Azure Weekly
Issue #55 - 5th December 2015
This week saw the release of Azure PowerShell 1.0, which is available via PowerShell Gallery and Web Platform Installer. PowerShell 1.0 has better support for using ARM Cmdlets with Azure Service Management Cmdlets in Azure Automation, semantic versioning, certificate authentication support for ARM, VM disk encryption through Azure Key Vault, new Data Lake and Notification Hub Cmdlets, and improvements for other Azure services.
There were updates to the preview portal, including changes to navigation and interactions when browsing resources, the ability to take action on a resource directly from browse, a simplified default dashboard, notification improvements, marketplace search, a new menu, and simplified resource blades. It now displays recommendations for the Azure App Service.
In data news, there's a new Microsoft Data Science Virtual Machine, which comes with Revolution R Open, Anaconda Python distribution, Visual Studio Community Edition, Power BI Desktop, SQL Server Express edition and the Azure SDK.
⚖️ Management and Governance
- On the Azure blog, David Justice announces the arrival of Azure PowerShell 1.0
Also on the Azure blog, Leon Welicki (@lwelicki) announces a new set of improvements to the Azure Preview Portal
- On Channel 9, Tuesdays with Corey covers Azure VM Scale Sets in Public Preview
Episode 104 of the Azure podcast deals with Azure VM Scale Sets and scaling across Azure services
Daniel Örneling (@DanielOrneling) writes about delegating automation rights in Azure Automation
- On the Kloud blog, Justin Yoo writes about Resource Manager Cmdlets in Azure Powershell 1.0
On MSDN, Stuart Leeks shares samples for checking Azure Resource Manager deployment status from PowerShell and checking Azure Resource Manager deployment status from bash with the Azure CLI. He also describes how you can use Hump Completion (finding commands by their caps) in PowerShell
- Also on MSDN, Kirk Evansmsft walks through Creating ARM Templates with Azure Resource Explorer
- On TechNet, Ashley McGlone talks about DevOps for n00bs ie. Windows people like me
- On PowerShell Magazine, Ravikanth Chaganti (@ravikanth) explains how to Deploy Custom Azure Automation Integration Modules Using ARM Templates
- On Brisbane Cloud User Group blog, Aaron (@aaron2003) shares a quick tip on how to Reset an Azure VM password from the portal
- Freek Berson (@fberson) writes that a HTML5 client for Azure RemoteApp is now on the public road map
🖥️ Compute
- On Tech Radar, Jamie Carter writes Clash of the public cloud Titans: AWS vs Microsoft vs Google vs IBM
- Also on TechNet, Refaat Issa describes how to create Nano Server VMs in Azure using the Nano Server image in the Azure Gallery
🌐 Networking
- Alexandre Brisebois (@Brisebois) covers Azure DNS – Using PowerShell V1.0 to Update a Naked Domain
💡 Internet of Things
- On the Azure blog, Daria Grigoriu, Senior Program Manager, Azure App Service, talks about the new Recommendations feature for Azure App Service
- Following on from last week's announcement about the experimental availability of PHP 7 RC7 in Azure Webs, Cory Fowler (@cfowlerMSFT) describes how to set up a PHP 7 Azure Web App
- Also on MSDN, Laurent Ellerbach writes about creating an Azure IoT Device Explorer in node.js, express and jade
- Also on MSDN, Lee Stott writes about How to create and manage a web application using DreamSpark Azure and building a HTML5/JS Game & hosting it on your DreamSpark Cloud Subscription
- Also on MSDN, Matias Quaranta blogs about automating Deployment on Azure Web Apps using Kudu, deployment slots and automated swapping
- Also on MSDN, Rahul Garg shares a link to a video on how GOJO, the inventors of PURELL, measures hand hygiene compliance through Microsoft Azure IoT services
- Richard Fennel writes about Visual Studio Dev Essentials which was announced at Connect(), offering free Azure time each month
- On Channel 9, Michael Palermo, Daniel Egan, Chris Caldwell, Jeremy Foster, Bret Stateham, Paul DeCarlo and Adam Tuliper share their reactions to the News & Announcements Made at Connect //2015
⚙️ Data and Analytics
- On the Azure blog, Sahaj Saini blogs about using Azure Machine Learning with SQL Data Warehouse
- Also on the Azure blog, Han Wong thanks the DocumentDB Wizards - MVPs who have made a significant contribution to the DocumentDB community
- Tom Kerkhove (@TomKerkhove) explains how to set up automated builds for Azure Data Lake Analytics extensibility
On TechNet, Gopi Kumar, Senior Program Manager in the Microsoft Data Group, announces the Availability of the Microsoft Data Science Virtual Machine
- On MSDN, Akshey Gupta discusses the Data Driven supply chain, using data driven applications to dynamically predict supply chain input through technologies such as Cortana Analytics Suite and Dynamics
- Also on MSDN, Lee Stott describes the Azure in IS Lab Series which contains scenarios for Machine Learning, Web Development and Mobile Game Development and is available with a Microsoft DreamSpark Azure Account, and shares 10 easy steps to get up and running with Azure Machine Learning
- Also on MSDN, the Power BI Team (@mspowerbi) blog about the expanding list of Enterprise Data Connectors for Power BI Desktop, including Azure Data Lake, and promote the upcoming Free Webinar: Data Science for the Rest of Us and New Online edX Course on Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Power BI
📦 Storage
- On MSDN, Frederick Chapleau shares a sample showing how to carry out common operations on Storage Blobs, Queues and Table in 100 lines of code
🎬 Media
- None this week.
⚙️ Hybrid Integration
- Harald Schult Ulriksen (hsulriksen) blogs about Versioning messages on Azure Servicebus
⚙️ Identity and Access Management
- Following on from last week's announcement of support for SCIM 2.0 in Azure AD, Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons), Director of Program Management Microsoft Identity Division, explains how to add SCIM support to your applications using libraries and code samples from the AD team
- On the Perficient blog, Joe Palarchio shares 10 facts about Azure AD Connect
- Also on TechNet, Rick Sheikh describes how to connect PowerShell to Azure using an Azure AD account
- On Code Project, Anand Bulusu shares a sample for Custom Authorization for Azure AD B2C