Azure Weekly Issue 56: 6th December 2015
This week saw the general availability of the Azure Portal, making it the default management portal for all Azure services. Other announcements included the new version of the Azure SDK for .NET as well as previews of the Azure Container Service and the Azure Security Center.
In data news, Azure DocumentDB continues its onward march, and is now available in Central US, Japan East and Japan West as well as SQL Data Warehouse availability expanding to India.
There's also a whole host of new features in the Azure Portal for CDN as well as local CDN delivery regions being added in India, Australia and South America.
AI + Machine Learning
Covering: Azure Batch AI, Azure Bot Service, Microsoft Genomics, Machine Learning services, Machine Learning Studio, Cognitive Services, Bing APIs, Computer Vision API, Content moderator, Custom Services, Emotion API, Face API, Language Understanding (LUIS), Linguistic Analysis API, QnA Maker API, Speaker Recognition API, Text Analytics API, Translator Speech API, Translator Text API, Web Language Model API
Analytics
Covering: Azure Databricks, HDInsight, Data Factory, Stream Analytics, Data Lake Analytics, Event Hubs, Power BI, Azure Analysis Services, Apache Spark for HDInsight, Apache Storm for HDInsight, R Server for HDInsight, Data Catalog
- On the Azure blog, Drew Dipalma describes Azure SQL Data Warehouse: November 2015 Updates
- Also on the Azure blog, Han Wong announces that Azure DocumentDB is now available in Central US and also now available in Japan East and Japan West
- Also on the Azure blog, Matt Usher announces SQL Data Warehouse availability in India
- Also on the Azure blog, Pranav Rastogi, Program Manager - Azure ASP.NET and Cache, announces Azure Redis Cache: General availability of Premium tier
- Also on the Azure blog, Ryan Crawcour blogs about Microsoft Azure DocumentDB: Retirement of Preview SDKs
- Also on the Azure blog, Sonya Marshall explains how clustered columnstore tables are the new default in Azure SQL Data Warehouse
- Also on the Azure blog, Eric Kang announces improved Azure SQL Database connection experience in SQL Server Data Tools
- Also on the Azure blog, Tommy Mullaney discusses row-level security block predicates are generally available
- On MSDN, Adarsha Datta (@AdarshaDatta) describes DocumentDB: JSON-in-JSON-out in NOSQL with familiar SQL
- Tom Kerkhove (@TomKerkhove) introduces a series of posts about analyzing StackExchange data with Azure Data Lake
Compute
Covering: Virtual Machines, Functions, Batch, Service Fabric, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Cloud Services, Linux Virtual Machines, SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances
- On the Azure blog, Stephen Zarkos announces availability of Debian GNU/Linux as an endorsed distribution in Azure Marketplace
- On the Microsoft Openness site, the Openness Team also talk about welcoming Debian GNU/Linux to the Azure Marketplace
- On Channel 9, Corey Sanders (@coresanderswa) talks about Service Fabric public preview
- On the Perficient blog, Joe Crabtree blogs about introduction to Microservices using Azure Service Fabric
- On the Catapult Systems blog, Cameron Fuller describes connecting Server Manager to TP4 Nano and Core servers running in Azure
- Alexandre Brisebois (@Brisebois) writes about On & Off – Done Right on Azure
Containers
Covering: Container Registry, Container Instances, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Web App for Containers
Databases
Covering: Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB, SQL Data Warehouse, Redis Cache, SQL Server Stretch Database, SQL Server on virtual machines, Table storage, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Database for MySQL
Developer Tools
Covering: Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, SDKs, Developer tool integrations, CLIs, Blockchain Workbench
DevOps
Covering: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), Azure DevTest Labs, DevOps tool integrations, Azure DevOps Projects, Azure Lab Services
Identity
Covering: Azure Active Directory, Multi-factor Authentication, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, Azure Active Directory B2C
- On TechNet, Brad Anderson writes about Intelligent Management: What it is & Why You Need it
- Also on TechNet, Rui Santos explains unblocking Azure MFA for an O365/AAD user
- Also on TechNet, Mike O'Neill introduces his O365 Logon Module
- On MSDN, Vittorio Bertocci promotes the Azure AD at the Cloud Roadshow in Singapore
- Also on MSDN, Thomas W Shinder describes the Microsoft Trust Center
