Azure Weekly
Issue #54 - 28th November 2015
This week, the Connect() developer event took place in New York. Scott Hanselman summarises the news and announcements, including the GA of Microsoft Graph (formerly known as the Office 365 Unified API), the public preview of the Azure Service Fabric, the release of the Azure SDK 2.8, and the launch of the free cross platform (Windows & OSX!!) Azure Storage Explorer.
There were also updates to the Azure App Service, including expanded authentication/ authorization, a no-code CRUD API authoring experience in the portal, and file sync support. Key features of API Apps are being moved directly into the App Service across all App types.
Still in the world of Apps, PHP 7 RC7 x86 (Experimental) is now available for Azure Web Apps via a site extension, and the Application Insights team announced that Visual Studio 2015 Update 1 will include a richer Application Insights Search experience for Web Apps.
The API Management Service has new Event Hub integration features enabling logging scenarios; allowing easier access to request data via Stream Analytics, HDInsight, Machine Learning and PowerBI.
On to Media Services, where Google Widevine license delivery services is now in public preview.
In compute news, Altair® RADIOSS® now supported on Microsoft Azure (Altair® RADIOSS® is a structural analysis solver for highly non-linear problems under dynamic loadings).
"You don't own the Power Station" is an analogy we often use at endjin to help customers get into the mindset of adopting cloud services; it's also useful at the cost of cloud computing is strongly related to the price of energy. We've been discussing internally for a number of years that future generations of cloud data centres will need to encompass energy generation parts of the supply chain in order for the cloud provider to sustain predictable pricing and drive the cost of compute services down (as well as carbon emissions); this week on the Environmental Sustainability Team Blog, Microsoft announce a new 175 megawatt wind farm in Illinois is now operational.
⚖️ Management and Governance
On the Azure blog, Gary Keong walks through Using Azure Automation in Azure - everywhere
Also on the Azure blog, Tom Keane announces Microsoft Azure Government growth and new cloud capabilities for defense customers
Also on the Azure blog, Harel Broitman talks about Azure Diagnostics Integration with Application Insights
Also on the Azure blog, Merav Davidson writes about Deep Diagnostics for Web Apps with Application Insights
On TechNet, Taylor Brown announces the release of Hyper-V Containers in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4
On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) and Moinak Bandyopadhyay talk about Azure Rate Card and Billing APIs
Ian Philpot asks what can you run for $25 in Azure?
- On MSDN, Charles Sterling covers Getting Started with DevTest Lab for Azure
- Also on MSDN, Ninad Kanthi talks about the Azure RateCard API and Excel Integration
Also on MSDN, Prachi Bora writes about the Private Preview of Apache JMeter load tests in the cloud
Also on MSDN, 'Muthukumaran ' describes Managing AzureRM module versions for Build and Release Management workflows
- On TechNet, G. Davies describes Enabling the Microsoft Monitoring Agent in Windows JSON Templates
- Alexandre Brisebois (@Brisebois) discusses Using Azure PowerShell 1.0 to Deploy an ARM Template
- Christos Matskas (@ChristosMatskas) describes The new Azure Powershell Resource Manager - 1.0 Preview
- Stefan Roth (@stefanroth_net) writes about installing the OMS Agent for Linux
- Thiago Almeida @nzthiago discusses Infrastructure as Code and Continuous Deployment of a Node.js + Azure DocumentDB Solution
🖥️ Compute
On the Azure blog, with the announcement of the public preview of the Azure Service Fabric, Nicole Herskowitz writes that Azure is the cloud for any app and every developer
Also on the Azure blog, Tejas Karmarkar announces that Altair RADIOSS is now supported on Microsoft Azure. Altair® RADIOSS® is an industry leading structural analysis solver for highly non-linear problems under dynamic loadings
Episode 103 of the Azure podcast deals with Realtime apps in Azure PaaS
- On the Microsoft HPC & Azure Batch Team Blog, Guang Hu announces that Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 R2 Update 3 is now available and explains How to fully use GPU resources to run GPGPU jobs in Microsoft HPC Pack
The Microsoft Server And Cloud Platform Team announce the release of Hyper-V Containers in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4 and write 'Make innovation easier with Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Technical Preview 4'
The Windows Server Security and Assurance Team discuss Protecting your datacenter and cloud and write about designing Windows Server in the cloud-first world
On MSDN, Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist, announces that Microsoft's 175 megawatt wind project in Illinois is now operational
On the Microsoft Openness site, following on from the availability of Red Hat subscriptions on Microsoft Azure, there's a Webinar about Red Hat solutions on Azure
Also on MSDN, Koushik Biswas writes about An often overlooked trick to get better disk performance from your Azure Linux VM
Also on MSDN, Simon A. Strebel writes about the new new partnership between Microsoft and Red Hat
- John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) writes 'understand new N series VMs', explains how to check Azure VM sizes available in regions and answers the question does a VM converted to an S Series automatically use Azure Premium Storage?
On the Forbes site, John Webster asks Are All Public Clouds Created Equally?
