Azure Weekly

Issue #541 - 23rd November 2025

It's the Microsoft Ignite Special! There's *SO* much content this week. A good 50% of it is announcements from the Azure Updates Team. As ever, The Ignite Book of News 2025 is worth a browse - they've added AI summaries this year, which can help you wade through the content. There are a number of other high-level posts that might be a good entry point: Making Sense of Microsoft Ignite 2025 for Azure and AI Architects - Comprehensive overview of Ignite 2025 announcements tailored for Azure and AI architects, highlighting key architectural patterns and implementation strategies. Azure at Microsoft Ignite 2025: All the intelligent cloud news explained - Executive summary covering all major Azure announcements at Ignite 2025, including AI agents, data platform enhancements, and infrastructure innovations for building intelligent applications. Reflections from Microsoft Ignite 2025 - Podcast episode discussing key takeaways and industry implications from Microsoft Ignite 2025 announcements across Azure, AI, and enterprise platforms.

First up, AI: Azure Copilot agents and AI infrastructure innovations - Azure introduces agentic cloud operations with Azure Copilot, featuring specialized agents for migration, deployment, optimization, and troubleshooting, transforming how teams manage cloud infrastructure. Deployment capabilities preview in Azure Copilot - The Deployment Agent for Azure Copilot leverages the Azure Well-Architected Framework to help deploy production-ready workloads through natural language conversations and automated Terraform template generation. Agent mitigations and guardrail customization - New capabilities for customizing agent guardrails and implementing safety mitigations to ensure responsible AI agent deployment across Azure services. Built-in memory in Foundry Agent Service (Public Preview) - Foundry Agent Service now includes built-in memory capabilities allowing agents to maintain context across interactions for more intelligent conversational experiences. Public Preview of Agent Loop in Azure Logic Apps Consumption - Agent Loop democratizes AI-powered business process automation by bringing advanced AI agent capabilities to Logic Apps Consumption with a pay-as-you-go model and no infrastructure management. Claude in Microsoft Foundry (Public Preview) - Anthropic's Claude models (Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.1, and Haiku 4.5) join Microsoft Foundry, making Azure the only cloud offering both OpenAI and Anthropic models. GPT-5.1 Now Available in Microsoft Copilot Studio as Experimental Model - Microsoft Copilot Studio introduces experimental access to GPT-5.1, offering developers early access to next-generation language model capabilities. Azure Databricks Genie in Copilot Studio (Public Preview) - Databricks Genie integrates with Copilot Studio, enabling natural language queries against Databricks data warehouses and lakehouses directly from agents.

Next, there were a lot of Data and Analytics announcements (especially around Microsoft Fabric): Microsoft and Databricks: Advancing Openness and Interoperability with OneLake - Microsoft and Databricks partnership enhances data interoperability with OneLake, enabling seamless data sharing and integration across platforms. What's new in OneLake and the Fabric platform: more sources, security, and capacity tooling - OneLake expands with new data sources, enhanced security features, and improved capacity management tools for better data governance and scalability. Data Clustering in Fabric Data Warehouse (Preview) - Fabric Data Warehouse introduces data clustering capabilities to optimize query performance and reduce storage costs through intelligent data organization. Igniting Your Pipelines: New Data Factory Features Announced at Ignite - Data Factory in Fabric gains new features including enhanced pipeline orchestration, improved monitoring capabilities, and advanced transformation options. Mirroring for SQL Server in Microsoft Fabric (GA) - SQL Server mirroring in Fabric enables real-time data replication from on-premises SQL Server databases to Fabric, providing near-zero ETL data integration. Fabric Capacity Events in Real-Time Hub (Preview) - Real-Time Hub now streams Fabric capacity events, enabling proactive monitoring and management of compute resources and workload performance. First look at Microsoft Fabric Graph - Initial exploration of Microsoft Fabric Graph, showcasing new capabilities for graph data processing and visualization within the Fabric ecosystem. Cosmos DB in Microsoft Fabric (GA) - Cosmos DB integrates natively with Microsoft Fabric, enabling seamless NoSQL workloads alongside analytics and AI within a unified data platform. Azure Monitor to Fabric Eventhouse (Preview) - New integration streams Azure Monitor logs and metrics directly to Fabric Eventhouse for real-time analytics and observability insights. What's New for Fabric Data Agents at Ignite 2025 - Fabric Data Agents gain enhanced reasoning capabilities and improved AI interoperability, enabling more sophisticated data analysis and automated insights. From Data Platform to Intelligence Platform: Introducing Microsoft Fabric IQ - Fabric IQ transforms Fabric into an intelligence platform by organizing enterprise data around business concepts rather than tables, enabling AI agents to act on unified intelligence.

Finally, in Developer Tools: Azure MCP Server is Now Built-In with Visual Studio 2026 - Visual Studio 2026 includes built-in Azure MCP Server tools, enabling developers to manage Azure resources through natural language directly in their IDE. Visual Studio 2026 (GA) - Visual Studio 2026 reaches general availability as an AI-native IDE with integrated cloud development capabilities and enhanced productivity features. Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell (Ignite 2025 Announcement) - Azure CLI and PowerShell receive major updates including MFA enforcement, Python 3.13 compatibility, What-If parameters, and Export Bicep capabilities for enhanced security and productivity.