Azure updates

New Azure RTOS collaborations with semiconductor industry leaders

Embedded developers can now access reliable, real-time performance for resource-constrained devices and seamless integration to Azure IoT. STMicroelectronics, Renesas, Qualcomm, NXP and Microchip will offer development kits featuring Azure RTOS.

• Azure Sphere
• Security Center
• Security

Azure Cognitive Services – Neural Text to Speech has new voice styles

Neural Text to Speech now has new voice styles – newscast, customer service and digital assistant. Tailor the voice of your apps and services to fit your unique scenario using these new styles, and further customise your voice to express different emotions to fit the context, such as cheerfulness or empathy.

• Text to Speech
• Speech services

Azure Ultra Disks – Shared disk capability is now in preview

Shared disks now includes Ultra Disks (in preview).

• Managed Disks

Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Logical decoding and wal2json for change data capture

The Azure Database for PostgreSQL – single server logical decoding feature is now available in preview. In addition, the preview of wal2json, a popular output plugin for logical decoding, is also now available.

• Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Azure Container Registry support for Private Link now in preview

Azure Container Registry now supports Private Link, a means to limit network traffic of resources within the virtual network.

• Container Registry

Integrate Azure Stream Analytics with Azure Machine Learning (in preview)

Target availability: Q1 2020

Implement machine learning models as a user-defined function (UDF) in your Azure Stream Analytics jobs to do real-time scoring and predictions on your streaming input data.

• Azure Stream Analytics
• Azure Machine Learning

Azure Web Application Firewall for Azure Content Delivery Network is in preview

Protect your web applications from common exploits and vulnerabilities with Web Application Firewall for Azure Content Delivery Network. Web Application Firewall is already natively integrated with Azure Application Gateway and Azure Front Door services.

• Content Delivery Network
• Web Application Firewall

Native Mongo shell on Azure Cosmos DB API for MongoDB is now in preview

Execute Mongo database commands directly on top of your database account using the native Mongo shell in the Azure Cosmos DB Data Explorer.

• Azure Cosmos DB

Cognitive Services introduces new Neural Text to Speech voices for different styles

We are excited to be rolling out new speaking styles for newscast, voice assistant, and customer service scenarios for our English and Chinese neural voices.

• Cognitive Services

Azure Shared Disks for clustered applications preview now available

Azure Shared Disks is a shared block storage offering, enabling customers to run latency-sensitive workloads without compromising on well-known deployment patterns for fast failover and high availability.

• Managed Disks

Azure Functions custom handlers are now in preview

Extend the Azure Functions runtime with support for your preferred language or language version using a lightweight HTTP server.

• Azure functions

Azure Database for MySQL – Connection redirection support for PHP drivers

Redirection support for the mysqlnd PHP driver used to connect to Azure Database for MySQL is now available in preview. Take advantage of the mysqlnd_azure extension to improve the connection latency between applications and Azure Database for MySQL.

• Azure Database for MySQL

Azure Cognitive Services – Brazilian Portuguese added to neural Text to Speech

Target availability: Q1 2020

Francisca, our new Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR) voice, has been added to neural Text to Speech. Francisca features the same human-like natural prosody of the other neural Text to Speech voices on Azure.

• Text to Speech
• Speech services

Event Grid Premium tier is now in preview

Event Grid Premium tier is aimed at solving the specific requirements of customers with advanced security, throughput, availability and performance guarantees typical of large enterprises operating large scale business critical software

• Event Grid

ACR built-in audit policies for Azure Policy is now in preview

Azure Container Registry now supports built-in audit policies for Azure Policy

• Container Registry

Managed keys for Azure Container Registry is now in preview

Bring your own encryption key for Azure Container Registry.

• Container Registry

Azure Automation is now available in the US Gov Arizona region in preview

Target availability: Q2 2020

Azure Automation is now available in the US Gov Arizona region in preview.

• Automation

Export Power BI reports to PDF, PPTX or PNG files using REST API

Power BI now has an additional set of capabilities that allow you to export a Power BI report by using a REST call to the following file formats – PDF, PPTX (PowerPoint) and PNG.

• Power BI Embedded