https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/feed.xml Banging your head against a wall uses 150 Calories an hour. Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:17:15 GMT de_DE hourly 1 https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-news-august-2018 Wed, 29 Aug 2018 18:17:15 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1985 Azure announcements. My highlight this month are the news around Disaster Recovery and the Vnet endpoints for MySQL and PostgreSQL. Which ones are your favorites? Azure Stack

• Enhance security and simplify network integration with Extension Host on Azure Stack

Management

• Expanded Azure Blueprint for FFIEC compliant workloads

IaaS

• Compute:
  • General availability of instance size flexibility for Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances
  • Azure Site Recovery powers Veritas Backup Exec Instant Cloud Recovery for DR
  • Migrate Windows Server 2008 to Azure with Azure Site Recovery
  • New customizations in Azure Migrate to support your cloud migration
• Storage:
  • Managed Disks migration now available in the Azure Portal
  • Azure Block Blob Storage Backup
  • Cross-subscription disaster recovery for Azure virtual machines
• Networking:
  • New locations for Azure CDN now available
  • DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) for Linux VMs now generally available
  • Announcing VNet service endpoints general availability for MySQL and PostgreSQL

Security and IAM

• Enhance your DevSecOps practices with Azure Security Center’s newest playbooks
• Respond to threats faster with Security Center’s Confidence Score

Apps

• Linux on Azure App Service Environment now generally available
• Announcing the public preview of Windows Container Support in Azure App Service

Data

• SQL:
  • Announcing general availability of Azure SQL Database reserved capacity
  • Automatic intelligent insights to optimize performance with SQL Data Warehouse
  • Azure SQL Data Warehouse Gen2 now generally available in France and Australia
• NoSQL:
  • New Azure #CosmosDB JavaScript SDK 2.0 now in public preview
  • Azure #CosmosDB reference solution: Visualizing real-time data analysis with change feed
• HDInsight
  • How to enhance HDInsight security with service endpoints
  • Azure HDInsight Interactive Query: Ten tools to analyze big data faster
  • Azure #HDInsight Interactive Query: simplifying big data analytics architecture
  • Azure #HDInsight Apache Phoenix now supports Zeppelin
• Azure Data Factory Visual tools now supports GitHub integration
• Sharing a self-hosted Integration Runtime infrastructure with multiple Data Factories

Blockchain

• Multi-member consortium support with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.3.0

IoT

• Intro articles:
  • Getting started with IoT: driving business action through analytics and automation
  • Getting started with IoT: what do you do with all that data?
  • IoT in Action: Building secure, sophisticated solutions
• Now Available: Azure Sphere technical documentation
• Hardening the security of Azure IoT Edge
• Installing certificates into IoT devices

ML/AI

• Real example: improve accuracy, reduce training times for existing R codebase
• Accelerating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare using Microsoft Azure blueprints
• Speech Services August 2018 update: SDK v0.6.0 and .NET Standard 2.0 support, amongst other news
• Logic Apps, Flow connectors will make Automating Video Indexer simpler than ever

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-news-july-2018 Wed, 01 Aug 2018 15:13:22 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1965 Azure announcements. My highlight this month are (again) the storage news (WORM, Netapp, Data Box Disk, File Sync GA), followed closely by the innovations in Azure Networking (Azure Firewall, Azure virtual WAN). I guess I cannot hide my IaaS background 😊. Which ones are your favorites? Azure generic

• Check the sessions of the latest Microsoft Inspire conference.
• How Microsoft Azure Stack means transformation and opportunities for partners
• Announcing the Expert Managed Service Provider program

Management

• Ansible 2.6: What’s new for Azure: four new modules and tutorials including AKS and VMSS
• Azure management groups now in general availability: for easier management of multiple subscriptions
• New recommendations in Azure Advisor, including Reserved Instances and Traffic Manager parameters, amongst others
• Announcing availability of Azure Managed Application in AzureGov
• Azure cost forecast API and other updates in Cost Management, including PowerShell support
• Announcing the Azure Cloud Shell editor in collaboration with Visual Studio Code

IaaS

• Compute:
  • Decision tree for Azure compute services
  • How to upgrade your financial analysis capabilities with Azure: two documents describing the Risk Grid Computing solution:
    • Risk Grid Computing Overview
    • Risk Grid Computing Solution Guide
  • Agile SAP development with SAP Cloud Platform on Azure
• Storage:
  • Azure NetApp Files now in public preview
  • Azure File Sync is now generally available!
  • Microsoft Azure launches tamper-proof Azure Immutable Blob Storage for financial services
  • Welcome our newest family member - Data Box Disk: SATA/USB disks for offline data migration to Azure
  • Build richer applications with the new asynchronous Azure Storage SDK for Java
• Networking:
  • Announcing public preview of Azure Virtual WAN and Azure Firewall
  • Azure Event Hubs and Service Bus VNET Service Endpoints in public preview

