Archivi categoria: Microsoft Azure

Azure IaaS and Azure Local: announcements and updates (May 2025 – Weeks: 17 and 18)

This blog post series highlights the key announcements and major updates related to Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Azure Local, as officially released by Microsoft in the past two weeks.

Azure

General

Microsoft Announces New European Digital Commitments

Microsoft has introduced five new commitments to deepen its partnership with Europe, focusing on digital resilience, data privacy, cybersecurity, and competitiveness. These actions reflect Microsoft’s goal to align with European values and regulations.

1. Expanding AI and Cloud Infrastructure
Microsoft will boost its European datacenter capacity by 40% over two years, covering 16 countries. This includes public and sovereign cloud operations, and partnerships with firms like Bleu (France) and Delos Cloud (Germany). Microsoft aims to support innovation while complying with EU laws.

2. Strengthening Digital Resilience
Microsoft will operate European cloud services under a Europe-based board and uphold a Digital Resilience Commitment, pledging to challenge any external attempts to disrupt services. Code backups in Switzerland and continuity partnerships will ensure service reliability.

3. Safeguarding Data Privacy
With the EU Data Boundary project completed, Microsoft enables customers to keep data within the EU. Customers can encrypt data with their own keys, use lockboxes, and restrict Microsoft access. Microsoft also legally defends against unlawful data requests.

4. Boosting Cybersecurity
Microsoft has supported Ukraine and NATO with $500 million in cybersecurity aid and intelligence. A new Deputy CISO for Europe will oversee compliance with EU cybersecurity regulations like DORA and CRA. Independent audits will confirm adherence.

5. Supporting Competitiveness and Open Source
Through its AI Access Principles, Microsoft ensures open access to over 1,800 AI models, many of them open-source. The company supports European businesses and research institutions in applying AI, and commits to continued local collaboration.

These commitments underline Microsoft’s long-term dedication to Europe’s digital future and its respect for local governance.

Semantic Ranker for Azure AI Search now available on ItalyNorth

The Semantic Ranker feature in Azure AI Search is now generally available in the ItalyNorth region. This capability enhances the relevance of search results by using deep learning models to understand the semantic meaning behind user queries. It enables more accurate and contextually appropriate responses, particularly beneficial for AI-powered applications requiring advanced search functionalities.

Azure Functions Flex Consumption plan hosting now available on ItalyNorth

The Flex Consumption plan for Azure Functions is now available in the ItalyNorth cloud region. This Linux-based hosting option builds upon the pay-as-you-go Consumption model, offering greater flexibility and customization. It introduces capabilities such as private networking, selectable instance memory sizes, and rapid, large-scale out scenarios—all while maintaining a serverless billing model. This provides developers with enhanced control over their serverless workloads without compromising on scalability or cost-efficiency.

UAE North regional availability with Microsoft Dev Box

Microsoft Dev Box is now available in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) North region. This expansion enables customers in the UAE and nearby areas to provision developer workstations closer to their users and data sources, enhancing performance and ensuring compliance with data residency requirements. With this regional support, organizations can now benefit from faster provisioning times and improved network performance for Dev Box environments.

Compute

Azure Compute Fleet

Azure Compute Fleet is now generally available across all Azure regions, offering a scalable and flexible way to deploy up to 10,000 virtual machines in a single fleet. This service intelligently selects and provisions VM instances that match specified parameters—such as core count, RAM, region, pricing model, and VM SKU—ensuring optimal resource allocation for diverse workloads. Azure Compute Fleet also includes robust management features to automatically adjust deployment based on factors like Spot VM evictions, capacity shortages, and cost optimization needs. It is particularly valuable for customers requiring dynamic scaling with a wide variety of VM configurations.

Instance Mix for Virtual Machine Scale Sets

Instance mix is now generally available for Virtual Machine Scale Sets, enabling the use of multiple VM sizes within a single scale set deployment. This new feature offers enhanced flexibility and cost optimization by allowing customers to specify a mix of VM sizes tailored to their workload requirements. It also includes allocation strategies that can prioritize either price or capacity based on customer preferences. With instance mix, deployments benefit from increased capacity availability and simplified management of diverse VM resources within a unified scale set. In addition, customers leveraging Spot Priority Mix can combine both Spot and On-Demand VM instances, further increasing their ability to secure necessary capacity at optimized costs.

Improve the security of Generation 2 VMs via Trusted Launch in Azure DevTest Labs (preview)

Trusted Launch is now available in public preview for Generation 2 virtual machines (Gen2 VMs) within Azure DevTest Labs. This feature introduces a set of coordinated infrastructure technologies that enhance protection against sophisticated and persistent threats. By leveraging Trusted Launch, users can enable key security capabilities—such as secure boot and virtual TPM—independently, thereby hardening their Gen2 VMs without significant configuration overhead. This enhancement is part of Azure’s ongoing efforts to provide secure-by-default infrastructure for development and testing environments.

Improve the security of Generation 2 VMs via Trusted Launch in Azure DevTest Labs (preview)

Networking

Azure Firewall integration in Security Copilot

The integration of Azure Firewall with Microsoft Security Copilot enhances the way analysts investigate threats by leveraging natural language interactions. This feature enables users to analyze malicious traffic intercepted by the Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) across all deployed firewalls without writing complex KQL queries. Through either the Security Copilot portal or the Copilot in Azure experience, users can: retrieve the top IDPS signature hits, enrich threat profiles with additional intelligence, perform fleet-wide signature searches across tenants, and generate environment-specific security recommendations. This integration streamlines threat analysis and empowers teams with faster, more actionable insights.

Azure Firewall Log Tables Now Supported in Azure Monitor Basic Plan

All resource-specific log tables for Azure Firewall now support the Azure Monitor Basic log plan. This addition enables customers to reduce their logging costs by up to 80%. While this plan provides significant savings, it is important to note that it does not support integrations with Policy Analytics or Microsoft Security Copilot. Organizations looking to balance cost efficiency with basic firewall logging capabilities may find this update especially beneficial.

Next hop IP support for Virtual WAN

Azure Virtual WAN has introduced support for Next hop IP, enhancing routing flexibility for complex networking scenarios. The virtual hub router within Azure Virtual WAN can now peer with Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs) or BGP-enabled endpoints to exchange routes directly. This enables customers to advertise routes for virtual machines that reside behind load balancers, streamlining traffic flows and optimizing network architecture across virtual hubs. This improvement significantly simplifies route management in hybrid and large-scale cloud networks.

Azure virtual network terminal access point (TAP) (preview)

Azure Virtual Network TAP is now in public preview, offering a powerful way to stream virtual machine network traffic directly to packet collectors or analysis tools. This agentless solution eliminates the need for additional appliances or changes to existing network topologies, enabling transparent traffic mirroring with zero impact on VM performance. Furthermore, mirrored traffic does not count against the VM’s bandwidth quota. With broad compatibility across third-party tools, Virtual Network TAP facilitates robust integration into existing security and monitoring frameworks—an essential advancement for organizations requiring deep network visibility in their cloud environments.

Azure WAF CAPTCHA Challenge for Azure Front Door (preview)

Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) for Azure Front Door now includes CAPTCHA challenge support in public preview. This new capability introduces an adaptive layer of defense to mitigate threats from automated attacks such as bots, scrapers, and brute-force attempts, which often bypass traditional protections like IP filtering or rate limiting. By requiring real-time human verification through an interactive CAPTCHA, this feature enhances application security while maintaining usability for legitimate users. It provides a modern and effective way to safeguard web applications from malicious automated traffic.

Storage

Next-Generation Azure Data Box Devices Now Available

Microsoft has announced the general availability of the next-generation Azure Data Box 120 and Azure Data Box 525. These compact, NVMe-based devices are now available for order in the US, US Gov, Canada, EU, and UK Azure regions, with broader regional availability expected soon. Since their preview debut at Ignite ’24, these devices have successfully facilitated petabyte-scale data ingestion across numerous customer projects and industry verticals. Customers have reported up to 10x improvements in data transfer speeds, citing enhanced reliability and efficiency as key benefits. The design of these devices is based on extensive customer feedback and reflects the growing demands of large-scale data migrations. Azure Data Box continues to offer one of the most cost-effective solutions for offline data transfers, with a competitive price per terabyte and seamless ordering through the Azure portal.

Cross-Region Data Transfer Support in Azure Data Box

Azure Data Box now supports cross-region data transfer for all Azure region pairs, marking a significant enhancement in flexibility for distributed storage strategies. Customers can now upload data from any on-premises location directly to any Azure region, eliminating the need to physically transport the device across commerce boundaries. For example, data collected in Japan can be uploaded to an Azure data center in the European Union, while the Data Box itself remains within Japan. The transfer is carried out over the Azure network at no additional cost, making this feature particularly valuable for global enterprises managing multi-regional data workloads.

Azure Files: Metadata Cache for Azure SSD (Premium) SMB

Azure Files has introduced a new enhancement that significantly improves metadata operations performance for both SMB and REST protocols. This capability is automatically available at no extra cost and benefits both new and existing file shares. Whether used to support critical business applications, streamline DevOps workflows, or provide storage for large-scale virtual desktop environments, Azure Files now offers improved speed, scalability, and performance optimization. This update reinforces Azure Files as a high-performance storage option for demanding enterprise workloads.

Azure Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disk Storage Now Available in Australia Central 2 and Norway West

Azure Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disk Storage have been made generally available in the Australia Central 2 and Norway West regions. Azure Ultra Disk Storage provides high throughput, elevated IOPS, and consistently low latency, making it an optimal choice for data-heavy applications such as SAP HANA, high-performance databases, and applications requiring intensive transactional operations. Azure Premium SSD v2, designed as a next-generation block storage solution, delivers sub-millisecond latencies and cost-efficient performance for IO-intensive workloads. It is ideal for a wide spectrum of enterprise production scenarios, including SQL Server, Oracle, MariaDB, SAP, big data analytics, gaming on virtual machines, and stateful containers.

Cross-tenant customer-managed keys for Azure NetApp Files volume encryption (preview)

A new feature in public preview enables cross-tenant customer-managed keys (CMK) for Azure NetApp Files volume encryption. This capability allows end users to manage their own encryption keys across different Azure tenancies, rather than relying on the SaaS provider’s key management. Particularly useful in SaaS provider-to-customer models, it ensures that customers maintain full control over their data protection. Available in all regions that support Azure NetApp Files, this enhancement provides increased flexibility and transparency in key management strategies for both providers and consumers.

Azure Local

Azure Local 2504: new OS version, feature enhancements, and improved update experience

The 2504 release of Azure Local introduces several enhancements aimed at improving performance, security, and manageability. New deployments now use OS version 261000.3775, while existing systems remain on version 23598.1551. Customers can obtain this OS image and compatible drivers through the Azure portal or via their OEM partners.

Significant improvements have been made in several areas. .NET update installations are now more reliable, and update processes benefit from enhanced health checks and simplified tracking via the Azure portal. Registration and deployment processes are more flexible, allowing customers to select from up to six supported software versions, and error logging has been improved.

Security is also strengthened: Dynamic Root of Trust for Measurement (DRTM) is now enabled by default for new deployments. Azure Local VMs gain new capabilities, such as data disk expansion and live migration for VMs using GPU partitioning (GPU-P), provided the latest NVIDIA vGPU drivers are used.

Additional changes include renamed OEM licenses to reflect Azure Local branding, improved handling of solution extensions, a new crash dump collection feature for observability, and updates to billing logic for newer deployments. Documentation for version 22H2 will be archived after May 31, 2025.

Conclusion

Over the past two weeks, Microsoft has introduced a slew of updates and announcements pertaining to Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Azure Local. These developments underscore the tech giant’s unwavering commitment to enhancing its cloud offerings and adapting to the ever-evolving needs of businesses and developers. Users of Azure can anticipate improved functionalities, streamlined services, and enriched features as a result of these changes. Stay tuned for more insights as I continue to monitor and report on Azure’s progression in the cloud sphere.

Azure Hybrid Management & Security: What’s New and Insights from the Field – April 2025

With this article, I’m launching a new monthly series focused on the management and security of hybrid and multicloud environments with Azure, which takes over from the previous “Azure Management Services: What’s New” series.

The evolution of IT architectures and the growing adoption of hybrid models require a shift in how we approach operations, governance, and resource protection. Tools like Azure Arc, the integration of Artificial Intelligence into management processes, and new models for automation now form the foundation for modern, scalable IT control.

This new series, “Azure Hybrid Management & Security: What’s New and Insights from the Field”, is designed to follow this transformation closely. Every month, I will share:

the most relevant updates and announcements from Microsoft;
a selection of hands-on recommendations and field-proven practices;
a focus on the key tools that enable effective and secure management.

The goal is twofold: to keep you up to date, and to offer practical guidance for architects, IT leaders, and operational teams dealing with complex and distributed environments.

The key areas we will cover in this series, along with the corresponding tools and services, include:

🔹 Hybrid and multicloud environment management – with Azure Arc, which extends policy, security, management, and automation capabilities to on-premises and multicloud resources.

🔹 AI and intelligent automation – enabled by Microsoft Copilot in Azure, AIOps capabilities, and predictive tools to streamline operations and support smarter decision-making.

🔹 Security posture across hybrid and multicloud infrastructures – using Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other native services for vulnerability management and advanced threat protection.

🔹 Governance and policy management – leveraging tools such as Azure Policy, Azure Cost Management, and Resource Graph to ensure control, standardization, and cost/resource optimization.

🔹 Update & Patching – through Azure Update Management, Azure Automation, and native patching capabilities across Azure Arc-enabled environments.

🔹 Backup & Resilience – using Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery to ensure business continuity, data protection, and disaster recovery.

🔹 Monitoring – with tools like Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights for comprehensive visibility and effective troubleshooting.

AI and intelligent automation

Microsoft Copilot in Azure

Microsoft Copilot in Azure is now available!

Microsoft has announced the general availability of Copilot in Azure, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of intelligent cloud management. Copilot in Azure introduces an AI-based assistant that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs), the Azure control plane, and real-time information from the user’s environment. This enables the optimization of operational tasks, improved productivity, and full realization of the benefits offered by the cloud. With its production release, users can now enjoy enhanced performance, greater response accuracy, and full localization support across all languages of the Azure portal. The currently available features come at no additional cost, although Microsoft has indicated that future enhancements may introduce a pricing model. To ensure fair and sustainable use, protective mechanisms such as temporary throttling in case of excessive use of generative services have been implemented.

Security posture across hybrid and multicloud infrastructures

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Threat Detection in Azure Backup with Microsoft Defender for Cloud (Private Preview)

A new Threat Detection feature for Azure Backup, integrated with Microsoft Defender for Cloud (MDC), has been released in Private Preview. This innovative capability allows for the assessment of the health status of Azure VM recovery points (RPs), distinguishing between secure and potentially compromised restore points. The analysis relies on signals from real-time scans performed by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE), as part of Microsoft Defender for Servers plans. Azure Backup uses behavioral and heuristic signals detected by MDE to identify anomalies that may indicate the presence of ransomware in backup data.

New features, bug fixes, and deprecated features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud

The development of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is constantly evolving, with continuous improvements being introduced. To stay updated on the latest developments, Microsoft updates this page, which provides information on new features, bug fixes, and deprecated features. Specifically, this month’s main news includes:

AI Posture Management in GCP Vertex AI (Preview): support has been extended to AI workloads on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) via Vertex AI. Key features introduced include:

Automatic discovery of AI components, data, and artifacts.
Detection of misconfigurations with integrated suggestions and remediation actions.
Attack path analysis to identify and mitigate security risks.

Integration with Mend.io (Preview): a new integration designed to enhance application security by identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities in third-party software dependencies.

GitHub Permissions Update: GitHub connectors can now request administrative permissions for Custom Properties, useful for enabling new contextualization capabilities. Permissions can be granted:

Directly from the GitHub Apps section in the organization settings.
Or via an automated email from GitHub Support.

Defender for SQL Server on Machines Plan Update: a new lightweight agent has been introduced, which no longer requires the Azure Monitor Agent. This simplifies onboarding and improves coverage.

Note: after the update, costs may increase if additional SQL Server instances are protected.

New Malware Scanning Limit in Defender for Storage: the default limit for on-upload malware scanning has been increased from 5,000GB to 10,000GB. This applies to:

New subscriptions
Reactivated subscriptions
The limit can be customized based on specific needs.

API Security Posture Management (General Availability): this capability is now generally available (GA) within the Defender CSPM Plan. Key features include:

Unified API inventory
Identification of new risk types, such as unauthenticated or unencrypted APIs
Mapping of exposed APIs via Azure API Management to Kubernetes Ingress and VMs
Support for Attack Path Analysis to better manage and mitigate risks

Improvements to Defender for App Service Alerts (effective April 30, 2025):

New alerts introduced for suspicious code execution and access to internal or remote endpoints
Detection optimized to reduce false positives
Deprecated alert: “Suspicious WordPress theme invocation detected”

Governance and policy management

Azure Cost Management

AKS Cost Optimization with Azure Advisor

Azure Advisor introduces a new feature designed to support cost optimization in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters. Thanks to AKS-specific recommendations, it is now possible to identify concrete saving opportunities through actionable suggestions based on container cost management best practices. The recommendations are tailored to the cluster’s configuration and cover key scenarios such as rightsizing, autoscaling, consumption visibility, and SKU selection.

Environmental Sustainability

New Enhancements for Carbon Optimization in Azure (Preview)

The Carbon Optimization feature in Azure is enriched with new capabilities in Public Preview, aimed at improving the analysis and visibility of emissions data generated by cloud workloads. Key updates include a new version of the API (2024-02-01-preview), which surpasses the previous limit of 5,000 items, enabling the processing of much larger datasets for in-depth analysis. Additionally, the access model has been expanded: users with the Subscription Reader role can now view emissions data, promoting a more collaborative approach to sustainability. Another important update involves the categorization of emissions: data is now organized by resource type (e.g., virtual machines or Azure Data Explorer) rather than by service, offering more useful granularity to identify critical areas. Finally, new filters by resource type and geographic region make it easier to focus on specific segments of the infrastructure for environmental optimization.

Backup & Resilience

Azure Backup

Backup for Azure File Share in AKS with Azure Backup (Private Preview)

Microsoft has announced the start of the Private Preview for backup support of Persistent Volumes based on Azure File Share in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) environments. This new feature extends protection coverage for stateful workloads running on AKS, adding support for SMB-based Azure File Shares in addition to the existing support for Azure Disks.
Through snapshot-based backup mechanisms, it’s now possible to enable application-level protection for a broader range of workloads, maintaining an instant backup and restore experience with retention of up to 30 days.

Vaulted Backup for Azure Data Lake Storage (Public Preview)

Vaulted backup for Azure Data Lake Storage is now available in Public Preview, enabling more comprehensive and resilient data protection using Azure Backup vaults. The vault stores recovery points over time and allows for the definition of a backup schedule (daily or weekly), with retention options of up to 10 years to meet the most stringent compliance requirements.
This new feature introduces an effective off-site copy strategy, safeguarding backups from accidental deletion or malicious attacks through source-data isolation, soft-delete, immutability, and data encryption. In the event the source storage is compromised, recovery can be performed on an alternate account, ensuring business continuity even in critical scenarios.

Azure Site Recovery

Shared Disk Protection

Azure Site Recovery for Shared Disk is now generally available, enabling protection, monitoring, and recovery of workloads running on Windows Server Failover Clusters (WSFC) hosted on Azure virtual machines with shared disks. This new capability extends business continuity and disaster recovery options to mission-critical scenarios such as SQL Server with Failover Cluster Instance (FCI), SAP ASCS, and Scale-out File Server.
The feature supports Windows Server 2016 and later, up to four nodes per cluster, and allows an unlimited number of shared disks per environment. Additionally, support for high write-frequency scenarios and PowerShell integration ensures scalable and automated management. This represents a significant advancement for organizations looking to implement advanced disaster recovery solutions in complex and distributed Azure environments.

Monitoring

Azure Monitor

I/O Performance Analysis for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines

I/O performance analysis for SQL Server running on Azure virtual machines is now available. This feature enables the identification and resolution of I/O-related bottlenecks. From the Azure portal, users can view detailed metrics and receive operational guidance to improve SQL Server instance performance, particularly when delays are caused by disk or VM throttling.
This feature allows immediate assessment of storage health and application of best practice rules. When no issues are detected, a green visual indicator is shown; otherwise, the system identifies the impact level and the exact moment of the anomaly, which may relate to disk or cache latency. It is also possible to run a subset of SQL Server best practice assessment rules and compare results over time, gaining a useful historical perspective for performance tuning.

Monitoring Java and Node.js Microservices on AKS (Preview)

A new integration between Azure Monitor Application Insights and Java and Node.js microservices deployed on AKS is now available in Public Preview. This enables automatic monitoring without any code changes.
Thanks to auto-instrumentation built into the AKS cluster, immediate visibility into Java and Node.js applications running on Linux nodes is now possible, using specific libraries. Log data, metrics, and tracing—compliant with the OpenTelemetry standard—are sent directly to the Application Insights resource.
This integration also allows application telemetry to be linked with infrastructure signals through OpenTelemetry Resource attributes, simplifying root cause analysis and improving correlation with Container Insights data. The result is faster and more effective application performance diagnostics.

Conclusions

The growing complexity of IT environments—now increasingly hybrid and distributed—requires an evolved approach to management and security. With this new monthly column, Azure Hybrid Management & Security: updates and field insights, I aim to provide a reliable reference point for navigating updates, tools, and best practices, with a practical and concrete focus.
The proposed insights not only help keep pace with Microsoft’s ongoing innovations but are especially designed to support IT professionals in the conscious adoption of scalable, secure, and sustainable solutions. I encourage you to follow this article series regularly to stay up to date and more effectively tackle the challenges of multi-cloud management.

