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.

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Azure Sphere: New Linux Powered IoT Microcontroller

Microsoft announced the introduction of Azure Sphere, a new solution for creating highly-secured, internet connected micro controller devices. It combines Microsoft’s cloud expertise, software, and hardware devices to create a secured platform that starts with silicon and extends into the cloud. This is done by combining Azure Sphere MCUs (microcontrollers), Azure Sphere secured operating system (OS), and a turnkey cloud security service. All this is designed to provide you with “the confidence and power to reimagine your business and create the future.”

The operating system Microsoft chose for the new Azure Sphere “secured operating system” is Linux; not Windows. The reason is not that Linux might be more secure than Windows. Presumably, the reason Microsoft chose Linux is more to do with the fact that most IoT device platforms are powered by Linux rather than Microsofts Windows 10 IoT Core operating system. So, to compete better in the IoT MCU space, they likely needed to choose Linux. Although, it’s not stated that Linux will be the only option, so we’ll see if Windows 10 IoT Core make an appearance in the Azure Sphere space some time in the future.

You can learn more about Azure Sphere here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/azure-sphere/

The Weeks Top Links

Here are some of the most notable links from the week:

Using Chocolatey with Azure VMs by Dan Patrick
Supreme Court drops Microsoft data privacy case, but the battle isn’t over via ZDNet
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 116 – Easily Upload and download Azure dashboards by Michael Crump
Microsoft Azure Sphere and teaching students about the next generation of security for MicroControllers by Lee Stott
Azure Service Fabric – announcing Reliable Services on Linux and RHEL support by Subramanian Ramaswamy
Microsoft offers limited-time 30 percent discount on SQL Server on Linux via ZDNet
How to disable/enable HTTP/2, Azure App Service by Benjamin Perkins
Gartner recognizes Microsoft as a leader in enterprise integration by Jon Fancey
Azure DDoS Protection for virtual networks generally available by Anupam Vij, JR Mayberry
Microsoft brings AI-powered translation to end users and developers, whether you’re online or offline by Microsoft Translator
Announcing new GPUs in Azure Government with NV-Series by Kyle Deeds
Announcing the launch of Azure M-series VMs with up to 4TB RAM in USGov Virginia region by Kyle Deeds
Transparent Data Encryption with customer managed keys in Azure SQL Database generally available by Alice Kupcik
App Service and Functions hosted apps can now update TLS versions! by Oded Dvoskin
Announcing new Azure Security Center capabilities at RSA 2018 by Gilad Elyashar

Azure Service Updates

Here’s a list of the Microsoft Azure Service Updates from over the past week:

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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)

Lesson Learned #41: Using VNET with Azure SQL Database by Jose M Jurado
How to Add the OMS Client to a VM Scale Set by Tim Omta
Azure Backup now supports storage accounts secured with Azure Storage Firewalls and Virtual Networks by Sonia Gupta
Azure DDoS Protection for virtual networks generally available by Anupam Vij, JR Mayberry
Recovery Services vault limit increased to 500 vaults per subscription per region by Sonia Gupta
Faster & Bigger Azure Backup for Azure VMs by Aidann Finn

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

FHIR Server in Azure (PaaS) by Michael S. Hansen
Reverse Proxy with Basic Authentication in Azure Web App by Michael S. Hansen
Make changes to Azure App Service setting using Postman by Benjamin Perkins
How to disable/enable HTTP/2, Azure App Service by Benjamin Perkins
Azure API Management Release notes – April 18, 2018 by Vlad Vinogradsky
Web Server Logging, IIS logs, deployment slots and swaps by Benjamin Perkins
App Service and Functions hosted apps can now update TLS versions! by Oded Dvoskin
iTop (ITSM) in Azure Web App with AAD Authentication by Michael S. Hansen

Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)

Gartner recognizes Microsoft as a leader in enterprise integration by Jon Fancey
Using HTTPS with Azure Functions in local development by Christos Matskas
App Service and Functions hosted apps can now update TLS versions! by Oded Dvoskin

