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.

• Cloud Services
• Retirements

General availability: HBv4-series & HX-series VMs are now available in Sweden Central.

HBv4 virtual machines (VMs) are optimized for various HPC workloads such as computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, frontend and backend EDA, rendering, molecular dynamics, computational geoscience, weather simulation, and financial risk analysis. HX-series Virtual Machines (VMs) are optimized for large memory HPC workloads such as backend EDA, finite element analysis, computational geoscience, and big data analytics.

• Virtual Machines
• Services
• Regions & Datacenters

Generally Available: AKS cost views

The Kubernetes clusters and Kubernetes namespaces cost views are now generally available in Cost analysis within Azure portal. You can view the aggregated costs for all your AKS clusters and namespaces across a subscription and drill down into infrastructure and namespaces costs of a cluster.

• Microsoft Cost Management
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Management

Retirement: Support for .NET 6 ends on 12 November 2024—upgrade your Azure Functions apps to .NET 8

Target retirement date: November 12, 2024

Upgrade your Azure Functions apps to .NET 8

• Azure Functions
• Retirements

Retirement: Support for the in-process model for .NET apps in Azure Functions ends 10 November 2026.

Target retirement date: November 10, 2026

Migrate your .NET apps in Azure Functions to the isolated worker model

• Azure Functions
• Retirements

Support for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS for Batch pools will be retired on 23 April 2025

Target retirement date: April 24, 2025

End of life announcement for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS support for Azure Batch pools on 23 April 2025

• Batch
• Retirements

Support for Basic and Standard A-series VM families support will be retired on 31 August 2024 for Batch pools

Target retirement date: September 01, 2024

End of life for Basic and Standard A-series VM families support in Batch pools on 31 August 2024

• Batch
• Retirements

GA: Azure SQL Trigger support for Azure Functions

You can now build application logic in Azure Function apps which can be driven by the data from Azure SQL database

• Azure Functions
• Features

Generally Available: Free managed certificates on Azure Container Apps

Azure Container Apps now provides a free managed certificate for your custom domain.

• Azure Container Apps
• Security
• Features

Public preview: Support for Key Vault Certificates in Azure Container Apps

You can now use Azure Key Vault to store and manage your own TLS/SSL certificates for use with Azure Container Apps.

• Azure Container Apps
• Security
• Features

Public preview: PowerShell 7.4 support for Azure Functions

You can now develop apps using PowerShell 7.4 locally and deploy them to Azure Functions

• Azure Functions
• Features

Public Preview: Azure Container Apps OpenTelemetry Agent support

You can now use open-source standards to send your app’s data.

• Azure Container Apps
• Features

General Availability: Automatic Scaling for App Service Web Apps

Azure App Service is pleased to announce general availability of the "Automatic Scaling" feature.

• App Service
• App Service (Linux)
• Features

Preview: New Features in Azure Container Storage

Azure Container Storage is a fully managed volume orchestration service built natively for containers. New capabilities include support for Temp SSD, simplified installation via AKS CLI, and scalable storage for cost-efficient workload management.

• Azure Container Storage
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Features

Retirement: Support for .NET 7 ends on 14 May 2024—upgrade your Azure Functions resources to .NET 8

Target retirement date: May 24, 2024

Upgrade your Azure Functions resources to .NET 8 by 14 May 2024

• Azure Functions
• Retirements

Private Preview: Force detach zone redundant disks during zone outage

Force detach zone redundant disks during zone outage and take advantage of ZRS ability to achieve an RPO of 0.

• Managed Disks
• Azure Disk Storage
• Virtual Machines
• Windows Virtual Machines
• Linux Virtual Machines
• Features

Operator and CRD support with Azure Managed Prometheus

Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus will support CRD-based configs for scrape jobs to collect metrics from workloads running in your AKS cluster. With this new update, customers can use custom resources (service monitor and pod monitor) to configure metric collection with Managed Prometheus.

• Azure Monitor
• Managed Prometheus
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Features

Microsoft open sources Retina: A cloud-native container networking observability platform

The Microsoft's Azure Container Networking team is announcing Retina, a cloud-native container networking observability platform that enables Kubernetes users, admins, and developers to visualize, observe, debug, and analyze Kubernetes’ workload traffic irrespective of Container Network Interface (CNI), operating system (OS), and cloud.

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Network Watcher
• Services
• Features
• Open Source