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!

Build Azure is Growing!

It’s been an amazing nearly 3 years for BuildAzure.com with just me, Chris Pietschmann, being the only one writing and posting articles to the site. A few days ago I made an announcement that “Build Azure is Growing Beyond just Chris!” That’s right, soon I will not be the only one writing and posting articles to BuildAzure.com.

While I assure you I will still be writing and posting articles just as much as I have been the last couple years, I am excited to welcome the first additional author being added to the list of people writing for BuildAzure.com. This will add to the breadth of content that I am able to post on the site by adding additional expertise to that of my own. And, instead of calling them “authors” (as that would be boring), I’ve decided to tag these new authors as “Build Azure Experts” instead. Doesn’t that sound cooler? 😉

The first new author joining the team is Dan Patrick. Dan is actually more on the Infrastructure side of things within the Microsoft Azure space than I am. This will really help broaden the expertise and insights posted to the BuildAzure.com site.

I reassure you that I am still going to be sending out / posting this Build Azure Weekly newsletter every week, and writing 2 or more articles for the site myself. I will also be adding Dan’s posts to the site as he writes them on a regular basis. I’m personally really excited to brow Build Azure bigger than myself, and I have a couple other new “Build Azure Experts” I’m in talks with about joining the team as well.

The growth of Build Azure has been amazing so far, over the last nearly 3 years. And this growth in the team will certainly ensure some further amazing growth to Build Azure over the next 1, 2 or 3 years to come!

The Weeks Top Links

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

• Azure Stack Capacity Planner Excel Spreadsheet by Chris Pietschmann
• Microsoft targets university students with new Azure for Students plan via ZDNet
• Kali Linux Comes to Windows 10’s WSL by Paul Thurrott
• Gartner reaffirms Microsoft as a leader in Data Management Solutions for Analytics by John ‘JG’ Chirapurath
• Azure Educator Programmes–Get $100 of azure for students by Lee Stott
• Using Remote Desktop Services in Containers by Rafael Rivera
• Discounted Azure Exam Pricing Offer Ends March 30! by Selina Winter
• Azure’s layered approach to physical security by Ryan Roberts
• Get Reserved Instance purchase recommendations based on usage pattern by Manish Shukla
• Making Azure the best place for all your applications and data by Rohan Kumar
• NCv3 VMs generally available, other GPUs expanding regions by Corey Sanders

Azure Service Updates

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

• Major version updates for App Service on Linux
• Work Items hub and VM-based Azure DevOps Project – VSTS Sprint 131 Update
• Azure Marketplace third-party reseller services now use Azure monetary commitment
• Name changes: Virtual Machines B-series US Gov
• Public preview: Java support for App Service on Linux
• Azure Database Migration Service: March update

Monthly Sponsor

The month of March marks 1 full year of Opsgility sponsoring Build Azure!! If you haven’t checked out what Opsgility has to offer yet, please click the link below and go check out the awesome training offered!

Are you looking for a clear and outlined path to learn Microsoft Azure? No matter if you’re a Developer, IT Pro, or Architect, Opsgility has courses that will help you learn how to build and implement solutions within Microsoft Azure more affectively and efficiently. The on-demand and instructor-led courses from Opsgility offer maximum flexibility to learn how you learn best, and to help your team grow into the cloud experts you need them to be in an efficient manner.

Opsgility is the leading Microsoft cloud technology trainer for developers and IT professionals, built around an esteemed network of industry experts and technical authors that includes Microsoft MVPs and Microsoft Insiders in more than 10 countries.

Get started today with Microsoft Dev Essentials and get 3 months Free of Opsgility on-demand streaming service!

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)

• Using Remote Desktop Services in Containers by Rafael Rivera
• Capture a NETSH network trace via Benjamin Perkins
• Update management, inventory, and change tracking in Azure Automation now generally available by Eamon O’Reilly
• Join Microsoft at the Rice Oil and Gas HPC conference by Ben Cotton
• Get Reserved Instance purchase recommendations based on usage pattern by Manish Shukla
• Just-in-Time VM Access is generally available by Ben Kliger
• Visibility into network activity with Traffic Analytics – now in public preview by Ajay Gummadi
• NCv3 VMs generally available, other GPUs expanding regions by Corey Sanders