Containers

• Azure Service Fabric Mesh is now in public preview
• Orchestrating production-grade workloads with Azure Kubernetes Service
• Introducing Dev Spaces for AKS

Security and IAM

• Azure Monitor: Route AAD Activity Logs using diagnostic settings
• Azure AD Managed Service Identity updates: user-assigned identities, GA for App Services and Functions, Azure Storage support and much more
• Security Center’s adaptive application controls are generally available
• Azure Security Center is now integrated into the subscription experience: new Security tab in the subscription blade in the portal

Apps

• How to move your e-commerce infrastructure to Azure
• Azure App Service now supports Java SE on Linux
• New Features in Event Grid: Dead Lettering, Retry Policies, ACR Events
• General availability of user behavior analytics tools in Azure Application Insights
• IP filtering for Event Hubs and Service Bus

Data

• SQL:
  • Intelligent Healthcare with Azure Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) technology: Azure SQL TDE BYOK and Azure Key Vault
  • Announcing new options for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 End of Support
  • Securing the connection between Power BI and Azure SQL Database
  • Latest updates to Azure Database for MySQL: virtual network service endpoints (preview), 4TB servers, Data-In replication for hybrid clusters, cross-region DR, Data Migration Service support and more
  • Latest updates to Azure Database for PostgreSQL: PostgreSQL v10.3, virtual network service endpoints, DMS support, 4TB servers, cross-region DR and more
  • Accelerated and Flexible Restore Points with SQL Data Warehouse
  • Lightning fast query performance with Azure SQL Data Warehouse
  • Azure sets new performance benchmarks with SQL Data Warehouse
• Cosmos DB:
  • New Azure #CosmosDB Explorer now in public preview
  • Spring Data Gremlin for Azure Cosmos DB Graph API
  • Responsibilities of a partner/system integrator in managing Azure Cosmos DB
• HDInsight:
  • Build secure Oozie workflows in Azure HDInsight with Enterprise Security Package
  • Kafka 1.0 on HDInsight lights up real time analytics scenarios
  • Azure HDInsight now supports Apache Spark 2.3
• Streaming analytics use cases with Spark on Azure
• Globally replicated data lakes with LiveData using WANdisco on Azure
• Power BI Embedded dashboards with Azure Stream Analytics
• Azure Databricks provides the best Apache Spark™-based analytics solution for data scientists and engineers
• Monitor Azure Data Factory pipelines using Operations Management Suite

IoT

• What’s new in Azure IoT Central: subscriptionless trials, location and map services, bulk device import/export, event monitoring template, state measurement and more
• Azure IoT Central available for partners to manage and extend customer solutions
• Getting started with IoT: how to connect, secure, and manage your “things”
• Announcing public preview of Azure IoT Hub manual failover feature
• Feeding IoT device telemetry data to Kafka-based applications
• IoT: the catalyst for better risk management in insurance

Blockchain

• Top feature requests added with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.2.0
• Blockchain as a tool for anti-fraud
• R3 on Azure: Launch of Corda Enterprise v3.1

AI

• Current use cases for machine learning in healthcare
• Foretell and prevent downtime with predictive maintenance
• Speech services July 2018 update: SDK v0.5.0, more training formats for Custom Voice, and custom pronunciation documentation.
• Route Matrix, isochrones, IP lookup, and more added to Azure Maps
• Azure Search – Announcing the general availability of synonyms
• Spoken Language Identification in Video Indexer

Created by the German CSA-P team. Have fun! Daniel    ]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-news-june-2018 Fri, 27 Jul 2018 12:47:53 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1945 Azure announcements. My highlight this month is the GA of AKS, followed closely by the innovations in Azure Storage. Which ones are your favorites? Management

• Exciting advances in Azure Alerts – From better alert management to Smart Groups
• Cost Reporting ARM APIs across subscriptions for EA customers

IaaS

• Compute
  • VM Run command for Windows and Linux
  • Offering the largest scale and broadest choice for SAP HANA in the cloud (including new SAP HANA TDIv5 options with memory sizes of 6TB, 12TB, 18TB and 24TB)
  • Disaster Recovery solution for Azure IaaS applications
• Storage
  • Immutable Storage for blobs now in public preview
  • Azure Blob Storage lifecycle management in public preview
  • Backup for SQL in Azure Virtual Machines preview
  • Static website hosting for Azure Storage now in public preview
  • Backup your applications on Azure Stack with Azure Backup
• Network
  • Traffic Analytics now generally available
  • New zone-redundant VPN and ExpressRoute gateways now in public preview
  • Network Performance Monitor’s Service Connectivity Monitor is now generally available

