Category Archives: Datacenter Management

Azure IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (October 2024 – Weeks: 39 and 40)

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

Azure

General

Microsoft Invests €4.3B to Boost AI Infrastructure and Cloud Capacity in Italy

Microsoft has announced its largest investment in Italy to date, committing €4.3 billion over the next two years to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure in the country. This initiative will significantly boost the capacity of its hyperscale datacenter region in Northern Italy and provide AI and cloud-based digital skills training to over 1 million Italians by 2025. The expansion aims to support Italy’s growing demand for AI-driven solutions, enabling advancements across industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and public administration. By embracing AI, Italy can address demographic challenges and foster innovation, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises. The investment will also fortify Italy’s cybersecurity posture and ensure compliance with European data boundary requirements. As part of its AI Access Principles, Microsoft is committed to fostering innovation and competition while ensuring AI technology is accessible for the public good. This infrastructure will serve as a key data hub for the Mediterranean and North Africa, supporting broader international collaboration efforts.

Compute

Azure confidential VMs with NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs

Azure announces the general availability of Azure confidential VMs featuring NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs, now ready for production deployment. These VMs, under the NCC H100 v5 SKU, are powered by AMD 4th Gen EPYC™ processors with SEV-SNP technology combined with NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. This configuration enables customers to securely migrate GPU-intensive workloads to Azure while maintaining optimal performance and requiring no code modifications. The NCC H100 v5 VMs provide a hardware-based Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), which enhances guest protection by securing VM memory and state from potential hypervisor or host management code access. With this capability, Azure customers can issue attestation requests to ensure that VMs are running on a properly configured TEE before deploying sensitive applications or releasing encryption keys, safeguarding against unauthorized operator access. This release enables organizations to run their most confidential GPU workloads with heightened security on Azure.

Save up to 56% on the Latest Linux VMs in Most Azure Regions for a Limited Time

Microsoft has introduced a promotional offer allowing customers to save up to 56% on the latest Linux virtual machines (VMs) in Azure. This limited-time promotion, valid from October 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, offers an additional 15% discount on top of the existing one-year Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances discount. The offer applies to qualified VM SKUs and regions, making it an excellent opportunity for businesses to reduce costs on Linux-based VMs. By purchasing a one-year Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instance, organizations can significantly cut down their cloud infrastructure expenses compared to the standard pay-as-you-go model.

New FX series VMs – FXmsv2 and FXmdsv2 (preview)

Azure has introduced the latest members of the FX virtual machine subfamily: the FXmsv2 and FXmdsv2 series. These VMs are powered by the 5th Generation Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8473C (Emerald Rapids) processor, operating in a hyper-threaded configuration that is optimized for both memory and compute-intensive workloads. This processor delivers an all-core turbo clock speed of 3.0 GHz, supported by Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, Intel® Advanced-Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512), and Intel® Deep Learning Boost, making it a suitable choice for high-performance computing. The FXmsv2 and FXmdsv2 series are designed for workloads requiring high CPU clock speeds and a significant memory-to-CPU ratio, such as electronic design automation (EDA) workloads. These virtual machines offer up to 96 vCPUs and 1832 GiB of RAM, providing substantial power and flexibility. Additionally, customers have the option to choose between VM configurations with or without local disks, allowing for tailored optimization according to the specific needs of each workload.

Azure NMads MA35D-Series Virtual Machines (preview)

Microsoft has introduced the public preview of the Azure NMads MA35D-Series virtual machines (VM) in the East US region, marking Azure’s first VM SKU equipped with specialized hardware designed for video transcoding workloads. Powered by Xilinx MA35D “Supernova” ASIC video processing units (VPUs), this VM is optimized for both batch and real-time video transcoding tasks. With a combination of 16 vCPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 76GB of temporary storage, it also features advanced codecs such as AV1 for improved video processing efficiency. Compared to general-purpose CPU or GPU solutions, the NMads MA35D-Series offers superior throughput and lower latency, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers. This new SKU presents a powerful, cost-effective option for video transcoding workloads, enhancing performance and efficiency for cloud-based video processing.

Azure NVads V710 v5-Series Virtual Machines (preview)

Microsoft has announced the public preview of the Azure NVads V710 v5-series virtual machines (VMs), which are powered by AMD Radeon™ Pro V710 GPUs and AMD EPYC 9V64 (Genoa) CPUs. With base frequencies of 3.95 GHz and maximum frequencies of 4.3 GHz, these VMs leverage AMD Simultaneous Multithreading technology to assign dedicated vCPU threads to each VM. The series offers five configuration options, ranging from 1/6 of a GPU with a 4-GiB frame buffer to a full V710 GPU with a 28GB GDDR6 PCIe card. These VMs do not require additional GPU licensing and support NVMe for ephemeral local storage. This series is optimized for GPU-accelerated graphics applications and cloud-based virtual desktops, providing cost-effective, high-performance options for graphics-enabled workloads. It is also well-suited for interactive cloud-based gaming and small to medium AI/ML inference workloads such as semantic indexing and recommendation systems.

Networking

Azure Virtual Network Monitoring IP Address Management (preview)

The new public preview of Azure Virtual Network Monitoring IP address management enhances Azure’s network management suite by simplifying IP address planning and allocation. This feature offers centralized control over IP addresses, helping organizations manage complex network environments more efficiently. It provides capabilities to automatically assign non-overlapping addresses, reserve IP addresses for specific use cases, and prevent Azure address space from overlapping with on-premises or multi-cloud environments. Users can now monitor IP usage and allocation in real time, ensuring seamless and well-organized network operations. This new feature is critical for maintaining a clear overview of network resources and preventing IP conflicts across different environments.

Azure Retirement in Networking Services

Azure continues to evolve its networking services to align with security standards and enhance overall performance. As part of this ongoing transformation, several key networking features and services are being retired or updated. Customers are encouraged to stay informed of these changes to ensure a smooth transition and avoid service disruptions. Below is a summary of the upcoming retirements and their timelines, along with recommended migration paths and improvements:

  • Starting from January 1, 2025, the creation of new gateways on VpnGw1-5 (Non-AZ SKUs) will no longer be possible. To ensure a smooth transition, Microsoft will be seamlessly migrating all existing gateways on VpnGw1-5 (Non-AZ SKUs) to VpnGw1-5 (AZ SKUs) between April 2025 and October 2026. As part of this process, prices on the AZ SKUs will be reduced to facilitate the migration for customers.
  • Additionally, starting June 30, 2025, new NSG flow logs will no longer be supported. Microsoft recommends migrating to virtual network flow logs in Network Watcher, which provide enhanced capabilities and overcome the limitations of NSG flow logs.
  • As part of Azure’s ongoing security enhancements, from August 31, 2025, all connections to Azure Application Gateway must use Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 or later. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will no longer be supported, and TLS 1.2 and above offer improved security features, such as perfect forward secrecy and stronger cipher suites.
  • Similarly, connections to Azure Front Door must also adhere to TLS 1.2 or later, with support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 being discontinued from December 1, 2024. The later versions of TLS improve security with enhanced encryption features.
  • In addition, Azure CDN Standard from Microsoft (classic) will be retired on September 30, 2027. Customers using this service must migrate to Azure Front Door Standard or Premium before this date to avoid service disruptions.
  • Finally, on September 30, 2027, Inbound NAT rule V1 for Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets in Azure Load Balancer will be retired. Users are advised to migrate to Inbound NAT rule V2 by this date to prevent any interruptions to their services.

gRPC and Frontend mTLS Now Available for Application Gateway for Containers

Azure has introduced two important updates for Application Gateway for Containers, enhancing security and communication capabilities. Frontend mutual authentication (mTLS) is now supported, ensuring that only specific clients are authenticated before their requests are forwarded to the backend service. This update brings feature parity for customers using the Application Gateway Ingress Controller and adds an additional layer of security, complementing the already available backend mutual authentication.

Moreover, gRPC support is now available for Application Gateway for Containers. With gRPC, customers can benefit from four advanced communication methods between the client and the Application Gateway: unary, client streaming, server streaming, and bidirectional streaming. These capabilities offer flexible and efficient communication options for modern application architectures.

Storage

Azure File Sync Agent v19 Release Now Available

The Azure File Sync agent v19 is now generally available for download via Microsoft Update and Microsoft Download Center, bringing key improvements and new features. With this release, server provisioning times for Azure File Sync server endpoints have been drastically reduced, providing faster setup for new servers. Additionally, managed identity support (preview) has been introduced, allowing Azure File Sync to authenticate using system-assigned identities from Microsoft Entra ID, eliminating the need for shared keys. The update also delivers significant sync performance improvements, particularly for file share migrations and metadata changes, and introduces support for Windows Server 2025. This release includes other reliability and telemetry enhancements for cloud tiering and sync operations. The agent version for this release is 19.1.0.0, and a restart is required for servers running earlier versions. Full installation instructions can be found in KB5040924.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack HCI

Announcing the Public Preview of Azure Migrate for VMware to HCI migrations (preview)

Microsoft has introduced the public preview of Azure Migrate’s new feature that facilitates the migration of virtual machines (VMs) from VMware environments to Azure Stack HCI. This enhancement extends Azure’s migration capabilities to the edge, aligning with Microsoft’s adaptive cloud strategy. Key advantages include agent-less replication, which allows VM migration without the need to install agents, reducing potential disruptions. The platform also enables workload configuration during migration, allowing users to adjust properties such as CPU and RAM. Additionally, Azure Migrate ensures no workload impact during replication by utilizing technologies like LEDBAT++ and vCenter API interaction, providing a seamless, disruption-free migration experience. Importantly, data remains on-premises throughout the process, ensuring compliance and control. With minimal cutover time, this solution is designed to maintain business continuity while transitioning to Azure Stack HCI.

