Azure Weekly #167 - 25th March 2018

Azure Weekly Newsletter Issue #167

powered by endjin

The most notable news in this week's edition, which the majority of you may have already picked up, is that Service Fabric is going open source. Just another move that shows Microsoft's commitment to open source!

Another exciting announcement this week is the Common Data Service for Analytics which is coming soon to PowerBI, which will serve to simplify business data analytics processes, offering: a multitude of connectors, the ablility to set standard schema, and Out-of-the-Box solutions. Similarly, read here about the Common Data Service for Apps Spring update.

Here's some other noteworthy news from the past week:

• General availability of Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL
• New columnstore support in Standard tier Azure SQL Databases
• Azure Redis Cache feature updates
• Improved multi-member Blockchain networks now available on Azure
• Global performance acceleration with Azure Traffic Manager
• The next generation of Azure Alerts has arrived

For you Cosmos DB enthusiasts, take a look at the Azure Cosmos DB query cheat sheets and have a read of Real-World Partitioning CosmosDb by Peter Rombouts.

A couple of other interesting articles are: Microsoft helps launch worlds first blockchain-based investment product, and Yousef Khalidi talks about SONiC, the network innovation powerhouse behind Azure.

Finally, we'd like to point out the Global Azure Bootcamp 2018 taking place on Saturday, 21st April. Get involved at your local event by either organizing, volunteering, sponsoring, promoting or just attending the event!

If you have any content you'd like to contribute to the newsletter, please tweet @AzureWeekly or ping an email to AzureWeekly@endjin.com.

@HowardvRooijen | @endjin

Compute

Covering: Virtual Machines, Virtual Machine Scale Sets, Functions, Batch, Service Fabric, Cloud Services

• On the Azure blog, Raman Sharma points to the Serverless computing recipe book for your cloud applications
• On MSDN, Pete Rodriguez describes Changing the License Type for an existing Virtual Machine Scale Set to use the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit
• On TechNet, Adam Lichtenberg blogs about Course 2 of 11: – Provision and Manage Virtual Machines
• John Savill walks through Deploying an Azure IaaS VM using PowerShell
• Mark Heath (@mark_heath) describes Managing Azure Functions Keys
• Lee Stott (@lee_stott) and Kristjan Košič describe Using Microsoft Azure to setup ARK Blockchain for Hacks and Blockchain Challenges
• Also on the Azure blog, Cody Born announces that Improved multi-member Blockchain networks now available on Azure

Networking

Covering: Virtual Network, Load Balancer, Application Gateway, VPN Gateway, Azure DNS, Content Delivery Network, Traffic Manager, ExpressRoute, Network Watcher, Azure DDos Protection,

• On the Azure blog, Dilip Lukose writes about Global performance acceleration with Azure Traffic Manager
• On MSDN, Jeff Sanders (@jsandersrocks) walks through Using Azure Traffic Manager probes with IP Restrictions protecting the App
• Also on MSDN, 'David-Sanchez' writes about the Azure WAF to protect your Web Application
• John Savill describes Using Azure Application Gateway to publish applications

Storage

Covering: Blob storage, Queue storage, File storage, Disk storage, Data Lake Store, StorSimple, Backup

• Aidan Finn writes about Faster & Bigger Azure Backup for Azure VMs and posts a Video–Azure File Sync
• On TechNet, Tim Tetrick provides an Introduction to Azure Backup
• On the Xamarin blog, Brandon Minnick explains how to Add Cloud Storage to Xamarin Apps with Azure Blob Storage

Web & Mobile

Covering: App Service, Web apps, Mobile apps, API apps, Content Delivery Network, Media Services, Azure Search

• On MSDN, Crystal Tenn provides an End-to-end from Code Project, to VSTS CI/CD, to Azure
• Also on MSDN, Giles Davies (@gdavi) writes Azure DevOps: automate App Service slot swaps in your VSTS release pipeline
• Kenneth Teo blogs about Azure App Service – Options Method (and other HTTPS Verb) disabled / not working in Azure Web App
• On the Azure blog, the Azure updates team writes Deprecating Service Management API support for Azure App Service
• Christina Compy (@ccompy) writes that BizTalk Hybrid Connections going end of life May 31, 2018
• David Holladay describes how to Build your next iOS and Android game with $2,500+ of gaming services

Containers

Covering: Container Service, Container Instances, Container Registry, Web App for Containers

• On Channel 9, Alena Hall has a Treehouse discussion: submitting Spark jobs using Kubernetes scheduler on AKS with Bernd Verst on the Open Source Show and presents Part 2 of 4: Create an Azure Container Instance with the container image on the Open Source Show
• The Service Fabric Team provides a Customer Profile: Honeywell
• On the Revolution Analytics blog, David Smith (@revodavid) covers R and Docker

Databases

Covering: SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, SQL Data Warehouse, SQL Server Stretch Database, Azure Cosmos DB, Table storage, Redis Cache, Data Factory

