The Azure Podcast

The team talks to Kip Kniskern, managing editor of OnMSFT.com about his impressions of Azure after he finished migrating OnMSFT.com to Azure. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode264.mp3 Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/624dbce40b/ https://www.onmsft.com/ https://www.onmsft.com/news/onmsft-on-azure-first-impressions-on-our-move-to-microsofts-cloud   Other updates: Migrate Amazon RDS for SQL Server to Azure SQL Database with minimal downtime by using generally available functionality in the Azure Database Migration Service. To learn more about how to use the Azure  Database Migration Service to perform online migrations from Amazon RDS for SQL Server to Azure SQL Database with minimal downtime, read the tutorial Migrate SQL Server to Azure SQL Database online using  Database Migration Service. Availability Zones support is now generally available for Azure Service Bus premium and Azure Event Hubs standard in every Azure region that has zone redundant datacenters. Note that this feature won’t work with existing namespaces—you will need to provision new namespaces to use this feature. Azure HDInsight Tools for VSCode The Azure HDInsight Tools for VSCode are now generally available. They provide you with best-in-class authoring experiences for Apache Hive batch jobs, interactive Hive queries, and PySpark jobs. HDInsight Tools for VSCode feature a cross-platform, lightweight, keyboard-focused code editor which removes constraints and dependencies on a platform. It can be run smoothly on Windows, Linux and Mac. Learn more in our documentation and blog.   Spark diagnosis and debugging toolkit  A number of enhancements have been added to the rich development and debugging capabilities of HDInsight for Spark developers, including: · Job graph with playback and heatmap identifying read/write bottlenecks. · Executor usage analysis showing executors’ utilization and job execution efficiency. · Data skew detection and analysis. · Job specific data management including data preview, download, and copy. Azure Guest OS Family 6, based on Windows Server 2019, is now generally available. Windows Server 2019 is the operating system that bridges on-premises environments with Azure, adding layers of security while helping you modernize your applications and infrastructure. DNS Flag Day is February 1, 2019. On this day, DNS providers will stop supporting certain workarounds that enable name resolution for domains hosted on DNS servers that don't fully conform to EDNS standards. For more information, visit dnsflagday.net. You can test domains for compliance by using tools on that page.  At this time, DNS services across Microsoft are testing as "All ok" or "Minor problems detected" on dnsflagday.net. Domains that test as "Minor problems detected" will not be affected on DNS Flag Day. Azure DNS and Azure Traffic Manager fixes are currently being rolled out to resolve these minor issues. Fixes for microsoft.com, xbox.com, and other domains are in progress. Some of these fixes will not be fully deployed until after DNS Flag Day. This is not expected to cause any impact to our customers or services. Hyperledger Fabric updates now available https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/hyperledger-fabric-updates-now-available/ Microsoft Azure Cloud Features Waves’ Smart Assets and Smart Accounts https://blog.wavesplatform.com/microsoft-azure-cloud-features-waves-smart-assets-and-smart-accounts-1a71b3c23c2b Azure Security Center can detect emerging vulnerabilities in Linux https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-security-center-can-detect-emerging-vulnerabilities-in-linux/ Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 30

Liz Rice, Technical Evangelist at Aqua Security and master of all things Security in Kubernetes, talks to us about her philosophy on security and gives us the some great tips-n-tricks on how to secure your container workloads in Azure, on-prem or any cloud.  Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode263.mp3 Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/6283960fb7/ @lizrice @aquasecteam Aqua web site: https://aquasec.com Aqua in the Azure marketplace: https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en/marketplace/apps/aqua-security.aqua-security?tab=Overview kube-hunter - open source pen testing tool for Kubernetes https://github.com/aquasecurity/kube-hunter microscanner - free vulnerability scanning for container images. It's the same package vulnerability scanner as in the commercial product, but you can use it for free, running security scanning as part of your container image build process. https://github.com/aquasecurity/microscanner Co-author with Michael Hausenblas of O'Reilly Kubernetes Security book https://kubernetes-security.info/ Other updates: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/expressroute/expressroute-troubleshooting-network-performance Azure SQL DB metrics infrastructure improvements Azure SQL Database is upgrading the infrastructure for monitoring and alerts. This upgrade will improve stability and lay the foundation for enabling next-generation alerts. The upgrade will take place from January 22, 2019 to January 28, 2019.     How will this affect me?     During this upgrade, there will be no change to metric data and charts available in the Azure portal. However, customers who are using the Azure Monitor REST API will no longer be able to query for metric data written before December 21, 2018.     What do I need to do?     If you need metric data before December 21, 2018, please make a copy of the data before January 21, 2019. Moving forward, metric history will be built up to 93 days and maintained as such.     For guidance on saving metric data to a data store, see the Azure Monitor REST API walkthrough and Microsoft Azure Monitor REST API reference.    For any questions or concerns, please contact support.  Public preview: Read replicas in Azure Database for PostgreSQL Posted on Monday, January 21, 2019 You can now replicate data from a single Azure Database for PostgreSQL server (master) to up to five read-only servers (read replicas) within the same Azure region. This feature uses PostgreSQL's native asynchronous replication. Connecting Node-RED to Azure IoT Central https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/connecting-node-red-to-azure-iot-central/ Azure Backup now supports PowerShell and ACLs for Azure Files https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-backup-now-supports-powershell-and-acls-for-azure-files/  

