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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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)

Accelerated Spark on GPU-enabled clusters in Azure by JS Tan
Zone Redundant Virtual Machine Scale Sets now available in public preview by Neil Gat
Announcing integration of Azure Backup into VM create experience by Trinadh Kotturu
Comprehensive monitoring for Azure Site Recovery now generally available by Bharath Sivaraman
Start replicating in under 30 minutes using Azure Site Recovery’s new onboarding experience by Anoop K. Vasudavan
Keeping your environment secure with Update Management by Zach Alexander
Azure-Linux VM Can’t SSH by Tzachi Elkabatz
Azure-Linux VM -Configure A Partition Larger Then 2 TB. by Tzachi Elkabatz

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Azure Tips and Tricks Part 86 – Deleting an item from a Azure Storage Table by Michael Crump
Moving files into blob storage by Simon Foster
TLS on Azure App Services by Benjamin Perkins
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 84 – Reading an item from an Azure Storage Table by Michael Crump
Launching the Azure Storage Solution showcase by Karl Rautenstrauch
Azure Zone Redundant Storage in public preview by Dinesh Murthy
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 85 – Updating an item from a Azure Storage Table by Michael Crump
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 83 – Adding an item to a Azure Storage Table by Michael Crump
Azure Tips and Tricks Part 82 – Creating your first Azure Storage Table by Michael Crump

Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)

Import directive and Logic Apps SOAP connector by David Burg
Original Run Vs Resubmitted Run in Logic apps by Shashidharan Krishnan
Debugging C# (.NET Core) Azure Functions with VS Code by Christos Matskas
Azure Storage for Serverless .NET Apps in Minutes by Jeremy Likness
Azure Media Functions (Server-less Functions) by k.moussa
Monitoring issues on Stack Overflow with serverless, CosmosDB and Teams by Shayne Boyer
Savill’s FAQs: Exploring Azure Files Sync Features by John Savill

Software as a Service (SaaS)

How can PowerApps and Microsoft Flow allow your Power Users to quickly build Enterprise Mobile Apps video and slides are available at Integration Monday by Sandro Pereira
Cannot get Microsoft Teams @mentions to work? by ChengBinTham
The Director Role and Offloading Authentication in Skype for Business 2015 by Byron Spurlock

Command-Line / ARM Templates

PowerShell to list all Azure AD Apps with expiration dates by Srinivas Varukala
Azure Web App with Let’s Encrypt Certificate – Powershell Automation by Michael S. Hansen
Powershell to delete deployments from the Azure Resource Group by Nikita Agarwal
What Root Certificates exist on an Azure App Service, CA Root by Benjamin Perkins

Database / Big Data

Integrate Power BI Dashboards, Reports and Tiles into a WPF Application by Rob Reilly
Azure Notebooks Overview with Shahrokh Mortazavi Free hosted Jupyter Python/R/F# REPL for learning by Lee Stott
From unstructured data to dashboard with Azure Data Factory and Azure Data Lake by Matt Basile
Connecting Azure Cosmos DB with Azure Storage Explorer by using Connection String by Abhijit Jana
Azure Cosmos DB Performance – Throughput by Howard Edidin
Working with Azure Storage Explorer for Azure Cosmos DB by Abhijit Jana
How to restore Azure SQL DW GeoBackup across Azure subscriptions.. by Visual Studio Geeks
Azure Databricks – Spark SQL – Data Frames by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon
Accelerate innovation with Microsoft Azure Databricks by Will Mendoza
Accessing The Power BI APIs in a Federated Azure AD Setup by Andreas Helland

Internet of Things (IoT)

Working with Azure IoT data in Azure SQL Database by Jovan Popovic
Farmers improve management and crop yields with IoT by Jerry Lee
New Features in Visual Studio Code IoT Edge Extension 0.1.3 & IoT Toolkit 0.5.0 by Xinyi Zhang

Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

Cognitive Services – Availability of SDKs for the latest Bing Search APIs by Ronak Shah
Programming the Microsoft Bot Framework Errata by Kim Spilker
No response from bot emulator after the new update to Bot Framework/Azure Bot Service? by ChengBinTham
Finding QnAKnowledgebaseId and QnASubscriptionKey to configure the new Azure Bot Service by knethteo
Custom Vision Service: Code-Free Automated Machine Learning for Image Classification via Cortana Intelligence and ML Blog Team
Care and Feeding of Predictive Maintenance Solutions via Cortana Intelligence and ML Blog Team
Data Science Virtual Machine | AI Show via Channel 9
CustomVision.AI: Code-free automated machine learning for image classification by Joseph Sirosh
Machine Learning: An Introduction by Rahul Sahasrabuddhe

Development and DevOps

What I learned about Microsoft doing DevOps: The end result by WouterDeKort
GitHub Issues – As a deployment gate in VSTS Release Management by Visual Studio Geeks
DevOps for Data Science – Load Testing and Auto-Scale by BuckWoody
A Microservices implementation journey — Part 2 by Aram Koukia
Microsoft DevOps tools win Tool Challenge @ Software Quality Days by Gerwald Oberleitner

Azure Stack

Compliance assessment reports for Azure Stack are now available by Filippo Seracini
Microsoft Shields Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Users from Patent Trolls by Christine Hall

Security

Accessing The Power BI APIs in a Federated Azure AD Setup by Andreas Helland
Savill’s FAQs: Azure Files Sync and Change Control for Group Policy by John Savill
Serious about cloud security? Check out this new training on Azure Security Center by Matthew Calder
Why did we built User Access Policy to Manage BizTalk Server Security? by Saravana Kumar

Learning / Certification

Microsoft Professional Program Adds IT Support for 6 Tracks to Choose! by Chris Pietschmann
New book: Exam Ref 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions, Second Edition by Kim Spilker

Containers and Service Fabric

New eBook: Kubernetes objects on Microsoft Azure by Ed Price

Blockchain

Open Source Book: Programming the Blockchain in C# by Chris Pietschmann
Getting Started with Ethereum using Azure Blockchain by Mike Finley
Blockchain IoT Security: The Enduring Importance of Trust by Brian Buntz
Blockchain IoT Security: An Interview with Xage’s CEO by Brian Buntz

Events

Earn a Microsoft certification with Prodigy Learning @ BETT, 2018 by Kristy Hill

Other

Improving On-Demand Data Protection with the Public Cloud via IT Pro
Azure Standard support now offers the highest value support for production workloads amongst major cloud providers via Microsoft Azure Blog
Microsoft cuts Azure Standard support from $300 to $100 per month via ZDNet
ITSM Connector for Azure is now generally available by Shankar Sivadasan
Azure Search enterprise security: Data encryption and user-identity access control by Liam Cavanagh
Understanding and Configuring Azure Communications by Jeff Sanders
Last week in Azure: New visual tools for Data Factory, and more by Rob Caron
Data Connector SDK and Partner Center by Isaiah Williams
Solution SLAs in Azure by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon

Videos

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

Machine Learning in IoT solutions | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
H20.ai on Azure HDInsight | Data Exposed via Channel 9
Part 2/8 An introduction to Azure IoT through the new Remote Monitoring Preconfigured Solution | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
Corey Talks with Microsoft Solutions Providers: Datacom Systems, Hanu and New Signature | Tuesdays With Corey via Channel 9
Cask CDAP on Azure HDInsight | Data Exposed via Channel 9
Spring Boot with VS Code and Azure | Azure Friday by Donovan Brown, Rob Caron
Azure Notebooks | Azure Friday via Channel 9
IoT extension for Azure CLI | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
Spring Boot with VS Code and Azure via Azure Friday
Jim Christopher on Data Science 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 213 – Azure Dev using Windows Subsystem for Linux via The Azure Podcast
Programming for Girls with Jennifer Wadella via .NET Rocks!
Episode 235 | GCP & Office 365 Cloud News Catchup 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:

Startup Builds GPU Native Custom Neural Network Framework by Nicole Hemsoth
It’s About Time For Time Series Databases by Timothy Prickett Morgan
These 6 Female MVPs Talk About The Power Of Networking via MVP Award Program
Enterprises will spend $7 trillion on digital transformation by 2021 by John Koetsier
Get storage for your Severless Functions with Minio & Docker by Alex Ellis
Google’s Vision for Mainstreaming Machine Learning by Jeffrey Burt

Feedback

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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.