Containers

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) GA – New regions, more features, increased productivity
• Container Tooling for Service Fabric in Visual Studio 2017

Security and IAM

• Introducing the redesigned Security Center Overview dashboard
• Detecting script-based attacks on Linux
• 4 month retirement notice: Access Control Service

Apps

• Using the Retry pattern to make your cloud application more resilient
• Use Azure Active Directory with Spring Security 5.0 for OAuth 2.0
• Azure Service Bus is now offering support for Availability Zones in preview
• Maven: Deploy Java Apps to Azure with Tomcat on Linux
• Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.1.0 extends capabilities and monitoring

Data

• SQL
  • Announcing the general availability of Azure SQL Data Sync
  • Azure Backup for SQL Server on Azure now in public preview
  • Quick Recovery Time with SQL Data Warehouse using User-Defined Restore Points
  • Azure Elastic Database jobs is now in public preview
  • Resumable Online Index Create is in public preview for Azure SQL DB
  • Column-Level Security is now supported in Azure SQL Data Warehouse
• Data Lake
  • Use Azure Data Lake Analytics to query AVRO data from IoT Hub
  • Azure Data Lake Tools for VSCode supports Azure blob storage integration
  • Process more files than ever and use Parquet with Azure Data Lake Analytics
  • A closer look at Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2
• Data Factory
  • Azure Data Factory new capabilities are now generally available
  • Lift SQL Server Integration Services packages to Azure with Azure Data Factory
  • Event trigger based data integration with Azure Data Factory
  • Azure Data ingestion made easier with Azure Data Factory’s Copy Data Tool
• Structured streaming with Azure Databricks into Power BI & Cosmos DB
• Enterprises get deeper insights with Hadoop and Spark updates on Azure HDInsight
• 8 reasons to choose Azure Stream Analytics for real-time data processing
• The emerging big data architectural pattern: lambda architectures

IoT

• Migrating IoT Edge solutions to GA
• Automatic device management, module identity, and module twin are now generally available
• Expanding Azure Certified for IoT program for the intelligent edge
• Location and Maps in Azure IoT Central powered by Azure Maps
• Azure Event Hubs is now offering support for Availability Zones in preview
• Enabling Smart Manufacturing with Edge Computing

AI

• Azure Search is now certified for several levels of compliance
• Bing Visual Search and Entity Search APIs for video apps
• Get video insights in (even) more languages!
• Autocomplete in Azure Search now in public preview

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/modern-workplace-technical-webinars-june-2018 Tue, 05 Jun 2018 10:18:31 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1935 build your technical capabilities for Cloud Voice, Collaboration, Modern Desktop and Security & Compliance. Learn first-hand from a Microsoft Partner Technical Consultant during a live, interactive technical webinar where you can ask questions as you learn! Best part? There is no cost to MPN members. Register today for an upcoming remote technical webinar! Various dates and times are available to suit your morning, afternoon or evening schedule. Technical webinars for June

Practice Area	Lang	Event Date	Event
Cloud Voice	English	June 07, 2018	Skype for Business Online: Configuring Phone System with On-premises PSTN Connectivity using Hybrid
Cloud Voice	English	June 14, 2018	Skype for Business Online: Configuring Phone system with On-premises PSTN using Cloud Connector Edition
Cloud Voice	English	June 18, 2018	Skype for Business Online: Skype for Business Integration with Exchange UM
Collaboration/Teamwork	English	June 04, 2018	Introduction to Exchange Online Hybrid Deployment Fundamentals
Collaboration/Teamwork	English	June 05, 2018	SharePoint Online: Hybrid OneDrive for Business and Sites
Collaboration/Teamwork	English	June 12, 2018	SharePoint Online: SharePoint 2016 Hybrid Search
Collaboration/Teamwork	English	June 13, 2018	Technical Deep Dive on Migrating to Exchange Online
Modern Desktop	English	June 05, 2018	Enterprise Mobility Suite: Introduction to EMS and Azure AD
Modern Desktop	English	June 06, 2018	Enterprise Mobility Suite: Technical Deep Dive on Microsoft Intune
Modern Desktop	English	June 07, 2018	Enterprise Mobility Suite: Technical Deep Dive on Azure Information Protection & Identity-Driven Security
Security & Compliance	English	June 06, 2018	Adopting Microsoft 365 Regulatory Compliance

