Do you find it difficult to keep up-to-date on the frequent updates and changes in the Microsoft Azure cloud? If so, Build Azure Weekly is the solution you’ve been looking for! Build Azure Weekly is a weekly newsletter that includes all the latest Microsoft Azure Service Updates from the week in addition to links to many other blog articles, podcasts and videos from all over the Internet.
If you want to receive the newsletter in your email every week, then you’ll absolutely want to Subscribe!
Azure Availability Zones goes GA in Select Regions
Azure Availability Zones offer the ability to build mission-critical applications in a more highly-available manner within a single Azure Region by spreading your workload across multiple Zones within a single Azure Region.
To get an overview of what Availability Zones are and how to use them, I encourage you to read the “Azure Availability Zones” by Build Azure’s own Dan Patrick.
The addition of Azure Availability Zones bring with it an update to the SLA (service-level agreement) when hosting Virtual Machines (VMs) to offer a 99.99% SLA guarantee for VMs within Azure using Availability Zones!
The Weeks Top Links
Here are some of the most notable links from the week:
- #GlobalAzure Bootcamp 2018 by Magnus Martensson
- Azure Availability Zones now available for the most comprehensive resiliency strategy by Tom Keane
- Azure Content Spotlight – Virtual Machine Serial Console (Preview) by Sjoukje Zaal
- Announcing the Availability of Azure Functions in National Clouds by Asavari Tayal
- The new Azure Load Balancer – 10x scale increase by Yousef Khalidi
- Yes, Microsoft is Racing to a $1 Trillion Market Cap Too by Paul Thurrott
- Azure SQL Data Warehouse now generally available in all Azure regions worldwide by Ayo Olubeko
- Deployment Groups is now generally available: sharing of targets and more… by Roopesh Nair
- Soft delete for Azure Storage Blobs now in public preview by Michael Hauss
- Announcing the general availability of Azure Files share snapshot by Rena Shah
- Big data, IoT, blockchain, Xamarin all on the Microsoft Build 2018 agenda via ZDNet
- Learn from experts and play with emerging tech at Microsoft Build via Microsoft Azure Blog
- Enable SAP NCo library logging/tracing for Azure On-Premises Data Gateway and the SAP Connector by David Burg
- Announcing Azure Service Health general availability – configure your alerts today by Dushyant Gill
- Project Denali to define flexible SSDs for cloud-scale applications by Laura Caulfield
Azure Service Updates
Here’s a list of the Microsoft Azure Service Updates from over the past week:
- Public preview: Virtual machine serial console
- Public preview: Soft delete for Azure Storage blobs
- Azure SDK for Go v15 is available
- Public preview: Event Hubs for Go
- March update for Azure IoT Edge
- General availability: Azure Availability Zones in select regions
- General availability: Zone-redundant storage
- General availability: Application security groups in all Azure regions
- General availability: Azure Network Watcher Connection Monitor in all public regions
- General availability: Global VNet Peering
Monthly Sponsor
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Blog Articles
Here’s a collection of some of the most note worthy blog articles posted over the past week:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
- Secure your backups, not just your data! by Aruna Somendra
- Azure Availability Zones now available for the most comprehensive resiliency strategy by Tom Keane
- Azure Content Spotlight – Virtual Machine Serial Console (Preview) by Sjoukje Zaal
- Azure Application Gateway uses the Load Balancer by David-Sanchez
- The new Azure Load Balancer – 10x scale increase by Yousef Khalidi
- Azure Monitor–General availability of multi-dimensional metrics APIs by Anirudh Cavale
- Enable SAP NCo library logging/tracing for Azure On-Premises Data Gateway and the SAP Connector by David Burg
- Open Sourcing a WSL Sample for Linux Distribution Maintainers and Sideloading Custom Linux Distributions by Tara Raj
- Virtual Machine Serial Console access by Corey Sanders
- Project Denali to define flexible SSDs for cloud-scale applications by Laura Caulfield
- Encrypting Data Disks on Linux with Azure Disk Encryption by ejarvi
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