- Daniel Örneling explains how to create service accounts using Azure Automation and OMS
- John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) discusses interesting connectors that make cloud data sources available to Office 365 Groups
Integration
Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid
Internet of Things
Covering: IoT Hub, IoT Suite, IoT Edge, IoT Central, IoT solution accelerators, Time Series Insights, Azure Maps, Azure Sphere
Management and Governance
Covering: Backup, Site Recovery, App Insights, Azure Advisor, Sceduler, Automation, Log Analytics, Azure Monitor, Security & Compliance, Protection & Recovery, Automation & Control, Insight & Analytics, Azure Service Health, Microsoft Azure portal, Azure Resource Manager, Cloud Shell, the Azure mobile app, Azure Policy, Cost Management, Azure Managed Applications
- On the Azure blog, Leon Welicki (@lwelicki) announces Azure Portal general availability
- Also on the Azure blog, Ross Gardler announces the Azure Container Service preview and Sarah Fender announces that Azure Security Center is now available
- Also on the Azure blog, Pranav Rastogi, Program Manager - Azure ASP.NET and Cache, warns Azure Managed Cache and In-Role Cache services to be retired on 11/30/2016
- On MSDN, Stuart Leeks talks about working with docker output in PowerShell
- On TechNet, Keith Mayer (@KeithMayer) describes how to build your Hybrid Cloud - Getting Started with Azure Resource Manager Part 24
- Also on TechNet, Moti Bani explains how to reset the password in Windows on Azure ARM based VM
- Also on TechNet, Ravi Chivukula announces System Center Management Pack for Microsoft Azure Technical Preview is now available
- Also on TechNet, Shannon Gowen talks shows how to integrate Azure PowerShell into your default PowerShell prompt
- On the Kloud blog, Simon Waight writes about No More Plaintext Passwords: Using Azure Key Vault with Azure Resource Manager
Media
Covering: Media services, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Media Analytics, Video Indexer
- On the Azure blog, Sudheer Sirivara, Director Azure Media Services, announces new CDN features and capabilities in the new Azure Portal
Microsoft Azure Stack
Covering: Azure Stack
Migration
Covering: Azure Database Migration Service, Azure Migrate, Data Box
Mobile
Covering: App Service (Mobile), Notification Hubs, Mobile apps, API apps, Visual Studio App Centre, Xamarin
Networking
Covering: ExpressRoute, Azure DNS, Virtual Network, Traffic Manager, Load Balancer, VPN Gateway, Application Gateway, Network Watcher
- On MSDN, David Goddard explains why Azure VM may fail to activate over ExpressRoute
- On TechNet, Peter Gu blogs about Windows Azure Network: Packets being dropped after sending RST/FIN
Security
Covering: Azure Information Protection, Key Vault, Security Center, Azure DDoS Protection, Azure Advanced Threat Protection
Storage
Covering: Storage, StorSimple, Data Lake Store, Blob Storage, Disk Storage, Managed Disks, Queue Storage, File Storage, Storage Explorer, Archive Storage
- On the Azure blog, Shreesh Dubey announces Microsoft Azure Backup Server
- On TechNet, Alex Frankel announces the OMS Alerting Public Preview
- Also on TechNet, Sharon Bennett walks through setting up Azure SMB File Share
- On the TechKB blog, Michael Coutanche (@mum3LE5) discusses changing the scratch location in Azure Backup
Web
Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service
- On the Azure blog, Brady Gaster (@bradygaster) announces the Azure SDK 2.8.1 for .NET
- On TechNet, the Cloud Platform Team list Cloud Platform Release Announcements for December 2, 2015
- Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) announces PowerApps with Azure App Service
- On Channel 9, Scott Hunter and Guang Yang talk about PowerApps Pro Dev API Experience
- Also on Channel 9, Seth Juarez talks about Cloud Scalability Patterns with Matt Johnson
- On the Microsoft Openness site, the Openness Team announces that PHP 7 RC7 x86 is here for Azure Web Apps
- On MSDN, Ben Perkins describes mapping a wildcard domain name to an Azure App Services Web App Website
- Also on MSDN, Laurent Ellerbach describes how to deploy a node.js site into Azure Web App to create a Website
- Also on MSDN, Steve Guggenheimer, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President & Chief Evangelist, blogs about scaling across platforms and devices with Microsoft Azure and Visual Studio
- On the Falafel blog, Adam Anderson talks about Azure Mobile Services - HTML/JS Client & Auth0, and TableController Role Based Authorization
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