Technical consultations There’s more… while technical webinars are the foundation to building your technical skillset, engage with a Partner Technical Consultant through a one-to-one technical consultation to receive technical guidance through virtual white-boarding, architecture reviews and shadowing of real-world scenarios by leveraging your MPN technical presales and deployment bene Learn more about technical journeys Learn more about the technical journeys available for the Modern Workplace practice areas to help you as you get started, grow your practice or optimize your practice: Cloud Voice | Collaboration | Modern Desktop | Security & Compliance Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-news-may-2018 Tue, 05 Jun 2018 09:47:36 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1925 Azure Stack

• New Azure Stack developer features to build intelligent, hybrid applications
• Microsoft Azure Stack expands availability to 92 countries

Management

• Introducing the Azure Terraform Resource Provider
• Create enterprise subscription experience in Azure portal public preview
• Private Offers on Azure Marketplace (only VMs today)
• Azure Marketplace is reaching new audiences: Private Offers, containers, consulting services
• Use Azure Monitor to integrate with SIEM tools
• Do more with Chef and Microsoft Azure
• Changes coming to PowerShell (preview) in Azure Cloud Shell

IaaS

• Compute
  • Announcing low-priority VMs on scale sets now in public preview
  • Azure M-series VMs are now SAP HANA certified
  • M-Series certified for SAP HANA and available worldwide
  • Accelerate your SAP on Azure HANA project with SUSE Microsoft Solution Templates
  • Azure confidential computing
• Networking
  • Announcing Microsoft's own Content Delivery Network
  • Azure Networking May 2018 announcements: Azure DDoS GA, Vnet Service Endpoints news, DNS Private Zones, Connection Monitoring in Network Watcher, improved performance in Traffic View, Global Vnet Peering GA, ASGs GA, App Gateway and WAF enhancements, Azure CDN by Microsoft and Standard LB
  • New Azure Network Watcher integrations and Network Security Group Flow Logging updates
  • Cisco Solution Support for ExpressRoute
  • VNet service endpoints for Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL in preview
• Storage
  • Azure AD Authentication for Azure Storage now in public preview
  • General availability: Azure Storage metrics in Azure Monitor
  • Soft delete for Azure Storage Blobs generally available
  • Shared Image Gallery now in limited preview
  • (Preview) Standard SSD Disks for Azure Virtual machine workloads: at a lower price than HDDs!
  • New updates for Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer

Containers

• Announcing first-class support for CloudEvents on Azure
• OpenShift on Azure: The easiest, fully managed OpenShift in the cloud
• Monitoring Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with Azure Monitor container health (preview)
• Kubernetes on Azure: Industry’s best end-to-end Kubernetes experience
• Microsoft syndicates container catalog (mcr.microsoft.com)
• Azure Container Registry makes geo-replication generally available, adding lifecycle management capabilities
• New container images in Azure Marketplace

Security and IAM

• Detect malicious activity using Azure Security Center and Azure Log Analytics
• Protect virtual machines across different subscriptions with Azure Security Center
• Why developers should enable Azure Security Center’s Just-in-Time VM Access
• Azure Security Center can identify attacks targeting Azure App Service applications
• New capabilities to enable robust GDPR compliance:
  • Azure Data Subject Request (DSR) portal
  • Azure Policy
  • Azure Security and Compliance Blueprint
  • Compliance Manager for Azure

Apps

• Enhancements in Application Insights Profiler and Snapshot Debugger
• App Service: Adding multi-container capabilities and Linux support for App Service Environment
• Better integrations and higher productivity with Azure Event Grid
• Azure mobile app is now generally available
• New Integrations for GitHub Developers: App Center and Outlook
• Azure SignalR Service, a fully-managed service to add real-time functionality
• Receiving and handling HTTP requests anywhere with the Azure Relay
• Blue-Green deployments using Azure Traffic Manager

Data

• SQL
  • Azure Database Migration Service now generally available
  • Announcing SQL Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and SQL Vulnerability Assessment general availability
• Data Warehouse
  • Accelerate your cloud data warehouse with automation tools
  • Azure SQL Data Warehouse now supports automatic creation of statistics
  • Extract management insights from SQL Data Warehouse with SQL Operations Studio
  • Accelerate data warehouse modernization with Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services for Azure
• Cosmos DB
  • Announcing new Async Java SDK for Azure #CosmosDB
  • Introducing the #Azure #CosmosDB Bulk Executor library
  • Sharing provisioned throughput across multiple containers in Azure #CosmosDB
  • Virtual Network Service Endpoints for Azure #CosmosDB is now generally available
  • Serverless real-time notifications in Azure using Azure #CosmosDB
• Enhance productivity using Azure Data Factory Visual Tools
• 4 new features now available in Azure Stream Analytics
• 10 great things about Kafka on HDInsight
• Azure Event Hubs for Kafka Ecosystems in public preview
• Gain application insights for Big Data solutions using Unravel data on Azure HDInsight
• Control Azure Data Lake costs using Log Analytics to create service alerts

Blockchain

• Simplifying blockchain app development with Azure Blockchain Workbench

IoT

• Digging in with Azure IoT: Interactive developer guide
• Azure IoT Reference Architecture update
• Developing an Azure Sphere experience with Visual Studio
• Enabling more device management scenarios with new features in IoT Hub
• Manage Azure IoT Edge deployments with Kubernetes
• Using the Azure IoT Python SDK: make sure you check the version!

