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:
- Limited public preview: Premium blobs in the Azure portal
- Azure Security Center update September 2018
- Application Insights is available in Central India and Canada Central
- Public preview: Virtual network integration for Azure Data Lake Storage Gen1
- Backup Protected Instance SQL Server GUID migration
- Azure SQL Database dev/test pricing available as part of Azure Enterprise dev/test offer
- Azure Cognitive Services available in new regions
- Azure App Service: Price reductions for App Service on Linux basic and premium tiers
- Fine-grained password policy support in Azure AD DS
- Scoped synchronization from Azure AD to your Azure AD DS managed domain
- Improved synchronization performance from Azure AD to Azure AD DS managed domain
- Public preview: Azure AD authentication for Azure Files SMB access
- General availability: HDInsight Hadoop Enterprise Security Package
- Azure AD DS now supports Azure managed disks
- Power BI Embedded capacity monitoring app
- Disable NTLM, TLS v1 and secure your Azure AD DS managed domain
- Health monitoring and alerts for Azure AD DS
- Azure Site Recovery – Update Rollup 30
- Power BI Embedded advanced URL filtering capabilities
- Power BI Embedded Update Datasources API to change connection between data sources
- Power BI Embedded row-level security “username” property supports ASCII characters
- General availability: Metric alerts for logs
- Send your Azure Active Directory data to Azure Log Analytics
- Deprecating older versions of the Azure API Management REST API
- Azure DevTest Labs: Configure enforcing auto shutdown schedule for your lab
- General availability: Standard Load Balancer in Azure China cloud
- Removing Kubernetes 1.7 and 1.8 support in AKS on November 30, 2018
Monthly Sponsor
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)
- 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
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.