Azure Weekly Issue 61: 31st January 2016
This week has seen the roll out of the Azure SDK 2.8.2 for .NET. The SDK includes UI improvements and performance improvements when provisioning, and ARM template export improvements.
Azure Search Traffic Analytics has been introducing, letting Azure Search users log each search request.
There has been an update to Azure Media Services in the classic portal. The new 'Media Encoder Standard' is replacing the 'Azure Media Encoder' in the portal. Encoding Reserved Units are being renamed to reduce confusion with encoder names.
Key Vault logging is now in GA. Key Vault is also now GA in Azure China and in Azure Government.
Application Insights Proactive Detection has been launched. The feature detects abnormal patterns in Application Insights telemetry and and sends alert emails. The Application Insights team also announced a new feature to help diagnose AJAX issues - three new charts - Dependency Calls, Dependency Failures and Dependency Duration are now available.
There's a new release of the Beta Apache Cordova Plugin for Azure App Service Mobile Apps. The plugin provides an API for data access, push registration and authentication to Node.js and ASP.NET Azure Mobile App backends.
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, Berni Torres Garayar announces the roll out of Search Traffic Analytics. Azure Search users can choose to log each search request together with metadata and calculate some key metrics
Also on the Azure blog, Janusz Lembicz describes Custom analyzers in Azure Search. The 2015-02-28-Preview API version will exposing a new interface that lets users create custom analyzers based on the predefined tokenizers, token filters and char filters from Lucene.
Also on the Azure blog, Mimi Gentz shares two new DocumentDB articles help you find samples for the most common tasks
On MSDN, Paolo Salvatori describes how to normalize incoming events in a Stream Analytics job
Also on MSDN, Theresa Palmer covers visualizing Azure Search data with Power BI
On TechNet, Dmitry Pechyony, Senior Data Scientist at Microsoft writes about Cloud-Based Energy Disaggregation Using the Cortana Analytics Suite and the ML team share the details of a free webinar: introduction to Microsoft R Open
Also on TechNet, Ronit Reger covers how to use Dynamic Data Masking to obfuscate your sensitive data
Also on TechNet, Tommy Mullaney walks through limiting access to data using Row-Level Security
On Channel 9, Jos de Bruijn, Senior PM in the SQL Server Database Systems team, talks about in-Memory OLTP for Azure SQL DB
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, Yiding Zhou highlights new features introduced in the Azure Batch service update of December 2015, including MPI support, the ability to take a node offline without deleting it, and the ability to change the autoscale formula evaluation interval
Also on the Azure blog, Casey Karst announces Project Nami: WordPress for Azure SQL Database/SQL Server
Claus Sørensen writes part 2 of a series on Azure Service Fabric, covering creating a WebAPI-based stateless service
On MSDN, Rick McGuire writes 'Microservices and Service Fabric – The Future Architecture?'
Also on MSDN, Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist, writes about Microsoft's Public Cloud for Public Good – the Opportunity for Sustainability
Also on MSDN, 'termserv' writes about how to Lift-and-shift your workloads with Azure RemoteApp and Azure AD Domain Services
On TechNet, Shannon Gowen describes how to get Boot Diagnostics for Virtual Machines v2 without support
Also on TechNet, Blain Barton talks about Running Windows Applications Remotely in Part 8 of the to the Cloud Series
On Channel 9, Joe Breslin talks about MSN and Universal Store: Combining PaaS with Configuration Management
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
Sean Ivey talks about Azure AD App Proxy, a feature that allows allows you to extend access to your on-premises applications to users in the cloud without changing your applications and with no changes to your DMZ.