• On the Azure blog, Tobias Ternstrom announces the General availability of Azure database services for MySQL and PostgreSQL, on the Azure blog. Here are the Name changes: Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Name changes: Azure Database for MySQL
• Also on the Azure blog, Kevin Farlee announces the Columnstore support in Standard tier Azure SQL Databases
• Ye Gu highlights the Azure Redis Cache feature updates
• Mark Bolz writes Securing Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL and describes the Compliance offerings for Azure Database for MySQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• Yochanan Rachamim explains how to Stop / Cancel ongoing Azure SQL DB scale operation
• On TechNet, Theo van Kraay discusses Azure Cosmos DB – Tunable Consistency
• Peter Rombouts delves into Real-World Partitioning CosmosDb

Analytics

Covering: HDInsight, Stream Analytics, Data Lake Analytics, Azure Databricks, Power BI Embedded, Data Catalog

• Tony Smith (@tpsmith99) and Alice Kupcik write about GDPR – Implementing a Taxonomy in Azure Data Catalog Step by Step
• On the Power BI blog, Arun Ulag writes Coming soon to Power BI: Common Data Service for Analytics
• Also on the Power BI blog, Amanda Cofsky gives a Power BI Report Server Update – March 2018
• Chris Webb (@Technitrain) describes Improving The Performance Of Aggregation After A Merge In Power BI And Excel Power Query/Get&Transform and writes about the Power BI Roadmap Announcements In the Dynamics 365 Spring 18 Release Notes
• On The SQLBI Blog, Marco Russo describes Capturing Power BI queries using DAX Studio
• Devin Knight (@knight_devin) presents Power BI Custom Visuals Class Module 94 – Count Down Timer
• Charles Sterling (@chass) points out the Week of 3/19 webinars: Advanced Tricks on manipulating structured JSON with Flow and Enhance Power BI Visualization with R
• On TechNet, Rachel Mason highlights the Data & Analytics technical webinars – March, April & May

AI + Machine Learning

Covering: Machine Learning, Bots, Computer Vision API, Face API, Bing Web Search API, Customised speech service, Custom Vision Service, Language Understanding Intelligent Service, Bing Custom Search

• On Channel 9, Seth Juarez talks about Experimentation using Notebooks in Azure ML with remote compute [Part 3/4] with Parashar Shah on the AI Show

Internet of Things

Covering: IoT Hub, IoT Edge, Event Grid, Stream Analytics, Notification Hubs, Time Series Insights, Azure Location Based Services

• On the Kloud blog, Darren Robinson discusses Integrating Azure IoT Devices with MongooseOS MQTT and PowerShell
• On Channel 9, Olivier Bloch is joined by Sam Vanhoutte whereby Codit share their experience building IoT applications with Azure IoT Edge

Integration

Covering: Logic Apps, Service Bus, API Management, BizTalk Services

• On TechNet, the Intune Support Team blogs about Using O365 APIs and PowerShell to access Intune messages from Message center in Office 365 Part 1
• On the risual blog, Mollie Sutton describes How to optimise when you get into the Microsoft cloud and covers Reasons to move to the Microsoft Cloud
• On the Azure podcast, the Azure podcast team and guest Kevin Lam present Episode 220 - Logic Apps Update with Kevin Lam

Security + Identity

Covering: Security Center, Azure Active Directory for developers, Key Vault, Azure Active Directory, Azure Active Directory B2C, Azure Active Directory Domain Services, Multi-Factor Authentication

• On the Azure blog, Shalini Pasupneti writes about the Azure Security Center and discovery of partner solutions
• Yuri Diogenes (@yuridiogenes) blogs about Detecting Suspicious PowerShell Activity in Azure Security Center
• Sam Cogan (@samcogan) describes Changing an Azure Subscriptions Tenant
• On TechNet, Troy Arwine writes that DISA STIG Requires Privilege Access Workstations PAW for Cloud Tenant Administration
• Rob Kuehfus writes about Storing your Private SSH key in Azure Key Vault
• The US Partner Team discusses Azure Security and Management – Part 1: Capabilities of Hybrid Cloud

Developer Tools

Covering: Visual Studio Team Services, Azure DevTest Labs, HockeyApp, Developer tools and SDKs, Xamarin, Storage Explorer

• On .NET Rocks, Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell present Surviving Microservices with Michele Bustamante
• On the Azure blog, Yaron Prigal writes Deploying WordPress Application using Visual Studio Team Services and Azure – Part two
• On the Black Marble blog, Richard Fennell writes Using VSTS Gates to help improve my deployment pipeline of VSTS Extensions to the Visual Studio Marketplace
• On MSDN, Dave Harrison describes How Microsoft Does DevOps – an Interview with Aaron Bjork, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services VSTS
• Also on MSDN, Keith Beller describes how to Use Visual Studio Team Services VSTS to host your private package server
• Matthew Mitrik writes about the TFVC Windows Shell Extension for VSTS and TFS 2018
• Michael Crump (@mbcrump) continues the Azure Tips and Tricks 'An end to end scenario with Azure App Service, API Apps, SQL, VSTS and CI/CD' series with Part 104 - Day 4 and Part 105 - Day 5
• Tobias Zimmergren gives an Azure Tip: Installing and using the Azure CLI in VSCode

