Last week the South Central US datacenter experienced a significant outage which resulted in many Azure services and customers being impacted. Kendall, Evan and Sujit break down the outage and try to understand how Microsoft and its customers can be better prepared from such unplanned events.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode246.mp3

Preliminary RCA: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/status/history/

Other updates:

Azure Stack is now integrated with the Azure Government cloud, enabling connections to Azure Government identity, subscription, registration, billing, backup/DR, and Azure Marketplace. Azure Stack unlocks a wide range of hybrid cloud use cases for government customers, such as tactical edge and regulatory scenarios.

Now in preview, you can migrate PostgreSQL databases to Azure Database for PostgreSQL with minimal downtime by using the Azure Database Migration Service (DMS). Use the Azure CLI to provision an instance of the DMS service to perform migrations from PostgreSQL on-premises or on virtual machines to Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

Azure SQL Data Warehouse Gen2 is now available in government cloud
Azure SQL Data warehouse is a fast, flexible and secure analytics platform. The Compute Optimized Gen2 tier of Azure SQL Data Warehouse is now available in US Government cloud. We recently made the service available in US Government Virginia and US Government Arizona regions. Compute Optimized Gen2 tier, using adaptive caching and instant data movement, brings at least 5x better performance for all our customers, compared to before. To find out more, go to Azure.com/sqldw.

Azure DevOps

The single service that was Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) is now becoming a new set of Azure DevOps services. Throughout our documentation and websites, and in the product, you'll start to notice new icons and names for Azure DevOps and each of the services within it:
 · Azure Pipelines to continuously build, test, and deploy to any platform and cloud.
 · Azure Boards for powerful work management.
 · Azure Artifacts for Maven, npm, and NuGet package feeds.
 · Azure Repos for unlimited cloud-hosted private Git repos.
 · Azure Test Plans for planned and exploratory testing.
With the launch of Azure Pipelines, we've introduced a new app to the GitHub Marketplace, refreshed a number of the experiences to help you get started, and begun to offer unlimited CI/CD minutes and 10 parallel jobs for open-source projects.

Microsoft Consultants Doug Strother and John Miller, both veterans of certifications, share some tips on getting your Azure certification.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode245.mp3

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwmiller5/

Other updates:

You can use the Azure Backup service to help protect SQL Server instances running on an Azure VM.

Azure Data Factory now supports service principal and MSI authentication for Azure Blob connectors.

G-series VMs are available in Azure HDInsight.

Azure Data Box: Expanded availability, plus support for NFS and RBAC

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-data-box-now-available-for-france-regions-with-nfs-and-rbac-support/>

Virtual network service endpoints are generally available for Azure Key Vault in all public Azure regions.

Avere vFXT for Microsoft Azure now in public preview
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/avere-vfxt-for-microsoft-azure-now-in-public-preview/

Transparent data encryption or always encrypted
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/transparent-data-encryption-or-always-encrypted/

Azure.Source - Volume 47
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-source-volume-47/

Two seconds to take a bite out of mobile bank fraud with Artificial Intelligence
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/two-seconds-to-take-a-bite-out-of-mobile-bank-fraud-with-artificial-intelligence/

Justin Luk, a PM on the Azure Compute team, breaks down ACI for us, giving advice on why and when you should consider this new service for your container workloads.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode244.mp3

Product page = https://aka.ms/aci 
Docs = https://aka.ms/aci/docs 
Samples = https://aka.ms/aci/samples 
Pricing = https://aka.ms/aci/price 
Virtual-kubelet project = https://github.com/virtual-kubelet/virtual-kubelet

Other updates:

NPR's Ask Me Another - https://www.npr.org/player/embed/640342676/640343477

https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/32747/Microsoft-Azure-IAAS-platform-SMTP-Restrictions-and-Alternatives.html

Cross-subscription disaster recovery for Azure virtual machines
Monday, August 27, 2018
Azure Site Recovery now supports cross-subscription disaster recovery (DR) for Azure virtual machines. You can configure DR for Azure IaaS applications to another region in a different subscription within the same Azure Active Directory tenant. For more information, see the detailed blog post.

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/cross-subscription-disaster-recovery-for-azure-virtual-machines/>

Microsoft Azure Data welcomes attendees to VLDB 2018
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-azure-data-welcomes-attendees-to-vldb-2018/

Helping Go developers build better cloud apps faster
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/helping-go-developers-build-better-cloud-apps-faster/

Turn your whiteboard sketches to working code in seconds with Sketch2Code
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/turn-your-whiteboard-sketches-to-working-code-in-seconds-with-sketch2code/

Azure.Source - Volume 46
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-source-volume-46/

OMS portal moving to Azure portal
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/oms-portal-moving-to-azure-portal/

Sibonay Koo, a PM in the Azure Files team, talks to us about a new service that just went GA - Azure File Sync. She gives us use-cases for using the new service as well as tips and tricks for getting the most out of it.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode243.mp3

