The new year began with several announcements from Microsoft about what's new in Azure management services and System Center. The Cloud Community releases this summary monthly, allowing you to have a general overview of the main new features of the month, in order to stay up to date on these topics and have the necessary references to conduct further exploration.
Azure Monitor
New version of Log Analytics Gateway
For Azure Monitor a new version was released of the Log Analytics Gateway introducing greater stability and reliability. To get the new version, you can sign in to the Azure portal, browsing the Log Analytics blade or directly through the Microsoft Download Center.
Availability in new regions for Service Map
Azure Map functionality in Azure Log Analytics is now also available in the region “US Gov Virginia“.
Azure Site Recovery
New Update Rollup
For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 43 that solves several issues and introduces some improvements. The details and the procedure to follow for the installation can be found in the specific KB.
Support for customer-managed keys
Azure Site Recovery has introduced support for the following scenarios:
- Replicating Azure Virtual Machines with Managed Disks encrypted with customer-managed keys.
- Replicating on-premises virtual machines to managed disks encrypted with customer-managed keys.
Azure Backup
Long term retention for backup of file shares configurable by the Azure portal
Azure Backup allows you to keep on-demand backups of file shares until 10 years. This configuration, made initially possible only by using PowerShell, can now also be done from the Azure portal.
Restore cross region of virtual machines
In Azure Backup has been announced the ability to perform cross region restore of virtual machines to the Azure Paired Region. This feature is currently available in limited preview in West Central United States (WCUS) and the restore can then take place towards the WUS2 region. For further information you can consult this technical documentation.
Protection of SAP HANA in new regions
The Azure Backup solution now allows you to enable the protection of SAP HANA DBs aboard Azure virtual machines in European and Asian region. These are the regions where this feature is active:
- West Europe (WE), North Europe (NE), France Central, France South, UK West (UKW), Germany North, Germany West Central, Germany Central, Germany North East, Switzerland North, and Switzerland West.
- Australia Central, Australia Central 2, Australia East (AE), Australia Southeast (ASE), Japan East (JPE), Japan West (JPW), Korea Central (KRC), and Korea South (KRS).
Soft Delete for SQL Server and SAP HANA in Azure VMs
In Azure Backup has been introduced the functionality of soft delete also with regard to the protection of SQL Server and SAP HANA aboard Azure virtual machines. Soft delete is a security feature that allows you to protect your backups even after you delete it. Thanks to Soft delete, in the event that a backup is removed accidentally or for malicious actions, you are guaranteed that the backup data is still maintained for 14 days from the cancellation date. This feature, that doesn't include any additional costs, take to recover any deleted backups within the retention period.
Microsoft Endpoint Manager
New release for the Technical Preview Branch
For Configuration Manager was released in the Technical Preview Branch the update 2001 that among the main changes it introduced different dashboards to monitor the utilization of the new Microsoft Edge and other browser.
To check the details of what's included in these updates, you can see this document.
Please note that Releases in the Technical Preview Branch allow you to preview new Configuration Manager features, and it is recommended that you apply these updates only in test environments.
Evaluation of Azure and System Center
To test for free and evaluate the services provided by Azure you can access this page, while to try the various System Center components you must access theEvaluation Center and, after registering, you can start the trial period.
