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!

The Weeks Top Links

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

EU Approves Microsoft’s GitHub Acquisition by Paul Thurrott
Reservations now available for US Government cloud regions by Yashesvi Sharma
Bringing more cybersecurity capabilities to Azure Government by Azure Gov Team
Update on Exam Retirements: Azure Transition Exams Extended! by Liberty Munson
Azure IoT Reference Architecture 2.1 release by Nandakishor Basavanthappa
ONNX Runtime for inferencing machine learning models now in preview by Faith Xu
What’s Next for Visual Studio for Mac by Visual Studio Blog
Azure PowerShell – Cross-platform “Az” module replacing “AzureRM” by Mark Cowlishaw
Announcing the public preview of Azure Digital Twins by Daniel Escapa
Microsoft Co-Founder, Paul Allen, Has Died at 65 by Brad Sams

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)

Microsoft’s Windows Server 2019 never actually RTM’d: Here’s why via ZDNet
Azure DevTest Labs: Configure enforcing auto shutdown schedule for your lab by Tanmayee Kamath
Azure Lab Services: Control the number of hours your lab users can use their virtual machines by Tanmayee Kamath
How to enable Azure Hybrid License to save 40% on your Windows License Cost… by Tarun Arora

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

New App Service VNet Integration feature by Christina Compy

Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)

Serverless computing on Azure Government with Functions by Yujin Hong
Automating Release Notes with Azure Functions by Jasmine Greenaway
Event-Driven Serverless Architectures by David C. Chou

Command-Line / ARM Templates

Automating the creation of Azure Service Principals with PowerShell by Herald Gjura
Azure PowerShell – Cross-platform “Az” module replacing “AzureRM” by Mark Cowlishaw

Database / Big Data

Azure Tips and Tricks Part 166 – Data Storage Options with Azure Storage and Cosmos DB by Michael Crump
Announcing assessments on-premises SQL Server migrating to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance using DMA 4.1 by Raj pochiraju
Data overload: Are your key insights hidden from view? via Microsoft Cloud Perspectives Blog Team
Parameterize connections to your data stores in Azure Data Factory by Gaurav Malhotra
Apache Spark jobs gain up to 9x speed up with HDInsight IO Cache by Maxim Lukiyanov
Ingesting a data stream from NIST manufacturing lab data – Part 2 by Ercenk Keresteci
New metric in Azure Stream Analytics tracks latency of your streaming pipeline by Konstantin Zoryn
Kusto Code Hygiene and Performance Tips by Ben Martens

Internet of Things (IoT)

Azure IoT Reference Architecture 2.1 release by Nandakishor Basavanthappa
Student Project for Monitoring of Movement Disabilities with Movesense and Azure IOT Hub by Lee Stott
IoT SWC 2018: IoT solutions for the built world by Sam George
Announcing the public preview of Azure Digital Twins by Daniel Escapa

Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

Machine Reading at Scale – Transfer Learning for Large Text Corpuses by Anusua Trivedi
ONNX Runtime for inferencing machine learning models now in preview by Faith Xu
Accelerating AI in healthcare: Security, privacy, and compliance by David Houlding

Development and DevOps

Using ASP.NET Core with MongoDB in containers for local dev, CosmosDB for production by Shayne Boyer
Azure Dev Ops CI / CD pipelines with AKS – Lessons learned by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon
Visual Studio Roadmap Updates and Visual Studio 2019 Information by Visual Studio Blog
What’s Next for Visual Studio for Mac by Visual Studio Blog
Using Azure DevOps Pipelines and NuKeeper to Automate NuGet Package updates by Shayne Boyer
How to access private Azure DevOps repos from a Dockerfile! by jldeen
Provisioning Sitecore environment with Azure DevOps on Azure PaaS by Utkarsh Shigihalli
Azure DevOps: Dockerfiles with multiline environment variables, private repos, and ssh keys by jldeen
Ignite2018: Container DevOps with Microsoft Azure – the blog post! by jldeen
Troubleshooting missing projects while using VSTS continuous deployment for Azure App Service by Gaurav Patole

