Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 16th June 2025, grouped by Azure service. After the flurry of announcements from and around Build, it’s a little quieter this week :-)

For all the updates on Azure platform resources and products - Azure updates from Microsoft

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated
RET = Service retirement

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• API Management
• Azure Backup
• Azure Command Launcher
• Azure DB for PostgreSQL
• Azure Functions
• Azure Kubernetes Services
• Azure SQL

API Management

• Import from Azure AI Foundry to Azure API Management’s AI Gateway (GA) : This capability simplifies onboarding of large language model (LLM) APIs by enabling seamless integration through the Azure portal.

Azure Backup

• Increased Disk Capacity for Azure VM Backup (GA) : VMs can now be protected with individual disks up to 64 TB and a total of 512 TB per VM. This enables large disk support for business continuity and recovery from disasters or ransomware attacks. Reduces the need to exclude disks from a backup set to get a VM backup if you’re still running VMs with lots of disks.

Azure Command Launcher

• Azure Command Launcher for Java (Private Preview) : Announcing the private preview of jaz, a new JVM launcher optimized specifically for Azure. By setting JVM parameters tailored for cloud deployments, jaz reduces wasted memory and CPU cycles, improves first-deploy performance, and enhances cost efficiency. This is ideal for developers who want better JVM defaults without diving deep into JVM tuning guides, and  develop and deploy cloud-native microservices. Works with cloud-native and container workloads.

Azure DB for PostgreSQL

• In-place major version upgrade to PostgreSQL 17 on Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server (Public Preview) : You can now upgrade your Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server instance to PostgreSQL 17 using a simple, in-place upgrade — now available in public preview. This release allows you to move from previous PostgreSQL versions (14, 15, or 16) to PostgreSQL 17 without changing your server endpoint, reconfiguring your application, or performing manual data migration.

Azure Functions

• OpenTelemetry support (Public Preview) : Expanding on the limited preview announced last year, these enhancements deliver better observability, improved performance, and more detailed insights into your function executions, helping you diagnose issues faster and optimize your applications more effectively. For those already using OTEL with tools like Prometheus and Grafana, this makes it easier to integrate Azure Functions into your monitoring.

Azure Kubernetes Services

• AKS Release 2025-06-17 now available (GA) : Among other new features, Kubernetes 1.27 LTS version and 1.30 community version are going out of support by July 30th; Kubernetes 1.33 community version is going to be released before the end of June; AKS patch versions 1.32.5, 1.31.9 are now available; and API Server VNet integration has been rolled out to more regions (includes UK West, but unusually not UK South!).

Azure SQL

• Azure SQL Managed Instance faster management operations (GA) : You can now create and update your Azure SQL Managed Instance with improved speed and precision. The new faster management operations experience enhances elasticity by enabling you to provision any configuration of your instance in under 30 minutes — whether it uses default or custom settings. Update and scaling operations are similarly accelerated, completing in less than 60 minutes compared to the previous four-hour process. Applies to all service tiers, but not to zone-redundant instances.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 26th May 2025, grouped by Azure service.

With Build taking place last week, a lot of announcements have dropped as usual, so this is a fairly big post. The Build 2025 Book of News has all the details of announcements from there. Plenty of AI focus as usual - I’ll cover some of the stuff that isn’t AI-related here :-)

For all the updates on Azure platform resources and products - Azure updates from Microsoft

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 28th April 2025, grouped by Azure service. Somewhat delayed posting this one :-)

For all the updates on Azure platform resources and products - Azure updates from Microsoft

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated
RET = Service retirement

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• API Management
• Azure Kubernetes Services
• Azure SQL
• Compute
• Sustainability
• Virtual Networks

API Management

• Service Update Configuration for Azure API Management (GA) : Service update settings for Azure API Management give greater control over when and how APIM instances receive platform updates — including new features, security patches, and reliability improvements. Select an update group to control how early in the rollout cycle an instance receives updates, and configure custom maintenance windows for updates to occur. This can allow configuration of canary deployments for APIM.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 7th April 2025. As so many AKS updates have dropped recently, I’ve decided to do a special AKS edition post this week to round them all up.

