Azure Weekly
Issue #57 - 13th December 2015
There's a lot of buzz around Cortana Analytics, Machine Learning and data analysis this week including a case study on forecasting wind predictions using Azure ML, an announcement that Azure ML models can now be applied on top of streaming data to get real time insights and a look at some pretty incredible visualisations in PowerBI. In addition, the Cortana Analytics Gallery has been getting a lot of interest since it's launch earlier this year, reinforcing this as a really exciting space.
In other news, starting in 2016 Microsoft will offer their cloud services Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online from within German datacenters.
🔎 Analytics
- On TechNet, the ML Blog Team describes how ServusNet forecasts wind power using Cortana Analytics Suite
- Also on TechNet, the ML Blog Team announces that Azure ML is now available as a function in Azure Stream Analytics
- Also on TechNet, the ML Blog Team talk about the success of the Cortana Analytics Gallery
- On MSDN, Dr Kenji Takeda provides useful resources about data science for researchers using Microsoft Azure
- Sandrino Di Mattia blogs about connecting Auth0 to Power BI with Stream Analytics and a Webtask
- On the Azure blog, Andrew Hoh announces Azure DocumentDB integration with Visual Studio Cloud Explorer
- Also on the Azure blog, Nate Ko discusses Lucene query language in Azure Search
- Also on the Azure blog, Omid Afnan answers writes about running U-SQL scripts locally with the updated Azure Data Lake Tools for Visual Studio
- Also on the Azure blog, Rashim Gupta blogs about using Ambari Views to author Hive and Pig Queries in HDInsight
- Also on MSDN, the Power BI Team writes about the Synoptic Panel
- Also on TechNet, Xuedong Huang, Chief Speech Scienist discusses how the Microsoft Computational Network Toolkit offers the most efficient distributed deep learning computational performance
- Also on TechNet, Jos de Bruijn describes speeding up transactions with In-Memory OLTP in SQL Server 2016 and Azure SQL Database
- On the Journey to SQL Authority blog, Pinal Dave describes InMemory Tables on SQL Azure DB and explains how to connect to Azure SQL DB
- Also on MSDN, Igor Pagliai discusses SQL Server in Azure - comparing PaaS (SQLDB) and IaaS (Virtual Machine)
🖥️ Compute
- On MSDN, Cesar de la Torre talks about Azure Service Fabric and the Microservices Architecture
- Also on MSDN, Stacey Haffner talks about support ending for the .NET Framework 4, 4.5 and 4.5.1 and how that affects Azure deployments
- Also on MSDN, Thomas W Shinder writes about best practices for updating virtual machines in Microsoft Azure IaaS deployments
- On TechNet, 'RalfWi' talks about the Microsoft Cloud in Germany
- Also on TechNet, Diego Viso blogs about migrating Azure Virtual Machines from ASM to ARM
- Harald Schult Ulriksen (@hsulriksen) talks about availability in an unreliable cloud
- Trond Hindenes (@trondhindenes) describes deploying passwordless SSH key Linux VMs in Azure ASM
- On the PaaS Mag site, the GCP Team explains why measuring cloud performance just got easier and better
- On the Microsoft Openness site, the Openness Team announces the new professional certification for Linux on Azure
🎭 Identity
- On MSDN, Rajesh Makhija announces that enforcing Office 365 identity in Yammer is now available
- On TechNet, Alex Simons announces custom roles in Azure RBAC is now GA
- Also on TechNet, Shannon Gowen announces significant compliance milestones in Azure Government
- Also on TechNet, Alex Simons also answers questions received by the Customer Success team in a new series - The Azure AD Mailbag
- Also on TechNet, Harry Eagles talks about reducing risk and enhancing security
⚖️ Management and Governance
- On the Azure blog, Joe Levy (@Jodoglevy) announces Azure Resource Manager support in Azure Automation runbooks
- Also on the Azure blog, Marley Gray provides an update on Azure Blockchain as a Service
- Also on the Azure blog, Pranav Rastogi, Program Manager - Azure ASP.NET and Cache, blogs about the Azure WebJobs SDK 1.1.0 RTM
- On the Kloud blog, Simon Waight explains how to get started with the Azure Security Center
- On Channel 9, Corey Sanders talks about the Debian GNU/Linux and Azure Container Service
- Jan Hentschel (@Horizon_Net) writes about continuous delivery of Azure WebJobs via Git
- Ravikanth Chaganti (@ravikanth) looks at defining resource dependencies when building Azure Resource Manager templates
- Mike Lanzetta blogs about TensorFlow on Azure using Docker
🌐 Networking
- On TechNet, Giulio Astori describes the exciting new solutions soon to be available in OMS
- Also on TechNet, Keith Mayer (@KeithMayer) writes about capturing Azure Resource Manager ARM VNET Gateway diagnostic logs
📦 Storage
- On the Azure blog, Giridhar Mosay, Program Manager Cloud and Enterprise, discusses how cloud backup of enterprise data gets better with Azure Backup
- On the Database Journal site, Marcin Policht discusses Azure SQL database resiliency - point-in-time restore
- On the Tallan blog, Greg Szilagyi walks through increasing IOPS for Microsoft SQL in Azure without using premium storage
- Simon Timms (@stimms) blogs about copying Azure blobs
- On Channel 9, Haishi Bai Chris Risner talks about Azure Redis Cache Premium Tier with Pranav Rastogi on the Microsoft Azure Cloud Cover Show
🔗 Web
- On MSDN, Visual Studio Blog summarises the HealthClinic.biz demos that were demoed at Connect(); //2015
- Also on MSDN, Michael S. Collier (@MichaelCollier) explains how to deploy a WordPress Azure Web App with an alternative MySQL database
- Also on MSDN, Mike Richter explains how to migrate existing ASP.NET websites to Azure Cloud Services
- On Channel 9, Greg Duncan talks about his Windows 10 IoT Core Breathalyzer project
- On the Azure blog, Steve Danielson announces new API Management policies to integrate external services
- On the Tallan blog, Stephen Kimble asks why should you use Azure IoT Suite over Event Hub