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!

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)

Instant File Recovery from Azure VM backups is now generally available by Kartik P V R
Windows Server 2016 – Nano Server and how it has changed already by Andrew Nathan

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

General availability of Storage Service Encryption and “Secure transfer required” by Kyle Deeds
Azure Content Spotlight – Azure Mobile App by chilberto
Add Routes to an Azure Web App Integrated with a VNET by Jeremy Brooks
Mapping a custom naked domain to your Azure App Service by Benjamin Perkins
Azure Application Gateway Anatomy by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon

Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)

Using Azure Functions, Cosmos DB and Powerapps to build, deploy and consume Serverless Apps by Srikantan
Calling Azure Cosmos DB Graph API from Azure Functions by Srikantan
Calling Azure Functions from XSLT map in Logic Apps by Vinay Singh
Azure Logic Apps Release Update 2017-07-14 by Jeff Hollan
Commuting Stats with Azure Functions and Azure Data Lake by Andreas Helland
Using TypeScript in Azure Functions via AzureServerless

Command Line

Resolving Azure ARM REST API Versions Conflict In ARM Templates by Pam Lahoud

Azure Stack

Microsoft Azure Stack Development Kit by Lee Stott
Deploy Azure Stack Development Kit on an Azure VM by Florent Appointaire

Database / Big Data

Artificial Intelligence tunes Azure SQL Databases by Veljko Vasic
Tableau and Azure SQL DB, a match made in the cloud by Joseph Sack
Resumable Online Index Rebuild is in public preview for Azure SQL DB by Mirek Sztajno
Database Scoped Global Temporary Tables in public preview for Azure SQL DB by Mirek Sztajno
MEAN and Cosmos DB – Part 1: Introduction by John Papa
MEAN and Cosmos DB – Part 2: Node.js and Express by John Papa
MEAN and Cosmos DB – Part 3: Angular and Express APIs by John Papa
MEAN and Cosmos DB – Part 4: Creating and Deploying Cosmos DB by John Papa
MEAN and Cosmos DB – Part 5: Querying Cosmos DB by John Papa
Building Azure Stream Analytics Resources via ARM Templates – Part 2 – The Template. by Dave The Engineer
Using External data with Azure Jupyter Notebooks by Lee Stott
Managing Loan Credit Risk using Microsoft R Server by Bharath Sankaranarayan
Azure Data Lake Tools for Visual Studio Code (VSCode) July updates by Jenny Jiang
Getting started with R by Lee Stott
How to check connectivity to Azure SQL DB by Yochanan Rachamim

Internet of Things (IoT)

Bing Map v8 available in Azure IoT Suite Remote Monitoring preconfigured solution by Sam George
‘Raspberry Pi Web Client Simulator’ Running on Microsoft @Azure | #IoTuesday via Adafruit Industries
Book Review – IoT Solutions in Microsoft’s Azure IoT Suite (Apress) by Ken Cenerelli

Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft Azure – Artificial Intelligence Data Science Stack by Lee Stott
Getting Started with Data Science using Cortana Intelligence Solutions Templates by Lee Stott
Build custom video AI workflows with Video Indexer and Logic Apps by Anika Zaman
Setting Up Continuous Integration for Azure Bot Service by Abhijit Jana

Development

Using React and building a web site on Azure by Lee Stott
Create Bot for Microsoft Graph with DevOps 15: BotBuilder features – LUIS Dialog 101 by Kenichiro Nakamura
How to Track Impediments in VSTS by Pam Lahoud
Linking Team Services (VSTS) accounts with your Azure account for Continuous Integration by Abhijit Jana
Walkthrough–Add Azure Web App to Visual Studio Team Services by Jeff Sanders
Improved package support in Team Build by Alex Mullans
Extending MSTest V2 by Pratap Lakshman
Moving workflows to Visual Studio Code by Lee Stott
The fastest path to a new Team Services extension by Will Smythe

Certification / Learning

Microsoft Professional Program data science capstone: students helping students via Microsoft Learning

Containers and Service Fabric

Docker on Windows Webinar Q&A by Elton Stoneman
Docker Containers and Windows by Lee Stott

Events

Microsoft BizTalk Server Webinar Series – Configuring BizTalk 2016 with SQL Always On Cluster on Azure by Shailesh Agre

Security

How Azure Security Center helps protect your servers with Web Application Firewall by Hayden Hainsworth
Sharing Power BI Apps with AAD Security Groups by Charles Sterling

Other

Use Microsoft Graph API to reach on-premises, cloud users of hybrid Exchange 2016 by Deva
Introducing the Azure Analysis Services web designer by Bret Grinslade
Introducing Enterprise Smart Contracts by Marley Gray
Microsoft Flow the Concept – Industrial Project Summary by Lee Stott
Azure Cyber Analytics Program for Power and Utilities Customers by Larry Cochrane

Videos

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

Azure Analysis Services with Azure SQL DB and Data Warehouse via Azure Friday
DEVintersection Countdown Show on the Evolution of the Cloud with Scott Guthrie | The DEVintersection Countdown Show by Cameron Tomisser

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 188 – Ready via The Azure Podcast
Episode 204 | Azure Stack, Microsoft Reorg, Microsoft 365 and More News! via Microsoft Cloud Show
Windows Containers with Steve Lasker via .NET Rocks!

General Cloud / Related

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

The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide – Get it NOW! by John Sonmez
With hundreds of choices, how can you pick an IoT platform? by Cate Lawrence
Live Coding on Twitch for a year with Suz Hinton via Hanselminutes
Microsoft’s ‘commercial cloud’ services gain steam via ZDNet
Protected: SUSE’s Linux distros for WSL now available in the Windows Store by Rich Turner
A Windows 10 smart thermostat is coming from Johnson Controls via ZDNet
CircuitPython 1.0.0! via Adafruit Industries
On The (Perceived) Value of EV Certs, Commercial CAs, Phishing and Let’s Encrypt by Troy Hunt
How to become known within your Industry: Show Up. Contribute. Share. via Sonia Cuff
The best way to learn Docker for Free: Play-With-Docker (PWD) by Victor Coisne

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.

The types of feedback I’m looking for are:

What do you like?
What do you dislike?
What would you change?
What would you add?

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.

Alternatively, you can join the Build Azure Slack Group as well.

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.