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 Stack. 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 Management services: what’s new in September 2024

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:

Figures 1 – Overview of Management Services in Azure

Monitor

Azure Monitor

Azure Monitor Metrics Export (preview)

Azure Monitor Metrics Export is now available in Public Preview and configurable via Data Collection Rules (DCR), allowing Azure resource metric data to be directed to Azure Storage Accounts, Azure Event Hubs, and Azure Log Analytics Workspaces for 18 types of resources and in 10 public Azure regions. Some of the key benefits of Azure Monitor Metrics Export include:

  • Scalability: DCR, the data collection configuration mechanism in Azure Monitor, allows you to configure collection once and apply it at scale to many resources, supporting management across multiple subscriptions.
  • Flexibility in data collection: Customers can select specific metrics or all metrics for a given set of resources, thus controlling volumes and associated costs.
  • Full-fidelity, low-latency export: Metric data is exported with dimensional information to facilitate correlation, significantly improving export latency (~70%) compared to diagnostic settings.

Configure

Update management

Retirement of Automated Patching and introduction of Azure Update Manager

As of September 15, 2027, the Automated Patching feature has been retired and replaced with Azure Update Manager. This decision was made to ensure a more efficient and centralized update management process. Azure Update Manager is an enterprise-level tool that offers several advanced features:

  • Centralized update management: Provides a unified dashboard to view and manage updates across the entire environment, including virtual machines, on-premises servers, and hybrid scenarios.
  • Custom scheduling: You can create custom update schedules based on business needs, whether they are weekly, monthly, or scheduled on specific dates.
  • Patch compliance reports: Azure Update Manager generates detailed reports on patch compliance, keeping users informed about the status of updates across the entire infrastructure.

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.

Azure Arc

Azure Container Storage enabled by Azure Arc Edge Volumes (preview)

Microsoft has announced the Public Preview of Azure Container Storage enabled by Azure Arc Edge Volumes, a versatile new feature designed to improve data management in edge environments. Azure Arc Edge Volumes offers two main functionalities: Local Shared Volume and Cloud Ingest Volume. Local Shared Volume provides high-availability storage with failover capabilities, remaining operational even without cloud connectivity, making it ideal for temporary storage and local application state data. Cloud Ingest Volume, on the other hand, allows transparent ingestion of unlimited file data from edge environments into Blob Storage, including ADLSgen2 and OneLake. The storage capacity for ingestion is user-defined, ensuring available space even during disconnections, with the option to delete local data once uploading to Blob is complete. Both solutions are based on advanced features to maintain data integrity, optimize the use of local resources, and are ideal for IoT applications. With Edge Volumes, it is possible to write to a local file system using standard I/O APIs, simplifying application code.

Secure

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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:

  • Improvements to Cloud Security Explorer experience: Increased performance, enriched data for each cloud asset, and enhanced CSV export with more details on exported assets.
  • General Availability of File Integrity Monitoring (FIM): Now available as part of Defender for Servers Plan 2, allowing real-time monitoring of critical files and logs to comply with regulations and detect suspicious changes.
  • FIM migration experience: A new in-product feature has been released to migrate FIM configurations from the Log Analytics Agent (MMA) to Defender for Endpoint, easing the transition.
  • Deprecation of MMA auto-provisioning: Starting in September 2024, MMA auto-provisioning will be progressively disabled, with full deactivation by November 2024.
  • Integration with Power BI: Allows the creation of custom reports and dashboards to analyze security posture and compliance recommendations.
  • Updates to multicloud CSPM requirements: New IP addresses to improve multicloud discovery services, requiring IP whitelist updates by October 2024.
  • Deprecation of Defender for Servers features: Adaptive application controls and Adaptive network hardening are now deprecated.
  • Compliance with the Spanish ENS standard: Added the ability to monitor compliance with the National Security Scheme (ENS) standard in Defender for Cloud’s compliance dashboard.
  • Remediation of system updates and patches: It is now possible to apply update recommendations to Azure Arc machines and Azure VMs via Azure Update Manager.
  • Integration with ServiceNow: The integration now includes the configuration compliance module, enabling the identification and resolution of cloud asset configuration issues.
  • Deprecation of Defender for Storage (classic): As of February 5, 2025, transaction protection plans will no longer be available for new subscriptions.
  • General availability of Azure Policy guest configuration: Now available for multicloud customers of Defender for Servers Plan 2, offering unified management of security configurations on Windows and Linux machines.
  • Support for Docker Hub in Defender for Containers: In public preview, enabling the scanning of Docker Hub images to identify and mitigate security threats.