Resources:

Azure File Sync GA announcement: https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/score-one-for-the-it-pro-azure-file-sync-is-now-generally-available/
AFS planning guide: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/storage-sync-files-planning

Answer to the question on encryption: All traffic between the server and cloud is encrypted in transport via SSL. There is also encryption at rest in the cloud that’s comparable to BitLocker. As for encryption on the server, you can essentially use whatever service you want as long as AFS can access the location. It’s fine to use BitLocker or to use RMS to encrypt individual files – because AFS does not interpret file content, we just need to see that the file exists. https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/storage/common/storage-service-encryption

Also she corrected her statement - Azure File Sync’s underlying sync technology is actually completely different from One Drive’s.

Other Updates:

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/suse-builds-a-custom-linux-kernel-to-boost-microsoft-azure-performance/2018/08/

Announcing VNet service endpoints general availability for MySQL and PostgreSQL

Azure API Management – VSTS extension v2.0 release

Reduce your exposure to brute force attacks from the virtual machine blade
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/reduce-your-exposure-to-brute-force-attacks-from-the-virtual-machine-blade/

Expanded Azure Blueprint for FFIEC compliant workloads
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/expanded-azure-blueprint-for-ffiec-compliant-workloads/

DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) for Linux VMs now generally available
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/dpdk-data-plane-development-kit-for-linux-vms-now-generally-available/

Multi-member consortium support with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.3.0
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/multi-member-consortium-support-with-azure-blockchain-workbench-1-3-0/

Blockchain Airlift in the UK for Partners - September 10-11, 2018 at the Sheraton Skyline Hotel in London. (Contact Russell)

Update Management: Reboot control
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/update-management-reboot/

Principal PM Alex Uy gives us the inside scoop into the Azure FastTrack program that helps companies move their workloads to Azure with support from the Engineering teams. 

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode242.mp3

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/programs/azure-fasttrack

Other updates:

Microsoft Azure at SIGGRAPH 2018
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-azure-at-siggraph-2018/

#Contest Microsoft AI Idea Challenge - AI’s next breakthrough is you!
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/contest-microsoft-ai-idea-challenge-ai-s-next-breakthrough-is-you/

Azure.Source - Volume 44
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-source-volume-44/

Azure Data Factory Visual tools now supports GitHub integration
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-data-factory-visual-tools-now-supports-github-integration/

How Microsoft drives exabyte analytics on the world’s largest YARN cluster
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/how-microsoft-drives-exabyte-analytics-on-the-world-s-largest-yarn-cluster/

https://github.com/Azure/app-service-announcements/issues/129

https://gotcosmos.com - Awesome Cosmos DB one-stop learning resource

Deep Kapur, a Microsoft PM on the Azure team, gives us an great refresher on Service Fabric and breaks down the new Service Fabric Mesh offering for us.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode241.mp3

Some links:
http://aka.ms/servicefabricdocs - learn more about Service Fabric
http://aka.ms/servicefabricmesh - learn more about Mesh
http://aka.ms/tryservicefabric - free clusters to party on!
https://github.com/microsoft/service-fabric - our GitHub codebase

https://twitter.com/deepkkapur

Other updates:

Azure HDInsight Interactive Query: Ten tools to analyze big data faster
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-hdinsight-interactive-query-ten-tools-to-analyze-big-data-faster/

Ethereum Proof-of-Authority on Azure
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ethereum-proof-of-authority-on-azure/

Microsoft Ignite – now with more code
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-ignite-now-with-more-code/

Azure.Source – Volume 43
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-source-volume-43/

Interested in deploying your Linux or containerized web app in an Azure Virtual Network? The Azure App Service team is excited to announce the general availability of Linux on Azure App Service…
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/linux-on-azure-app-service-environment-now-generally-available/

Windows Server Containers in Web App are now available in public preview! Web App for Containers is catered towards developers who want to have more control over what is installed in their containers.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-public-preview-of-windows-container-support-in-azure-app-service/

Instance size flexibility for Azure Reserved VM Instances is now generally available. Instance size flexibility is a new feature that is applicable to all new and existing Azure Reserved VM Instance purchases.
Instance size flexibility can:
 • Simplify the management of Azure Reserved VM Instances
 • Avoid the need to exchange or cancel a reserved VM instance to apply its benefit to other virtual machines within the same Azure RI VM group and region
 • Help further reduce costs in many scenarios
 • Automatically apply Azure RI benefits that have been purchased to other VMs within the same group and region
This feature applies to both Windows and Linux Azure Virtual Machines. For general information regarding this new Azure RI feature please visit the Azure Reserved VM Instances Webpage.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/reserved-vm-instances/

Gautam Shah, an Azure Architect with Applied Information Sciences, talks to us about how Azure Automation can be used in Enterprises to automate almost anything.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode240.mp3

