Azure Weekly Updates - April 15th, 2024

Backup and restore of virtual machines with private endpoint enabled disks

Azure Backup now lets you?back up Azure virtual machines that use disks with private endpoints enabled. This support is available for virtual machines using standard backup policies as well as enhanced backup policies, and can be configured using?standard?Azure Backup experiences. Additionally, while initiating restores, you can now also specify the network access settings?for restored disks- you can?choose if you want?the restored disks to use the same network configuration as the source disks, allow access from specific networks only, or allow public access from all networks.

AVAILABILITY: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure Synapse Runtime for Apache Spark 3.4 is now GA

Azure Synapse Runtime for Apache Spark 3.4 is now Generally Available!?This runtime has been in Public Preview since November 2023 and is now ready for production workloads. The key changes in the new runtime include features resulting from the upgrade of Apache Spark to version 3.4 and Delta Lake to 2.4. Additionally, the operating system has been upgraded to Mariner (an internal Linux distribution tailored for Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure), and Java has been upgraded from version 8 to 11. We encourage all Azure Synapse customers with Apache Spark workloads to migrate to the newest GA version.

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure Load Testing availability in Fairfax (USGov Virginia)

Azure Load Testing is now generally available in Fairfax cloud -?USGov Virginia. US Government customers on the Fairfax cloud can now use Azure Load Testing, a fully managed load-testing service to generate high scale load and run simulations, easily identify performance bottlenecks through a rich dashboard of client-side and server-side metrics and integrate load tests into their CI/CD workflows. Customers can get started without any knowledge of?load-testing tools, or use their existing Apache JMeter scripts.

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Native Delta Lake Output Now Generally Available in Azure Stream Analytics

We're excited to announce that native support for Delta Lake output in Azure Stream Analytics is now generally available. Delta Lake is a popular format utilized by enterprises to construct their lakehouses, as it enhances reliability, quality, and performance within data lakes. With the native Delta Lake output connector in Stream Analytics, you can effortlessly write streaming data directly to your Delta Lake tables without the need to write a single line of code. This connector is optimized for high-speed ingestion into Delta tables in append mode and also ensures exactly-once semantics, guaranteeing that no data is lost or duplicated.

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Run Azure Load Testing on Azure App Service web apps

You can now create and run load tests?directly from App Service in Azure portal. Load test your web apps by simply selecting the deployment slot followed by specifying request parameters and load configuration. You will automatically gain access to client-side and server-side metrics, which will help in identifying performance bottlenecks. You can also view the test run history to continuously monitor their web app performance.

AVAILABILITY: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Mirroring Azure Cosmos DB in Microsoft Fabric

You can now bring your Azure Cosmos DB data into Microsoft OneLake. Mirroring enables you to get near real-time analytics on your Cosmos DB data without impacting the performance of your transactional workloads. Data from Cosmos DB is incrementally replicated in OneLake, in Delta Parquet format, without the need for complex ETL pipelines. When combined with the rest of your organization’s data in OneLake, this helps unify your data estate and remove data silos. You can now build advanced analytics, BI, and AI solutions using Microsoft Fabric on your Azure Cosmos DB data.

AVAILABILITY: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Defender for Cloud supports Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server

Microsoft Defender for Cloud secures your Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server from threats without affecting the performance or availability. It lowers the risk of data breaches, attacks, and unauthorized access with security monitoring of anomalous or suspicious activities in your database. You can easily enable this feature from the Azure Portal to start getting security alerts and insights for your Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server and receive recommendations to mitigate potentially harmful threats.??

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Long-term retention for Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server

Azure Backup and Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server services have built an enterprise-class long-term backup solution for Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server instances that retains backups for up to 10 years. You can use long-term retention to extend the current limitation of 35 days backup retention to 10 years, meeting your compliance and regulatory requirements. In addition to long-term retention (LTR), this feature enhances the backup resiliency by protecting the source data from different levels of data loss, such as accidental deletions and ransomware protection.

AVAILABILITY: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server networking with Azure Private Link

Many users of Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server require secure private network access to provide flexibility, easy connectivity to other Azure services, high security, and isolation. ??With the general availability of Azure Private Link based networking, you can create private endpoints for Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server bringing?it inside your virtual network. With Private Link, traffic between your virtual network and the service travels the Microsoft backbone network. Exposing your service to the public internet is no longer necessary. You can create your own private link service in your virtual network. This feature is available in all public Azure regions where service is currently available and adds to existing networking capabilities provided by VNET injection.

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Virtual private network (VPN) with Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra

Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra nodes requires access to many other Azure services when they're injected into your virtual network. Normally, access is enabled by ensuring that your virtual network has outbound access to the internet. If your security policy prohibits outbound access, you can configure firewall rules or user-defined routes for the appropriate access. ??However, if you have internal security concerns about data exfiltration, your security policy might prohibit direct access to these services from your virtual network. By using a virtual private network (VPN) with Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra, you can ensure that data nodes in the virtual network communicate with only a single VPN endpoint, with no direct access to any other services.

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Extensible key management using Azure Key Vault for SQL Server on Linux

Leveraging?Azure Key Vault?as part of Extensible key management (EKM)?in SQL Server provides enhanced security, simplified key management, compliance support, and seamless integration with Azure services. ?

With the release of EKM using Azure Key Vault for SQL Server on Linux , you can benefit from centralized key storage and streamlined operations while maintaining data security and compliance. This feature allows you to manage encryption keys outside of SQL Server using Azure Key Vaults and is available for SQL Server 2022 CU12 onwards.

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure Red Hat OpenShift April 2024 updates

Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) provides highly available, fully managed OpenShift clusters on demand, monitored and operated jointly by Microsoft and Red Hat.

The latest Azure Red Hat OpenShift update delivers the following enhancements:

• ARO support in Azure Terraform Provider: The?AzureRM?Terraform provider now supports managing Azure Red Hat Openshift resources. Hashicorp Terraform is an infrastructure-as-code tool that lets you define infrastructure resources in human-readable configuration files that can be versioned, reused and shared.?
• Bring your own Network Security Groups: You can now attach your own NSGs that include both your organization’s security rules and ARO service rules. This will be applied to both master and worker subnets before installing ARO clusters with a flag indicating the presence of the NSGs.?

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure SQL updates for mid-April 2024

In mid-April 2024, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: ??

We are excited to announce the general availability of Azure SQL Database elastic jobs!

• Use Azure SQL Database elastic jobs to automate, schedule and execute T-SQL jobs using Azure Portal, PowerShell, REST, or T-SQL APIs against a group of SQL databases, across servers, elastic pools, and subscriptions. Elastic jobs can handle a wide variety of tasks like index rebuilding, schema updates, collection of query results for analytics, and performance monitoring.?

AVAILABILITY: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.