In this episode of the Azure Podcast, host Evan Basalik dives into the world of Azure ExpressRoute with special guest Duong Au. They discuss the benefits of ExpressRoute, its resiliency features, and the new validation tools available to ensure robust connectivity. Tune in to learn about the latest updates, practical applications, and how to optimize your network setup for maximum reliability.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode517.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/o_-NfWnYtxg

Resources:

Email to sign up for preview of the resiliency validation: exr-resiliency@microsoft.com

Resiliency Validation: Azure ExpressRoute Gateway Resiliency Validation (preview) | Microsoft Learn

Resiliency Insights: Resiliency Insights for ExpressRoute virtual network gateway (preview) | Microsoft Learn

Other updates:

SQL Server on Azure VM I/O Performance Analysis - Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Enhancements to Carbon Optimization APIs - Azure updates | Microsoft Azure 

Rishabh Tewari, a Software Engineer on the Azure team, gives us insights into Project Sirius. This is an upgrade to the Azure software that lights up Accelerated Connections for any resource that uses a network interface. Using a specialized SDN, customers and ISVs can achieve very high number of connections per second throughput across all of their Azure and non-Azure resources.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode497.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZVgBBrRlZGQ

Resources:

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/nsdi23-bansal.pdf

Other updates:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/general-availability-audit-logging-in-azure-api-management-developer-portal/ 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/logs/log-analytics-simple-mode

Jose Moreno a Customer Engineer in the FastTrack for Azure team joins Sujit and Russell to talk about Networking, and more specifically discusses best practices for Express Route configuration and monitoring with an eye on resiliency and performance.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode488.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/KUhODMaQjEU

Resources:

• FastTrack for Azure: FastTrack for Azure – Technical Enablement FAQ | Microsoft Azure
• Azure ER Locations (not to confuse with Azure Regions): Locations and connectivity providers for Azure ExpressRoute | Microsoft Learn
• Azure Connection Monitor: Connection monitor overview - Azure Network Watcher | Microsoft Learn

Other updates:

• GA: Azure API Management Developer Portal Unveils Enhanced Features for Increased Developer Productivity
• Public Preview: Regional Disaster Recovery by Azure Backup for AKS
• TLS/TCP Proxy Preview

Evan and Sujit talk to Ricardo Villarreal about the new ability to built network-aware applications in Azure. APC provides a unified abstraction layer for accessing network APIs—such as edge discovery, quality on demand, and device location—consistently across operators and connectivity methods. Ricardo offers compelling use-cases for these new APIs in Azure and tips to get started.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode456.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/2XWy2X0WXCQ

Resources:

https://aka.ms/apcblog

Other updates:

New Azure for Operators products and partner programs released | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

General availability: New enhanced connection troubleshoot | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: Database connections support in Azure Static Web Apps | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public Preview: Performance Plus for Azure Disk Storage | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

General Availability: Performance workbooks for Azure PostgreSQL - Flexible Server | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public Preview: PgBouncer monitoring metrics for Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server  | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Sujit and Evan are joined by Amir Dahan, Senior Product Manager for Networking at Microsoft, to discuss Azure DDOS protection.

Media File: Episode447.mp3
YouTube: https://youtu.be/B_TNr6c2F9o

Other Updates

• Use managed identities with Azure Front Door Standard/Premium (Preview) | Microsoft Learn
• Azure Machine Learning—Generally availability updates for November 2022 | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
• General availability: New cost recommendations for Virtual Machine Scale Sets | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Azure Networking Engineering Manager Abhishek Tiwari joins us once again, this time to talk about all of the work his team has done to add L7 and DDOS protection at the Edge and the enhancements in the DNS Service to make it more secure.

Media: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode446.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/yTtchBGLsKg

Other updates:

General availability: Default Rule Set 2.1 for Azure Web Application Firewall | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Server will be deprecated 30 September 2024 | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

General availability: Azure Automation supports Availability zones | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Generally available: Static Web Apps support for preview environments in Azure DevOps | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

The team catches up with Brian Lehr to take a look at the range of IP services available in Azure.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode442.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/weTl6r63qYo

Resources:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/ip-services/ip-services-overview (IP Services Overview)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/ip-services/custom-ip-address-prefix (BYOIP)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/ip-services/routing-preference-overview (Routing Preference)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/ip-services/ipv6-overview (IPv6 Overview)

Other updates:

Generally available: Backup and restore updates for App Service | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: Automatic backup for App Service Environment V2 and V3 | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

General availability: Smart tiering to vault-archive tier for Azure Backup | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Distributed PostgreSQL comes to Azure Cosmos DB - Azure Cosmos DB Blog (microsoft.com)

Public preview: Azure Resource Topology | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: New Azure Virtual Machine Scale Set and Spot Virtual Machines capabilities | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

The team catches up with Aimee Littleton, PM on the Azure Networking team, to learn more about NAT Gateway and when customers should be using it. Short answer = whenever you have outbound network connectivity as part of your workload!

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode438.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/cmU5hNEISlg

Resources:

What is Azure Virtual Network NAT? | Microsoft Docs

Dive deep into NAT gateway’s SNAT port behavior | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure

Other Updates:

General availability: Azure Communication Services support for Teams identities | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Evan and Cynthia speak with Abhishek Tiwari, Director of Software Engineering about the diverse types of situations traffic manager can be used in, how Microsoft has built a service to support 100% SLA, and how traffic manager can even be leveraged as part of a cloud modernization effort in a hybrid scenario. 

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode434.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/NhuJlK_vOEs

Resources:

What is Traffic Manager?

How Traffic Manager Works

Traffic Manager routing methods

Updates:

Review and remove AAD inactive users in Public Preview

Public preview: Azure Dedicated Host restart

General availability: Azure App Service Environment v3 support for custom domain suffix

The team catches up with Sarah Novotny and Xin Liu to learn about both the network switch SONiC and why Microsoft recently transferred control of it to the Linux Foundation.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode427.mp3

 YouTube: https://youtu.be/hmyz4Qpp9e4

Resources:

Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC) Moves to the Linux Foundation

GitHub Repo

Quick Start

Updates:

General availability: Updates for resource configuration changes 

Public preview: Network Watcher packet capture support for virtual machine scale sets

Public preview: Azure Arc-enabled System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Public preview: Private link support in Azure Application Gateway

Preview of Windows Admin Center for Azure Arc-enabled infrastructure - Microsoft Windows Server Blog