We are fortunate to have John Kozell, a Principal Consultant at Microsoft and an expert in all things Cosmos DB, specially when it comes to the Enterprise world. He gives us some unique perspectives on what Enterprises should do in order to make effective use of Cosmos DB to and also meet their compliance and operational goals.   Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode262.mp3 Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/467ae71b3c/ • 5-Minute Quickstarts: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/ • Global distribution: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/distribute-data-globally • Backup & Restore/Compliance: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/online-backup-and-restore • Monitoring: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/use-metrics • Performance Tips: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/performance-tips Other updates: Microsoft announces partnership with Citrix to support Windows Virtual Desktop Questions on data residency and compliance in Microsoft Azure? We got answers! https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/questions-on-data-residency-and-compliance-in-azure-we-got-answers/   https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/release-notes/2019/sprint-146-update?branch=releasenotes%2Fsprints145-146#features Azure Boards:  · Simplify the organization of your work using the Basic process Azure Pipelines:  · GitHub Enterprise support in the pipeline wizard  · Automatic GitHub service connections in pipelines  · Display status for each pipeline job in GitHub Checks  · Default authorization for YAML resources in GitHub  · Service containers for YAML pipelines  · Work items linked to GitHub commits in Release Summary  · New Azure App service tasks optimized for YAML  · Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) authentication support in Azure SQL task  · Grafana annotations service hook  · Query Azure Monitor alerts tasks  · Inline input of spec file in Deploy to Kubernetes task  · Docker CLI Installer task  · Java long-term support (LTS) on Microsoft hosted agents  · YAML support for Bitbucket Cloud pipelines  · Avoid triggering multiple CI builds for pull requests  · Change build numbers, upload and download artifacts in forked repository builds  · New option in Publish Test Results task to fail build on failed tests  · Updates to the Azure portal for creating an Azure DevOps project  · Use the Azure portal to set up and deploy to an Azure Cosmos DB database  · Set up builds and release pipelines for Functions in the Azure portal Azure Artifacts:  · Package usage stats Wiki:  · Monospaced font for wiki Markdown editor  · Bold wiki page titles  · Insert Markdown table  · Embed Azure Boards query results in wiki Administration: Restore deleted projects Azure Migrate is now available in Asia and Europe https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-migrate-is-now-available-in-asia-and-europe/    