On Code Project, Arif Habib Shadan - www.i-arif.com describes creating a new application and Service Principal to Access Resources in Azure
Integration
Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid
On Code Project, Mark Heath blogs about securing Azure Service Bus Queues with Shared Access Signatures
On the Tallan blog, Paul Gutierrez describes how To Connect to an Azure Service Bus Queue Using MuleSoft's HTTP Connector
On TechNet, Kirill Kotlyarenko discusses PowerShell for Azure Pack tenants and creating a CentOS 7 VM template for Azure Pack
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, Anton Fritz introduces Application Insights Proactive Detection - a service which automatically detects anormal patterns in Application Insights telemetry and sends email alerts
Also on the Azure blog, Beckylin Orooji announces AJAX Collection in Application Insights
Rick Rainey writes an Introduction to the Azure Resource Manager (ARM)
On MSDN, Igor Pagliai describes how to join a new VM to an existing Active Directory Domain using ARM
Thomas W Shinder (@tshinder), Program Manager - Azure Security, blogs about Azure Disk Encryption, and an update to the Azure Disk Encryption Whitepaper
John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) discusses how to view and download JSON templates using AzureRM PowerShell
On Channel 9, Seth Juarez and Byron Tardiff give an introduction to the new Azure Portal
On the Azure podcast, episode 111 deals with Azure Resource Health
On TechNet, Ed Wilson explains how to Modify a DSC template and Will Anderson explains how to Import DSC resources and add your scripts as part of a series on conceptualising Desired State Configuration
Also on TechNet, the Server And Cloud Platform Team provides a tour of Operations Management Suite Log Analytics
On Channel 9, Corey Sanders, Director of Program Management on the Microsoft Azure Compute team, talks about the simplest way to deploy SQL Server to the Cloud
Daniel Örneling talks about how to use Run as accounts with hybrid worker groups in Azure Automation
On the Key Vault blog, Dan Plastina announces that Key Vault is GA in Azure China and in Azure Government. Public Azure Regions Key Vault logging is now in GA.
Media
Covering: Media services, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Media Analytics, Video Indexer
On the Azure blog, Mingfei Yan (@mingfeiy), Program Manager - Azure Media Services, announces a January 2016 Azure Media Services classic portal encoding services update. The new 'Media Encoder Standard' is replacing the 'Azure Media Encoder' in the portal. Encoding Reserved Units are being renamed to reduce confusion with encoder names.
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, Igor Pagliai explains How to Set a Static Internal Private IP for an Azure VM in ARM and how to Configure an Internal Load Balancer listener for SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups in ARM
Also on MSDN, Niall Moran (@niallermoran) explains how to Secure your Customers' Data in Azure by separating application tiers and creating a Virtual Network and DMZ subnet that is exposed to the internet
On TechNet, Brandon Wilson covers creating a Site to Site VPN Connection in ARM through the new Azure Portal
Also on TechNet, J.C. Hornbeck delves into Deploying Gateway using Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager Tech Preview 4
Alexandre Brisebois (@Brisebois) discusses Azure DNS – using PowerShell V1.0 to add a Subdomain
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 Xamarin blog, Nish Anil covers Syncing Files Between Devices with Azure File Sync
On Code Project, 'CrazyCoder26' describes how to increase performance by using a Cache-Control header in Blob Storage
Radu Vunvulea talks about Azure Table Performance - 1 vs 100.000 Tables under the same Storage Account
Web
Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service
On the Azure blog, Adrian Hall announces the Beta Apache Cordova Plugin for Azure App Service Mobile Apps
Also on the Azure blog, Brady Gaster (@bradygaster) announces the Azure SDK 2.8.2 for .NET
Also on the Azure blog, Clemens Vasters (@clemensv) blogs about the use of Microsoft Pulse and Azure Event Hubs to monitor responses to the State of the Union broadcast
Also on the Azure blog, Dan Rosanova (@DanRosanova) describes how Halo 5 implemented cloud scale telemetry using Azure Event Hubs
On MSDN, Francesco Cogno blogs about sending events to Azure Event Hub using Rust
Also on MSDN, Glenn Gailey describes adding push notification tags from an Azure Mobile Apps client
Also on MSDN, the APGC DSI Team explains how to capture dump files when experiencing intermittent High CPU on an Azure Web App
On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) and Piyush Joshi provide an introduction to Azure Mobile Engagement and talk about capturing Analytics data with Azure Mobile Engagement
Donovan Brown describes provisioning a Java 8, Tomcat Web App in Azure using an ARM Template
Isaac Abraham (@isaac_abraham) describes running F on Microsoft Azure
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