AI

• Speech services now in preview
• Azure AI Platform announcements: New innovations for developers: news on cognitive services, cognitive search and updates to Azure ML
• Microsoft empowers developers with new and updated Cognitive Services
• Microsoft extends AI support to PyTorch 1.0 deep learning framework
• Accelerating AI on the intelligent edge: Microsoft and Qualcomm create vision AI developer kit
• Build 2018: Video Indexer updates
• Announcing Azure Maps
• Microsoft Conversational AI tools enable developers to build, connect and manage intelligent bots
• Spark + AI Summit: Data scientists and engineers put their trust in Microsoft Azure Databricks
• Full-integrated experience simplifying Language Understanding in conversational AI systems
• Announcing Cognitive Search: Azure Search + cognitive capabilities
• Build 2018: What's new in Azure video processing and video AI: new Azure Media Services API v3 and updates to Azure Media Indexer

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-technical-news-april-2018 Sat, 05 May 2018 16:36:56 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1915 Management

• Preview: programmatically create Azure enterprise subscriptions using ARM APIs

Iaas

• Compute
  • Storage scenarios for Cray in Azure
  • Altair democratizes access to computer-aided engineering with Azure
• Storage
  • AzCopy on Linux now generally available
  • OS Disk Swap for Managed Virtual Machines now available
  • Azure Backup now supports storage accounts secured with Azure Storage Firewalls and Virtual Networks
  • Write Accelerator for M-Series virtual machines now generally available
  • Per disk metrics for Managed & Unmanaged Disks now in public preview
  • Recovery Services vault limit increased to 500 vaults per subscription per region
  • GDPR offers one more reason to focus on your disaster recovery strategy
  • Offline media import for Azure
• Networking
  • Global VNet Peering now generally available
  • Azure DDoS Protection for virtual networks generally available
  • Monitor Microsoft peering in ExpressRoute with Network Performance Monitor - public preview
  • Application Security Groups now generally available in all Azure regions

Containers

• Azure Container Instances now generally available

Security and Identity

• How Azure Security Center helps detect attacks against your Linux machines
• Announcing new Azure Security Center capabilities at RSA 2018
• Azure Security Center Network Map
• Streamlining GDPR requests with the Azure portal
• Achieving GDPR compliance in the cloud with Microsoft Azure

Apps

• Azure Quick Start Guide for .NET Developers
• Azure Service Fabric – announcing Reliable Services on Linux and RHEL support
• How to secure web communications in a Service Fabric cluster in Azure
• Azure Toolkit for Eclipse integrates with HDInsight Ambari and supports Spark 2.2
• Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ integrates with HDInsight Ambari and supports Spark 2.2
• Deploying Linked ARM Templates with VSTS

Data

• SQL
  • Fast and easy development with Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL
  • Improvements to SQL Elastic Pool configuration experience
  • SQL Database: Long-term backup retention preview includes major updates
  • Transparent Data Encryption with customer managed keys in Azure SQL Database generally available
  • How to configure Azure SQL Database Geo-DR with Azure Key Vault
  • Accelerate real-time big data analytics with Spark connector for Microsoft SQL Databases
  • Adaptive caching powers Azure SQL Data Warehouse performance gains
  • Enhanced capabilities to monitor, manage, and integrate SQL Data Warehouse in the Azure Portal
  • Turbocharge cloud analytics with Azure SQL Data Warehouse
  • Region expansion for the next generation of SQL Data Warehouse
  • Blazing fast data warehousing with Azure SQL Data Warehouse
  • Replicated Tables now generally available in Azure SQL Data Warehouse
  • Seamlessly upgrade Azure SQL Data Warehouse for greater performance and scalability
• Python, Node.js, Go client libraries for Azure Event Hubs in public preview
• Secure credential management for ETL workloads using Azure Key Vault and Data Factory
• HDInsight tools for VS Code now supports argparse and Spark 2.2
• Azure Analysis Services integration with VNets via On-Premises Data Gateway
• Spring Data Azure Cosmos DB: NoSQL data access on Azure
• Iterative development and debugging using Data Factory