For all the updates on Azure platform resources and products - Azure updates from Microsoft

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated
RET = Service retirement

Azure Kubernetes Services

• AKS Release 2025-03-16 now available (GA) : Highlights include AKS 1.28 becoming the next LTS version, patch versions 1.29.12, 1.29.13, 1.30.8, 1.30.9, 1.31.4, and 1.31.5 now available, and a quota for AKS clusters in a subscription is being introduced

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 17th March 2025, grouped by Azure service. Notably, the AKS updates this time include a pretty significant networking retirement.

For all the updates on Azure platform resources and products - Azure updates from Microsoft

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated
RET = Service retirement

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure Backup
• Azure Kubernetes Services
• Azure Load Balancer
• Azure Storage
• Virtual Network Manager

Azure Backup

• Vaulted Backup for Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server (GA) : Generally available in 5 regions (including UK South and UK West), public preview in others. Definite enhancement to DB for PostgreSQL backups which were previously only available with the server. Good to see more services coming in to Azure Backup to take advantage of the enhanced resilience and security a Vault can provide.

Rather belated happy new year, and welcome to the first post of 2025!

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 10th February 2025, grouped by Azure service.

For all the updates on Azure platform resources and products - Azure updates from Microsoft

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated
RET = Service retirement

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure Data Studio
• Azure Kubernetes Services
• Azure SQL
• Azure Storage
• Azure Virtual Network Manager
• Compute
• Infrastructure as Code

Azure Data Studio

• Azure Data Studio retiring on 28th February 2026 (RET) : ADS is deprecated from February 2025 - Visual Studio Code with the MSSQL extension is the database development tool of choice going forward. SQL Server Management Studio will remain available to handle any incompatibility issues.

Azure Kubernetes Services

• AKS Communication Manager (Public Preview) : AKS Communication Manager simplifies notifications for all your AKS maintenance tasks by leveraging Azure Resource Notification and Azure Resource Graph frameworks. It provides timely alerts on event triggers and outcomes, allowing you to closely monitor your upgrades. In case of maintenance failures, it notifies you with the reasons for the failure, reducing operational hassles related to observability and follow-ups. It is a bit more ‘DIY’ than the annoucement suggests - you have to build a Logic App and then hook it in to the ARN maintenance alerts.
• Parallel image pulls by default in AKS (GA) : By default, AKS versions earlier than 1.31 use serialized image pulls. Starting with AKS version 1.31 preview, AKS defaults to parallel image pulls, which are generally more performant.
• IMDS restriction support (Public Preview) : Currently, all pods on AKS nodes can access the AKS worker node’s Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) endpoint. AKS now offers a managed solution that restricts IMDS endpoint access for customer pods. Only AKS system pods and user pods with host network can access IMDS for retrieving information or authentication. Good enhancement to the security of your AKS clusters.
• New AKS Monitoring Experience (Public Preview) : The new Monitoring experience, updating Insights, provides both basic (free) and detailed insights (with enabled Prometheus metrics and logging), offering a unified, single-pane-of-glass experience. The basic experience is available for all AKS users with no configuration required at all.

Azure SQL

• Azure SQL DB Free offer (GA) : Try 10 Azure SQL Databases free of charge for the life of your subscription. With just a couple of clicks, you can power the application you want to build. This new offer provides 10 databases, each with 32 GB General Purpose, serverless Azure SQL database, and 100,000 vCore seconds of compute free every month. Available for any subscription type, free amount renews monthly.
• Service Endpoint Policies for Managed Instances (GA) : Azure SQL Managed Instance now allows service endpoint policies for Azure Storage accounts, allowing you to deny your managed instances from accessing any storage account outside of a set of pre-approved ones. This security mechanism helps guard your data from unauthorized copying (data exfiltration) or configuration errors, like exporting production data to development accounts.

Azure Storage

• Azure Files provisioned v2 billing model for HDD (standard) (GA) : Brings the provisioned v2 billing model for Azure Files (allowing separate specification of storage, IOPS and throughput) to standard HDD-based storage. Available in UK South and UK West.

Azure Virtual Network Manager

• New Pricing for AVNM (GA) : Pricing has moved from a subscription-based model to VNet-based (charged by number of VNets where AVNM is deployed).

Compute

• 6th Generation Intel-based VMs - Dv6/Ev6 (GA) : Higher performance than previous generations, Azure Boost built-in including a new Microsoft Azure Network Adapter, NVMe interface for disks to boost storage performance. Naturally, these are great for AI workloads :-) Available in UK South but not UK West as yet. Blog post.
• Upgrade Gen 1 VMs to Gen 2-Trusted Launch (Public Preview) : Trusted Launch VMs provide foundational compute security to Azure Generation 2 VMs by enabling Secure Boot and vTPM capabilities. Trusted Launch capabilities protect OS against rootkits, boot kits and enables attestation by measuring the boot chain of VM. Make sure you check out the documentation if you’re thinking of doing this - it’s not recommended for Production workloads at the moment, and there are a lot of prerequisites and potential gotchas. Note also that you can create a new Gen 2 VM without Trusted Launch, but the upgrade only supports moving to Trusted Launch.

Infrastructure as Code

• Terraform Azure Verified Modules for Platform Landing Zone (ALZ) (GA) : Terraform modules for deploying platform landing zones, along with their own Terraform provider. Seems to tie in with a big overhaul of Azure Verified Modules and Landing Zone documentation - check it all out!

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 2nd December 2024, grouped by Azure service.

It’s been a little while since I posted, and this one is a bit of a bumper one with MS Ignite having finished recently - a lot of Azure updates have dropped, along with other products. AI is unsurprisingly a big theme once again :-) Check out the Ignite 2024 Book of News for all the details.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 11th November 2024, grouped by Azure service.

The new Azure updates page is now live (complete with RSS feed - why they could provide that for the updates but not for the new Tech Community platform blogs is a bit beyond me!). Some of the links this week use the old URL format, but they should still work.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated
RET = Service retirement

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 16th September 2024, grouped by Azure service. Published slightly later than planned!

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Storage
• Infrastructure as Code

Azure Kubernetes Service

• Latest AKS release (GA) : The latest release has almost finished its rollout:
  • AKS v1.27 is now deprecated - long-term support only
  • New versions of KEDA addon deployed

Azure Storage

• Live Resize for Azure Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks (Public Preview) : Dynamically increase the storage capacity of your Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks without causing any disruption to your applications. Still has some significant limitations and is only available in select regions at present.

Infrastructure as Code

• Terraform AzureRM provider 4.0 (GA) : This version includes new capabilities to improve the extensibility and flexibility of the provider: provider-defined functions and improved resource provider registration.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 12th August 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure DB for PostgreSQL
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Portal/Entra ID

Azure DB for PostgreSQL

• Terraform support for geo-restore in Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server (GA) : You can now use Terraform to perform geo-restore for Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server data.

Azure Kubernetes Service

• Azure CNI Powered by Cilium & Azure CNI Overlay support in AKS (Public Preview) : Public preview of Azure CNI Overlay dual-stack with Azure CNI powered by Cilium for Linux clusters in AKS is now available. This enhancement enables AKS clusters to support IPv4 and IPv6 network policies, providing greater flexibility and control over network traffic within your Kubernetes environments.

Azure Portal/Entra ID

• Enable multifactor authentication for your tenant by 15 October 2024 (GA) : This has been on the way for a little while - starting 15 October 2024, MS will require users to use multifactor authentication (MFA) to sign into the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center. Applies to break-glass accounts as well - check the documentation for more info.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 5th August 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure Extended Zones
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Storage

Azure Extended Zones

• Azure Extended Zones (Public Preview) : Extending Azure into a small-footprint deployment (for specific services) where latency or data residency for workloads is a primary concern. Looks like the first Extended Zone is in Los Angeles.

Azure Kubernetes Service

• Leveraging Azure Copilot for AKS : More and deeper integration to make cluster management simpler.
• The latest AKS release is now rolling out :
  • AKS patch versions 1.30.3, 1.29.7, 1.28.12, 1.27.16, are now available (so check your cluster versions for any that now fall into ‘N - 3’ or lower).
  • The AKS extension for Visual Studio Code now supports the ability to attach an ACR to your cluster, generate Kubernetes deployment files, generate Dockerfiles, and generate GitHub Actions

Azure Storage

• Customer Managed Planned Failover for Azure Storage (Public Preview) : Finally, the ability to failover storage endpoints while they’re still healthy is coming! Definitely a boon for DR testing, moving regions if there’s a problem with a different service, etc. Very limited set of regions supported at the moment.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 29th July 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure Backup
• Azure Container Storage
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Sustainability

Azure Backup

• VM Backup support for Premium SSD v2 disks (GA) : Several updates around Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks, but VM Backup now supporting them both with the Enhanced backup policy is probably the biggest update from my point of view. Note that cross-region and file-level restores (from a mounted disk) are still not supported. Also (importantly) note that you can’t use geo-redundant (GRS) Recovery Services Vaults for enabling backup with Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks.
• Vaulted Backup for Azure Blob Storage (GA) : Blob backups can now be stored in a Vault instead of just as snapshots in a Storage Account. Available in all public regions, but there are some limitations to be aware of.