Azure IaaS and Azure Local: announcements and updates (April 2025 – Weeks: 15 and 16)

Azure

General

Microsoft Copilot in Azure is Now Generally Available

Microsoft Copilot in Azure has reached general availability, bringing AI-powered assistance to users across the Azure ecosystem. Designed to enhance productivity, Copilot in Azure leverages Large Language Models (LLMs), the Azure control plane, and real-time insights from the user’s environment to streamline tasks and uncover cloud benefits. With GA, users can now rely on Copilot in production scenarios, benefiting from improved performance, higher response accuracy, and full localization support across all Azure portal languages. Current capabilities are included at no additional cost, though future features may introduce pricing considerations. Microsoft has also implemented safeguards such as temporary throttling to manage excessive use of generative AI services.

Microsoft Azure Now Available from New Cloud Regions

Microsoft has announced the general availability of new Azure cloud regions, further expanding its global infrastructure. The Indonesia Central region is now live, marking Azure’s first presence in Indonesia. Equipped with Azure Availability Zones, this region offers scalable, resilient, and secure cloud services to support digital transformation and AI innovation across the country. In addition, a new Azure for U.S. Government Secret region is now generally available, providing increased capacity and flexibility for classified workloads. Designed to meet the strict requirements of the U.S. Department of Defense and other federal agencies, the new region offers geographically distributed data residency options, continuity of operations, and native connectivity to U.S. Government classified networks. Customers benefit from a consistent platform experience and can access foundational Azure services, including Azure ExpressRoute, to support mission-critical scenarios with private, high-bandwidth connectivity.

ExpressRoute Metro and Global Reach Available in Italy North

ExpressRoute Metro and Global Reach are now available in the Italy North region, expanding Azure’s private connectivity capabilities in the area. ExpressRoute Metro allows customers to connect to Microsoft’s global network from two different physical locations within a metro area for higher resiliency and performance. With Global Reach, users can connect their on-premises networks across different regions through the Microsoft backbone, improving global connectivity and optimizing traffic flow.

Compute

DCesv6 and ECesv6 Series Confidential VMs with Intel® TDX (private preview)

Azure has introduced the DCesv6 and ECesv6 series Confidential Virtual Machines in private preview, leveraging 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® processors with Intel® Trust Domain Extensions (TDX). These next-generation VMs are designed to support highly sensitive and confidential workloads in the cloud without requiring changes to application code. The new SKUs include the general-purpose DCesv6-series and the memory-optimized ECesv6-series. These VMs maintain data privacy by keeping it encrypted even during processing, and they offer in-guest attestation, enabling verification of VM integrity. This marks a significant advancement in Azure’s confidential computing offerings.

Networking

Azure Networking Capabilities for Microsoft Copilot in Azure

Azure networking capabilities for Microsoft Copilot in Azure are now generally available, enhancing the AI-powered assistant with deep, contextual insights into network design, operations, and security. Users can now query Copilot for information on Azure networking products, receive guidance on architecture planning, resilience strategies, and migration from on-premises environments. Copilot also supports detailed inventory and traffic path queries, providing topology maps and network connectivity graphs. For operational needs, it offers troubleshooting and diagnostic capabilities by analyzing network configurations, control plane data, and resource health. Additionally, Copilot now integrates with Security Copilot to enable attack investigation on malicious traffic intercepted by Azure Firewall’s IDPS feature—directly within the Azure portal.

Application Gateway as a Private Link Enabled Origin for Front Door Premium

Application Gateway resources can now be configured as Private Link enabled origins within Azure Front Door Premium profiles. This integration allows customers to deliver web content via public Front Door endpoints while keeping the origin infrastructure isolated from the public internet. The use of Private Link ensures that the communication between Front Door and the origin remains secure and private, enhancing the security posture of internet-facing applications. This feature is particularly valuable for scenarios requiring strict network isolation without compromising performance or global reach.

Azure Front Door: Enhanced Server Variable Support

Azure Front Door has expanded its server variable capabilities by enabling the capture of request header, response header, and request query string values. This builds on the previously released feature to capture URL path segments. With these new enhancements, server variables can now be used in the rules engine to enable more dynamic and flexible HTTP request manipulation and routing at the edge. Scenarios enabled by this feature include modifying a response header based on a request header value, renaming cloud provider-generated headers to branded ones, and redirecting based on query string values. These capabilities unlock new customization opportunities for developers aiming to fine-tune edge routing behavior.

Azure Front Door: Custom Cipher Suite Support

Custom cipher suite support for Azure Front Door is now generally available across both Standard and Premium tiers. Azure Front Door provides several predefined TLS policies based on Microsoft Security best practices to ensure strong encryption and protocol support. With this update, customers can also define custom TLS policies to meet specific business and compliance requirements. This includes setting the minimum supported TLS version and selecting allowed cipher suites, offering granular control over security settings and enabling organizations to tailor their Front Door configuration to their unique security posture.

Azure Bastion Developer Now Available in 36 Regions

Azure Bastion Developer, previously limited to six regions, is now generally available in 36 public regions worldwide. Designed for Dev/Test scenarios, this version of Azure Bastion provides secure-by-default RDP and SSH access to virtual machines without the need for a public IP address. It allows users to connect to one VM at a time through the virtual machine’s connect blade—all at no cost. While it lacks the advanced features and scalability options of the standard Bastion offering, Bastion Developer is ideal for users seeking a streamlined and secure connection method for development and testing environments.

