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
New GPU NCas T4 v3 VMs (preview)
The NCas T4 v3 Series virtual machine is a new addition to the Azure GPU family specifically designed for the AI and machine learning workloads. The VMs feature 4 NVIDIA T4 GPUs with 16 GB of memory each, up to 64 non-multithreaded AMD EPYC 7V12(Rome) processor cores, and 448 GiB of system memory. These virtual machines are ideal to run ML and AI workloads utilizing Cuda, TensorFlow, Pytorch, Caffe, and other Frameworks or graphics workloads using NVIDIA GRID technology.
Azure Virtual Machines DCsv2-series in West US 2
Confidential computing DCsv2-series virtual machines (VMs) are now available in two availability zones in West US 2.
Storage
Azure Blob storage: Network File System 3.0 protocol support region expansion (preview)
Azure Blob storage is the only storage platform that supports NFS 3.0 protocol over object storage natively (no gateway or data copying required), with crucial object storage economics. NFS 3.0 support to block blob storage accounts with premium performance public preview regions now include: US East, US Central, US West Central, Australia Southeast, North Europe, UK West, Korea Central, Korea South, and Canada Central.
Azure Blob storage: Soft Delete for Containers (preview)
Soft delete for containers expands upon Azure Blob Storage’s existing capabilities such as soft delete for blobs, account delete locking, and immutable blobs, making our data protection and restore capabilities even better. When container soft delete is enabled for a storage account, any deleted container and their contents are retained in Azure Storage for the period that you specify. During the retention period, you can restore previously deleted containers and any blobs within them. Container soft delete is available in preview in the following regions: France Central, Canada East, and Canada Central. There is no additional charge to enable container soft delete. Data in soft deleted containers is billed at the same rate as active data.
Azure Ultra Disk: generally available in more regions and Availability Zones
Azure Ultra Disks offer high throughput, high IOPS, and consistent low latency disk storage for Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). It is now available in Australia East, East Asia, Brazil South, and Canada Central. Moreover, Azure Ultra Disk support is now expanded to the 3 Availability Zones in US East 2 and Japan East.
Azure Data Box Disk is now available in South Africa and China
Data Box Disk is an SSD-disk-based option for offline data transfer to Azure. It’s ideal for a recurring or one-time data migration of up to 40 TB to Azure and is especially well-suited for data migration from multiple remote or branch offices. Azure Data Box Disk is now Generally Available in South Africa and China. This is in addition to the regions where Data Box Disk is now generally available.
