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 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.

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 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: