Azure Weekly Issue 64: 21st February 2016

This week, the public preview of Server management tools was announced. Server management tools offers a set of web-based GUI and command line tools to manage Windows Servers.

SQL Server Express images (SQL Server Express with Tools 2014, 2012, and 2008R2) are now available in the Azure Gallery. SQL Server Express has a limit of 1 GB of memory and 10 GB per database but has free licensing and includes SQL Server Management Studio.

A new Azure Data Factory Monitoring & Management App has been released. The app provides new views of the Data Factory, enables batch actions in Data Factory, and lets users set up email notifications on various events.

An Azure Search indexer for Azure Blob Storage is now in public preview. The Azure Search blob indexer lets users extract textual content and blob metadata from the documents in PDF, DOCX/DOC, XLSX/XLS, PPTX/PPT, MSG (Outlook emails), HTML, XML, ZIP, EML and plain text format.

Azure Premium Storage available in East Asia, Australia Southeast and South Central US.

There's been a price reduction for Azure Media Indexer

Following on from the release of the first Technical Preview of Azure Stack, a set of Azure PaaS services and DevOps tools for Azure Stack were made available in preview. The tools consist of a Web Apps feature in Azure App Service, SQL and MySQL database resource providers (to support Web Apps data tier), an updated Azure SDK, including PowerShell support and cross-platform CLI support, and Native Visual Studio support.

Auto-update is now available for Data Management Gateway. Data Management Gateway is an agent, installed on-premises, that allows data transfers between the cloud and on-premises environments.

Finally, there's a new Log Analytics OMS resource for Azure VMs, which lets users provision new OMS workspaces, link workspaces to Azure subscriptions, and onboard Azure VMs to the OMS service through the Azure portal. 

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@HowardvRooijen | @endjin

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, Gaurav Malhotra, Program Manager - Azure Data Factory, announces the public release of the ADF M&M App for Monitoring & Managing big data pipelines:

• Also on the Azure blog, Liam Cavanagh, SR Program Manager Azure Search, talks about using Machine Learning and Azure Search to improve conversion rates through recommendations

• Also on the Azure blog, Nicolle Anger writes about January 2016 Updates for Azure SQL Data Warehouse

• On the Falafel blog, Venkata Koppaka blogs about Azure Redis Cache, the fast in-memory cache service and Azure Search – A Managed search as a service in the cloud

• On TechNet, Charles Verdon blogs about architecture for Data Exploration using Microsoft Azure

• On The R-Bloggers site, Joseph Rickert covers getting started with Microsoft SQL Server on Azure

• On TechNet, there's a case study of startup PaperVault's use of Azure to deliver a digital accounting service, improving performance and cutting costs

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, the launch of SQL Server Express images in the Azure Gallery is announced

• On TechNet, Shannon Gowen talks about the Azure VM Scale Sets public preview and describes how to view VM Reboot Logs

• Also on TechNet, 'Steve TH' blogs about App-V with Azure RemoteApp and current recommended practices for using App-V with Azure RemoteApp

• On the TechKB blog, Michael Coutanche (@mum3LE5) discusses how to resize VM disks in Azure

• James van den Berg shares a video about onboarding Azure VMs to Operations Management Suite OMS

• Alexandre Brisebois (@Brisebois) answers the question what Does a Petaflop Look Like 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 MSDN, Laurent Ellerbach describes how to use Microsoft Graph and Office 365 API in a Service or in a Windows App/UWP without a graphical interface

• Also on MSDN, 'SailingRock' blogs about changing a user password in Azure AD using GraphAPI

• On TechNet, Paul Jones describes how to setup Azure SQL Integrated Authentication

• On Channel 9, Corey Sanders, Director of Program Management on the Microsoft Azure Compute team, talks about Azure Active Directory Domain Services

• On the Unity site, Scot Hillier writes about Angular 2 and OpenID Connect with Azure Active Directory

Integration

Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid

• On the Azure blog, Azure announces an early preview of Azure PaaS services and DevOps tools for Azure Stack

• Also on the Azure blog, Clinton Ho announces that Data Management Gateway auto-update is 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, Anurag Gupta announces a new Log Analytics OMS resource for Azure VMs

• On TechNet, Kriti Jindal, Program Manager on the Server Management Tools Team, announces the public preview of Server management tools (thanks 

• Mike Martin walks through the new Azure Server Management Tools

• Thomas Maurer (@thomasmaurer) describes how to manage Nano Server and Windows Server from Azure using Remote Server Management Tools

• Robert Smit (@Clustermvp) also writes about the Azure Server Management Tools, describing how to set up and configure the service

• On TechNet, Ian Farr explains how to configure an Azure Automation Account, beginning with creating an Active Directory user, assigning them an appropriate role, and creating the Automation account

• Stefan Roth (@stefanroth_net) blogs about using the Azure Automation PowerShell ISE Add-On for runbook editing

• On TechNet, Julien Stroheker discusses deploying Azure Resource Manager Templates with Visual Studio Team Services

• Sandrino Di Mattia introduces his node-armclient SDK, a lightweight Node.js client for Azure Resource Manager

• Ravikanth Chaganti (@ravikanth) talks about building Azure Resource Manager Templates containing a domain controller VM using the Domain Join Extension

• On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson describes how to synchronously StartStop all Azure Resource Manager Virtual Machines in a Resource Group

• Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) covers moving an OMS Workspace between Resource Groups

• On Channel 9, Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) talks about Azure Resource Manager Tools for Azure App Services in Visual Studio

• On MSDN, Thomas W Shinder describes how to avoid an Azure Disk Encryption Error related to using Azure PowerShell 1.1.0

• Radu Vunvulea blogs about costs and Optimization for an Azure Development Environment

• Marius Sandbu (@msandbu) discusses getting started with web-based server management tools in Azure

• On the Daily Dot Net Tips blog, Abhijit Jana discusses getting an Application Insights Instrumentation Key inside Visual Studio

• On Channel 9, Thiago Almeida talks to David Tesar about Application Performance Monitoring and Availability Monitoring and talks to Greg Oliver about Configuration Management DevOps Fundamentals

Media

Covering: Media services, Encoding, Live and On-Demand Streaming, Azure Media Player, Content Protection, Media Analytics, Video Indexer

• On the Azure blog, Adarsh Solanki announces a Price reduction for the Azure Media Indexer

• On the Falafel blog, Carey Payette talks about Using Azure Media Services to Encode, Host, and Transcribe Video

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 blogs about Hub&Spoke, Daisy-Chain and Full-Mesh VNET topologies in Azure ARM V2

• On Channel 9, Haishi Bai, Vinayak Shastri and Chris Risner talks about the Barracuda Next Generation Firewall

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, Eugene Shvets announces that the Azure Search indexer for Azure Blob Storage is now in public preview

• Also on the Azure blog, Pradnya Khadapkar announces that Azure Premium Storage is now available in more regions

• On MSDN, Nitin S shares the solution to an issue where a customer was unable to install Microsoft Azure Recovery Services AgentMARS on the Hyper-V server in a Hyper-V to Azure ASRAzure Site Recovery scenario

Web

Covering: App Service (Web), API Management, Content Delivery Network, Azure Search, Web apps, Azure SignalR Service

• On the Azure blog, Nayana Singh, Senior Program Manager - Azure IoT, writes an overview of the functionality available in Azure IoT Hub, which went into General Availability at the start of February

• Also on the Azure blog, Jeff Marcoux puts out a reminder that the Azure Mobile Engagement team will be at the Mobile World Congress 2016

• Also on the Azure blog, Spyros Sakellariadis provides a sample application for pulling data from the web into an Azure Event or IoT Hub

• On the Falafel blog, Carey Payette describes Azure IoT Hub: Managing and communicating with IoT devices

• Also on the Falafel blog, George Saadeh talks about migrating from Mobile Services to Mobile Apps - when you should consider it

• On MSDN, Adarsha Datta (@AdarshaDatta) writes about part 1 of a series 'my tryst with IoT Internet of Things'

• Also on MSDN, Jeff Sanders writes about how to manually attach a Debugger to Azure Web Apps

• Joshua Drew (@jdruid) describes using Azure Mobile Services to Create an API for your Mobile App or Website

• On Code Project, Duncan Edwards Jones writes a series of blogs about event streams on Azure, covering Serialisation of Events, describes wrapping events in identity and context, and running a Projection

• On MSDN, Jeff Hollan describes Exception Handling with Logic Apps