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

• Major Version Updates to Node and PHP on App Service on Linux by Jennifer Lee
• New app usage monitoring capabilities in Application Insights by David Stephens
• Using SMO on Azure App Service (Web Apps) with Azure SQL DB by Paras Patidar
• Using Azure Application Gateway WAF’s to secure Azure Web Apps and Traffic Manager for Geo-redundancy by Cameron Vetter
• Hosting an Angular Progressive Web Application (PWA) With Azure by Wael Kdouh

Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)

• Integrating Logic Apps and Azure Monitor by Jason Venema
• Control the scale of a Logic App by David Burg
• Azure Tips and Tricks Part 100 – Creating an Email Subscription with Azure Functions – Sending Emails by Michael Crump

Software as a Service (SaaS)

• Shortly you can add anyone as guest in Microsoft Teams!! by Deva
• Cortana Integration Coming to Outlook Mobile Apps via Mehedi Hassan
• Get GDPR compliant with Dynamics NAV by navteam
• Customer Story – Aston Martin with Microsoft 365 by Rajesh Makhija

Azure Stack

• Azure Stack Capacity Planner Excel Spreadsheet by Chris Pietschmann
• Microsoft is adding Microsoft 365 bundle, Azure Stack options for government users via ZDNet

Database / Big Data

• Gartner reaffirms Microsoft as a leader in Data Management Solutions for Analytics by John ‘JG’ Chirapurath
• Automatically Generating SQL Server Memory Dumps at a Defined Interval by Joseph Pilov
• Checking for queued queries by Matt Usher
• Long-running operations delayed by Tanmayee Kamath
• Introducing SQL Information Protection for Azure SQL Database and on-premises SQL Server! by Gilad Mittelman
• Delivering Consistency and Accuracy: Improvements for Data Lake Store Reporting by Jose Lara
• Azure SQL Database now offers zone redundant Premium databases and elastic pools by Alexander Nosov
• Azure Data Sync – Resolve slow initial sync on two way sync by Yochanan Rachamim
• Migrate your databases to a fully managed service with Azure SQL Database Managed Instance by Borko Novakovic
• Schedule Data Sync with Azure SQL Database use an Automation account by Mohamed Baioumy
• Enhanced Knowledge Base Usage Analytics with Azure Application Insights and Power BI by Geoff Innis
• Tips and tricks on how to properly create Azure SQL DB by Furdui Dragos
• How many queries and slots are running in my Azure SQL Data Warehouse? by Matt Usher
• Azure Development… and Data? — Architect your Data Story in the Cloud! (Content Spotlight) by Ed Price
• Making Azure the best place for all your applications and data by Rohan Kumar

Internet of Things (IoT)

• Microsoft customers use IoT to save hearts, limbs, and lives by Microsoft IoT
• A digital transformation Journey featuring Contoso Manufacturing and Azure IoT by Juan Perez, Olivier Bloch
• Pantry Log–Microsoft Cognitive, IOT and Mobile App for Managing your Fridge Food Stock by Lee Stott

Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

• Interactive Lab on Microsoft Cognitive Services at Oxford by Lee Stott
• Issues with managing Bot Registration Properties by u014_delatrei
• How to build a VSTS assistant – The Life and Times of a Kanban bot – Part 2 by Julian Atanasoae
• How to Connect Your Bot App with Microsoft Cortana by Benjamin Xue
• Using Microsoft AI to Build a Lung-Disease Prediction Model Using Chest X-Ray Images by Xiaoyong Zhu, George Iordanescu, Ilia Karmanov, Mazen Zawaideh

Development and DevOps

• New Git Features in Visual Studio 2017 Update 6 by Kayla Ngan
• What’s brewing in Visual Studio Team Services: March 2018 Digest by Buck Hodges
• DevOps for IoT with Win10 IoT Core, UWP, and VSTS by Pratap Lakshman
• Public preview of Java on App Service, built-in support for Tomcat and OpenJDK by Brian Benz
• How we deliver the DevOps VSTS Bot by J. Opdam
• Build Spring Boot 2.0 apps with Azure Starters and new VSCode extensions by Yitao Dong
• Quickly setup everything you need for develop, deploy and monitor your solution on Azure – Using Azure DevOps Project by Abhijit Jana
• Developer Guidance: Which endpoint should i use Microsoft Graph API or Outlook REST API? by Deva
• Image Data Support in Apache Spark by ML Blog Team
• Upgrading my podcast site to ASP.NET Core 2.1 in Azure plus some Best Practices by Scott Hanselman
• Setting up Continuous Delivery for Azure App Services from Azure Portal by Abhijit Jana
• Image Data Support in Apache Spark by Cortana Intelligence and ML Blog Team
• Azure Data Lake tools for VS Code now supports job view and job monitoring by Jenny Jiang
• How to Contribute to Git (on Windows) by Derrick Stolee
• Build your own Hosted VSTS Agent Cloud: Part 3 – Automate by WouterDeKort
• Getting started with Prism 7.0 by Donovan Brown

