Azure Weekly Issue 62: 7th February 2016
This week there was much excitement about the availability of the Microsoft Azure Stack Technical Preview, which can be downloaded here. A whitepaper about core Azure Stack concepts and capabilities is also available.
In other news, Microsoft announced two new partners and greater Dev/Test Labs integration for Azure Blockchain as a Service
The Active Directory Team announced upcoming breaking changes to the v2.0 Auth Protocol which are being introduced for compliance with the OpenID Connect standard specification.
There's an Azure Media Player update with a 33% size reduction in the size of AMP scripts.
Finally, Application Insights announce the availability of Release Annotations (formerly known as deployment markers).
If you have any content you'd like to contribute to the newsletter, please tweet @AzureWeekly or ping an email to AzureWeekly@endjin.com.
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, Dr. Royi Ronen, Senior Data Science Manager - Azure Cybersecurity, describes Machine Learning in Azure Security Center
On the Tech Radar site, Mary Branscombe writes that computers are on the brink of mastering speech recognition
Also on the Tech Radar site, Darren Allan writes 'Windows Defender can now be trusted with the security of your PC?', highlighting the service's use of Machine Learning
On MSDN, ShiSh Shridhar (@5h15h) shares some slides from the NRF Big Show, on Tastes, Trends, Touch Points - Understanding Shoppers Through Machine Learning
Also on MSDN, Siddhika Nevrekar shares a Toll Booth tutorial to ramp you up on Azure Stream Analytics and describes querying a JSON array with Azure Stream Analytics
Pinal Dave discusses IF EXISTS and other functions on SQL Azure Databases
On TechNet, Shannon Gowen shares a SQL Tip of the Day: Recreating a SQL Azure Server right after you Delete it
On MSDN, Translator writes about New Microsoft Translator Customization Features Help Unleash the Power of Artificial Intelligence for Everyone
Compute
Covering: Virtual Machines, Functions, Batch, Service Fabric, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Cloud Services, Linux Virtual Machines, SAP HANA on Azure Large Instances
On TechNet, there's a case study of BizSpark member Captio, a company which uses Azure Virtual Machines, SQL Server, Visual Studio Online and Service Bus to provide an expense tracking service
Also on TechNet, Sushant Rao describes setting up reverse DNS for Azure Cloud Services. Azure Cloud Services began supporting reverse DNS records last Summer
On the Perficient blog, Chris Pietschmann writes 'Cloud is Strong according to Microsoft Q2 2016 Earnings'
John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) answers the question what is Azure Compute Unit?
On the Gibraltar Software blog, there's a post about Loupe Service moving to Azure, explaining the reasons for this decision with a comparison to AWS
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, Alex Simons (@Alex_A_Simons), Director of Program Management Microsoft Identity Division, writes about important upcoming changes to the v2.0 Auth Protocol
Also on TechNet, Chad Hasbrook explains how to customize the phone number displayed when users choose Phone Call for MFA
On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson blogs about Provisioning Home Directories for Active Directory Users with FIM / MIM using the Granfeldt PowerShell Management Agent
Also on TechNet, 'catchdebanjanMSFT' writes about AAD Connect: The Three Forests Story
Integration
Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid
On the Azure blog, Azure announces that the Microsoft Azure Stack Technical Preview is now available for download
On TechNet, Charles Joy (@OrchestratorGuy) blogs about the Azure Stack Technical Preview and shares a links list for Azure Stack Guidance
Marius Sandbu (@msandbu) talks about running Azure Stack on Vmware workstation and writes 'Windows Azure Stack–What about the infrastructure Story?
On TechNet, J.C. Hornbeck writes that the update Rollup 9 for Microsoft Windows Azure Pack is now available
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, Marley Gray announces two new partners and Dev/Test labs integration for Azure Blockchain as a Service
Also on the Azure blog, Mike Gresley announces that Application Insights now supports Release Annotations (aka deployment markers)
On MSDN, Thomas W Shinder (@tshinder), Program Manager - Azure Security, shares a new white paper, 13 Effective Security Controls for ISO 27001
Also on MSDN, Goran Condric covers the Azure Monitoring Extension for SAP on Windows – possible Error Codes and their solutions
On TechNet, Ankush Talreja describes how to run two PowerShell scripts on the same VM through a custom script extension at different stage of Deployment in ARM
Also on TechNet, Julien Corioland (@jcorioland) talks about infrastructure as Code with Microsoft Azure and Vorlon.JS ARM templates
John Savill (@NTFAQGuy) explains how to view all the types of Resource Providers available in Azure
Felix Rieseberg (@felixrieseberg) discusses running your own Parse with Azure and Docker. Parse is a mobile developer service recently closed and open sourced by Facebook
On Channel 9, Corey Sanders (@CoreySandersWA), Director of Program Management on the Compute team, talks about Troubleshooting and Diagnostics for VMs in Azure
Media
Covering: Media services, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Media Analytics, Video Indexer
On the Azure blog, Amit Rajput, Program Manager - Azure Media Services, talks about Azure Media Player update with a 33% size reduction
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 TechNet, Elliott Fields Jr writes 'building the Killer Home Lab Part 1 - Azure to On-Premise VPN'
Also on TechNet, Sushant Rao talks about adding Multiple Network Interfaces to an existing ARM based Virtual machine
On the Azure podcast, episode 112 covers High Speed Networking within IaaS VMs
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 TechNet, the Onescript Team share a sample script to clear out diagnostics logs within a specified timeframe in Table Storage
On MSDN, Lee Stott describes Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer - Easily work with Azure Storage - from any platform, anywhere
Web
Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service
On Channel 9's Cloud Cover show, Haishi Bai, Chris Risner, and Brady Gaster, Program Manager on the Azure SDK and Tooling Team, talk about the recent Azure .NET SDK Updates
On MSDN, Henrik F Nielsen blogs about Sending ASP.NET WebHooks from Azure WebJobs
Also on MSDN, Ben Perkins covers using the Azure WebJob API and discusses how to troubleshooting a hung or long running WebJob
On Channel 9, Daniel Egan talks about creating a simple Node App Mean On Azure
On MSDN, 'RanganathG' blogs about adding Performance/load tests to Azure Web and Mobile App Continuous Deployment
Also on MSDN, Lachezar Arabadzhiev writes part 2 of a series on Azure Cloud Load Testing
On the Xamarin blog, James Montemagno discusses getting started with Azure Mobile Apps Easy Tables
On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) and Piyush Joshi talk about Segmenting and Sending targeted notifications through Azure Mobile Engagement
On MSDN, Dave Russell Technical Evangelist writes part 1 of a series on getting to know IoT on the Windows Stack
Also on MSDN, Lee Stott writes a Windows 10 IOT Core Beginners Walkthrough using Raspberry Pi 2 and the Fez Hat
On the Redmond magazine site, Jeffrey Schwartz talks about Kinect's use of Azure IoT in the retail sector
Azure Weekly Archive
If you would like to read more interesting articles from the Azure ecosystem check out our archive where you will find all of the back issues.
Contribute Content
If you would like to contribute any content to the Azure Weekly newsletter, please email azureweekly@endjin.com