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Dynamics 365 – Prospect to Cash Integration by Rojy Thomas
Authenticate with Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations web services in on-premise by Tariq Bell
Cumulative Update 42 for Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 has been released by navteam
What’s new in portal capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 version 8.4.1 by 365blog

Command-Line / ARM Templates

Using Chocolatey with Azure VMs by Dan Patrick
Using VSTS API with PowerShell to scaffold Team Projects by Art Garcia
Deploying Linked ARM Templates with VSTS by ddeeb
Preview: programmatically create Azure enterprise subscriptions using ARM APIs by John Lian

Database / Big Data

Migrating MongoDB databases from Mongo Lab to Cosmos DB by Ali Mazaheri
Configure Alerts for a Hung/Stuck SQL Agent Job step by Pooja Kamath
Microsoft offers limited-time 30 percent discount on SQL Server on Linux via ZDNet
Microsoft Azure Data Bricks–Collaborative Apache Spark Analytics Platform by Lee Stott
Python Version in Databricks by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon
Spring Data Azure Cosmos DB: NoSQL data access on Azure by Yitao Dong
Released: Microsoft Azure SQL Database Management Pack (7.0.4.0) by SQL Server Engineering Team
Issues and Resolutions in starting R and R Server on SQL Server 2017 by Jen Stirrup
Transparent Data Encryption with customer managed keys in Azure SQL Database generally available by Alice Kupcik
Iterative development and debugging using Data Factory by Gaurav Malhotra

Internet of Things (IoT)

Microsoft Azure Sphere and teaching students about the next generation of security for MicroControllers by Lee Stott
Automating Industrial IoT Security by Erich Barnstedt
New IoT security solutions showcase Microsoft’s commitment to trust by Sam George
Thinking About Azure Sphere and Licensing (Premium) by Paul Thurrott
Did Microsoft Choose Linux Because It’s More Secure Than Windows? (Premium) by Paul Thurrott
Introducing Microsoft Azure Sphere: Secure and power the intelligent edge by Galen Hunt
Microsoft introduces Azure Sphere for securing IoT devices via ZDNet
Microsoft’s Next OS is Based on Linux, Not Windows by Paul Thurrott

Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

Azure Bot Function by Prashant Pratap
Connecting Your Azure Bots with QnA Maker Services by Abhijit Jana
Deploying Deep Learning Models on Kubernetes with GPUs by Mathew Salvaris, Fidan Boylu Uz
Microsoft brings AI-powered translation to end users and developers, whether you’re online or offline by Microsoft Translator

Development and DevOps

Release Flow: How We Do Branching on the VSTS Team by Edward Thomson
What’s new in VSTS Sprint 132 Update by Alex Nichols
Learn to interact with Azure services through code – Azure Code Samples by Abhijit Jana
Creating an Azure VM Scale Set from a legacy, file-sharing, ASP.NET app by Richard Seroter
Power BI and VSTS – Integration made easy by Romi Kolfman
Deploying Your Dockerized Angular Application To Azure Using VSTS – Part 2 by Wael Kdouh

Containers / Service Fabric

Running Docker Windows and Linux Containers Simultaneously by Premier Developer
Azure Service Fabric – announcing Reliable Services on Linux and RHEL support by Subramanian Ramaswamy
Service Fabric 6.2 Release by Service Fabric Team
TWO NEW AZURECAT EBOOKS: Build and Deploy a Multi-Container Application (Service Fabric & Azure Container Service) by Ed Price
Docker Blog Series Part 6 – How to use Service Fabric Reverse Proxy for container services by Monu Bambroo
Building Microservices with AKS and VSTS — Part 4 by Andreas Helland
Azure Developer – Now Service Fabric is going open source by Deva

