central, Koen Verbeeck (@Ko_Ver) describes Workspace Identity Authentication for your Power BI Semantic Models in Microsoft Fabric
- Luke Murray (@lukemurraynz) compares User-Assigned Managed Identity vs Service Principal (WIF)
🔌 Integration
- The Azure Updates Team announces: Custom Code support in Azure Logic Apps Standard with .NET 8 (GA), and Organizational Templates in Azure Logic Apps (Public Preview), and Confluent Kafka Connector in Azure Logic Apps Standard (Public Preview), and Enhanced Data Mapper Experience in Logic Apps Standard (GA), and Azure Logic Apps Standard Automated Test Framework (GA) and Business Process Tracking in Azure Logic Apps Standard (GA)
- Haider Razi highlights that Azure Communication Services is now Generally Available in Azure Government
- Wagner Silveira (@WSilveiraNZ) provides the Logic Apps Aviators Newsletter - September 25
💡 Internet of Things
- On Hacker Noon, Gospel Bassey discusses Rust at the Edge: How Rust Improves AI Systems for Real-Time Computer Vision in Manufacturing
⚖️ Management and Governance
- Lara Vannut blogs about Azure Health Models: Alert on health, not just metrics
- Dirk Brinkmann writes about Provider-Managed Azure Subscriptions: Cost Control and Commitment Clarity
- Jordan Selig announces the Public Preview of the New App Service Quota Self-Service Experience
- Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) walks through how to Generate Documentation for Azure Bicep Modules with GitHub Copilot
🌐 Networking
- The Azure Updates Team announces Multiple address prefixes for subnets in Azure Virtual Networks (GA), Gateway level metrics and native autoscaling for Azure API Management v2 tiers (GA), that Azure Front Door Standard and Premium are now available in Azure China. (GA) and highlights: Azure CDN Retirement – Migrate to Azure Front Door on December 1, 2025
- On Microsoft Fabric Blog, Bodhisatva Gautam introduces Workspace Outbound Access Protection for Spark
- Jon W. talks about Azure CNI Overlay for Application Gateway for Containers and Application Gateway Ingress Controller
- lakshay Malik talks about Container Networking with Azure Application Gateway for Containers (AGC): Overlay vs. Flat AKS
- Michael Bender covers Migrating Application Load Balancer from AWS to Azure Application Gateway
🔐 Security
- Charbel Nemnom (@charbelnemnom) provides a Solution – Fix Microsoft Sentinel Missing Incident Description
- Dave Minasyan discusses how to Mitigate Oversharing to Govern Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agents
- Heike Ritter writes about Monthly news in Microsoft Defender - September 2025
- Noa Nutkevitch writes: Custom detection rules get a boost—explore whats new in Microsoft Defender
- Ronen Refaeli explains how to Protect against OAuth Attacks in Salesforce with Microsoft Defender
- Sudhanva Huruli highlights: Azure Linux 3.0 Achieves Level 1 CIS Benchmark Certification
- Orin Thomas runs through Shielded VM Template Creation in a Hyper-V Guarded Fabric
📦 Storage
- Tobias Zimmergren & Jussi Roine (@CtrlAltAzure) discuss Azure Storage Discovery
- Abul Azed talks about Cloud forensics: Why enabling Microsoft Azure Storage Account logs matters
- Anthony Mashford (@anthonymashford) describes Azure NetApp Files - August 2025 Preview Highlights
- Travis Roberts (@Ciraltos) writes about how to Save on Azure Files Premium with Provisioned V2
🔗 Web
- The Azure Updates Team announces: Playwright Workspaces in Azure App Testing (GA), Workspaces and workspace gateways in the Premium v2 tier of Azure API Management (GA) and Azure App Service - New Premium v4 Offering (GA)
- Andrew Redman discusses Building Secure, Multi-User AI Workflows with the Responses API
- Stefan Schackow announces General Availability of Premium v4 for Azure App Service
- Tulika Chaudharie explains how to Build an AI Image-Caption Generator on Azure App Service with Streamlit and GPT-4o-mini