- Get a look at the Bing Maps Fleet Management APIs on April 3 by Bing Team
- Soft delete for Azure Storage Blobs now in public preview by Michael Hauss
- Announcing the general availability of Azure Files share snapshot by Rena Shah
- Get Community driven Docker images for Web app for Containers by mksunitha
- Uploading Files from On-Prem File System to Azure Blob Storage Using ADF V2 by Ben Jarvis
Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)
- Announcing the Availability of Azure Functions in National Clouds by Asavari Tayal
Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Security Assessment using Office 365 Secure Score by Isaiah Williams
Command-Line / ARM Templates
- How to Check Your Azure Management Tools Version by ejarvi
- Deployment Pipelines For Versioned Azure Resource Manager Template Deployments by Peter Groenewegen
- Azure Subscription Management with Resource Providers by Martynas Valkunas
- Overcoming the maximum limit for deployments per Resource Group by Radoslav Gatev
Database / Big Data
- Azure Event Hubs Geo-DR configurations, now enabled in all Azure regions by Shubha Vijayasarathy
- How Catania secures public data with Azure SQL Data Warehouse by Kuber Sharma
- Power BI Tricks, Tips and Tools from the owners of PowerBI.Tips Mike Carlo and Seth Bauer by Charles Sterling
- New SQL Graph Features in Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2017 by Shreya Verma
- Azure SQL Data Warehouse now generally available in all Azure regions worldwide by Ayo Olubeko
- Preview: SQL Database Transparent Data Encryption with Azure Key Vault configuration checklist by Alice Kupcik
- Azure vs. AWS Analytics and Big Data Services Comparison by Thomas LaRock
- You Are Not Data-Driven by Thomas LaRock
- Implementation patterns for big data and data warehouse on Azure by Matt Goswell
- New metrics for Queues and Topics emitted by Ch. Wolf
- Using the first job run to optimize subsequent runs with Azure Data Lake job AU analyzer by Jie Su
- Lesson Learned #37: How to use distributed transactions in Azure SQL Database by Jose M Jurado
- Lesson Learned #38: Which is the impact using connection pooling in my application by Jose M Jurado
Internet of Things (IoT)
- 3 intelligent manufacturing IoT trends to watch out for at HMI 2018 by Colin Masson
- How to get support for Azure IoT SDK by Yi Zhong
- 3 misperceptions vs. reality of using IoT in manufacturing by Colin Masson
Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence
- How AI is helping solve our biggest environmental challenges by Microsoft Cloud Perspectives Blog Team
- How to build a chat bot in 10 minutes by Natalie Afshar
- Using artificial intelligence to analyze roads by Ben Cotton
- How to train, large scale, state of the art, neural networks on the Microsoft Data Science VM by Lee Stott
- Training Many Anomaly Detection Models using Azure Batch AI by Said Bleik
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Primer by Justin Henriksen
- Using Microsoft Azure Video Indexer by Greg Oliver
- BigDL Spark deep learning library VM now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace by Christine Alford
Development and DevOps
- What’s new in VSTS Sprint 131 Update by Alex Nichols
- Azure Tips and Tricks Part 109 – Day 8 – An end to end scenario with Azure App Service, API Apps, SQL, VSTS and CI/CD by Michael Crump
- VSTS/TFS Continuous Deployment to App Service Environment (ASE) after Disabling TLS 1.0 by Michael S. Hansen
- Adding support for Debug Adapters to Visual Studio IDE by Visual Studio Blog
- Azure Tips and Tricks Part 108 – Day 7 – An end to end scenario with Azure App Service, API Apps, SQL, VSTS and CI/CD by Michael Crump
- Deployment Groups is now generally available: sharing of targets and more… by Roopesh Nair
- Migrating from Xamarin Test Cloud to App Center Test by Donovan Brown
- Granular VSTS/TFS Deployment Privileges using Service Principals by Michael S. Hansen
- Codefresh+Azure: DevOps, Kubernetes, Helm Webinar by Jessica Deen
- Manage Web.config Values between Environments in Release Management and TFS by Eric Parvin
Containers / Service Fabric
- Create Service Fabric Clusters from Visual Studio now available by Cristy Gonzalez
- Building Microservices with AKS and VSTS — Part 1 by Andreas Helland
- Service Fabric 6.1 Refresh Three Release by Service Fabric Team
Security
- Deadline extended for connecting VSTS accounts to AzureAD by Justin Marks
- Talk: Running Securely On Azure by Bill Wilder
- How to connect to an AD Domain Secured SQL Server from a non-domain PC by nrogoff
Learning / Certification
- How to Think About Exam Preparation in This New World by Liberty Munson
Azure Government
- Dynatrace Managed Instance now available for Azure Government by Sarah Weldon
- The Azure Government Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) program keeps growing by Todor Batchvarov
Events
- #GlobalAzure Bootcamp 2018 by Magnus Martensson
- Big data, IoT, blockchain, Xamarin all on the Microsoft Build 2018 agenda via ZDNet
- Learn from experts and play with emerging tech at Microsoft Build via Microsoft Azure Blog
Other
- Microsoft Windows Gets a New Leader by Mehedi Hassan
- Microsoft Opens up the Windows Subsystem for Linux to All Developers by Mahedi Hassan
- Yes, Microsoft is Racing to a $1 Trillion Market Cap Too by Paul Thurrott
- Announcing Azure Service Health general availability – configure your alerts today by Dushyant Gill
- A Microservices implementation journey — Part 6 by Aram Koukia
- Support for tags in cost management APIs is now available by Vinod Kurpad
- Why a developer should build a solution with microservices by Gaurav Aroraa
- Essential tools and services for building mobile apps y Rob Caron
Videos
Here are links to some of the videos that have been posted over the past week:
- Introduction to GVFS | Level Up via Channel 9
- Azure IoT Hub features for device management | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
- Episode 11: Five Things About Deploying a React App | Five Things via Channel 9
- Azure SQL Data Warehouse Costs vs AWS Redshift by Thomas LaRock
- Operationalization of ML model using Azure ML and Kubernetes cluster [Part 4/4] | AI Show via Channel 9
- Unit Testing your Database Changes | The DevOps Lab via Channel 9
- TPM Based Authentication For IoT Devices | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
- Introduction to the Microsoft AI Platform by Buck Woody
- Azure Serial Console | Tuesdays With Corey via Channel 9
- How quantum physics can make encryption stronger | Vikram Sharma via TED Talks Daily
- Part 3 of 4: Create a Web App for Containers and set up a web hook | The Open Source Show via Channel 9
- Cloud scale events with Azure Event Grid | On .NET via Channel 9
- Azure Virtual Machine Serial Console via Azure Friday
- Debugging and Diagnostics of Durable Functions | On .NET via Channel 9
- Azure + Visual Studio + Xamarin = Great Mobile Apps | Azure Friday via Channel 9
Audio / Podcasts
To complete the collection of different mediums to allow you to consume your Azure news / info in any way you want, here’s a list of the podcasts released this week:
- Episode 56 – An Overview of Azure Security Center via Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast
- Episode 244 | Developer Surveys & Azure Stream Analytics via Microsoft Cloud Show
- Episode 222 – Azure Portal Update via The Azure Podcast
General Cloud / Related
Here’s some noteworthy links about Cloud computing and other related topics that aren’t necessarily specific to Microsoft Azure:
- Au revoir via Docker Blog by Solomon Hykes
- Have I Been Pwned is Now Partnering With 1Password by Troy Hunt
- Command line “tab” completion for .NET Core CLI in PowerShell or bash by Scott Hanselman
- Serverless: Databases with OpenFaaS and Mongo by Alex Ellis
- Announcing TypeScript 2.8 by Daniel Rosenwasser
- Google Loses Java Copyright Case, Could Owe Billions by Paul Thurrott
- Nvidia’s DGX-2 System Packs An AI Performance Punch by Timothy Prickett Morgan
- Nvidia Memory Switch Welds Together Massive Virtual GPU by Timothy Prickett Morgan
- Video Series: Modernizing Java Apps for Developers Part 3 by Sophia Parafina
- The Future of Programming GPU Supercomputers by Nicole Hemsoth
- Docker Proxies and DNS containers by Simon J.K. Pedersen
- What It Takes to Get Into IoT Development by Nathan Sykes
Feedback
Do you have any suggestions or general feedback on the Build Azure Weekly blog series? Please contact me and send it on over! Or tweet it over to @BuildAzure.
Please feel free to reach out and let me know your feedback on the Build Azure Weekly series. I post this weekly post as a service to others and really want to make it the best it can be.
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