Expanded Availability of ExpressRoute Metro, Peering Locations, and Global Reach

Azure continues to expand its networking footprint with broader availability of ExpressRoute Metro and Global Reach. ExpressRoute Metro is now accessible in four new locations—Atlanta (USA), Jakarta (Indonesia), Madrid (Spain), and Milan (Italy)—providing increased resiliency for organizations requiring high-performance, private connectivity to Azure. Additionally, two new ExpressRoute Peering locations, Brussels and Brussels2 in Belgium, have been introduced, further enhancing secure access across Europe. ExpressRoute Direct is now available in all these new regions. Furthermore, ExpressRoute Global Reach has expanded to include Belgium, Italy, and Spain, enabling private site-to-site connectivity through Microsoft’s global network infrastructure.

Route-Maps for Azure Virtual WAN

Azure Virtual WAN now includes support for route-maps, empowering users with enhanced control over routing behavior within Virtual WAN virtual hubs. This feature enables fine-grained management of route advertisements and route selection for various connection types, including site-to-site VPN, point-to-site VPN, ExpressRoute, and virtual network (VNet) links. Route-maps allow for advanced routing scenarios, such as filtering or modifying route advertisements, offering greater flexibility in managing complex network topologies and optimizing traffic flows.

Storage

ACLs for Local Users in Azure Blob Storage SFTP

Access Control Lists (ACLs) for Azure Blob Storage SFTP local users are now generally available. This capability provides administrators with an intuitive way to implement fine-grained access control over blobs and directories for users configured for SFTP access. With ACLs, organizations can enforce security and access policies more precisely, simplifying the management of user-level permissions while enhancing data protection within Azure Blob Storage environments.

Performance Plus for Azure Disk Storage

Azure Disk Storage has introduced the Performance Plus feature in general availability, bringing enhanced performance to Premium SSD, Standard SSD, and Standard HDD disks of 513 GB or larger. With Performance Plus, users benefit from increased IOPS and throughput at no additional cost. This feature is accessible via Azure CLI, PowerShell, and the Azure Portal, enabling customers to optimize their disk performance with minimal effort and without changing disk SKUs. Performance Plus helps meet demanding workload requirements by improving disk responsiveness and efficiency.

Azure NetApp Files: File Access Logs (preview)

Azure NetApp Files now supports file access logs in public preview, offering organizations enhanced visibility into file activity for improved security and operational monitoring. This new feature captures detailed information about file access, including user identity, operation type, and timestamps. It supports SMB, NFSv4.1, and dual-protocol volumes, allowing organizations to detect unauthorized access, ensure compliance, resolve operational incidents, and analyze usage patterns. By incorporating file access logs, enterprises can strengthen data protection, meet compliance requirements, and align with the Well-Architected Framework’s security best practices.

Conclusion

Azure IaaS and Azure Local: announcements and updates (April 2025 – Weeks: 13 and 14)

Azure

Compute

Retirement of D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, and Ls Series Virtual Machines

Microsoft has announced the retirement of the D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, and Ls series virtual machines, effective May 1, 2028. After this date, these VM series will no longer be available for use or purchase. Customers currently utilizing these VM types are advised to begin planning their migration strategies toward newer VM generations to ensure ongoing compatibility and support for their applications. As part of the phased retirement process, three-year reserved instances for these VMs will no longer be available for purchase or renewal starting May 1, 2025. One-year reservations will continue to be offered until 2027. For those with active three-year reservation contracts, the benefits will remain valid until contract expiration. Beyond that point, instances will revert to pay-as-you-go pricing. To avoid billing surprises and ensure continuity, customers should review their reservations and take action to transition affected workloads.

Networking

Azure Firewall Updates – Parallel IP Group Updates

Azure Firewall now supports Parallel IP Group Updates, enabling administrators to update multiple IP Groups simultaneously as part of their firewall or firewall policy changes.

Key Benefits

Faster & Scalable Updates: Update up to 20 IP Groups in parallel, achieving up to 2x faster update times compared to sequential updates.
Improved Visibility: Enhanced error messaging allows administrators to quickly identify and resolve issues. Even if one IP Group fails, other updates continue uninterrupted, preserving overall system integrity.

This update significantly improves management efficiency and scalability for large-scale or dynamic firewall policy environments.

New Regions for Azure Front Door Premium with Private Link-Enabled Origins

Azure Front Door Premium now supports Private Link-enabled origins in West US 2 and Southeast Asia regions. This feature allows content to be delivered through public Front Door endpoints while keeping backend origins inaccessible from the public internet, enhancing security and privacy. With the addition of these new regions, organizations can now deploy Private Link-enabled architectures in more geographies, improving network performance and meeting regional compliance requirements.

Network isolated cluster in AKS

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) now offers network isolated clusters, enabling a simplified approach to securing network access to Kubernetes workloads. While customers have traditionally relied on Azure Firewall to control egress traffic and enforce isolation, this approach often introduces added complexity and cost. With network isolated clusters, organizations can reduce the risk of unintentional exposure of public endpoints and strengthen the security posture of their AKS deployments. This built-in feature helps minimize attack surfaces by ensuring tighter control over how clusters connect to external networks, supporting compliance and data protection goals with greater ease.