Kendall, Cale and Evan talk to Sami Kubba, a Senior PM Lead in the Azure CXP org, about how they handle communications of outages and other issues in Azure. Great insight into what goes on behind to scenes to maintain full transparency into the workings of Azure. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode261.mp3 Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/6962df0b56/ Resources: Understand Azure service health: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/features/service-health/   Configure service health alerts: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/alerts-activity-log-service-notifications?toc=%2fazure%2fservice-health%2ftoc.json  Configure resource health alerts https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/service-health/resource-health-alert-arm-template-guide Other updates for the week: Use Azure Database Migration Service to migrate PostgreSQL databases hosted on-premises, on a virtual machine, or on AWS RDS PostgreSQL, to Azure Database for PostgreSQL while the source database remains online during migration. Use Azure Database Migration Service to migrate MySQL databases hosted on-premises, on a virtual machine, or on AWS RDS MySQL, to Azure Database for MySQL while the source database remains online during migration.  Migrate SQL Server databases to Azure SQL Database with minimal downtime by using  Azure Database Migration Service. Learn how to use Azure Database Migration Service to perform online migrations from SQL Server on-premises or on virtual machines to Azure SQL Database with minimal downtime by reading  this tutorial. Over the last 12 months, Operations Management Suite (OMS) monitoring, management, and security capabilities have been incorporated into the Azure portal. We’ve also enhanced the Azure portal with many new features and capabilities. Because the Azure portal fully replaces it, the OMS portal will be retired on January 15, 2019. You can continue to use your existing services and licensing in the Azure portal. You can read more about the move from the OMS portal to the Azure portal in the documentation. If you have any questions or concerns, reach out to us at LAUpgradeFeedback@microsoft.com. CES 2019: Microsoft partners, customers showcase breakthrough innovation with Azure IoT, AI, and Mixed Reality https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ces-2019-microsoft-partners-customers-showcase-breakthrough-innovation-with-azure-iot-ai-and-mixed-reality/ Streamlined development experience with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.6.0 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/streamlined-development-experience-with-azure-blockchain-workbench-1-6-0/ To infinity and beyond: The definitive guide to scaling 10k VMs on Azure https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/to-infinity-and-beyond-the-definitive-guide-to-scaling-10k-vms-on-azure/

Cale, Russell and Sujit break down the Azure Sphere offering from Microsoft and what it means for the future of IoT development. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode260.mp3 Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/f4130c2bbc/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/azure-sphere/   Other updates: SQL Data Warehouse integration with Informatica iPaaS on Azure Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2018 Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) on Azure is now generally available, enabling an intelligent discovery-driven approach to migrate legacy data warehouse workloads to Azure SQL Data Warehouse. IICS on Azure optimizes multi-cloud, hybrid environments with a streamlined experience for Azure customers, allowing them to launch IICS with a single click, directly from the Azure portal. Two key use cases enabled by IICS on Azure are data integration with prebuilt mappings and data accelerator for simplified migration to Azure SQL Data Warehouse. From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/sql-data-warehouse-integration-with-informatica-ipaas-on-azure/> Virtual Network Service Endpoints for serverless messaging and big data https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/virtual-network-service-endpoints-for-serverless-messaging-and-big-data/ Virtual Networks and Firewall rules for both Azure Event Hubs and Azure Service Bus are now generally available. This feature adds to the security and control you have over your cloud environments. Take advantage of the Azure backbone network to secure access to your premium Azure Service Bus namespaces and standard and dedicated Azure Event Hubs offerings on all public regions.  Anatomy of a secured MCU https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/anatomy-of-a-secured-mcu/ Azure.Source - Volume 63 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-source-volume-63/ Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 28 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-marketplace-new-offers-volume-28/   https://www.seeedstudio.com/Azure-Sphere-MT3620-Development-Kit-US-Version-p-3052.html

Developer Evangelist David Gristwood and Cloud Solution Architect Robin Lester, from Microsoft UK, are enthusiastic about the AI hacks they do with partners to help them quickly realize an application that uses Azure's AI capabilities. They discuss common patterns and tips and tricks from their various hacks.   Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode259.mp3 Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/d4f658c21b/ Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!    

We are live at KubeCon+CloudNative in Seattle where Microsoft, together with the whos-who of the tech world, are talking about Kubernetes, We are very fortunate to get Lachie Evenson, Principal PM in the Azure team, Tommy Falgout, a Cloud Solution Architect and Daniel Selman, a Kubernetes Consultant, together in a room to discuss the current state of Kubernetes and AKS.   Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode258.mp3  

Yair Tor, a Principal PM in the Azure Networking team, gives us the scoop on the newly released Firewall service. He talks to us about the use-cases where it makes sense to use the service, pricing and future plans. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode257.mp3 Azure Firewall Product Page Azure Firewall Documentation   Other updates: The Security Center network map is GA  The interactive network map in Azure Security Center provides a graphical view with security overlays, giving you recommendations and insights for hardening your network resources. Using the map, you can see the network topology of your Azure workloads, along with connections between your virtual machines and subnets. You can drill down from the map into specific resources and the recommendations for those resources. For more information, see Protect your network resources in Azure Security Center.  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Azure-Active-Directory-Identity/Azure-portal-and-the-new-account-manager/ba-p/283709?WT.mc_id=ITOpsTalk-blog-socuff https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-change-tracking https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/virtual-network-for-azure-services   Azure Container Service will retire on January 31, 2020 In 2017, we introduced Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for simplifying Kubernetes management, deployment, and operations. Because it fully replaces Azure Container Service capabilities for Kubernetes, Container Service will be retired as a standalone service on January 31, 2020. Microsoft Connect sessions are available online Session called 5 azure services every developer should know https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/connectevent

Cynthia, Cale and Evan have a stirring discussion on the use-cases for Serverless computing and Azure Functions. They dive into scenarios when it is a good idea to use them and when it is not. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode256.mp3   Other updates: We're excited to announce enhancements to network security group (NSG) flow logs for Azure Network Watcher. These enhancements are available in version 2 of the logs. They include per-flow throughput statistics, so you can understand flow session state and the associated number of bytes and packets transferred.   Introducing Azure DevOps Server 2019 RC1     Simplifying security for serverless and web apps with Azure Functions and App Service https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/simplifying-security-for-serverless-and-web-apps-with-azure-functions-and-app-service/   Improving Azure Virtual Machine resiliency with predictive ML and live migration https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/improving-azure-virtual-machine-resiliency-with-predictive-ml-and-live-migration/   Three reasons why Windows Server and SQL Server customers continue to choose Azure https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/three-reasons-why-windows-server-and-sql-server-customers-continue-to-choose-azure/   Considering Azure Functions for a serverless data streaming scenario https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/considering-azure-functions-for-a-serverless-data-streaming-scenario/

All the co-hosts are in the house for a change, having a fascinating discussion with Péter Bozsó, an Azure AppDev Consultant from Microsoft, Hungary. He gives us all the info on how to start writing Chatbots in Azure including tips and tricks, what not do to etc.   Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode255.mp3 The official MS Bot Framework website: https://dev.botframework.com/ All the open source bot-related MS repositories: https://github.com/Microsoft/botbuilder Community maintained repos related to the bot framework (stuff is actually getting merged from these into the official repos!): https://github.com/BotBuilderCommunity Cognitive Services: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/ The official bot framework blog: https://blog.botframework.com/ It’s a must have, a lot of best practices and tips and tricks are posted here.   And my personal blog, which is not full of content (yet!), but I am usually posting about Microsoft bots as well since that’s what I am working with every day: https://peterbozso.github.io/   Other updates: Azure SQL Data Warehouse now enables enhanced insights into analytical workloads by integrating directly with Microsoft Azure Monitor diagnostic logs. With this new capability, developers can analyze workload behavior over an extended time period and make informed decisions on query optimization or capacity management.   Azure Monitor diagnostic logs support customizable retention periods by saving the logs to a storage account for auditing purposes, the capability to stream logs to event hubs for near real-time telemetry insights, and the ability to analyze logs by using Azure Log Analytics with log queries. Diagnostic logs consist of telemetry views of your data warehouse equivalent to the most commonly used performance troubleshooting DMVs for SQL Data Warehouse.   For this initial release, we have enabled views for the following:  · sys.dm_pdw_exec_requests  · sys.dm_pdw_request_steps  · sys.dm_pdw_dms_workers  · sys.dm_pdw_waits  · sys.dm_pdw_sql_requests      AKS now in public preview in China Announcing the general availability of Azure Event Hubs for Apache Kafka® you don’t need to run Zookeeper, manage, or configure your clusters. From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/topics/announcements/> Deploy, develop, and troubleshoot faster with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.5.0 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/deploy-develop-and-troubleshoot-faster-with-azure-blockchain-workbench-1-5-0/ Get started in minutes: Build your own enterprise grade virtual assistant https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/get-started-in-minutes-build-your-own-enterprise-grade-virtual-assistant/ Getting started with Azure Cognitive Services in containers https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/getting-started-with-azure-cognitive-services-in-containers/ Holiday season is DDoS season https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/holiday-season-is-ddos-season/ Sprint 143 Update of Azure DevOps https://review.docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/release-notes/2018/sprint-143-update?branch=releases%2FM143%2Freleasenotes#new-work-item-text-editor With container support, customers can use Azure’s intelligent Cognitive Services capabilities, wherever the data resides. This means customers can perform facial recognition, OCR, or text analytics operations without sending their content to the cloud. Custom Vision Service support for logo detection  

Cale Teeter, who was in Prague for DevCon 4, gives us a first-hand update on the latest that Microsoft is bringing to the Blockchain space in Azure. Microsoft @ DevCon4 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/devcon4/ Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode254.mp3   Other updates: Automating SAP deployments in Microsoft Azure using Terraform and Ansible https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/automating-sap-deployments-in-microsoft-azure-using-terraform-and-ansible/ Announcing the general availability of Azure Event Hubs for Apache Kafka® https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-general-availability-of-azure-event-hubs-for-apache-kafka/ Azure SQL Data Warehouse introduces new productivity and security capabilities https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-sql-data-warehouse-taking-scalability-security-and-manageability-to-new-heights/  

James Baker, a Principal PM in the Azure team, talks to us about the latest offering in the Big Data space - Azure Data Lake Service - Gen 2. He gives us the low-down on what's new and why this is such a big deal for existing and new customers. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode253.mp3   Other updates: Use Azure Container Instances in a more secure way. With Virtual Network support, Azure Container Instances now supports deploying containers to new or existing Azure Virtual Networks. Azure Container Instances containers can have secure communication with other resources, such as Azure Kubernetes Service clusters, residing in the same virtual network.  Azure App Service now supports Virtual Network integration capability is general availability. The upgraded integration capability will enable apps to access resources across ExpressRoute or other connectivity technologies. It also enables apps to access resources secured with service endpoints in a similar manner as with SQL, Storage, and CosmosDB. This capability will only work with Windows Web Apps and in a limited number of regions.  PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell is now available and adds performance improvements and features to PowerShell: 1. The PowerShell startup experience is now on par with Bash. 2. PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell offers a consistent tooling experience, since Cloud Shell runs on a Linux Container that uses PowerShell Core. 3. PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell is portable and equipped with tools such as Azure PowerShell, git, and common text editors. At the same time, user settings can persist across sessions for increased productivity.  Four new Azure virtual machine remoting cmdlets enable interactive connectivity to an individual or many machines for automated tasks that use PowerShell remoting.

Microsoft AppDev Consultant Stewart Viera talks to us about the power of Azure DevOps and some of the things to watch out for when using it in an Enterprise setting. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode252.mp3 DevOps information @ https://aka.ms/devops Azure DevOps Solutions @ https://aka.ms/azuredevops Azure DevOps Documentation @ https://aka.ms/azdevopsdocs Azure DevOps Projects @ https://aka.ms/devopsprojects DevSecOps information @ https://github.com/azsk   Other updates: Azure Availability Zones expand with new services and to new region https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-availability-zones-expand-with-new-services-and-to-new-regions-in-europe-and-united-states/ Azure Update Management: A year of great updates https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-update-management-a-year-of-great-updates/ Public preview: Named Entity Recognition in the Cognitive Services Text Analytics API  (Sujit) https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/public-preview-named-entity-recognition-in-the-cognitive-services-text-analytics-api/ ExpressRoute for Azure DevOps—now available Azure DevOps is now available over Azure ExpressRoute. See the Azure DevOps blog for more details. Connectivity to Microsoft online services like Azure Storage, Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365, and now Azure DevOps is through the Microsoft peering configuration of ExpressRoute circuits. Route filters are a way to consume a subset of supported services through Microsoft peering. Using route filters, you can enable services you want to consume through your circuit's Microsoft peering. Azure DevOps is included in the new Azure Global Services route filter with a BGP community value of 12076:5050. For more information, see the ExpressRoute documentation for Configuring route filters for Microsoft peering. https://azure.microsoft.com/services/devops/ http://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devops/2018/10/23/expressroute-for-azure-devops/  

Azure Skills Evangelist and Cloud Solutions Architect, Daniel Baker, comes back on the show and this time he is very passionate about the resources, tips and tricks for getting skilled in Azure. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode251.mp3   Azure Learn - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/azure Azure Labs - https://www.microsoft.com/handsonlabs  Azure Interactives - http://azureinteractives.azurewebsites.net  Microsoft YouTube -  https://www.youtube.com/user/MSCloudOS  Citadel - https://azurecitadel.github.io  Azuredan – http://www.azuredan.co.uk  Pluralsight - https://www.pluralsight.com    Other updates: You can now choose which sets of user accounts should be synchronized into a managed domain. You do this by selecting groups in Azure Active Directory whose members should be synchronized to the managed domain. The current experience is PowerShell based. We’ve improved the sync performance in multiple stages. For large benchmark customers, we’ve been able to bring initial sync down to a few days. Further, the virtual machine SKU on which Azure AD DS is hosted scales automatically based on the number of objects in the directory. This enables larger customers to get better sync performance—for both initial and ongoing sync from Azure AD. Accessibility and array support with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.4.0 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/accessibility-and-array-support-with-azure-blockchain-workbench-1-4-0/ Sweet updates about Truffle on Azure https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/sweet-updates-about-truffle-on-azure/ Improved governance experience with Ethereum Proof-of-Authority 1.2 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/improved-governance-experience-with-ethereum-proof-of-authority-1-2/ Azure IoT Reference Architecture 2.1 release https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-iot-reference-architecture-2-1-release/ Azure Cognitive Services available in new regions Wednesday, October 17, 2018 New regions are now available for Azure Cognitive Services. The Content Moderator, Computer Vision, Face, Translator Text, and Language Understanding (LUIS) Services are now generally available in US Government regions. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/content-moderator/ Azure Digital Twins | Public Preview disclosure Azure Digital Twins is the first of its kind cloud service that virtually represents the physical world across people, places and devices, and will enter public preview in mid-October. Azure Digital Twins significantly reduces time and complexity for building next generation IoT solutions by automating endpoint actions based on incoming telemetry and using predefined templates that are attuned to specific industries. Azure Digital Twins enables customers to build solutions that analyze how space is used and then optimize it to better serve your needs at every level. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-iot-reference-architecture-2-1-release/ 

Microsoft Developer Advocate Anthony Chu gives us the details on the newly released Azure SignalR Service that allows web and mobile applications to display real-time data with minimal effort, Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode250.mp3 Azure SignalR Service documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/azure-signalr/?WT.mc_id=signalrservice-azpodcast-antchu Azure SignalR Service bindings for Azure Functions documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/azure-functions/functions-bindings-signalr-service?WT.mc_id=signalrservice-azpodcast-antchu Develop real-time features with Azure SignalR Service https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66604?WT.mc_id=signalrservice-azpodcast-antchu Build real-time serverless apps with Azure Functions and SignalR Service https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66631?WT.mc_id=signalrservice-azpodcast-antchu   Other updates: Advanced Threat Protection for Azure Storage now in public preview - Azure Storage Advanced Threat Protection detects anomalies in account activity and notifies you of potentially harmful attempts to access your account. This layer of protection allows you to address threats without the need to be a security expert   or manage security monitoring systems. Threats are surfaced by defining security alerts that trigger when anomalies in activity occur. These alerts integrate with Azure Security Center which include details of suspicious activity and recommendations on how to investigate and remediate threats. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/advanced-threat-protection-for-azure-storage-now-in-public-preview/ Cloud Scale Analytics meets Office 365 data – empowered by Azure Data Factory - Azure Data Factory enables you to bring the rich organizational data in your Office 365 tenant into Azure in a scalable way and build analytics applications and extract insights based on these valuable data assets. Microsoft Graph contains rich data about workers and their workplace, including information about how people work and how they communicate, collaborate, and manage their time. Microsoft Graph data connect brings this data to Microsoft Azure, which gives you access to the best development and hosting tools to work with this data. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-graph-data-connect-empowered-by-data-factory/ Bring Your Own Keys for Apache Kafka on HDInsight - Azure HDInsight includes Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) support for Apache Kafka. This capability lets you own and manage the keys used to encrypt data at rest. All managed disks in HDInsight are protected with Azure Storage Service Encryption (SSE). By default, the data on those disks is encrypted using Microsoft-managed keys. If you enable BYOK, you provide the encryption key for HDInsight to use and manage it using Azure Key Vault. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/bring-your-own-keys-for-apache-kafka-on-hdinsight/ Ephemeral OS Disk in limited preview - Ephemeral OS Disk is a new type of OS disk created directly on the host node, providing local disk performance and faster boot/reset time. Ephemeral OS Disk is supported for all virtual machines (VM) and virtual machine scale sets (VMSS). Ephemeral OS Disk is ideal for stateless workloads that require consistent read/write latency to OS disk, as well as frequent reimaging operations to reset VMs to their original state. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/mariadb-public-preview/ Public preview: Azure Database for MariaDB - The Azure Database for MariaDB service is now available in preview. It offers an enterprise-ready, fully managed database service that uses the community edition of MariaDB. The service features open-source compatibility, built-in high availability, dynamic scaling, and flexible pricing. Customers can lift and shift to the cloud and use languages and frameworks of their choice, leveraging the power of MariaDB running on Azure.