Azure updates

Cloud Services (classic) deployment model is retiring on 31 August 2024

Target retirement date: August 31, 2024

Cloud Services (classic) retiring in August 2024.

• Retirements

Public Preview: NFS Azure Files volume mount support in Azure Container Apps

You can now mount NFS file shares in Azure Container Apps.

• Azure Container Apps
• Features

General availability: Customer-managed keys on existing accounts

Target availability: Q2 2024

Configure customer-managed keys for your existing Azure Cosmos DB account.

• Azure Cosmos DB
• Features

General availability: Latest version of the TimeScaleDB extension on Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server

Target availability: Q2 2024

Upgrade to the latest TimeScaleDB extension on Azure for enhanced time-series data handling and improved performance.

• Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• Features

General availability: Latest PostgreSQL minor versions supported by Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server

Target availability: Q2 2024

Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server now supports minor versions 16.2, 15.6, 14.11, 13.14, and 12.18.

• Azure Database for PostgreSQL
• Features

General Availability: Azure Cosmos DB Data Explorer keyboard shortcuts

Target availability: Q2 2024

Work Smarter: Enhance Productivity with Azure Cosmos DB Data Explorer shortcut keys.

• Azure Cosmos DB
• Features

Public preview: Standby pools for Virtual Machine Scale Sets with flexible orchestration

Standby Pools for Virtual Machine Scale Sets with Flexible Orchestration provides the ability to reduce scale out latency and increase scale out performance.

• Virtual Machine Scale Sets
• Virtual Machines
• Features

Azure Ultra Disk Storage is now available in Italy North

Now available in Italy North region, Azure Ultra Disk Storage provides high-performance along with sub-millisecond latency for your most-demanding workloads.

• Ultra Disk Storage
• Managed Disks
• Azure Disk Storage
• Regions & Datacenters
• Features

Public Preview: Azure Storage Actions is now available in 14 more regions

Azure Storage Actions is a fully managed platform that helps you automate data management operations for object storage and data lakes. The preview is now available in 14 more regions.

• Azure Storage Actions
• Azure Blob Storage
• Azure Database for MariaDB
• Regions & Datacenters
• Features

General Availability: Microsoft Azure now available from new cloud region in Mexico

Microsoft has announced the opening of its first hyper-scale cloud region in Mexico.

• Security
• Regions & Datacenters
• Services

Azure Front Door log scrubbing of sensitive data is generally available

Azure Front Door supports removing sensitive data from Azure Front Door access log.

• Azure Front Door
• Security
• Features

General Availability - Azure API Center

Target availability: Q2 2024

Azure API Center is now generally available, providing a centralized solution to manage the challenges of API sprawl, which is exacerbated by the rapid proliferation of APIs and AI solutions. Azure API Center offers a unified inventory for seamless discovery, consumption, and governance of APIs, regardless of their type, lifecycle stage, or deployment location.

• API Management
• Features

Azure Governance Update - Management Groups

Beginning May 3, 2024, Azure will start enabling the root management group for tenants that have not enabled it yet. Using Azure management groups leverages best practices when applying Azure Policy and having it pre-enabled reduces the initial set up work to follow the best practices. 

• Azure Management Groups
• Azure Policy
• Azure Resource Manager
• Management

Public Preview: Azure HDInsight on AKS is now available for preview in 7 new regions

Target availability: Q2 2024

Azure HDInsight on AKS is now available for preview in seven new regions - East US 2 EUAP, West US, Japan East, Australia East, Canada Central, North Europe, Brazil South. Azure HDInsight on AKS is a modern, reliable, secure, and fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) that runs on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). HDInsight on AKS allows you to deploy popular Open-Source Analytics workloads like Apache Spark™, Apache Flink®️, and Trino without the overhead of managing and monitoring containers. For more information about Azure HDInsight on AKS, see the documentation.

• HDInsight on AKS
• Regions & Datacenters
• Open Source
• Features

Public preview: Azure Monitor pipeline (at edge)

We are announcing public preview Azure Monitor pipeline (for edge). With this, we are now extending our Azure Monitor pipeline capabilities from the cloud to the edge, enabling seamless and high-scale data ingestion with centralized configuration management.

• Features

Public Preview: Azure Dedicated Host - Redeploy

Target availability: Q2 2024

Introducing redeploying capability for Azure dedicated hosts

• Azure Dedicated Host
• Features

Updated Retirement Notice: Azure Data Catalog will now be retired on 15 May 2024

Target retirement date: May 15, 2024

Azure Data Catalog will now be retired on 15 May 2024 – migrate to Microsoft Purview

• Retirements

General availability: Semantic caching with vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB

Target availability: Q2 2024

Leverage historical LLM responses with Azure Cosmos DB and LangChain!

• Azure Cosmos DB
• Features