ExpressRoute Resiliency Enhancements (preview)

Microsoft has introduced new resiliency validation and insight capabilities for ExpressRoute, now available in public preview. These enhancements aim to improve the assessment and monitoring of ExpressRoute-enabled workloads, offering more robust and transparent insights into network reliability. The resiliency validation feature allows customers to simulate site failovers on their Virtual Network Gateways, enabling proactive testing during planned migrations or outage scenarios. This helps verify failover mechanisms and ensures continued connectivity to Azure services. In addition, the new resiliency insights capability introduces a resiliency index — a percentage-based score that evaluates ExpressRoute reliability based on criteria such as route resilience, use of zone-redundant gateways, advisory feedback, and test results from resiliency validation. These metrics allow organizations to identify weak points in their network architecture and make informed improvements to enhance the robustness of their connectivity.

Increased VNet limits for Private Endpoints (preview)

Microsoft has introduced High Scale Private Endpoints, now in public preview, enabling significantly increased limits for deploying Azure Private Endpoints within Virtual Networks (VNets) and across peered VNets. Previously, customers could only create up to 1,000 private endpoints within a single VNet, and exceeding this limit required a support request. Additionally, Microsoft recommended a soft limit of 4,000 private endpoints across peered VNets to avoid connectivity issues. With the introduction of High Scale Private Endpoints, these limits are substantially raised—allowing up to 5,000 private endpoints within a single VNet and 20,000 across peered VNets. This capability is especially beneficial for large-scale, service-rich environments where extensive use of private connectivity is essential. Customers seeking greater scalability for their private networking configurations are encouraged to adopt High Scale Private Endpoints to support growing infrastructure needs without the complexity of manual quota increases.

Storage

Vaulted Backup for Azure Files

Azure Backup has announced the general availability of Vaulted Backup support for Azure Files – Standard tier, providing a robust, enterprise-grade solution to protect data and applications hosted on Azure SMB file shares.

Key Features & Benefits

Integrated Protection Policy: Combine snapshot and vaulted backup in a single policy to protect data in a secure Recovery Services vault.
Regional Recovery: Ensure data resilience with support for cross-region restore.
Advanced Protection Capabilities:
- Ransomware protection and immutability
- Restore capability even if the file share is deleted
Azure File Sync Integration: Seamlessly protect cloud-tiered data from Azure File Sync, enabling long-term retention in a cost-effective way.

With this release, customers can meet compliance, security, and business continuity requirements while simplifying backup management and reducing data protection costs.

Azure File Sync support for managed identities

Azure File Sync now supports managed identities, a feature that has reached general availability. This enhancement replaces the need for shared keys with a more secure and streamlined authentication mechanism through system-assigned managed identities provided by Microsoft Entra ID. By configuring managed identities within an Azure File Sync deployment, these identities will handle authentication in several key scenarios: the Storage Sync Service authenticating to the Azure file share, registered servers authenticating to the Azure file share, and registered servers authenticating to the Storage Sync Service. To further simplify the setup and improve security, managed identities are now enabled by default for all new Storage Sync Services. Configuration can be completed directly through the Azure portal, eliminating the previous dependency on PowerShell. This updated experience is being gradually rolled out across all Azure regions. The feature is available at no additional cost in all Azure Public and Government cloud regions, making it a recommended approach for customers seeking enhanced security and simplified identity management.

Azure NetApp Files Flexible Service Level (Preview)

Azure has introduced a Flexible Service Level for Azure NetApp Files, now in public preview, allowing customers to independently configure storage capacity and throughput for greater cost and performance optimization.

Key Features & Benefits

Customizable Throughput: Scale throughput independently from capacity, up to 640 MiB/s per provisioned TiB, which is up to 5x higher than the Ultra tier.
Manual QoS Pools: Supported with manual QoS capacity pools, offering a baseline throughput of 128 MiB/s at no additional cost.
Right-Sized Performance:
- High throughput for smaller pools – Ideal for SAP HANA, Oracle, and other demanding workloads.
- Cost savings for high-capacity/low-throughput workloads – Reduce cost without compromising storage footprint.
No Volume Moves Required: Avoid service disruptions or reconfigurations when scaling performance or storage.

This new service level offers unprecedented flexibility, allowing customers to fine-tune Azure NetApp Files performance and cost based on exact workload requirements.

Azure Local

Azure Local – 2503 Update Released

The 2503 update for Azure Local has been officially released as of March 31st, introducing a set of baseline enhancements focused on improving registration, deployment, and overall management experience. This update reflects ongoing efforts to simplify operations and bolster security within Azure Local environments.

Key changes include a shift in the extension installation process: extensions are no longer installed during the registration phase but are now deployed during machine validation. Additionally, the local UI used for bootstrapping has been deprecated in favor of the Configurator app, providing a more modern and flexible onboarding experience. The Arc registration flow has also been streamlined—Service Principal Name (SPN) is deprecated, and a simplified Arc installer script now relies solely on the Start-ArcBootstrap command.

The update also supports composed images for OEMs and enables deployment of both current and previous versions of Azure Local. While the Azure portal supports the latest version, prior versions must be deployed using dedicated Azure Resource Manager templates.

Other notable improvements include enhanced security for the Bootstrap service, integrated environment checks for connectivity and validation, improved update applicability logic, and support for downloading platform update packages via URLs. Finally, users can now connect to Azure Local VMs over SSH or RDP from within the host network, removing the requirement for line-of-sight access.

Azure Local Performance Metrics Dashboard

Microsoft has introduced the Azure Local Performance Metrics Dashboard, a powerful new tool designed to provide comprehensive visibility into the health and performance of Azure Local systems. With over 60 metrics collected by default—at no additional cost—this out-of-the-box solution delivers actionable insights across storage, network, and compute resources.

