by Evan Basalik
December 10, 2019
Evan talks about a recent support case he worked on and how it's easy to blame Azure for everything that goes wrong when moving to the Cloud.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode307.mp3
Transcript:
Other updates:
Support to assess physical servers is now available in Azure preview, in addition to existing support for VMware and Hyper-V servers. The appliance for physical servers can be installed on an existing Windows server. This feature can be used to assess virtual machines where there is no access to the hypervisor, as well as virtual machines on any cloud. For more details, refer to the documentation
Azure HDInsight now supports the use of service tags to simplify inbound network security group (NSG) rule management. Azure service tags group multiple IP addresses under a single user friendly tag. Administrators need to only create rules by referring to the tags while Microsoft takes the responsibility of keeping the IP addresses up to date. Administrators maintaining Azure HDInsight clusters can now benefit from this manageability improvement.
Now in preview for the East US and UK South regions only, Azure Database for MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MySQL provides support for service health notifications for planned maintenance.
Web Application Firewall—New bot protection rule now in preview
Updated: December 09, 2019
A new bot protection ruleset (Microsoft_BotManagerRuleSet_1.0) is now in preview for Azure Web Application Firewall with Azure Front Door service. Adding to this updated ruleset are three bot categories—good, bad, and unknown. There are multiple bot groups within each category. Bot signatures are managed and dynamically updated by Web Application Firewall service. The default action for bad bot groups is set to Block, for the verified search engine crawlers group it’s set to Allow, and for the unknown bot category it’s set to Log. Customers may overwrite the default action with Allow, Block, Log, or Redirect for any type of bot groups.
For more details, see bot protection overview.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/new-bot-protection-rule-set-in-public-preview-for-web-application-firewall-waf-with-azure-front-door-service/
by Cynthia Kreng
November 27, 2019
Senior PM and all-round identity guru Jef Kazimer talks about the various Identity solutions in Azure and gives us some great tips and tricks in utilizing Azure AD effectively to safeguard our Azure resources.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode306.mp3
Transcript: https://eus2.videoindexer.ai/accounts/e0eee289-7730-4999-978b-eb7f63be8cb5/videos/390d93117c/?location=EUS2
Resources:
http://aka.ms/azureadblog
http://aka.ms/enableMFA
http://aka.ms/resilientaad
Other resources:
Monitor health of Kubernetes clusters:
• Managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Azure Container Instances
• Self-managed Kubernetes clusters hosted on Azure Stack or on-premises
• Azure Red Hat OpenShift
From <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/insights/container-insights-overview>
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/understand-kubernetes-cluster-health-with-azure-monitor-for-containers/
Azure DevTest Labs : Azure managed identities to deploy lab environments
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-devtest-labs-azure-managed-identities-to-deploy-lab-environments/
Introducing Azure Cost Management for partners
As a partner, you play a critical role in successful planning and managing long-term cloud implementations for your customers. While the cloud grants the flexibility to scale the cloud infrastructure to the changing needs, it does become challenging to control the spend when cloud costs can fluctuate dramatically with demand.
GitHub Actions for Azure is now generally available
GitHub Actions make it possible to create simple yet powerful workflows to automate software compilation and delivery integrated with GitHub. These actions, defined in YAML files, allow you to trigger an automated workflow process on any GitHub event, such as code commits, creation of Pull Requests or new GitHub Releases, and more.
Democratizing agriculture intelligence: introducing Azure FarmBeats
At Microsoft Ignite, we launched the preview of Azure FarmBeats, a purpose-built, industry-specific solution accelerator built on top of Azure to enable actionable insights from data.
Azure Migrate—Assessment of imported servers is now supported in preview
From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/assessment-of-imported-servers-now-supported-in-preview/>
by Sujit D'Mello
November 15, 2019
Senior PM Andrew Liu from the Azure Cosmos DB Team, is back on the show to share his passion for Cosmos DB and gives us all the service updates announced at Ignite 2019.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode305.mp3
Transcript: https://eus2.videoindexer.ai/accounts/e0eee289-7730-4999-978b-eb7f63be8cb5/videos/ce89868c53/?location=EUS2
Other updates:
Autoscale for Azure HDInsight is now generally available across all regions for Apache Spark and Hadoop workloads. This feature makes it possible to operate your big data analytics workloads in a more cost-efficient and productive way, so you can drive higher use of your HDInsight clusters and pay only for what you need.
