Azure Weekly Issue 67: 13th March 2016

This week there's aa new offering for Azure Blockchain as a Service. BlockAppsSTRATOprovides a single-node blockchain instance for testing Ethereum blockchain applications and offers a REST API for connecting apps to blockchains.AlphaPoint, a digital asset exchange platform, andIOTA, a Directed Acyclic Graph/ Tangle-based distributed ledger,will also provide offeringsfor BlockChain as a Service in the future.

Proactive notifications on Cloud Service issuesare now available. Application Insights will send an email including diagnostic information when a role experiences issuessuch as startup failures, crashes or hangs. This extends the integration between Application Insights & Application Diagnostics,which previously required you to check the portal.

There's a new, open-source Azure Event Hubs client for Java.

There's a newa new lower cost tier in preview for Azure Search. The Basic tier sits between the free tier and Standard S1 tier. It costs $75/month (or $37.50/month during the preview) per search unit and supports up to 1 million documents and 2GB storage.

In Hybrid news,the StorSimple Virtual Arrayis available,the SQL Server 2016 Release Candidate introduced this week has hybrid enhancements(SQL Server Stretch Database service, and transactional replication to Azure SQL Database)and aWindows Azure Pack Connectorhas been made available on GitHub.

There's are severalnew Azure Quickstart templates on Github this week; Concourse CI, Cloudera Cluster, Deploy Splunk Enterprise, Enable Encryption on a running Windows VM, Enable encryption on a running Linux VM, Create a new encrypted Windows VM from a gallery image, Web App with a SQL Database, DocumentDB and Azure Search, Deploy IOMAD cluster on Ubuntu, Provision a Mobile App with a SQL Database, Go Expanse on Ubuntu, Create an HPC cluster with Linux compute nodes, Jenkins on Ubuntu, Deploy an Ubuntu VM with Docker, Engine & Rancher, BOSH Setup, Azure Search service, Deploy VM Scale Set with Apache/PHP app (LAP) & AutoScale, Red Hat Enterprise Linux VM, Multi-tier VNet with NSGs and DMZ, VM Scale Set Configuration managed by Azure Automation, Configure a VM via DSC extension and Azure Automation DSC.

Thanks to Simon J.K. Pederson for submitting an article about his site extension for the installation of free SSL certificates on Azure Web Apps.

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 Channel 9, Zachary Cavanell talks about Dynamics CRM updates and integration with Office 365, Azure Machine Learning and Cortana Microsoft Mechanics
• On The R-Bloggers site, Fishr Blog describes Histograms by Just Defining Bin Width

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, Bizspark Online writes about USERDIVE – Empowering Companies to Continuously Optimize their Websites
• On the Tech Radar site, Mary Branscombe writes 'Dynamics AX is switching to be a cloud service on Azure – or Azure Stack'

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, David Steadman-MSFT blogs about PAM: Failed with Operation requires that destination domain auditing to be enabled
• Also on TechNet, Ian Farr explains how to Configure DNS Dynamic Update Credentials for DHCP with PowerShell

Integration

Covering: Service Bus, Logic Apps, Event Grid

• On TechNet, Kirill Kotlyarenko talks about Azure Connector 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 VentureBeat, Om Malik writes about Open letter: Why the cloud business needs better metrics

Media

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

• On TechNet, Kaeshi Sri describes Making Magic Happen: How Sid Lee & Cirque Du Soleil Created A New Presence In The Cloud

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, Rhoderick Milne covers Exchange Services Not Starting on Windows Server 2012 Due to Network Location Profile

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

Web

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

• On the Azure podcast, AUTHOR describes Episode 118 - Azure Stack Update
• On the Falafel blog, Kris Lankford explains how to Get your Free eBook – Getting Started with Microsoft Azure
• On the Azure blog, Rahul Bagaria talks about Performance improvements and service updates for Application Insights