Azure Container Storage

• Azure Container Storage for Ephemeral (Local NVMe/Temp SSD) and Azure Disk (GA) : ACS now ready for production workloads (ephemeral disks and Azure Disk-based ones, anyway). Lots of publicity for this one - Azure Blog post, AKS Engineering blog post, documentation.

Azure Kubernetes Service

• OS SKU in-place migration for AKS (GA) : The OS SKU in-place migration feature allows you to trigger a node image upgrade between one Linux SKU (i.e. Ubuntu) to another (i.e. Azure Linux) on an existing nodepool. No need to create new nodes, cordon and drain the existing ones, and then delete them - the upgrade can roll through the cluster without having to create new node pools.

Sustainability

• Azure Carbon Optimization (Public Preview) : Sustainability is still very much a hot topic with cloud workloads. Carbon optimization joins the emissions dashboard and emissions insights (another preview service) to allow you to get a full picture of your cloud deployment impact and where it could be improved.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 22nd July 2024, grouped by Azure service. The Azure Updates site is working again, in its new v2 version, though the RSS feed isn’t yet.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure DB for PostgreSQL
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Storage
• Compute
• Governance

Azure DB for PostgreSQL

• Major version upgrade support for PostgreSQL 16 (GA) : Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server now supports in-place major version upgrades to PostgreSQL 16. This update offers access to the latest PostgreSQL features with minimal downtime and a simplified upgrade process.

Azure Kubernetes Service

• The latest AKS release is now rolling out :
  • AKS version 1.30 is now GA.
  • AKS patch versions 1.30.2, 1.30.1, 1.29.6, 1.28.11, 1.27.15, are now available (so check your cluster versions for any that now fall into ‘N - 3’ or lower).

Azure Storage

• Convert to Azure Premium SSD v2 disks (Public Preview) : This feature allows you to migrate your existing Standard SSD, Standard HDD, or Premium SSD v1 disks to Pv2 disks in a few clicks with minimal downtime. This process avoids disk destruction, eliminates the need to use snapshots as a staging resource, and doesn’t require waiting for background data copying. Expands the conversion capability and could be very useful if your workloads can take advantage of Premium SSD v2 capabilities - you had to create a new v2 SSD disk from a snapshot previously.

Compute

• 6th generation Intel-based VMs – Dv6/Ev6 (Public Preview) : General Purpose and Memory-optimised variants, initially available in US West and US East. Claimed performance increase over v5 VMs as well as increased scalability. Also support Azure Boost for increased performance (as will all new VM series going forward).

Governance

• Azure Essentials | Azure Migrate and Modernize | Azure Innovate - Curated collections of resources to kick off and develop Azure projects. Quite a heavy focus on AI (unsurprisingly :-) but covers other areas as well. Useful starting points to go with resources like the Well-Architected and Cloud Adoption Frameworks.

After a couple of weeks off due to holidays and a general lack of updates from MS, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming :-)

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 8th July 2024, grouped by Azure service. No Azure Monthly summary this month as there’s only one other post for June.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 17th June 2024, grouped by Azure service. I managed to miss a week as the Azure Updates site is currently undergoing maintenance (so the RSS feed isn’t updating) and I’ve only just found its temporary replacement.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Azure DB for PostgreSQL
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Landing Zones
• Azure Resource Manager
• Azure SQL
• Compute
• Virtual Network Manager

Azure DB for PostgreSQL

• IOPS scaling for Flexible Server (GA) : This feature empowers you to dynamically scale your IOPS based on your workload needs. Ensure optimal performance during high-demand operations like migrations or data loads and scale down to save costs when demand decreases.