Quantum Computing

• Quantum Computing – Value Proposition by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon

Blockchain

• Late night Blockchain thoughts by Saverio Guardato

Containers / Service Fabric

• Self-Hosting a Bot in Service Fabric with Katana by Premier Developer
• Monitoring your Kubernetes cluster running on Azure Container Service (AKS) using Log Analytics by Tobias Zimmergren
• Azure Container Instances Rock! by Gareth Emslie

Security

• Authenticate Azure App Service with Azure AD Security Group by Michal Chmielus
• Kali Linux Comes to Windows 10’s WSL by Paul Thurrott
• Microsoft releases automation for HIPAA/HITRUST compliance by Mat Rathbun
• Using App Service Environment (ASE) without a wildcard SSL certificate by Michael S. Hansen
• Physical Data Center Security by Omer Amin
• Azure’s layered approach to physical security by Ryan Roberts
• Configuring and Testing SSL Settings on App Service Environment (ASE) by Michael S. Hansen
• Announcing Storage Service Encryption with customer managed keys general availability by Lavanya Kasarabada
• Two new GDPR solutions by Malcolm Almeida

Learning / Certification

• Discounted Azure Exam Pricing Offer Ends March 30! by Selina Winter
• Azure Educator Programmes–Get $100 of azure for students by Lee Stott
• Save 40% on pre-orders via Microsoft Press
• Take Beta Exam 70-703: Administering Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Cloud Services Integration by Liberty Munson
• New book: Exam Ref 70-774 Perform Cloud Data Science with Azure Machine Learning via Microsoft Press

Azure Government

• Azure Government – technology innovation shaping the future by Tom Keane
• Update: DevTest Labs in Microsoft Azure Government Cloud by Tanmayee Kamath

Events

• Join Microsoft at Supercomputing Frontiers Europe by Tomasz Jozefiak

Geospatial  / GIS

• Microsoft and Esri launch Geospatial AI on Azure by Joseph Sirosh
• Join the Bing Maps Team at NAFA 2018 Institute & Expo by Bing Team

Other

• Cloud computing guide for researchers – Automated testing using Drone by Dr Kenji Takeda
• Microsoft targets university students with new Azure for Students plan via ZDNet
• Last week in Azure #21: Week of February 26 by Rob Caron
• How the cloud brings efficiency and security across industries by teresa
• Faster Metric Alerts for Logs now in limited public preview by Kiran Madnani
• Three reasons why you should associate multiple subscriptions with the same Azure Active Directory by Martin Brands

Videos

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

• Using PowerShell Core with Azure | Azure Friday via Channel 9
• TWC9: MVP Summit, Windows Developer Day, International Women’s Day, and more | This Week On Channel 9 via Channel 9
• Jeremy Likness – CosmosDB and .NET Core | On .NET via Channel 9
• Episode 8: Five Things About Visual Studio Code | Five Things via Channel 9
• Introduction to Azure ML Services [Part 1/4] | AI Show via Channel 9
• Interview with Lauren Tran, Software Engineer Focused on Machine Learning | GALs 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:

• SharePoint Development in 2018 with Sahil Malik via .NET Rocks!
• Developing Online Identity with Sarah Squire via Hanselminutes
• Episode 53 – The Latest in Microsoft Teams via Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast
• Episode 241 | Live from North American Collaboration Summit 2018 via Microsoft Cloud Show
• Building Dashboards with Jessica White 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:

• Introducing IoT Marketplace from AT&T by Brad Anderson
• Spinning the Bottleneck for Data, AI, Analytics and Cloud by James Cuff
• Tesla GPU Accelerator Bang For The Buck, Kepler To Volta by Timothy Prickett Morgan

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.

You can also join the Build Azure Slack Group as well.

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