Updates Archives
Monthly updates for January 2021
General availability: Text Analytics' Named Entity Recognition v3 now supports 10 languages with improved AI quality
With support for more entity categories and more languages, using Text Analytics NER enables organizations to extract higher quality insights from unstructured text.
General availability: Azure Machine Learning Output Datasets
Read data in the cloud efficiently with Output datasets.
Public preview: Azure Machine Learning Data Labeling – Image Instance Segmentation
Data Labeling in Azure Machine learning gives you a central place to create, manage, and monitor labeling projects.
Azure Sphere version 21.01 is now available
This release includes new memory and current control functions as well as new features in the SDK.
Azure Service Fabric Mesh Preview Retirement
Target retirement date: April 28, 2021
Today, we are announcing the retirement of the Azure Service Fabric Mesh public preview. New deployments will no longer be available but we will continue to support existing deployments until April 28, 2021.
Azure API Management Updates - January, 2021
A regular Azure API Management service update was started on January 21, 2021, and included several new features and bug fixes, along other improvements. It may take several weeks for your API Management service to receive the update.
Resource instance rules for access to Azure Storage now in public preview
Resource instance rules enable secure connectivity to Azure Storage by restricting access to specific resources of select Azure services. Resource instance rules to control access to Azure Storage are now in preview in all Azure public regions.
Azure Cognitive Services Translator - Inuktitut language text translation now available
Translate to or from Inuktitut into any of the more than 70 languages available in Translator.
99.99% uptime for Azure Active Directory Premium customers is coming April 1st, 2021
SLA for Azure AD is increasing the up-time commitment to 99.99% for Azure AD Premium customers to support the need for an Identity service with high resilience and low interruptions.
Germany West Central Availability Zones now generally available
Microsoft is pleased to announce that Azure Availability Zones are now generally available from the Germany West Central datacenter region. Azure Availability Zones (AZs) feature in the broad portfolio of services and products that enable organizations to create resilient, highly available applications for mission-critical workloads.
South Central US Availability Zones now generally available
Azure Availability Zones are now generally available in the South Central US region. These three new zones provide customers with options for additional resiliency and tolerance to infrastructure impact.
Confluent Cloud Integration with Azure is now generally available
Confluent and Microsoft have worked together to enable seamless integration experience between Azure and Confluent Cloud – a managed Apache Kafka service. This service will enable you to provision Confluent Cloud resources using Azure client interfaces like portal/CLI/SDKs. Other integration points include single sign-on using Azure Active directory and unified billing through Azure with an option to draw down on existing Azure commits.
Python 3.9 in Azure Functions is now in public preview
Announcing some enhancements to the development experience for Python workloads in Azure Functions, including support for Python 3.9.
Azure Data Factory is now available in two additional regions
Azure Data Factory is now available in two new regions: China North 2 and South India
General availability: Azure HDInsight extends capabilities for encryption of data in transit and at rest
Azure HDInsight Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) encryption in transit is now generally available. HDInsight also supports version-less keys for customer-managed key (CMK) encryption at rest.
New Azure Cloud Services deployment model in public preview
Use Azure Cloud Services (extended support), now in public preview, to increase regional resiliency and gain access to new capabilities that the Azure Resource Manager-based deployment model provides.
Generally available: Copy Blob support over private endpoints in Azure Storage
Azure Storage now supports copying of data between storage accounts using private endpoints. This includes support for the Copy Blob API and utilities such as AzCopy.
Action Required: Upgrade IoT Hub IP filter before 1 February 2022
Target retirement date: February 01, 2022
The upgraded IP filter protects the built-in endpoint and is more secure.
Azure Boards - New enhancements to Delivery Plans 2.0
In this sprint, we're enhancing Delivery Plans 2.0 with new condensed views and rollup information.
Public preview: Automatic Cluster Upgrades in AKS
AKS simplifies the task of deploying new Kubernetes releases by enabling users to configure automatic cluster upgrades.
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