Azure Kubernetes Service

• kube-egress-gateway (GA) : kube-egress-gateway is an open-source project that offers a scalable and cost-efficient solution for configuring fixed source IPs for Kubernetes pod egress traffic on Azure.
• OS Security Patch channel for Linux in AKS (GA) : SecurityPatch now added to the channels for node OS image upgrades in AKS.
• az command invoke in AKS (GA) : Invoke a command (e.g. running kubectl) remotely in a private cluster through the AKS API, without connecting directly to the cluster. This can be done from a client that isn’t on the cluster’s private network. Access to the command invoke command is controlled through RBAC permissions.
• Kubernetes patch version 1.27.13 now available in AKS (GA)

Azure Landing Zones

• Zone Redundancy and Multi-Region Capabilities in Azure Landing Zones : Being integrated into Bicep and Terraform accelerators by EoY 2024.

Azure Resource Manager

• Change Actor (GA) : Identifying who made a change to your Azure resources and how the change was made just became easier! With Change Analysis, you can now see who initiated the change and with which client that change was made, for changes across all your tenants and subscriptions. Accessed via the Azure Resource Graph.

Azure SQL

• Advance Notifications for Managed Instance (GA) : Get alerts for planned maintenance events 24 hours ahead of time. Works with SQL Maintenance Windows. Configured via Service Health in the Azure Portal.

Compute

• Windows Server 2025 (Public Preview) : Previewing Windows Server 2025 images for VMs

Virtual Network Manager

• Azure Virtual Network Manager mesh and direct connectivity (GA) : Deploy mesh or hub and spoke network topologies for VNets through VMM without having to set up all the peerings manually.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 27th May 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• API Center
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Resource Manager
• Azure Site Recovery
• Azure SQL

API Center

• Azure API Center Extension for VS Code (GA) : Build, discover, try, and consume APIs in your API center

Azure Kubernetes Service

• Advanced Container Networking Services for AKS (Public Preview) : A new suite of services bringing advanced network monitoring and diagnostics to AKS clusters. Currently includes only Advanced Network Observability as its inaugural and foundational feature - more are planned.
  • Advanced Network Observability is based on Hubble (itself based on Cilium, but both Cilium (with Kubernetes 1.29) and non-Cilium AKS data planes are supported). It uses Grafana and Prometheus for visualisation (Azure-managed or bring your own), and Retina on non-Cilium nodes (presumably as the eBPF ‘bridge’). It also supports all Azure CNI variants including kubenet.
• Open Service Mesh deprecation : I noticed when looking through the AKS LTS docs that Open Service Mesh was noted as being deprecated. Looks like the CNCF are retiring it and Istio is currently the only option for an AKS-supported service mesh.

Azure Resource Manager

• Deployment Stacks (GA) : Deployment stacks are an Azure resource type which provide a means of managing a collection of Azure resources as a single unit. They are designed to work primarily with Bicep, and are essentially a replacement for Blueprints (which never made it out of preview).

Azure Site Recovery

• Reporting Capabilities for Azure Site Recovery (Preview) : Full-featured and customisable reports based on Azure Monitor logs. Available via Business Continuity Center, Recovery Services Vault and Backup Center
  • Blog post
  • Documentation
• Monitoring improvements for ASR : An improved alerting solution for Azure Site Recovery, including default alerts via Azure Monitor. Brings ASR alerting into the Azure Monitor alerts space for a more consistent experience.
  • Blog post
  • Documentation

Azure SQL

• Availability portal metric (Public Preview) : Monitor SLA-compliant availability of Azure SQL databases in the Azure portal. Supported for DTU and vCore-based DBs at all service tiers, and for single DBs and elastic pools.
• Update policy for Managed Instances (GA) : Choose the speed of updates for new SQL engine features for your managed instance:
  • Always up to date (engine features deployed as soon as they are released in Azure, without waiting for the next major release of SQL Server) or SQL Server 2022 (follows the mainstream servicing lifecycle of SQL Server 2022, with no new SQL engine features deployed until SQL Server vNext is released).
  • The former brings new functionality faster but keeps the database format changing (so e.g. restores or replication to other (‘on-premises’) SQL Server instances might break); latter keeps the SQL engine at 2022 (you still get Azure SQL platform updates) and maintains the database compatibility level, but no new features until SQL vNext.
  • Can change from SQL 2022 policy to Always up to date, but cannot go the other way as DB format can’t be downgraded.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 20th May 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Microsoft Build took place this week, so lots of announcements - unsurprisingly, a strong focus on Copilot and AI, though there were some other technologies covered as well. Have a look at the Build 2024 Book of News for all the new stuff announced.

