News and updates
Azure SQL Database Edge: Enabling intelligent data at the edge
At Microsoft Build 2019, we announced Azure SQL Database Edge, available in preview, to help address the requirements of data and analytics at the edge using the performant, highly available and secure SQL engine. Developers will now be able to adopt a consistent programming surface area to develop on a SQL database and run the same code on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge.
Microsoft Azure portal May 2019 update
This month is packed with updates on the Azure portal, including enhancements to the user experience, resource configuration, management tools, and more. Sign in to the Azure portal now and see everything that’s new for yourself. Download the Azure mobile app to stay connected to your Azure resources anytime, anywhere.
A Cosmonaut’s guide to the latest Azure Cosmos DB announcements
At Microsoft Build 2019 we announced exciting new capabilities, including the introduction of real-time operational analytics using new built in support for Apache Spark and a new Jupyter notebook experience for all Azure Cosmos DB APIs. We believe these capabilities will help our customers easily build globally distributed apps at Cosmos scale. But there is even more! This blog lists additional enhancements to the developer experience, announced at Microsoft Build.
Azure Updates
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Generally available
Premium files redefine limits for Azure Files
Azure Premium Files preview is now available to everyone! Premium files is a new performance tier that unlocks the next level of performance for fully managed file services in the cloud. Premium tier is optimized to deliver consistent performance for IO-intensive workloads that require high-throughput and low latency. Premium shares store data on the latest solid-state drives (SSDs) making it suitable for a wide variety of workloads like file services, databases, shared cache storage, home directories, content and collaboration repositories, persistent storage for containers, media and analytics, high variable and batch workloads, and many more.
Technical content
Azure Firewall and network virtual appliances
Network security solutions can be delivered as appliances on premises, as network virtual appliances (NVAs) that run in the cloud or as a cloud native offering (known as firewall-as-a-service). Customers often ask us how Azure Firewall is different from Network Virtual Appliances, whether it can coexist with these solutions, where it excels, what’s missing, and the total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits expected. We answer these questions in this blog post.
Operationalizing your PostgreSQL database health checks using SQL Notebooks
Most Postgres database administrators and community members would usually bookmark or save such articles so they can revisit them and reuse the queries shared in the article to run checks against their databases. The common challenge with this approach is, you end up with many saved archives, and searching through them when you need it is time consuming and less productive. A better way to operationalize your health check runbooks and database scripts is by creating SQL Notebooks in Azure Data Studio. This blog explains how to do that.
The Urlist — An application study in Serverless and Azure
The Urlist is an application that lets you create lists of URL's that you can share with others. Get it? A list of URL’s? The Urlist? Listen, naming things is hard and all the good domains are already taken. This project was born out of the author’s realization that I was ending my presentations with a slide full of links to additional resources. That’s crazy! What exactly is the audience supposed to do with that? Take a picture with their phone and then go back and manually type it all in later? What decade is this!?
How to Migrate Windows Server 2008 R2 FSMO roles to Windows Server 2019
With the “end of support” on the horizon for Windows Server 2008 R2 coming January 2020, folks are looking around for resources to help them check off some high ticket items from their “to do” list. While coming back from my last Microsoft Ignite The Tour stop, the author had some time to kill waiting for a connection. So he dusted off some of his Active Directory admin skills and document the quick and dirty process of upgrading your Active Directory from 2008 R2 over to the latest version of Windows Server 2019.
AI Search Algorithms Every Data Scientist Should Know
While in recent years, search and planning algorithms have taken a back seat to machine and deep learning methods, better understanding these algorithms can boost the performance of your models. Additionally as more powerful computational technologies such as quantum computing emerge it is very likely that search based AI will make a comeback. This TL;DR post outlines a few of the key search algorithms in AI, why they are important, what and what they are used for.
Azure shows
Next-level maps with ArcGIS for .NET
This week, James is joined by friend of the show & Microsoft MVP Morten Nielsen who introduces us to the world of advanced mapping with ArcGIS for .NET and Xamarin. Morten walks us through what ArcGIS is, how developers can build and use custom maps and data in mobile apps, and awesome 3D visualizations on maps.
Deep Dive: Deploying IoT Edge workloads on Kubernetes
Azure IoT Edge now features support for running natively on the Kubernetes orchestrator. This video goes into how the integration works and caps off with a demo showing what the experience is like for deploying a workload on an on-premise Kubernetes cluster.
Howden: How they built a knowledge-mining solution with Azure Search
Customers across industries including healthcare, legal, media, and manufacturing are looking for new solutions to solve business challenges with AI, including knowledge mining with Azure Search. Howden, a global engineering company, focuses on providing quality solutions for air and gas handling. With over a century of engineering experience, Howden creates industrial products that help multiple sectors improve their everyday processes; from mine ventilation and waste water treatment to heating and cooling. Watch a video to see how they implemented a knowledge-mining solution with Azure Search.
How to enable and use soft delete in a storage account | Azure Portal Series
In this video of the Azure Portal “how to” Series, you will learn how to enable and use “soft delete” in an Azure storage account.