- On InfoQ, Kent Weare writes an introduction to Azure Service Fabric
On TechNet, Refaat Issa describes how to create Nano Server VMs using the Nano Server image in the Azure Gallery
🌐 Networking
- On the Azure blog, Trinadh Kotturu announces Azure Backup support for Load Balancer and CloudLink encrypted IaaS VMs
💡 Internet of Things
On the Azure blog, Brady Gaster (@bradygaster) announces the Azure SDK 2.8 for .NET
Also on the Azure blog, Cory Fowler (@cfowlerMSFT) announces the Availability of PHP 7 RC7 x86 Experimental on Azure Web Apps
Also on the Azure blog, Jeffrey Fritz (@csharpfritz) blogs about Azure App Service Updates in November 2015. There's more on the blog about updates to Azure Mobile Apps and the expansion of App Service Authentication/Authorization from Matthew Henderson
Also on the Azure blog, Steve Danielson announces new Azure Event Hubs integration features of API Management
Also on the Azure blog, Sunitha Muthukrishna writes about an upgrade to the Umbraco CMS solution for Azure Web Apps which provides better support for load balancing
Also on the Azure blog, Jeff Wilcox describes how Azure scaled to 2,000+ employees on GitHub with their open source portal for GitHub
On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) explores the Open Source Field Engineer App with Azure Mobile Apps
Also on Channel 9, Mike Wilmot talks about Internet of Things IoT for Healthcare with Azure and Power BI
On the Kloud blog, Justin Yoo discusses Building Applications with Event Sourcing and CQRS Pattern
On MSDN, Laurent Ellerbach blogs about using Azure IoT Hub to upload a Webcam picture in an Azure blob with node.js on Windows and Linux
Also on MSDN, the Visual Studio Release Management Team (@vsreleasemgmt) announces the new Release Management service in Visual Studio Team Services
- On TechNet, Dilip Radhakrishnan, Principal PM on the Microsoft Intune Team, announces significant new capabilities in the upcoming Microsoft Intune service update
- Shahed Chowdhuri shares his slides on Cross-Platform Apps/Games with Azure
- On Code Project, Kevin Mack writes about Release Management vNext - Token Web.Config for Azure Web Apps
⚙️ Data and Analytics
On the Azure blog, Andrew Hoh talks about the Cortana Analytics Gallery - a scalable community site built on Azure DocumentDB
On the Machine Learning Blog, Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice President of the Data Group at Microsoft, writes a Look Behind How One of the Worlds Most Popular Brands Harnessed an Internet Meme
On the Perficient blog, Joe Crabtree delves into Innovation with Azure Machine Learning and Dynamics AX
On MSDN, the Power BI Team shares this week's Power BI Service Update
Also on MSDN, Karan Gulati Ssas Maestro shares a script for detecting and Re-Running failed Azure Data Factory Slices
- Also on TechNet, Chervine Bhiwoo @chervinebhiwoo shares a guide to Sentiment Analysis API with Azure Machine Learning
- On the Microsoft Malware Protection Center blog, there's an article about how Windows Defender harnesses the power of machine learning
- On Channel 9, Scott Klein presents A First Look at Azure SQL Data Warehouse
📦 Storage
- Also on TechNet, Jonathan Gardner @jgardner04, US Partner Technology Strategist for Microsoft Azure, shares part 4 of his series on Azure Backup, covering updates to Azure Backup
On the Perficient blog, Chris Pietschmann describes Azure Storage Explorer
- Radu Vunvulea describes Transferring content from Azure Storage using a secure channel - Aspera On Demand
On TechNet, Paul Jones discusses Backing up your Storage Tables
- Also on TechNet, Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice President of the Data Group at Microsoft, writes about Always Encrypted in SQL Server & Azure SQL Database
Mike Lanzetta writes about Leader Election in Node.js Using Azure Blob Storage
- Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) explains how to Configure Microsoft Azure Backup D2D2C – Disk to Disk to Cloud backup DPM for Free
🎬 Media
- On the Azure blog, Mingfei Yan (@mingfeiy), Program Manager - Azure Media Services, announces Google Widevine license delivery services public preview in Azure Media Services
Mingfei Yan (@mingfeiy) also explains how to Configure Widevine License delivery via Azure Media Explorer Tool
⚙️ Hybrid Integration
On TechNet, Thomas Roettinger, Program Manager in the Microsoft Private Cloud Solutions Team, announces the availability of Windows Azure Pack Websites and Database as a Service on Cloud Platform System Premium and describes Automated deployment of workloads: new solutions for centralized desktops
On Channel 9, Zachary Cavanell talks about Hybrid Infrastructure Automation with Azure Resource Manager Templates
On MSDN, 'Termserv' writes about Intune Mobile Application Management for Remote Desktop
- On TechNet, Harry Eagles discusses File considerations when moving to the cloud and looks forward to the day when Azure Files supports NTFS style permissions
On MSDN, Onecode Team share a series of Azure Service Bus samples, covering exchanging messages using Azure Service Bus Queue, exchanging messages using Azure Service Bus Topic, and designing a web page to manage Azure Service Bus for message exchanging
⚙️ Identity and Access Management
On TechNet, Alex Simons announces that Azure AD Premium now supports SCIM 2.0 and writes 'the Microsoft Graph –The Azure AD GraphAPI goes big time'
- Also on TechNet, Sharon Bennett writes a step by step guide to configuring Azure Active Directory, SSO and SaaS
Daniel Örneling (@DanielOrneling) describes how to Create Azure AD users with Azure Automation