My go to source for Azure Automation is none other than Azure Docs.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/

For folks just starting out on Azure Automation
https://www.edx.org/course/infrastructure-as-code-0

https://www.appliedis.com/

Other updates:

General availability: Start/Stop VMs during off-hours in Azure Automation

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/general-availability-start-stop-vms-during-off-hours-in-azure-automation/>

Top feature requests added with Azure Blockchain Workbench 1.2.0
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/top-feature-requests-added-with-azure-blockchain-workbench-1-2-0/

R3 on Azure: Launch of Corda Enterprise v3.1
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/corda-enterprise-launch-on-azure/

Orchestrating production-grade workloads with Azure Kubernetes Service
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/orchestrating-production-grade-workloads-with-azure-kubernetes-service/

Ansible 2.6: What’s new for Azure
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ansible-2-6-what-s-new-for-azure/

We talk to Azure Engineer Michelle Noorali about her passion with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and the work she does to enable Developers to work easily with Kubernetes in Azure and any cloud.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode239.mp3

Resources:

https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-cloudnativecon-north-america-2018/program/call-for-proposals-cfp/

https://github.com/helm/community/blob/master/helm-v3/000-helm-v3.md

https://www.helm.sh/blog/bringing-helm-home/index.html

Other updates:

http://www.eweek.com/database/microsoft-sharpens-sql-operations-studio-s-job-management-tools

Microsoft PowerShell now available on Linux as an Ubuntu snap

From <https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-powershell-now-available-on-linux-as-an-ubuntu-snap/>

Learn KQL (the query language used in Application Insights and Log Analytics). Go from a beginner to a pro in just a few hours through a free, exercise-driven course.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/free-query-language-course-la-ai/

Visual Studio IntelliCode – Python Support in VS Code in Public Preview
When writing Python code, the IntelliSense code completion in VS Code speeds up your productivity by providing suggestions as you type. However, there can be hundreds of completions to scroll through and you typically need to type the first few characters out before you can get close to the right result. Using our machine learning algorithm, we can infer the most relevant completions based on the current code context
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2018/07/24/visual-studio-intellicode-expands-ai-assisted-coding-to-python-in-visual-studio-code/

Evan and Kendall talk to Craig Wiand, a Principal Engineer in the Azure team, about the new Serial Console feature available for VMs.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode238.mp3

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/serial-console

Other updates:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devtestlab/2018/07/03/save-time-by-leveraging-auto-filled-fields-at-virtual-machine-creation/

Azure Data Box Disk, an SSD-disk based option for offline data transfer to Azure, is now in preview.

In Azure SQL Database, auto-failover groups are now generally available. They extend active geo-replication with the following capabilities: 
• Geo-replication of a group of databases
• Transparent manual or automatic group failover
• Independent routing to secondary databases for load balancing of read-only workloads
For more information, see the blog post. 

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/general-availablity-sql-database-auto-failover-groups/>

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/lightning-fast-query-performance-with-azure-sql-data-warehouse/

General availability: Azure DevOps Projects
Friday, July 13, 2018
Back in November, we introduced Azure DevOps Projects. It helps you get up and running with a full DevOps pipeline on Azure, from code through monitoring, in just a few minutes.
We've added services along the way and incorporated a lot of your feedback. It's now generally available.

Public Preview- Azure Monitor Container Health Monitoring Capability
We released a public preview of the Azure Monitor container health monitoring capability at the //build conference. The Azure Monitor container health capability enables you to track the health and performance of your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster. Based on customer feedback, we're releasing new features and updates to onboarding and the portal experience.  

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/updatecontainerhealth71518/>

https://buildazure.com/2018/07/17/new-microsoft-azure-certification-paths-coming-in-2018/  - Kendall

Azure NetApp files now in public preview

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-netapp-files-now-in-public-preview/>

Microsoft has teamed up with NetApp to enable enterprises to overcome the challenge of deploying file-based workloads to the cloud. Today we're pleased to announce the public preview of Azure NetApp Files, an Azure native service powered by NetApp's leading ONTAP technology, which has been long trusted by enterprises to meet their requirements for performance, scalability, data management, security, and hybrid capability.

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-netapp-files-now-in-public-preview/>

Pluralsite course on Kusto Query Language which is used for Azure services
https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/kusto-query-language-kql-from-scratch
Azure tips and tricks: https://www.michaelcrump.net/azure-tips-and-tricks-sorted-list/

A great in-person discussion with two of my colleagues at Microsoft, Daniel Selman who is a Kubernetes Consultant and Razi Rais who focusses on DevOps and Blockchain. We talk about how a Developer can quickly go through the motions to package and deploy applications to AKS and monitor them as they run.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode237.mp3

Their blog: http://www.razibinrais.com/k8s-devops-part-1/