IoT

• Introducing Microsoft Azure Sphere: Secure and power the intelligent edge
• Best practices for IoT-driven infrastructure transformation
• Azure IoT Hub SDK officially provides native iOS support
• New key capabilities that Azure Time Series Insights
• Automating Industrial IoT Security

AI

• Bing Custom Search: Build a customized search experience in minutes
• Using TensorFlow and Azure to Add Image Classification to Your Android Apps
• Azure Bot Function Step By Step

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-technical-news-march-2018 Fri, 06 Apr 2018 00:33:17 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1885 Azure generic

• Azure Availability Zones now available for the most comprehensive resiliency strategy
• New Microsoft Azure regions available for Australia and New Zealand
• Microsoft releases automation for HIPAA/HITRUST compliance

Management

• Introducing a new way to purchase Azure monitoring services
• Azure Monitor–General availability of multi-dimensional metrics APIs
• The next generation of Azure Alerts has arrived
• Announcing Azure Service Health general availability – configure your alerts today
• Support for tags in cost management APIs is now available
• Announcing Terraform availability in the Azure Marketplace
• Update management, inventory, and change tracking in Azure Automation now generally available
• Faster Metric Alerts for Logs now in limited public preview

IaaS

• Compute
  • New isolated VM sizes now available
  • Azure Batch for oil and gas
  • NCv3 VMs generally available, other GPUs expanding regions
  • Virtual Machine Serial Console access
• Storage
  • Soft delete for Azure Storage Blobs now in public preview
  • Announcing the general availability of Azure Files share snapshot
  • Project Denali to define flexible SSDs for cloud-scale applications
  • Announcing backup and restore performance improvements and support for large disk backup
  • Announcing Storage Service Encryption with customer managed keys general availability
• Networking
  • Application Security Groups now generally available in all Azure regions
  • The new Azure Load Balancer – 10x scale increase (standard SKU)
  • Azure DNS Private Zones now available in public preview
  • SONiC, the network innovation powerhouse behind Azure
  • Visibility into network activity with Traffic Analytics - now in public preview

Security and IAM

• Azure Security Center and discovery of partner solutions
• 7 month retirement notice: Access Control Service
• Heuristic DNS detections in Azure Security Center
• Azure’s layered approach to physical security
• Just-in-Time VM Access is generally available

Apps

• Create Service Fabric Clusters from Visual Studio now available
• Improved multi-member Blockchain networks now available on Azure
• Serverless computing recipes for your cloud applications
• Build Spring Boot 2.0 apps with Azure Starters and new VSCode extensions
• Public preview of Java on App Service, built-in support for Tomcat and OpenJDK
• New app usage monitoring capabilities in Application Insights

Data

• SQL
  • Migrate your databases to a fully managed service with Azure SQL Database Managed Instance
  • Preview: SQL Database Transparent Data Encryption with Azure Key Vault configuration checklist
  • A flexible new way to purchase Azure SQL Database (vCores)
  • Improvements to SQL Elastic Pool configuration experience
  • Columnstore support in Standard tier Azure SQL Databases
  • Azure SQL Database offers preview of zone redundant Premium databases and elastic pools
  • Introducing SQL Information Protection for Azure SQL Database and on-premises SQL Server!
  • SQL Database: Long-term backup retention preview includes major updates
  • Modernize index maintenance with Resumable Online Index Rebuild
  • Azure SQL Data Warehouse now generally available in all Azure regions worldwide
  • Unlock your data’s potential with Azure SQL Data Warehouse and Azure Databricks
• MySQL and PostgreSQL
  • Announcing general availability of Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL
  • Compliance offerings for Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL
  • Securing Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• Azure Redis Cache feature updates
• Accelerate Data Warehouse Modernization to Azure with Informatica’s AI-Driven Platform
• Ingest, prepare, and transform using Azure Databricks and Data Factory
• Implementation patterns for big data and data warehouse on Azure
• Azure Event Hubs integration with Apache Spark now generally available
• Azure Data Lake launches in the West Europe region
• Azure Data Lake tools for VS Code now supports job view and job monitoring

IoT

• Azure IoT Hub is driving down the cost of IoT (basic tier)
• How to get support for Azure IoT SDK
• A digital transformation Journey featuring Contoso Manufacturing and Azure IoT

AI

• BigDL Spark deep learning library VM now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace
• Using artificial intelligence to analyze roads
• Text Recognition for Video in Microsoft Video Indexer
• New machine-assisted text classification on Content Moderator now in public preview
• Microsoft and Esri launch Geospatial AI on Azure

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-technical-news-february-2018 Fri, 02 Mar 2018 09:57:48 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1905 Azure generic

• Azure for AWS Professionals (good summary with many resources)

Management

• Preview of Log Alerts feature for Application Insights
• Azure Go SDK generally available
• Enhancements to Cost Management APIs
• How to Make Deployment with Ansible Azure Modules

IaaS

• Compute
  • Azure Migrate is now generally available!
  • Azure M/B/V3-series VMs are now generally available in UK
  • Developing and Debugging DSC Scripts for Azure VMs
• Storage
  • StorSimple Data Manager now generally available
  • Introducing backup for Azure file shares
  • Application consistent backup for Linux VMs using Azure Backup is generally available
  • Public preview: Protect machines using managed disks between Azure regions using Azure Site Recovery
  • OMS Monitoring solution for Azure Backup using Azure Log analytics
• Networking
  • Azure Load Balancer to become more efficient (new SNAT algorithm)
  • VNet Service Endpoints for Azure SQL Database now generally available
  • Monitor network connectivity to applications with NPM’s Service Endpoint Monitor - public preview
  • ExpressRoute monitoring with Network Performance Monitor (NPM) is now generally available
  • New in Marketplace: Cisco Tetration
  • New in Marketplace: Arista vEOS Router

Containers

• B-series burstable VM support in AKS now available
• Patch Orchestration Application now available for Ubuntu Linux Service Fabric clusters

Security and IAM

• Security Center Playbooks and Azure Functions Integration with Firewalls

Apps

• Azure Service Bus now integrates with Azure Event Grid
• Deploying WordPress application using VSTS and Azure – part 1
• New reference architecture for Jenkins on Azure
• Whats new on Durable Functions (video with Corey Sanders and Jeff Hollan)

Data

• New Azure Data Architecture Guide
• Databases
  • Azure Redis Cache geo-replication is now generally available
  • Unlock Query Performance with SQL Data Warehouse using Graphical Execution Plans
  • Simplify cloud adoption with Azure SQL Data Warehouse and Datometry
  • Sync SQL data in large scale using Azure SQL Data Sync
  • Public Preview: Azure SQL Database – Managed Instance Management Pack
• NoSQL
  • HDInsight Tools for VSCode integrates with Ambari and HDInsight Enterprise Secure Package
  • New in Marketplace: Kafka cluster with higher reliability
  • Microsoft Azure Data Lake Storage in Storage Explorer – public preview
  • Azure #CosmosDB Graph API now generally available
  • Azure Friday on Whats new in Cosmos DB

IoT

• Azure IoT SDKs released new Long-Term Support branch

AI

• Using AI to automatically redact faces in videos
• Announcing new milestones for Microsoft Cognitive Services vision and search services in Azure
• Microsoft updates Cognitive Services terms
• Azure Search service upgrades: New hardware, unlimited document counts, and more!
• Brand Detection in Microsoft Video Indexer
• Bing Speech API extends its text to speech support to 34 languages

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-technical-news-january-2018 Tue, 06 Feb 2018 09:28:40 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1875 Azure generic

• Enhancements to Cost Management APIs
• Enhancements to Azure Budgets API supporting Resource Groups and Usage Budgets
• Announcing the general availability of Azure Event Grid
• Announcing the extension of Azure IP Advantage to Azure Stack

Management

• Azure and Ansible News:
  • Ansible in Azure Cloud Shell
  • Ansible extension for Visual Studio Code
• ITSM Connector for Azure is now generally available
• The Classic portal is history
• Change the subscription AAD directory (tenant) in the Azure portal
• Expanded options for accessing Cloud Shell

IaaS

• Compute:
  • Securing Azure customers from CPU vulnerability
  • Zone Redundant Virtual Machine Scale Sets now available in public preview
  • Accelerated Spark on GPU-enabled clusters in Azure
  • Keeping your environment secure with Update Management
  • Accelerate innovation with Microsoft Azure Databricks
• Network:
  • Network Watcher Connection Troubleshoot now generally available
  • Virtual Network Service Endpoints and Firewalls for Azure Storage now generally available
  • Azure ExpressRoute updates – New partnerships, monitoring and simplification
  • NSGs:
    • Public preview: Application security groups in all regions
    • General availability: Augmented rules for NSGs
    • General availability: Service tags for NSGs
  • Maximize your VM’s Performance with Accelerated Networking – now generally available for both Windows and Linux
• Storage
  • Azure Storage SDKs for Python, Ruby and PHP now generally available
  • Azure Zone Redundant Storage in public preview
  • Announcing integration of Azure Backup into VM create experience
  • Comprehensive monitoring for Azure Site Recovery now generally available
  • New functions in Azure Site Recovery for VMware:
    • OVF-based ASR VM deployment
    • New Web portal in configuration server
    • Fewer firewall rules required
  • Launching the Azure Storage Solution showcase
  • Azure Backup now supports BEK-encrypted Azure virtual machines