Management Tools

Covering: Microsoft Azure portal, Azure Policy, Cost Management, Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics, Site Recovery, Scheduler

• On the Azure blog, Kiran Madnani announces that The next generation of Azure Alerts has arrived
• On the MSSQL Tips site, Joe Gavin describes an Easy Way to Build an Azure Log Analytics Query
• On MSDN, Michael S. Hansen blogs about Using Postman with Azure Resource Manager API – Commercial and Government
• On TechNet, Bruno M. Afonso writes about the Heartbeat Metric Alerts for Log Analytics
• On the Cloud Administrator blog, Stanislav Zhelyazkov (@StanZhelyazkov) describes Using Custom Log Search Alerts Based on Metric Measurement for Event Based Logs and explains Top 10 Charts in Azure Log Analytics and Application Insights

Microsoft Azure Stack

Covering: Azure Stack

• No content this week

Thought Leadership from endjin

• Unlocking Digital Transformation with Azure API Management - a training session from endjin, explaining what Digital Transformation is, and how to use Azure API Management to take your first steps. Three versions are available: 5 minute exec summary, 20 minute overview or 50 minute deep dive.
• How to plan your cloud transformation journey - an article explaining how you should use the various bits of thought leadership content from endjin to plan your cloud journey.
• API Maturity Matrix - a spreadsheet to help you assess your organization's ability to build, test, deploy, manage and monetize an API Platform.
• Azure Technology Selector - a flowchart which guides you through the process of chosing the best Azure service for your needs.
• Cloud Comparison Poster - a free poster, comparing the three major cloud platforms - Azure, AWS & Google Cloud Platform. For more information, see the accompanying blog series.
• Cloud Migration Process - a free poster, outlining our process for cloud adoption.
• Cloud Adoption: Risk & Mitigations - The Swiss Cheese Model - a free poster from endjin & Hymans Robertson outlining the risk and mitigations of adopting public cloud.
• Embracing Disruption: Financial Services & the Microsoft Cloud - a free ebooklet from endjin describing how companies in FS can take advantage of Azure.

Solutions from endjin

• Modern Data Platform Blueprint - our opinionated architecture over Azure Data Lake, which solves common security, ingestion, and data processing requirements.
• API Economy Platform Blueprint - our solution accelerator for building an API first architecure on Azure.

Useful Links

• The Developer's Guide to Microsoft Azure (2nd Edition) - ebook from Microsoft showcasing architectural approaches and common design patterns you face when building modern applications.
• Azure Virtual Datacenter - ebook from Microsoft highlighting an approach to isolation, security, and trust in the Microsoft cloud.
• Cyber Security Demystified - ebook from Microsoft describing how to keep your organisation safe.
• Microsoft's What is Azure poster - a visual overview of Azure's services and features.
• Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure - a free ebook from Microsoft Press, by Michael S. Collier and Robin E. Shahan.
• Data Science in the Cloud with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning and R - a free ebook on Azure Machine Learning, by Stephen F. Elston.
• Protecting Data in Microsoft Azure - a whitepaper that describes the various mechanism you can you can leverage for managing sensitive data in the Azure platform.
• A-Z of the Azure ecosystem - a slide deck outlining current Azure services.
• Azure Architecture Center - guidance from the Patterns & Practices team covering API Design, API implementation, Autoscaling, Background jobs, CDN, Caching, Data partitioning, Monitoring and diagnostics, Retry, Scalability and availability.
• Azure Architect's Reference - if you are an architect responsible for building an application on Azure, or are trying to figure out how you could migrate an application and need to dig deep into the workload, cost, security, capacity, availability, deployment and operational modelling this invaluable resource should be your first stop. An open source project, with contributions from several experienced architects, it gathers data from many different references into a single, useful guide that is constantly updated by the community.
• Azure Table Storage Design Guide - a guide from the storage team.
• Azure infrastructure services implementation guidelines - key design and implementation guidelines for deploying an IT workload in Azure infrastructure services.
• Azure Speed Test - a simple web tool that measures the latency between you and Azure Datacenters to suggest which might be fastest for you location.
• Azure Websites Cheatsheet - everything you need to know about configuring & managing Azure Websites on a single page.
• SQL Database Migration Wizard - a very useful tool for migrating existing SQL databases to SQL Azure; will fix some common conversion errors automatically.
• Azure SQL DTU Calculator - a tool to help you determine the number of DTUs for your existing SQL Server database(s) as well as a recommendation of the minimum performance level and service tier that you need before you migrate to Azure SQL Database.
• Microsoft Azure Symbol/Icon Set - a set of Visio and PowerPoint shapes for use in architecture diagrams / presentations.
• Service Bus Explorer - a free and open source tool for managing and exploring Azure Service Bus(including Event Hubs).
• Best practices for designing Azure Resource Manager Templates - guidance based on the whitepaper 'World Class ARM Templates Considerations and Proven Practices'.
• Microsoft Cloud Networking for Enterprise Architects - a downloadable guide to Azure networking, covering topics such as cloud migration and networking for PaaS and SaaS services