Metrics are automatically gathered by the TelemetryAndDiagnostics agent, which is configured during deployment, enabling seamless access to system telemetry without requiring manual setup. The dashboard offers deep visibility into several critical performance areas:

Storage Performance: Includes disk read/write operations and throughput, volume latency, and insights into VHD and physical disk activity to help optimize storage usage.
Network Performance: Monitors data transmission metrics such as Netadapter Bytes Sent/Received, RDMA traffic, and VM-level network activity for early detection of bottlenecks or connectivity issues.
Compute Metrics: Tracks memory usage (available, assigned, used, pressure) across host and guest environments, along with CPU utilization metrics for both host and virtual machines.

This centralized performance dashboard empowers administrators to proactively manage their Azure Local environments, facilitating data-driven decisions to maintain system efficiency and reliability.

Support for 4-node switchless configuration

Microsoft has introduced official documentation to support 4-node switchless configurations, expanding the deployment options for Azure Stack HCI and other Azure-integrated infrastructure solutions.

This update provides organizations with the flexibility to deploy smaller, cost-effective clusters without the need for dedicated network switches between nodes. The switchless architecture simplifies the physical setup and reduces hardware requirements while maintaining essential performance and connectivity capabilities for supported scenarios.

By adding support for this topology, Microsoft continues to enhance deployment versatility, especially for edge and branch environments where simplicity and space efficiency are crucial.

Conclusion

Azure Management services: what’s new in March 2025

This month, Microsoft introduced a series of significant updates related to Azure management services. Through this series of monthly articles, the aim is to provide an overview of the most relevant new features. The goal is to keep you constantly informed about these developments, providing you with essential information to further explore these topics.

The following diagram shows the different areas related to management, which are covered in this series of articles:

Figure 1 – Overview of Management Services in Azure

Monitor

Azure Monitor

Support for Azure Managed Prometheus Horizontal Pod Autoscaling in AKS Replica Set Pods

Azure Monitor’s managed service for Prometheus now supports Horizontal Pod Autoscaling (HPA) for the ama-metrics replica set pods within Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This new capability enables automatic scaling of the ama-metrics pod based on memory usage, allowing for more efficient management of Prometheus metrics and custom jobs.
By default, HPA is configured with a minimum of 2 replicas and a maximum of 12, with users having the flexibility to define a custom range within these limits. Thanks to this enhancement, the platform can dynamically adapt to monitoring demands, preventing memory exhaustion issues (OOM kills) and improving the overall reliability and scalability of AKS infrastructures.

Azure Monitor Managed Service for Prometheus on Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes Clusters

Azure Monitor now offers a generally available managed Prometheus service tailored for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes environments. This fully managed service brings together the strengths of Prometheus’ open-source ecosystem with automation of complex tasks such as scaling, high availability, and data retention of up to 18 months.
It enables monitoring of Kubernetes clusters wherever they are running, providing native collection, storage, rule evaluation, and querying of Prometheus data. Backed by the same infrastructure as Azure Monitor Metrics—extended to support Prometheus format—and integrated with Azure Managed Grafana, this service is a key component for observability in cloud-native containerized workloads.

New API for Deleting Data in Log Analytics

Microsoft has introduced the Delete Data API for Log Analytics, allowing asynchronous requests to remove sensitive, personal, or corrupted data from Log Analytics workspaces. Unlike the more resource-intensive Purge API, this new API takes a more efficient approach by marking logs as deleted instead of physically removing them.
This improves performance and reduces system impact. It is recommended for deletion tasks not subject to GDPR regulations, offering a scalable and effective solution for log data management.

Govern

Azure Cost Management

Updates related to Microsoft Cost Management

Microsoft is constantly seeking new methodologies to improve Microsoft Cost Management, the solution to provide greater visibility into where costs are accumulating in the cloud, identify and prevent incorrect spending patterns, and optimize costs. This article reports some of the latest improvements and updates regarding this solution:

Retirement of AWS Connector:
Microsoft has announced the retirement of the AWS connector in Microsoft Cost Management, effective March 31, 2025. This connector previously enabled centralized integration and visualization of cost data across Microsoft Azure and AWS environments.
After this date, the connector will no longer be available, and all AWS-related cost and usage data—including historical data—will be removed from the service. However, previously exported Cost and Usage Reports (CURs) stored in the user’s Amazon S3 bucket will remain intact.
Microsoft recommends migrating to a new AWS cost management solution and removing the connector via the Azure Portal by following the official instructions. As an alternative, users can export data in the FOCUS (FinOps Cost and Usage Specification) format and leverage advanced analysis tools such as Microsoft Fabric to achieve unified and detailed cost reporting across multi-cloud environments.

Reservation Exchange for Azure OpenAI Service:
Starting from February 2025, Microsoft has introduced a new feature enabling users to exchange reservations for Azure OpenAI Service directly through the Azure Portal. Reservations offer discounted rates compared to pay-as-you-go pricing and guarantee dedicated capacity for high-performance AI model execution.
This new option allows users to adjust reservations more flexibly to align with evolving operational needs. Refund requests remain available under applicable conditions. This capability marks another step forward in streamlining cost management for AI resources in Azure.

Azure Advisor

New Performance Recommendations in Azure Advisor for Azure Database for PostgreSQL (Preview)

Azure Advisor introduces new capabilities to proactively support performance management for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server. With three new recommendations and improvements to existing ones, users can now identify and resolve critical database performance scenarios more accurately.
For instance, long-running transactions now include the Process ID (PID) to simplify analysis, while high bloat scenarios highlight the affected database name and provide tailored resolution suggestions.
This update empowers database administrators with more detailed insights and actionable guidance for timely intervention and performance optimization.