Azure Weekly Updates - June 27th, 2022

Apache Parquet capturing support in Azure Event Hubs

You can now capture event streams of Azure Event Hubs ?in Parquet format to storage services.

Using Azure Event Hubs, no code editor for event processing, you can automatically capture streaming data in an Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 account in Parquet format. The no code editor allows you to easily develop an Azure Stream Analytics job without writing a single line of code.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Resource governance for client applications in Azure Event Hubs

Using application groups, you can create logical groupings between client applications that connect (publish or consume events) with Event Hubs and apply throttling and data access policies per each group. You can associate an application group with a uniquely identifiable condition such as the security context (shared access signatures (SAS) or Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) application ID - of the client application).

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure GitOps with Flux v2

GitOps with Flux v2 in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes (Arc K8s) is now generally available. With this release, Azure supports GitOps configuration and workload management for your entire cloud and hybrid Kubernetes estate – clusters in AKS and clusters on-premises or in other public clouds. Flux v2 is a major update bringing a Kubernetes-native architecture, observability, and multi-tenancy among other improvements. With a single tool and process, you can manage your modern applications in Kubernetes anywhere.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

LDAP signing

The previously released preview feature LDAP signing is now generally available and no longer needs registration for use.

This functionality enables secure LDAP lookups between the Azure NetApp Files service and the user-specified Active Directory Domain Services domain controllers.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Durable Functions for Java

Durable Functions, an extension to Azure Functions that lets you define stateful serverless workflows in code, now supports Java. You can use Durable Functions to implement complex function orchestration that would otherwise require writing lots of boilerplate code for state management.

In this preview, you can leverage existing Durable Functions patterns such as "function chaining", "fan out/fan in", "async http APIs", "monitor", and "human interaction". The sample below shows a simple durable function that is triggered by an http request and invokes tasks in a sequence.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Durable Functions for Node.js

This version has significant performance and robustness advantage over the old version.

To get a sense of improvement, consider this simple fan-out-fan-in orchestration over 15k activities.

A fan-out-fan-in benchmark

Here we use Durable Functions Extension version 2.6.1 and run this benchmark on the Azure Functions Consumption plan for Windows. We then compare the performance of this benchmark between the npm package `durable-functions` version `1.5.4` and version `2.0.0`.

This new major release reduces orchestration time by more than 50%. Your improvement may vary, but we expect most workloads to experience increased runtime performance from this release, especially for high-scale workloads.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Update properties for devices without models in Azure IoT Central

With this feature once the devices are cloud connected, you can view and update properties without having to first create device templates. You can further use this feature to build and test your devices and iteratively create device models. This feature enables a low friction first run experience for device onboarding.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

API Management Content Security Policy and CORS configuration support

Azure API Management support for Content Security Policy is now generally available for both the developer portal and the self-hosted portal. This support enhances security and removes the need for custom functionality in the self-hosted portal.

Content Security Policy in the developer portal helps you detect and mitigate common attacks including cross-site scripting and data injection, reducing exposure to data theft, site defacement, or malware distribution.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

API Management self-hosted gateway version 2

The self-hosted gateway feature expands API Management support for hybrid and multi-cloud environments and helps you efficiently and securely manage APIs hosted on-premises and across clouds from a single API Management service in Azure.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Service Bus Explorer capabilities in the Azure Portal

Service Bus Explorer capabilities are now generally available in the Azure portal. You can now use the portal to facilitate data operations. You can specify a Service Bus namespace and send messages to a queue or topic in that namespace as well as receive or peek messages from a queue or a subscription. ?

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Edge Secured-Core for Windows IoT

Edge Secured-Core is a certification program that extends the Secured-Core label into IoT and Edge devices which helps you easily identify devices that help keep your infrastructure secure and safe. Edge Secured-Core are devices that meet key principles and are launching on Windows IoT.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Embedded Wireless Framework

The Embedded Wireless Framework enables you to reuse application code across all of your different products leveraging IoT by defining a common set of APIs for various wireless interfaces used in IoT. The Wireless Framework is:

An efficient and flexible abstraction interface for wireless modules

Independent of any single microcontroller (MCU) vendor (because the framework comes from Microsoft)

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Microcontroller-based device security platform

Microsoft and STMicroelectronics have jointly developed a security platform to enable ST’s ultra-low-power STM32U5 microcontrollers (MCUs) to connect securely to Azure IoT cloud services. ?

