Today the team chat to Keith Howling, a Principal Technical Specialist at Microsoft, on the topic of Platform Engineering with Radius, an open source app deployment engine.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode479.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/JWCaXfTf77A

Resources:

Radius:

• RadApp
• Introducing Radius: A new open-source application platform for cloud-native apps

Other news:

• General availability: Rate limit rules for Application Gateway web application firewall
• Export cost using focus
• Azure support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will end by 31 October 2024
• Experiment templates now available in Azure Chaos Studio
• General availability: Start and stop load testing faults in Azure Chaos Studio
• General availability: Azure Functions supports .NET 8 in the isolated worker model
• App Service end-to-end encryption for Linux multi-tenant (preview)
• Azure Monitor Logs archive provides up to 12 years of retention

Cale and Russell talk to the Microsoft Program Manager for DevBox and Azure Deployment Environments, Sagar Chandra Reddy Lankala, about how Azure Deployment Environments can enable rapid deployment of on-demand dev/test environments while providing governance, security and cost management - plus some more updates from Microsoft Build 2023!

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode464.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/IsgQVMIkhRc

Sagar's links:

• GA blog - https://aka.ms/ade-ga-blog
• Sign up for Terraform support - https://aka.ms/ade-terraform-signup
• LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagarchandrareddy

Other updates mentioned in this episode:

• Public preview: Introducing NGads V620-series VMs optimized for cloud gaming | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
• Generally available: Azure Data Explorer Kusto Emulator on Linux | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
• Explore the latest features for Datadog—An Azure Native ISV Service
• Microsoft Cost Management updates—May 2023
• Microsoft has made Azure Linux generally available. Repeat, Azure Linux
• Azure OpenAI Service - Documentation, quickstarts, API reference - Azure Cognitive Services | Microsoft Learn
• Azure Deployment Environments | Microsoft Azure
• About Azure App Spaces | Microsoft Learn
• Introducing Azure API Center for Centralized API Discovery and Governance (microsoft.com)
• GitHub Advanced Security for Azure Devops

The team catches up with April Edwards to learn about the benefits of using Bicep to deploy Azure resources.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode452.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/FhniwXjDBe0

Resources: 

IaC Blog: Infrastructure as Code - comparing tools (microsoft.com)

MS Learn path for BIcep: Learn Live: Use Bicep to deploy your Azure infrastructure as code - Events | Microsoft Learn

Learn Live: Building your first Bicep Template: Learn Live - Build your first Bicep template - YouTube

Learn Live: Build Your First Bicep Deployment Workflow using GitHub Actions : Learn Live - Build your first Bicep deployment workflow by using GitHub Actions - YouTube

Other updates:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-automation-extension/

Public Preview: Azure Cosmos DB to Azure Data Explorer Synapse Link | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

General availability of Azure OpenAI Service expands access to large, advanced AI models with added enterprise benefits

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/general-availability-of-azure-openai-service-expands-access-to-large-advanced-ai-models-with-added-enterprise-benefits

Public preview: Capture Event Hubs data with Stream Analytics no-code editor in Delta Lake format | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

The Azure Podcast hosters had Chris Reddington, a fellow hoster on the show to talk about all things GitHub Actions - ranging from what GitHub Actions are, the community aspect of GitHub Actions, pipeline as code via YAML, and much more. 

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode373.mp3

YouTube: https://youtu.be/BCDAfjE33gY

Resources: Cloud With Chris

Other Updates:

Start virtual machine connect - Azure | Microsoft Docs

Digital event: 5 reasons to attend Azure Storage Day | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure

Build secure manufacturing operations with nesting capabilities for Azure IoT Edge | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure

Public preview: Functions upgrade in Azure Monitor log analytics | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

We chat with Veronica Gomez at EY on how she took up the Cloud skills challenge that Cloud Solution Architect Frank Sposaro put together at EY.

Media File: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode348.mp3

Sasha Rosenbaum, a Senior PM from the GitHub team, is back on the show to talk to us about DevOps in the cloud and provides advice on choosing the right tools for your teams.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode321.mp3

Transcript: https://eus2.videoindexer.ai/accounts/e0eee289-7730-4999-978b-eb7f63be8cb5/videos/77937baf29/?location=EUS2

Other updates:

ACR built-in audit policies for Azure Policy is now in preview

Updated: March 13, 2020

We are pleased to announce the public preview of Azure Container Registry support for creation of built-in audit policies for Azure Policy.  Once the built-in audit policy is available for the security control, the assessment results can be surfaced through Azure Policy’s Compliance feature.

The following 3 built in policies are planned:

• Network: Provide an audit policy that verifies if Private Link is being used
• Network: Provide an audit policy that checks if the firewall is enabled/ IP-based restrictions are applied
• Data transfer: Provide an audit policy to verify if customer-managed key is used

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/acr-builtin-audit-policies-for-azure-policy-is-now-in-preview/> 

Private Endpoints provide secure connectivity to Azure Storage from a Azure virtual network (VNet). On-premises networks can also securely connect to a storage account using a private endpoint when that network is to a VNet using Express Route or VPN. Private Endpoints for Azure Storage are now generally available in all Azure public regions.

https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-03-15 - Mandatory Blockchain  << ❤ this

Azure Functions Premium plan regional virtual network integration

Updated: March 24, 2020

Regional virtual network integration is now generally available in the Azure Functions Premium plan. Run serverless function apps with no cold-start, virtual network connectivity, and larger instance sizes with the Premium plan. The general availability of regional virtual network integration also brings these features:

• The ability to direct all traffic leaving an application into the virtual network.
• Support for applying user-defined routes and network security groups to the integrated application.
• Support for reaching private link-secured resources through a regional virtual network integration.
• Support for non-RFC 1918 addresses in an integrated virtual network.

Regional virtual network integration is available in all public regions for function apps hosted on the Premi

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/functions-premium-vnet/> 

Cynthia and Evan talk to Jamie Cool, Director of Program Management at Microsoft, who gives us all the details and potential use-cases for the Azure DevOps Server in your organization.

,

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode265.mp3

Transcript: https://www.videoindexer.ai/accounts/aca83d23-620b-46d6-beec-e920bff88847/videos/c9d39b86a3/

https://azure.com/devops

Other updates:

Availability Zones (AZ) is a high availability offering from Azure that protects applications and data from datacenter failures. By using AZ with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), customers will get higher reliability and resiliency for their applications running on Kubernetes. 

Node auto-repair monitors nodes in a cluster and initiates a repair process if a node fails to meet health criteria. This ensures that the nodes in a cluster are always in a healthy, running state

It is often useful to have different VM sizes and configurations within a single cluster to support a wide variety of workloads, including those that require specialized hardware like GPUs. With the support of multiple node pools, you can deploy applications to different types of VMs within a single cluster, from a single control plane, improving resource management and utilization.  You can also create, upgrade, and delete node pools individually without affecting the whole cluster.

Stay up to date with the latest and greatest of Kubernetes and get patching and security updates automatically.  Cluster auto-upgrade simplifies the task of keeping your Kubernetes service up to date by eliminating the need to do this manually, and ensures a higher level of security by automatically deploying important security fixes on a timely basis.

User-defined network policy enables secure network segmentation within Kubernetes.  It allows cluster operators to control which pods can communicate with each other and with resources outside the cluster. You can implement your network policy in AKS clusters either through Azure policy plugin or through the popular open source project, Calico.

With audit logging in AKS, customers can keep a chronological record of calls that have been made to the Kubernetes API server, a.k.a. control plane. Using these logs with tools like Log Analytics, customers can investigate suspicious API requests, collect statistics, and create monitoring alerts for unwanted API calls.   

Authorized IP ranges allows organization to restrict access to their Kubernetes control plane running in AKS to specific IP addresses or IP ranges. By restricting access to only trusted network locations, you can further protect your AKS cluster.  

Azure Monitor for containers support for AKS-engine is now available in public preview. Customers can now monitor both Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and AKS-engine by using Azure Monitor for containers.

NuGet, npm, and other Artifacts tasks support proxies - Sprint 147 Update
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/nuget-npm-and-other-artifacts-tasks-support-proxies-sprint-147-update/

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode229.mp3

As part of our Partner Spotlight series, we have Dan Garfield from CodeFresh.io and Jessica Deen, a Cloud Developer Advocate at Microsoft talking about DevOps in a Kubernetes world. Good timing too considering we recently did a show on Kubernetes!

https://codefresh.io/
Kubernetes Guides - https://codefresh.io/kubernetes-guides/
Docker Guides - https://codefresh.io/docker-guides/

Brief Description of Codefresh - Codefresh is a DevOps platform built for Kubernetes. It includes CI/CD, a free private Docker registry, and on-demand test environments. It's available as SaaS, or run it on your own infrastructure.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode209.mp3

Evan and Sujit talk to Gino Filicetti & Jim Priestley, both Cloud Solution Architects @ Microsoft about how they help customers realize the potential of the cloud by starting with Disaster Recovery using OMS and implementing a DevOps mentality.

@gino_msft 

@cloudynj  

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode170.mp3

Other updates:

Last year, we introduced Azure App Service certificates, a certificate lifecycle management offering. The Azure portal provides a user-friendly experience for creating App Service certificates and deploying them through Azure Key Vault to App Service apps. But customers have been asking for the ability to use these certificates outside the App Service platform, say with Azure Virtual Machines.
You can now create a local PFX copy of an App Service certificate so that you can use it anywhere you want. For more information, read our blog post.

You can now use SELECT..INTO in your SQL code when you want to persist the results of a SELECT statement into a table.
The SELECT..INTO syntax is streamlined. With very little effort, your results will be stored in a round_robin clustered columnstore. From there, you can conduct further analysis as required. Azure SQL Data Warehouse also continues to support CREATE TABLE AS SELECT (CTAS).
CTAS affords greater control on the structure of the resulting table but requires a little more effort on your part. To compare SELECT..INTO to CTAS, please refer to the recent blog post and product documentation, which highlight the differences between these approaches.