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RSS feedSeptember 2021
General availability: Oracle consistent snapshots using Azure VM Backup
Azure Backup provides packaged pre-post scripts for Oracle VMs that can be used to instantly backup, create instant clones, reduce backup storage cost, and performance impact.
General availability: Azure Files now supports SMB 3.1.1
Server Message Block (SMB) 3.1.1 is the most secure and highly performant version of SMB. With SMB 3.1.1 support for Azure Files, you now can require AES-256-GCM for Windows 10, version 21H1 and newer clients.
SMB Multichannel for Azure Files is generally available
Server Message Block (SMB) Multichannel enables you to improve the IO performance of your SMB client 2-4x, increasing performance and decreasing total cost of ownership.
General availability: Azure Files supports storage capacity reservations for premium, hot, and cool tiers
Storage capacity reservations for Azure Files enable you to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership of storage by pre-committing to storage utilization. To achieve the lowest costs in Azure, you should consider reserving capacity for all production workloads.
August 2021
General availability: New Azure Batch capabilities
Several new pool and security features are now generally available.
Azure Blob storage - Last access time tracking now generally available
This feature helps administrators control costs through the automatic tiering and deletion of blobs via tiering including when the data was last read.
General availability: CSI storage driver support on Azure Kubernetes Service
Natively leverage storage systems in Kubernetes using Container Storage Interface storage drivers.
Mounting Azure Storage as a local share for web apps deployed on App Service is generally available
This new capability enables mounting Azure Storage as a network share in a built-in Linux container or a custom Linux container deployed to App Service for Linux.
Azure Blob storage - Inventory generally availability
Administrators can enable a daily or weekly inventory to be created to gain understanding of their blobs and containers.
Generally available: Azure HPC – CycleCloud 8.2.0
The 8.2 release expands 3rd-party scheduler support and includes significant improvements and bug fixes.
July 2021
Immutable storage with versioning for Blob Storage is now in public preview
Set time-based policies or legal holds on data so that the data becomes non-erasable and non-modifiable and protect all versions of a blob.
Shared disks on Azure Disk Storage are now generally available on all Premium SSD and Standard SSD sizes
Shared disks can now be leveraged on smaller Premium SSDs from 4GiB to 128 GiB and all Standard SSDs from 4 GiB to 32 TiB. This expands shared disk support to Ultra Disk, Premium SSD, and Standard SSD enabling you to optimize for different price and performance options based on your workload needs.
June 2021
Soft delete for blobs capability for Azure Data Lake Storage is now in limited public preview
If you have processes or tools to detect accidental deletion of files and directories for your Azure Data Lake Storage accounts, you can now also restore the deleted objects using soft delete for blobs capability. During the retention period that you specify, you can now restore a soft-deleted object to its state at the time it was deleted.
Introducing the Ingestion Client for Azure Speech
Ingestion Client in conjunction with Azure Speech allows customers to transcribe audio files without any development effort. Whether you have few or millions of file Azure will transcribe those securely and quickly.
General availability: Turn your phone into an IoT device with the new IoT Plug and Play mobile app
Use the IoT Plug and Play phone app as an IoT device to get started quickly with IoT Central or IoT Hub.
Azure Blob storage—NFS 3.0 protocol support generally available
Target availability: Q1 1980
Azure Blob Storage is the only storage platform that supports NFS 3.0 protocol over object storage natively (no gateway or data copying required), with object storage economics. With multi-protocol support, customers can run their applications on a single storage platform with no application rewrites necessary, therefore eliminating data silos.
Public preview: Identity-based connections in Azure Functions with latest Azure SDK triggers and bindings
Azure functions can now connect using an identity instead of a secret.
May 2021
AKS support for regulated industries
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) makes it easier for regulated industries, such as healthcare & finance, to adopt Kubernetes for their regulated workloads
Append blob support in Azure Data Lake Storage is now generally available
Applications can now create append blobs in addition to block blobs in Azure Data Lake Storage accounts and append to them using Append Block operations. Applications that need to add information to existing files efficiently and continuously can leverage append blobs.
Public preview: AKS support for Secrets Store Container Storage Interface
Access your secrets securely via the container's file system.
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