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 13th May 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• Application Gateway
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Site Recovery

Application Gateway

• Application Gateway v2 Basic SKU (Public Preview) : AG v2 gets a Basic SKU. Same base functionality and Capacity Units as Standard, with a slightly lower SLA (99.9% vs 99.95%), lower scaling maximums, and none of the advanced stuff (e.g. Private Link, URL rewrites). SKU comparison here. Presumably the fixed cost will be cheaper (once it’s out of preview and being charged for :-)

Azure Kubernetes Service

• New version of AKS extension in Visual Studio Code : The AKS extension in Visual Studio Code has been updated to version 1.4.3. This new release includes general enhancements as well as a new command “Retina capture” (which uses the Retina tool Microsoft recently open-sourced).
• AKS automatic use of Zone-Redundant storage to create managed disks when AKS cluster is deployed across availability zones : With Kubernetes 1.29 and built-in storage classes. As ZRS is more expensive than LRS, this can be overridden with a custom storage class.

Azure Site Recovery

• ASR support for Trusted Launch VMs (Public Preview) : Fills a gap in ASR provision. Few gotchas to check though.

Summary of Azure snippets for the week commencing 6th May 2024, grouped by Azure service.

GA = Generally Available
Public/Private Preview = as stated :-)

Azure services with highlighted updates this week:

• API Center
• Azure DB for PostgreSQL
• Azure Kubernetes Service
• Azure Resource Graph
• Azure Storage
• Cloud Services (classic)
• Defender for Cloud
• Virtual Network Manager
• Virtual Networks

API Center

• API Center (GA) : A centralised solution for delivery, consumption and governance of APIs. Provides (among other features): cataloguing and inventory of APIs (including from APIM), governance and design rule enforcement, API Analysis for consistency and compliance, and a Visual Studio Code extension for an enhanced developer experience. More full featured than I thought - is this the future of the APIM developer portal?
  • Azure API Center GA blog post

Azure DB for PostgreSQL

• Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server enhanced disaster recovery features (GA) : Enhancements to the read replicas feature - Virtual Endpoints and promote a read replica to primary server
  • Virtual endpoints for read replicas
  • Promote to primary server
• Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server networking with Azure Private Link (GA) : Private Link joins VNet integration as a supported private VNet access method for PostgreSQL Flexible Server
  • Networking with Private Endpoint docs

Azure Kubernetes Service

• Initialization taints (Public Preview) : Temporary taints on AKS nodes, for example if more time is needed to set up nodes
  • Node initialisation taints docs

Azure Resource Graph

• Azure Change Analysis - New Portal experience (Public Preview) : See all resoure changes across all tenants and subscriptions in the Azure Portal. New portal experience includes filtering, grouping and Change Actor (who made the change and how)
  • View resource changes in the Azure portal (Learn)
  • Change Actor (public preview)

Azure Storage

• Azure Storage Actions (public preview) : Serverless and no-code framework for managing storage operations. Currently supports operations on Blobs in Storage Accounts, and isn’t available in UK regions yet.
• SLA on Blob Storage Cold Tier (GA) : Cold tier Blob storage now backed with a Microsoft uptime and connectivity SLA.

Cloud Services (classic)

• Cloud Services (classic) deployment model is retiring on 31 August 2024 : Migrate to Cloud Services (extended support) if you need to keep using them
  • Five classic networking services which depend on classic Cloud Services are also being retired

Defender for Cloud

• Azure Defender for Microsoft Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server (GA) : Part of the Defender for open-source relational databases plan which includes MySQL and MariaDB as well. I have no idea why they refer to it as Azure Defender (the old name for Microsoft Defender for Cloud) here!
  • Azure DB for PostgreSQL docs - Defender for Cloud support

Virtual Network Manager

• Virtual Network Manager UDR (Public Preview) : Enabling users to describe their desired routing behavior via configuration, simplifying the management of routing behaviors at scale.
• Azure Virtual Network Manager security admin rule (GA) : Empowering users to enforce security rules across their virtual networks globally.
  • Security admin rule concepts

Virtual Networks

• Virtual network flow logs (GA) : New capability of Network Watcher, enhancing the flow log support already available for NSGs to the VNet scope
  • Azure Networking blog announcement
  • VNet flow logs
• Virtual Network encryption in all regions (GA) : Customers can enable encryption of traffic between Virtual Machines and Virtual Machines Scale Sets within the same virtual network and between regionally and globally peered virtual networks. This new feature enhances the existing encryption in transit capabilities in Azure.
  • Virtual Network encryption docs