Security / Privacy

Azure Key Vault connected service in Visual Studio 2017 by Abhijit Jana
How to find the Global Admin for your Azure AD tenant by friis[at]microsoft.com
Query String is not allowed in redirect_uri for Azure AD by Bac Hoang
Announcing new Azure Security Center capabilities at RSA 2018 by Gilad Elyashar
The 3 ways Azure improves your security by Arpan Shah
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 115 – Remove Azure Secrets committed to GitHub by Michael Crump
Streamlining GDPR requests with the Azure portal by Tom Keane

Learning / Certification

Building your own educational visualisation learning platform with .Net Core & Azure by David Buchanan
I’m Certified in Big Data by Thomas LaRock

Azure Government

Announcing new GPUs in Azure Government with NV-Series by Kyle Deeds
Announcing the launch of Azure M-series VMs with up to 4TB RAM in USGov Virginia region by Kyle Deeds

Events

Azure CosmosDB, Azure Data Lake Analytics and R sessions at Microsoft Data and BI Summit BA by Jen Stirrup
Microsoft at PostgresConf US 2018 by Rohan Kumar
Thinking About Build and the Future by Paul Thurrott

Other

Supreme Court drops Microsoft data privacy case, but the battle isn’t over via ZDNet
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 116 – Easily Upload and download Azure dashboards by Michael Crump
How to quickly refer all available Azure services? by Abbhijit Jana
Altair democratizes access to computer-aided engineering with Azure by Ben Cotton
A new challenge: Joining the “AI for Earth” team at Microsoft by jennmar
Azure Marketplace new offers in March 2018 by Christine Alford
Azure Solution Reference Architectures by Abhijit Jana
Lots of New Region News in Azure by Aidan Finn
First week as a Microsoft Regional Director – what did I learn? by Jen Stirrup

Videos

Here are links to some of the videos that have been posted over the past week:

Deploy Bitnami Node.js HA Cluster with Azure Cosmos DB | Azure Friday via Channel 9
Microsoft Build 2018: Seattle Eats | Microsoft Build 2018 via Channel 9
Moving your Data Warehouse to the Cloud | The DevOps Lab via Channel 9
Deploy Bitnami Node.js HA Cluster with Azure Cosmos DB via Azure Friday
Using resource tokens with Azure Cosmos DB | On .NET via Channel 9
LearnAI-Bootcamp for Emerging AI Developers: Computer Vision API, Custom Vision Service, LUIS [Part 1/2] | AI Show via Channel 9
Episode 14: Five Things About IndexedDB | Five Things via Channel 9
Retry logic in device SDKs for Azure IoT Hub | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
Continuous integration and deployment using Azure Data Factory | Azure Friday via Channel 9
Part 2 of 4: Use Azure Resource Manager to create managed Kubernetes cluster | The Open Source Show via Channel 9
Guillermo Bellman on Azure Service Fabric by David Giard

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 225 – Azure CXP via The Azure Podcast
Episode 59 – Azure Network Security via Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast
Episode 247 | Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Listener Questions and Picks! via Microsoft Cloud Show

General Cloud / Related

Here’s some noteworthy links about Cloud computing and other related topics that aren’t necessarily specific to Microsoft Azure:

Microsoft makes Windows Defender anti-phishing plugin available for Chrome via ZDNet
Docker Inevitably Embraces Kubernetes Container Orchestration by Timothy Prickett Morgan
Running Docker on Docker Enterprise Edition 2.0 by Brett Inman
Announcing Docker Enterprise Edition 2.0 by Vivek Saraswat
Apple Expands Its Machine Learning Hub in Downtown Seattle by Joe Rossignol

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About the Author

Chris Pietschmann

Chris Pietschmann is a Microsoft MVP, HashiCorp Ambassador, and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) with 20+ years of experience designing and building Cloud & Enterprise systems. He has worked with companies of all sizes from startups to large enterprises. He has a passion for technology and sharing what he learns with others to help enable them to learn faster and be more productive.