Hosted by Arsen Vladimirskiy, the team talks to Azure PM John Stallo about the new Azure Load Testing service. John explains the history behind the service and how it simplifies and democratizes load testing such that it can be part of any software development lifecycle.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode408.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/hyDM_z8aNX0

Resources:

Azure Load Testing Documentation

Submit issues for Azure Load Testing

Updates:

Azure Traffic Manager: Additional IP addresses for endpoint monitoring service.

General availability: Microsoft Defender for Cloud updates for December 2021

Public preview: Semantic Search update

Azure Backup - Automation updates - 2021

Our very own Kendall Roden and Daria Grigoriu, both PMs in the Azure team, talk to us about the brand-new Azure Container Apps service. They explain the service in detail and discuss typical use-cases for using it.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode407.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/LKXu2ZHvHIE

Resources: Azure Container Apps | Microsoft Azure

The team talks to Azure PMs Isabelle Morris and Tanu Balla about the Bastion service which allows for secure access to VMs. We discuss the use-cases for this service, and they provide insights into using it effectively.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode406.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ssr7z1imDkk

Resources: Azure Bastion | Microsoft Docs

Other Updates:

Automated key rotation in Azure Key Vault is now in public preview | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: Azure Kubernetes Service configuration management with GitOps | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Azure Storage: Attribute-based Access Control (ABAC) conditions with principal attributes now in public preview | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

The team catches up with Nadim Abdo who fills them in on all the work Azure AD has been doing to increase their resiliency and improve the customer experience.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode405.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/waIVg9WuPmM

Resources:

Building resilience into identity and access management with Azure Active Directory

Other Updates:

Public preview: Run Command – Execute PowerShell or shell scripts on Virtual Machines and Scale Sets

General availability: New Azure Maps features: Historical Weather, Air Quality, and Tropical Storms

Immutable storage with versioning for Blob Storage is now generally available

Public preview availability of Virtual Machine restore points

Azure Storage: Secure access to storage account from a virtual network/subnet in any region now in public preview

The team learns about CBL Mariner, a Microsoft-maintained Linux distribution that runs underneath a number of Azure services.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode404.mp3

YouTube:  https://youtu.be/Q_F5xQo5u6w

GitHub repo - https://github.com/Microsoft/CBL-Mariner

Other updates:

Public preview: New SAP HANA telemetry in AMS

Azure Load Testing now available in public preview

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-load-testing-now-available-in-public-preview/

Cynthia and Sujit talk to Gopinath C H about the synergies between GitHub and Azure for Enterprise and OSS developers.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode403.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/AOQtfVuxN6Y

Resources:

Other updates:

Generate automated configuration files used with Terraform to automate provisioning and configuration on your Flexible Server for Azure Database for MySQL.

General availability: Azure API Management updates- October 2021

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-api-management-updates-october-2021/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-bindings-azure-sql

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/run-command

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/files/files-nfs-protocol

Cale, Sujit and Cynthia speak with Senior Program Manager John Engel-Kemnetz about Azure Chaos Studio, a new service announced during Ignite to help customers emulate chaos situations that applications might run into. John also gives us some insight into some approaches to take on testing both the application and the live site responses from the support teams. 

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode402.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/SxHe-XfM3Hg

Resources:

Getting Started - https://aka.ms/chaosstudiogetstarted

Docs - https://aka.ms/AzureChaosStudio

Blog Announcement - https://aka.ms/chaosstudioblog

Updates:

5 reasons to attend the Azure IaaS Day digital event

Discover what’s new to Microsoft database services—recap from Microsoft Ignite

Azure high-performance computing at Supercomputing 2021

Azure App Service support for .Net 6 now generally available

Preview: Pay-as-you-go plan for Power Apps

Application Insights auto-instrumentation for .NET6 App Services

Kendall, Evan and Sujit each discuss their favorite Azure announcements from Ignite 2021.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode401.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/6UjsEtzclJo

Correction The new Dapr feature with AKS is actually considered an extension and there is new documentation around the add-on vs. extension model: Cluster extensions for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) (preview) 

Resources:

https://news.microsoft.com/ignite-november-2021-book-of-news/

DaprCon: DaprCon - YouTube

On this special milestone of the Azure Podcast, we have none other than Girish Bablani, the CVP of Azure Core, to give us insights into the Core platform and provide some perspectives on the past and future of Azure.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode400.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/VMkHHMgUoKI

We talk to our very own Cale Teeter about the current state of Blockchain technology and how it is changing the way we deploy these networks in Azure and build applications.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode399.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/_biNB9p5_Fw

Resources:

Migration announcement to QBS -> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/action-required-migrate-your-azure-blockchain-service-data-by-10-september-2021/

QBS Preview -> https://consensys.net/quorum/qbs/

Quickstart for Developers -> https://consensys.net/quorum/developers/

NFT sidechain -> https://docs.palm.io/

Azure SQL Ledger -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/ledger-overview

Confidential Consortium Framework -> https://microsoft.github.io/CCF/main/overview/concepts.html

Other updates:

SpaceCows – using AI, space technology and cloud to protect the Top End – Microsoft Australia News Centre

Computer Vision Read API for Optical Character Recognition (OCR), part of Cognitive Services, announces its public preview with new languages including Russian, Bulgarian, other Cyrillic and more Latin languages. This release also highlight handwritten OCR support for many languages, along with enhancements for digital PDFs and Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) text in identity documents.

Join us on Azure IaaS Day: Learn to increase agility and resiliency of your infrastructure

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/join-us-on-azure-iaas-day-learn-to-increase-agility-and-resiliency-of-your-infrastructure/

5 reasons to join the Modernize Apps and Data with Azure and Power Apps free virtual event

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/5-reasons-to-join-the-modernize-apps-and-data-with-azure-and-power-apps-free-virtual-event/

The Enclave Device Blueprint for confidential computing at the edge

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/the-enclave-device-blueprint-for-confidential-computing-at-the-edge/

Public preview: Azure Spring Cloud RBAC config server and registry access and Nginx logs and metrics | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

General availability: Azure Spring Cloud application health monitoring and end-to-end TLS/SSL | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: Visual Studio Code for the Web | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure