This series of blog posts includes the most important announcements and major updates regarding Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and Azure Stack, officialized by Microsoft in the last two weeks.
Azure
Compute
Confidential Computing price reduction on DCsv2 virtual machines
DCsv2-series protects the confidentiality and integrity of your data and code while it’s processed in the public cloud. Microsoft is announcing a price reduction on DCsv2-series Azure Virtual Machines by 37%. The new pricing is effective June 1st, 2021, and applies to all the regions where DCsv2-series is available.
New datacenter region in Arizona
Microsoft is launching a new sustainable datacenter region in Arizona, known as “West US 3.” For more details you can read “Expanding cloud services: Microsoft launches its sustainable datacenter region in Arizona“.
Azure Virtual Machines DCsv2-series are available in Australia
Confidential computing DCsv2-series virtual machines (VMs) are now available in Australia East, Austria Southeast will launch in the coming weeks to provide disaster recovery capabilities.
Storage
Azure Blob index tags
Prior to index tags, solutions that required the ability to quickly find specific objects in a blob container would need to keep a secondary catalog. Blob index tags provides a built in capability to add tags and then quickly query for or filter using this information. This provides a simpler solution without requiring a separate query system. This includes the ability to set index tags both upon upload or after upload. You can utilize these indexes as part of lifecycle management that automates deletion and movement between tiers.
Networking
New Azure private MEC solution announced
An evolution of Private Edge Zones, Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC) expands the scope of possibilities from a single platform and service to a combination of edge compute, multi-access networking stacks, and the application services that run together at the edge. These capabilities help simplify integration complexity and securely manage services from the cloud for high-performance networking and applications.
In addition to the Azure private MEC solution, we are announcing the following Microsoft and partner services and solutions:
- New Azure Network Function Manager (public preview) service
- Metaswitch Fusion Core third-party services on Azure Stack Edge
- Affirmed Private Network Service third-party service on Azure Stage Edge
- New Azure Marketplace solutions from our partners’
Default Rule Set 2.0 for Azure Web Application Firewall (preview)
The Default Rule Set 2.0 (DRS 2.0) for Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) deployments running on Azure Front Door is in preview. This rule set is only available on the Azure Front Door Premium SKU. DRS 2.0 includes the latest changes to our rule set, including the addition of anomaly scoring. With anomaly scoring, incoming requests are assigned an anomaly score when they violate WAF rules and an action is taken only when they breach an anomaly threshold. This helps drastically reduce false positives for customer applications. Also included in DRS2.0 are rules powered by Microsoft Threat Intelligence which offer increased coverage and patches for specific vulnerabilities.