Security and IAM

• Integrate Azure Security Center alerts into SIEM solutions
• Azure Security Center and Microsoft Web Application Firewall Integration
• How Azure Security Center helps analyze attacks using Investigation and Log Search
• Azure Security Center adds support for custom security assessments

Apps

• February version updates for PHP on App Service
• Migration checklist when moving to Azure App Service
• New Best Practices documentation: Designing, building, and operating microservices on Azure
• DevOps:
  • Jenkins news in Azure
  • Managing Azure Secrets on GitHub Repositories

Data

• SQL:
  • Using the MySQL sys schema to optimize and maintain a database
  • Using EXPLAIN to profile slow queries in Azure Database for MySQL
  • Compatibility Level 140 is now the default for Azure SQL Database
  • Azure SQL Data Warehouse, the cost benefits of an on-demand data warehousing
• Azure Data Factory:
  • New Azure Data Factory self-paced hands-on lab for UI
  • Azure Data Factory: Visual Tools enabled in public preview
• Analysis Services:
  • Azure Analysis Services now available in East US, West US 2, and more
  • Asynchronous refresh with the REST API for Azure Analysis Services
  • Azure Analysis Services features on Azure Friday
• Lambda Architecture using Azure #CosmosDB: Faster performance, Low TCO, Low DevOps
• New in Stream Analytics: General availability of sub-streams, query compatibility, and more
• Azure Data Lake tools integrates with VSCode Data Lake Explorer and Azure Account

IoT

• Announcing IoT extension for Azure CLI 2.0
• Manage and Auto-scale your IoT solution with a predictable IoT Cloud and Durable Functions
• Build richer apps with your time series data
• New functionality in Time Series Insights explorer
  • TSI is GA
  • TSI supports new accessibility features
  • Easier export of aggregate event data
• Whitepaper: Selecting the right secure hardware for your IoT deployment

AI

• How is AI for video different from AI for images
• Cognitive Services - Availability of SDKs for the latest Bing Search APIs
• Azure Search enterprise security: Data encryption and user-identity access control

Have fun! Daniel]]> https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/dmelanchthon/azure-technical-news-december-2017 Wed, 03 Jan 2018 19:04:53 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dmelanchthon/?p=1865 Azure generic

• Microsoft Azure preview with Azure Availability Zones now open in France

Management

• New Azure management and cost savings capabilities
• Java SDK v1.4: Manage Azure Container Service (AKS) and more
• Dedicated URL for Azure Shell (Bash and PS): https://shell.azure.com

IaaS

• General availability of Azure Site Recovery Deployment Planner for VMware and Hyper-V
• Compute:
  • Announcing the Lv2-Series VMs powered by the AMD EPYC™ processor
  • Announcing the general availability of B-Series and M-Series
• Networking:
  • White Paper: Mesh and hub-and-spoke networks on Azure
• Storage:
  • Cloud storage now more affordable: Announcing general availability of Azure Archive Storage

Containers

• Connect your applications to Azure with Open Service Broker for Azure
• Azure brings new Serverless and DevOps capabilities to the Kubernetes community
  • Virtual Kubelet
  • Open Source of the "Open Service Broker for Azure": Open Service Broker API
  • Kashti: New dashboard and visualization tool for Kubernetes pipelines
• Partners enhance Kubernetes support for Azure and Windows Server Containers
  • Heptio for Kubernetes DR
  • Tigera for Windows Container Security
  • Windows Server Containers beta support in Kubernetes 1.9

Security and IAM

• Azure Active Directory (AD) Domain Services now available for Azure Cloud Solution Providers

Apps

• Free eBook – The Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Azure now available
• Bringing hybrid cloud Java and Spring apps to Azure and Azure Stack
  • Pivotal Cloud Foundry in Azure Stack (beta)
  • Lighter Image for PCF in Azure Marketplace
  • Azure Services in Spring Initializr
  • Using Visual Studio Code to develop and debug Java Functions
  • Spring Boot extensions for Visual Studio Code
• Designing, building, and operating microservices on Azure

Data

• SQL DB:
  • Database Scoped Global Temporary Tables are generally available for Azure SQL DB
  • Resumable Online Index Rebuild is generally available for Azure SQL DB
• HDInsight:
  • Azure HDInsight announcements: Significant price reduction and amazing new capabilities
  • Enterprise Security Package preview for Azure HDInsight
  • Announcing Apache Kafka for Azure HDInsight general availability
  • Azure HDInsight Integration with Azure Log Analytics is now generally available

IoT

• Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service is generally available

AI

• Conversational Bots Deep Dive – What’s new with the General Availability of Azure Bot Service and Language Understanding

Have fun! Daniel]]>