The solution uses the STM32U5’s state-of-the-art security hardware, ARM TrustZone?, along with Trusted Firmware-M (TF-M) and an STSAFE-A110 Secure Element. The solution is powered by Microsoft Azure RTOS and Azure IoT Middleware, leveraging services including Microsoft Defender for IoT, Azure IoT Device Provisioning Service, and Device Update for IoT Hub.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

App Service hybrid connections manager for Linux

The hybrid connections manager feature allows apps to access on-premises systems and services securely. The feature can be used to provide access in multiple networks from a single app in addition to providing many other advantages. Now you can install hybrid connections manager on Linux clients, removing the need to install a Windows client to access the feature.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

App Service support for .NET 7

As an application developers, you can use the capabilities offered by .NET 7 and run web apps in Azure App Service. The early access feature of App Service provides immediate access to new language releases such as .NET 7. As new .NET 7 capabilities are released, you can integrate them into your web apps and use App Service to deploy and scale those apps, without waiting for an App Service platform update.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

HTTP proxy support for AKS clusters

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters, whether deployed into a managed or custom virtual network, have certain outbound dependencies necessary to function properly.

Previously, in environments requiring internet access to be routed through HTTP proxies, this was a problem. Nodes had no way of bootstrapping the configuration, environment variables, and certificates necessary to access internet services.

This feature, now generally available, adds HTTP proxy support for AKS clusters, exposing a straightforward interface that cluster operators can use to secure AKS-required network traffic in proxy-dependent environments.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Kubernetes release 1.24 support in AKS

AKS support for Kubernetes release 1.24 is now in public preview. Kubernetes 1.24 delivers 46 enhancements. This release includes new changes such as the removal of Dockershim.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Custom certificate authorities

Custom certificate authorities (CAs) allow you to establish trust between your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster and your workloads as private registries, proxies, and firewalls. A Kubernetes secret is used to store the certificate authority's information until it is passed to all nodes in the cluster.

This feature is applied per node pool. Therefore, new and existing node pools must be configured to enable the feature.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure Functions support for Python 3.10

You can now use new features of Python 3.10 with Azure Functions to develop Python 3.10 apps locally and deploy them to all Azure Functions plans.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

New API backend options in Azure Static Web Apps

Azure Static Web Apps now supports more API options. In addition to Azure Functions, you can link Azure App Service, Azure Container Apps, and Azure API Management as your app’s API backend. When enabled, any API requests are automatically routed to the linked resource.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

AKS release tracker

Use the AKS release tracker to:

See AKS deployments real time, every week by region

See the flow of deployment (SDP) between one region to the next

Get links from the page to the current and past release notes

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Improved Try Azure Cosmos DB for free experience

Try the Azure Cosmos DB experience that provides you with a free sandbox option to try out Azure Cosmos DB in two clicks without requiring you to go through the Azure sign up process and add a credit card. The sandbox is an entry point to Azure Cosmos DB if you’d like to learn and experience the added value of the database platform before you purchase. You can upgrade your account and migrate your sandbox data to your production account anytime within the 30-day period. This is currently available only for the SQL API.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure Cosmos DB Core (SQL) API Query Engine improvements

You can now use several new query engine improvements for enhanced query functionality in Azure Cosmos DB SQL API. These query engine improvements include both new features and optimizations to existing query engine features. The most notable new feature is DateTimeBin, a new built-in system function that makes GROUP BY queries with dates even more useful for analyzing data. Other improvements include the ability for GROUP BY, DISTINCT, and OFFSET LIMIT queries to utilize the index for more scenarios. There are also significant automatic optimizations to queries with JOINs without needing to use subqueries.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure Cosmos DB SQL API Go SDK improvements

New Go SDK features for the Azure Cosmos DB SQL API include authenticating requests using Azure Active Directory. This allows you to secure access to your data using fine-grained, role-based access control instead of using a primary key for your account. You can now also execute a query that is scoped to a single partition, but complex queries across multiple partitions or with aggregations are not yet available in the Go SDK. Transactional batches are now also supported, allowing you to issue multiple operations guaranteed to either succeed or fail together as a single unit which is scoped to a single partition key.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Continuous backup enhancements in Azure Cosmos DB

Take advantage of new data backup and restore options available with your Azure Cosmos DB account. Continuous backup and point-in-time restore are valuable features that allow you to use Azure Cosmos DB Core (SQL) API, API for MongoDB, Gremlin API, or Table API to recover from accidental data changes and restore the data in your database. The two continuous backup options free continuous backup with seven-day data retention or paid continuous backup with 30-day data retention. The free continuous backup option is a recommended replacement for accounts currently using periodic backup.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure Data Studio MongoDB extension for Azure Cosmos DB

You can now use the free and lightweight tool feature, Azure Data Studio MongoDB extension for Azure Cosmos DB, to manage and query your MongoDB resources using mongo shell. This feature allows you to manage multiple account all in one view by connecting your Mongo resources, configuring the database settings, and performing create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure Advisor support for Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible

Azure Advisor provides a personalized list of best practices for optimizing your Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server instance. The feature analyzes your resource configuration and usage telemetry and then recommends solutions that can help you improve the cost effectiveness, performance, reliability, and security of your Azure resources. With Azure Advisor, you can find recommendations based on TLS configuration, CPU, and storage usage to prevent resource exhaustion.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Link feature in Azure SQL MI for SQL Server 2016

The new link feature connects your SQL Server 2016 hosted anywhere to Azure SQL Managed Instance, providing the ultimate hybrid flexibility and database mobility. With an approach that uses near real-time data replication to the cloud, you can offload workloads to a read-only secondary in Azure to take advantage of Azure-only features, performance, and scale. After a disastrous event, you can continue running your read-only workloads on SQL Managed Instance in Azure. You can also choose to migrate one or more applications from SQL Server 2016, 2019, and 2022 to SQL Managed Instance at the same time, at your own pace, and with the best possible minimum downtime compared to other solutions in Azure today.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.

Azure Machine Learning announcements for June 2022

MLflow is probably one of the open-source projects that has made its way further in the machine learning space; which is why we have invested heavily to ensure Azure Machine Learning provides best class support. We are expanding our commitment by bringing to life a more mature integration, including support for a broader set of APIs, no code deployment for MLflow models in real-time/batch managed inference, curated environments with MLflow, and integrations with our CLI v2.

Train and deploy models with Azure Machine Learning anywhere to help you meet data residency requirements and security and compliance requirements in highly regulated environments. It will also help you harness existing IT, especially GPU investments and manage all the resources through a single pane, with the management, consistency, and reliability provided by Azure Arc. Get help to operationalize at scale with cloud native DevOps and MLOps in hybrid cloud.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Windows IoT on Arm64

Windows IoT on Arm64 brings the following functionality to devices:

Arm64 support on NXP I.MX8 for Windows 10 IoT Enterprise

Lower cost devices with lower power consumption to device builders

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure Key Vault secrets provider on Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes

The Azure Key Vault Secrets Provider extension enables fetching the secrets, keys and certificates from an Azure Key Vault into an Arc connected Kubernetes cluster. Remove the need to store and maintain secrets locally on the clusters and outsource the management of secrets to AKV as the central secrets management solution.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure SQL—Generally available updates for late June 2022

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/updates/azure-sql-generally-available-updates-for-late-june-2022/

In late June 2022, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL:

Scale out read workloads and easily implement near-real time analytical solutions using named replicas with Azure SQL Database – Hyperscale.

Availability: NOW AVAILABLE

For more information you can click here.

Azure SQL—Public preview updates for late June 2022

In late June 2022, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL:

Enable new built-in server-level roles in Azure SQL Database for permission management.

Availability: IN PREVIEW

For more information you can click here.