Containers / Service Fabric

Service Fabric Ignite 2018 Sessions by Service Fabric Team
Twitter AMA on Service Fabric Mesh by Service Fabric Team
Azure Dev Ops CI / CD pipelines with AKS – Lessons learned by Vincent-Philippe Lauzon

Blockchain / Smart Contracts

Accessibility and array support with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.4.0 by Zeyad Rajabi
Sweet updates about Truffle on Azure by Cale Teeter

Security / Privacy

Unable to Modify User Email, Phone Number, Password or Other Personal Information for Azure Active Directory Users by Frank Hu
Getting Started with BYOK in Azure Storage – Encrypt data at rest with your own encryption keys by Tobias Zimmergren
Creating a new Azure Active Directory and AAD backed Accounts by Charles Sterling
Detecting fileless attacks with Azure Security Center by Ben Nick

Learning / Certification

How to Claim Your Digital Badge—and Why (updated) by Selina Winter
Update on Exam Retirements: Azure Transition Exams Extended! by Liberty Munson
Microsoft Learn helps tackle partner skills challenge, promotes lifelong learning by Mark Leigh
Unlock Active Job Postings with Your Microsoft Certification (updated) by Selina Winter
IT Skills and Salary Surveys Now Open by Selina Winter

Azure Government

Reservations now available for US Government cloud regions by Yashesvi Sharma
Bringing more cybersecurity capabilities to Azure Government by Azure Gov Team
Serverless computing on Azure Government with Functions by Yujin Hong

Other

EU Approves Microsoft’s GitHub Acquisition by Paul Thurrott
The power of cloud: Microsoft Azure Marketplace showcases Credit Analytics by Howard Bush
Next-Gen HoloLens Now Reportedly Shipping Next Year by Mahedi Hassan
What’s new in Azure Media Services video processing by John Deutscher
Microsoft Co-Founder, Paul Allen, Has Died at 65 by Brad Sams

Videos

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

Azure Tips and Tricks Part 165 – Live from Ignite 2018 by Cecil Phillip, Michael Crump
Scaling effortlessly with Service Fabric Mesh via Azure Friday
Parameterize connections to your data stores in Azure Data Factory via Azure Friday
Five Things About Developing on a Mac | Five Things via Channel 9
Azure Stack in IoT | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
Microsoft Ignite interview with Executive Team on #ArtificialIntelligence, #Data, #OpenSource and #Cloud by Jen Stirrup
Microsoft Ignite interview with Kevin Farlee on Azure SQL Database Hyperscale by Jen Stirrup
Get Started with Azure Machine Learning with VS Code Tools | AI Show via Channel 9
Blinky Demo with Azure Sphere | Internet of Things Show via Channel 9
Deploying .NET Web Apps to Azure | On .NET 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:

Dynamics 365 Practice Podcast – Episode 37 – Killer Demo’s and Pre Sales Patrick Kitchell via The Microsoft Business Applications Podcast
Episode 91 – Azure Virtual WAN with Sony Kogin via Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast
Episode 90 – Power BI and Data Democratization with Alexander Arvidsson via Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast
CRM Audio 98: Ignite 2018 Recap via The Microsoft Business Applications Podcast

General Cloud / Related

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

Spanning The Clouds, Public And Private, With The Kubernetes Stack by Jeffrey Burt
How Blockchain Brings Innovation in Staffing? by Harsh Kumar
A New Datacenter Compels Arm To Create A New Chip Line by Timothy Prickett Morgan
Red Hat Flexes CoreOS Muscle In OpenShift Kubernetes Platform by Jeffrey Burt
Where The FPGA Hits The Server Road For Inference Acceleration by Timothy Prickett Morgan

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.