We talk to Steve Selleny, a Global Partner Development Manager at Microsoft, about the AI and ML trends he has noticed in Financial Services ISVs. 

Steve has been working in the technology sector for over 21 years in various roles including software development, systems architecture, consulting, sales, and partner management. For the past two years, he has been working with Financial Services Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to build and market solutions on the Microsoft Cloud that drive digital transformation for customers.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode471.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/6WDlqR34M48

Resources:

https://news.microsoft.com/2023/06/29/moodys-and-microsoft-develop-enhanced-risk-data-analytics-research-and-collaboration-solutions-powered-by-generative-ai/ 

Other updates:

Strengthening Your Defenses: Simulation Testing for Azure DDoS Protection - Microsoft Community Hub

https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/public-preview-ratelimit-rules-for-application-gateway-web

https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/general-availability-terraform-support-for-azure-cosmos-db

https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/generally-available-durable-functions-for-python-v2

https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/general-availability-99th-percentile-latency-metric-in-azure

Upgrade to App Service Environment v3 today and unlock new capabilities | Azure Blog | Microsoft Azure

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/cloud-services-retirement-announcement/

Evan and Sujit cover a whole bunch of updates to various Azure services such as AKS, ACA, Functions, VMs, PostgerSQL, VNETs and Storage.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode470.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/eGsnmw5WjHI

 Resources:

VMs

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-cross-subscription-restore-for-azure-virtual-machines/

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-high-performance-computing/introducing-new-performance-tiers-for-azure-managed-lustre/ba-p/3900329

Storage

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-elastic-san-updates-private-endpoints-shared-volumes/

Functions

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-sdk-type-bindings-in-azure-functions/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-application-insights-integration-for-the-azure-functions-net-worker/

AKS/ACA

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-kubernetes-127-support-in-aks/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-azure-key-vault-references-for-secrets-in-azure-container-apps/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-secrets-volume-mounts-for-azure-container-apps/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-session-affinity-for-azure-container-apps/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-init-containers-in-azure-container-apps/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/generally-available-cross-origin-resource-sharing-cors-in-azure-container-apps/

PostgreSQL

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-storage-autogrow-online-disk-scaling-for-azure-database-for-postgresql-flexible-server/

Major Version Upgrade of a flexible server - Azure portal | Microsoft Learn

VNET

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-azure-vnet-flow-logs/

Azure and Data technical specialist Ian Pike, joins us on the Podcast to give us a primer on Fabric and what is means for customers that use various data-related services on Azure.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode469.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/k0DkkVkfw2o

Resources:

• Announcement for Fabric including the key dates and how to enable : Introducing Microsoft Fabric and Copilot in Microsoft Power BI | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI
• Fabric Getting started : Get started with Microsoft Fabric - Training | Microsoft Learn
• Happy Paths : Introducing the end-to-end scenarios in Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Fabric Blog | Microsoft Fabric
• Cube in a Cube (2 Microsoft Employees with some great content, who are part of the Fabric Customer Advisory Team) : (488) Guy in a Cube - YouTube

• Endjin : (488) endjin - YouTube
• Advancing Analytics :  (488) Advancing Fabric - YouTube

Other updates:

Scale generative AI with new Azure AI infrastructure advancements and availability | Azure Blog | Microsoft Azure

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/azure-customer-stories-ai

Chaos Studio updates 

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-azure-chaos-studio-supports-new-faults-for-app-service-and-virtual-machines/ 

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-azure-chaos-studio-is-now-available-in-southeast-asia-region/ 

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-azure-chaos-studio-has-userassigned-managed-identity-and-custom-role-assignment/

Load Testing Updates

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-load-testing-run-tests-for-up-to-24-hours/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-load-testing-create-and-manage-tests-and-test-runs-using-azure-cli/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-load-testing-run-tests-with-100000-virtual-users/

This week Cale talks to Radhika Bollineni, Engineering Manager for Wordpress on App Service, about how to easily create WordPress sites in your Azure subscription to publish your content, using just a few clicks in the Marketplace.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode468.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/rO8xicLKKow

Documentation: https://github.com/Azure/wordpress-linux-appservice

Marketplace offering: https://ms.portal.azure.com/#create/WordPress.WordPress

Other links and resources referred to in this episode:

• Microsoft Dev Box is now generally available
• Announcing Azure Managed Lustre for your HPC and AI workloads
• Microsoft Cost Management updates—June 2023
• Supercharge your skills with Microsoft CLX tracks for Azure
• Explore the benefits of Azure OpenAI Service with Microsoft Learn

After talking to Ryan Berry a little while back about OneStream's journey to Azure, the team catches back up with him to hear about how their architecture will evolve in the future to be more Cloud Native. In addition, they discuss the challenges of rearchitecting a pre-existing product when you cannot afford the have dual stacks running at the same time.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode467.mp3

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D4x7jDjs-8

Resources

Corporate Performance Management Software | OneStream Software

Links to updates mentioned at the top of the show

• Azure AD is becoming Microsoft Entra ID
• Public preview: Ingest events from Azure Event Hubs to Azure Monitor Logs
• General availability: Azure Data Explorer adds support for PostgreSQL, MySQL, and CosmosDB SQL external tables
• Azure cross-region Load Balancer is now generally available
• Public preview: Azure Virtual Network encryption

Cloud Solution Architect, Dr. Linda Sheard, joins Russell and Sujit for a primer on Azure Open AI. Linda breaks down the service and provides context on how it can be used for the typical scenario where a customer wants to reason over their own data. 

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode466.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/nDcIWvHa43s

Resources: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/openai/overview

Other updates:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-registry/tutorial-registry-cache

Evan and Sujit talk to Principal PM Ramya Oruganti about the release of Functions as a first class managed service on Azure Container Apps. She tells us how this opens up possibilities for event-driven applications on ACA with full support for KEDA, Bindings, Dapr, GitHub Actions etc.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode465.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/0XR0PJuB_ko

Resources:

https://github.com/Azure/azure-functions-on-container-apps

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/apps-on-azure-blog/azure-functions-for-cloud-native-microservices-public-preview/ba-p/3826800

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-deploy-container-apps?tabs=acr%2Cbash&pivots=programming-language-csharp

Other updates:

Understanding Service Health communications for Azure vulnerabilities | Azure Blog | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: Assess impact of service retirements workbook template in Azure Advisor | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Cale and Russell talk to the Microsoft Program Manager for DevBox and Azure Deployment Environments, Sagar Chandra Reddy Lankala, about how Azure Deployment Environments can enable rapid deployment of on-demand dev/test environments while providing governance, security and cost management - plus some more updates from Microsoft Build 2023!

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode464.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/IsgQVMIkhRc

Sagar's links:

• GA blog - https://aka.ms/ade-ga-blog
• Sign up for Terraform support - https://aka.ms/ade-terraform-signup
• LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagarchandrareddy

Other updates mentioned in this episode:

• Public preview: Introducing NGads V620-series VMs optimized for cloud gaming | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
• Generally available: Azure Data Explorer Kusto Emulator on Linux | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
• Explore the latest features for Datadog—An Azure Native ISV Service
• Microsoft Cost Management updates—May 2023
• Microsoft has made Azure Linux generally available. Repeat, Azure Linux
• Azure OpenAI Service - Documentation, quickstarts, API reference - Azure Cognitive Services | Microsoft Learn
• Azure Deployment Environments | Microsoft Azure
• About Azure App Spaces | Microsoft Learn
• Introducing Azure API Center for Centralized API Discovery and Governance (microsoft.com)
• GitHub Advanced Security for Azure Devops

The team catches up with Ryan Berry to learn about OneStream's journey to Azure. They talk about both the benefits and pitfalls and why Ryan is happy OneStream in running in Azure.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode463.mp3

 YouTube: https://youtu.be/Um4rg4eKRuU

Resources: 

https://www.onestream.com/blog/onestream-splash-dc-wows-attendees-with-ai-powered-cpm-capabilities/

Other updates:

Public Preview – Data Migration for Oracle | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Build 2023: New Azure App Service plans fuel greater choice and savings | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure 

https://news.microsoft.com/build-2023-book-of-news/

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9265960

Jorge Palma, the Lead PM for Azure Kubernetes Services, talks to Evan and Sujit about the Long-Term Support (LTS) version Kubernetes which provides support for 2 years. He tells us how this model works and who may benefit from this option.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode462.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/zmrOegThyCE

Resources: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/apps-on-azure-blog/azure-kubernetes-upgrades-and-long-term-support/ba-p/3782789

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2023/04/18/join-microsoft-at-kubecon-and-cloudnativecon-europe-2023/