Support is now available for up to 16 TB of storage and up to 20,000 IOPS in Azure Database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL.
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2019/11/07/new-in-azure-synapse-analytics-cicd-for-sql-analytics-using-sql-server-data-tools/
The highest requested feature for Azure Synapse Analytics is now available—SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) Database projects. This release includes support for SSDT with Visual Studio 2019, along with native platform integration with Azure DevOps, providing built-in continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) capabilities for enterprise level deployments.
by Cynthia Kreng
November 8, 2019
Partner Development Manager Rob Davies gives us insights into how we should optimize Azure resources in our subscriptions.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode304.mp3
Transcript: https://eus2.videoindexer.ai/accounts/e0eee289-7730-4999-978b-eb7f63be8cb5/videos/05e62b9782/?location=EUS2
Resources:
Nerdio’s overview of cloud Cost Models: https://getnerdio.com/academy/8-reasons-to-move-your-data-center-to-microsoft-azure/
US Datacenter Optimization (Rob’s team): https://aka.ms/usdco
Other updates:
Ignite announcements: https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/563/2019/11/Ignite-2019-Book-of-News.pdf 87 pages of announcements - 175 separate announcements!
Ignite sessions https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions
Enterprise Grade Hyperledger Fabric on AKS
https://forms.microsoft.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=v4j5cvGGr0GRqy180BHbR7qjd5hfTu5PodOg2ZvLp7BUMElGTFRCSjdaTzNGMzcwRjJDUUROVkYzUS4u
Blockchain Data Manager
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/blockchain/service/data-manager
Azure Blockchain Tokens
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/blockchain/tokens/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/tokenization-establishing-digital-representations-of-val-ue-as-the-medium-of-exchange/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/web-apps-migration-experience-now-available-in-azure-migrate/
New Azure Dav4-series and Eav4-series virtual machines (VMs) based on AMD EPYC™ are now available. They are ideal for general purpose and memory intensive workloads.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-kubernetes-service-aks-support-for-authenticated-ips-is-now-available/
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) support for authenticated IPs is now availableAzure Kubernetes Service (AKS) support for authenticated IPs is now availableAzure Kubernetes Service (AKS) support for authenticated IPs is now available
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-kubernetes-service-aks-support-for-azure-availability-zones-is-now-available/
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) support for Azure Availability Zones is now available
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-spot-vms-are-now-in-preview/
Azure generation 2 virtual machines (VMs) are now generally available
Azure Sphere will be generally available in February 2020. General availability will mark our readiness to fulfill our security promise at scale, and to put the power of Microsoft’s expertise to work for our customers every day.
Azure Sphere’s mission is to empower every organization on the planet to connect and create secured and trustworthy IoT devices. To deliver on this, we’ve made several strategic investments and partnerships that make it possible to meet our customers wherever they are on their IoT journey. General availability will be an important milestone for Azure Sphere as we continue our work to give our customers and partners greater opportunities to securely shape the future.
From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-sphere-announces-ga-timing-for-2020/>
Azure Serial Console is coming to Government Cloud, with the same functionality and same GUI.
by Evan Basalik
November 3, 2019
by Evan Basalik
October 27, 2019
Senior Azure PM Sumeet Mittal does an awesome job explaining the brand new and hotly anticipated feature, Azure Private Link.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode302.mp3
Transcript:
Resources:
Blog: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-azure-private-link/
Product page: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/private-link/
Documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/private-link/private-link-overview#availability
Other updates:
In the latest update of Azure DevOps, we've added user assignment-based billing. With this feature, the number of Basic or Basic + Test Plan licenses will change as you add or remove users. This means that you’ll only pay for the licenses you’re using. We’ve also added a new setting that lets you choose whether new users get full Basic access or limited/free Stakeholder access. See the list of new features for more information.
Managed instance, a deployment capability of Azure SQL Database, is transitioning from a manual to service-aided subnet configuration, now in preview.
SR-IOV availability schedule on NCv3 Virtual Machines SKU
Posted on Thursday, October 17, 2019
As part of Azure’s ongoing commitment to providing industry-leading performance, we are enabling support for all MPI types and versions, and RDMA verbs for InfiniBand-equipped virtual machines, beginning with NCv3 coming in early November 2019.
The upgrade WILL INVOLVE SERVER DOWNTIME on a regional basis and, if you intend to utilize the InfiniBand network using MPI, this REQUIRES AN UPDATE TO YOUR VMs. Please read the following post for full details. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/sr-iov-availability-schedule-on-ncv3-virtual-machines-sku/
Microsoft integrates OpenZeppelin Contracts into Microsoft Azure
https://blog.openzeppelin.com/microsoft-integrates-openzeppelin-contracts-into-microsoft-azure-vscode-plugin/
October 2019 unified Azure SDK preview
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/october-2019-unified-azure-sdk-preview/
Announcing the general availability of larger, more powerful standard file shares for Azure Files
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-general-availability-of-larger-more-powerful-standard-file-shares-for-azure-files/
Trusted Cloud: security, privacy, compliance, resiliency, and IP
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/trusted-cloud-security-privacy-compliance-resiliency-and-ip/
by Sujit D'Mello
October 17, 2019
Azure Security Specialist, Sarah Young, gives us the low-down on the new Azure Sentinel service which gives you a SIEM in Azure that watches over all of your enterprise.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode301.mp3
Transcript: https://eus2.videoindexer.ai/accounts/e0eee289-7730-4999-978b-eb7f63be8cb5/videos/2ad7063764/
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/azure-sentinel/
Other updates:
For the first time ever, you can register your self-installations of SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines with Resource Provider to unlock features and functionality previously only available with our Azure Marketplace images.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) managed identities integration is now available in preview. With managed identities, AKS now supports creating and using system-managed identities instead of service principals. Managed identities are essentially wrappers around service principals, making their management simpler.
From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/managed-identities-integration-in-azure-kubernetes-service-aks-is-now-in-preview/>
Private Preview - Azure Spring Cloud service
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/private-preview-azure-spring-cloud-service/
New output options in Azure Stream Analytics—SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server on VM
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/new-output-options-in-stream-analytics-managed-instance-and-sql-server-on-vm-as-output-targets-for-stream-analytics/
Measuring your return on investment of Azure as a compliance platform
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/measuring-your-return-on-investment-of-azure-as-a-compliance-platform/
Infura Now Natively Supported in the Azure Blockchain Development Kit for Ethereum
https://blog.infura.io/infura-now-natively-supported-in-the-azure-blockchain-development-kit-for-ethereum-430fb02f1c9b
Discover, develop, and deploy smart contracts faster with Blockchain Dev Kit updates
https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/10/08/microsoft-azure-blockchain-dev-kit-updates-ethereum-devcon/
Azure Monitor adds Worker Service SDK, new ASP.NET core metrics
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-monitor-adds-worker-service-sdk-new-asp-net-core-metrics/
by Evan Basalik
October 13, 2019
by Sujit D'Mello
October 5, 2019
by Cynthia Kreng
September 25, 2019
Senior Azure Storage PM Art Khlobystin talks to Cynthia, Evan and Sujit about the new HA/DR features in Azure Storage.
Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode298.mp3
Transcript: https://eus2.videoindexer.ai/accounts/e0eee289-7730-4999-978b-eb7f63be8cb5/videos/45e0433f0c/?location=EUS2
Towards the end of the show, Art briefly talks about the new upcoming Object Replication Service which would give customers the flexibility of replicating data across any regions of choice and not just the paired regions. He asks for any feedback/questions to be send to his email artek@microsoft.com or you can post to our Twitter handle @AzurePodcast and we will route it to the team. Thank you!
Other updates:
Azure Media Services Video Indexer supports detection, grouping, and recognition of characters in animated content.
Azure Advisor alerts are now in preview
From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-advisor-alerts-are-now-in-preview/>
Public Preview - Video Indexer Multilingual identification and transcription
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-video-indexer-multilingual-identification-and-transcription/
Public Preview - Video Indexer Animated Character Detection
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-video-indexer-animated-character-detection/
Azure CLI support for Azure HDInsight is now generally available. This enables administrators to easily manage their HDInsight clusters using simple Azure CLI commands.