Protect

Azure Backup

Backup Center will no longer be available in Azure portal’s global search

The new Azure Business Continuity Center (ABCC), introduced in Public Preview in November 2023, offers centralized and simplified management for data protection and recovery in Azure and hybrid environments, progressively replacing the previous Backup Center. Designed as an advanced evolution of Backup Center, ABCC allows unified management of solutions like Azure Backup and Azure Site Recovery. Access to the service is immediate, with no prerequisites or additional costs. Even for Backup Center users, no specific actions are required: Azure Business Continuity Center is already available directly from the Azure portal.

Azure Site Recovery

Update Rollup 75 for Azure Site Recovery has been released, addressing various issues and introducing some improvements. The relevant details and procedure for installation can be found in the specific KB.

Automatic certificate renewal for Azure Site Recovery from on-premises to Azure

Azure Site Recovery has introduced a new feature that enables automatic certificate renewal for data protection from on-premises to Azure in disaster recovery scenarios. Certificates are crucial to ensure communication between the various components involved in the recovery process and must be regularly renewed to avoid interruptions in Azure Site Recovery operations, such as data replication. As of August 2024, certificates used for replication from VMware to Azure, introduced in the 2021 Public Preview, will begin to expire. Thanks to this new automatic renewal capability, customers can avoid interruptions during data replication as long as the mobility agent and components within the appliance are updated to the latest available version. If communications or updates are missed, automatic renewal may fail, generating errors in the health of the appliance or agent. Customers are encouraged to follow official documentation to manually renew certificates if needed.

Support for Azure Trusted Launch VMs – Linux OS (preview)

Support for Azure Site Recovery for Azure Trusted Launch virtual machines running Linux operating systems is available in Private Preview. Azure Trusted Launch VMs offer advanced security for Azure generation 2 VMs, enabling features such as Secure Boot and vTPM. This Private Preview focuses exclusively on supporting virtual machines with Linux operating systems, while support for Windows OS VMs is already in General Availability. This new feature provides enhanced protection and recovery options for businesses using virtual machines with advanced security requirements in Linux environments.

Retirement of Classic Alerts

Azure Site Recovery recently introduced a new and improved alert management solution based on Azure Monitor. This solution offers several advantages, including:

  • Notification configuration: Allows notifications to be sent using a wide range of channels.
  • Notification scenario selection: Enables you to choose which scenarios to receive notifications for.
  • Programmable alert management: Offers the ability to programmatically manage alerts and notifications.
  • Consistent alert management experience: Ensures consistent alert management across various Azure services, including backup.

The next step involves retiring the previous Classic Alerts solution for Azure Site Recovery, set for September 23, 2027. If you are using the old classic alert solution, it is recommended to migrate to Azure Monitor Alerts. A guided experience is available through the Business Continuity Center and the Recovery Services Vault to migrate to Azure Monitor Alerts in a few clicks.

Azure Evaluation

For those who wish to explore and personally evaluate the services offered by Azure, a unique opportunity is available: by accessing this page, you can test various features and services for free. This will allow you to better understand how Azure can adapt and improve your IT operations, while ensuring security and innovation.

Azure IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (September 2024 – Weeks: 37 and 38)

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

Azure

General

ItalyNorth – New Service Available: Azure Web PubSub

Azure Web PubSub is now available in the ItalyNorth Azure region. This service allows developers to easily build real-time messaging applications with support for WebSockets and other protocols, enabling low-latency communication between servers and clients. With this release, businesses in Italy can leverage Azure Web PubSub to enhance their user engagement and interactivity in real-time applications like live dashboards, chat rooms, and gaming leaderboards.

ItalyNorth – New Service Available: Azure SignalR

Azure SignalR has been introduced in the ItalyNorth Azure region. This service simplifies the process of adding real-time web functionality to applications, such as live chat and notifications, by handling the complexities of managing WebSocket connections at scale. With this addition, developers in Italy can now build highly responsive, real-time web applications without worrying about infrastructure management, directly benefiting from the cloud’s scalability.

ItalyNorth – New Service Available: Apache Kafka® & Apache Flink® on Confluent Cloud™ – An Azure Native ISV Service

Apache Kafka® and Apache Flink® are now available on Confluent Cloud™ in the ItalyNorth Azure region as an Azure-native ISV service. This offering enables customers to build real-time data pipelines and event-driven applications with Kafka, while leveraging Flink for real-time data processing and analytics. By hosting this service in the ItalyNorth region, businesses can reduce latency and improve the performance of their data integration and streaming solutions.

Networking

DNAT on Azure Firewall Private IP address (preview)

Destination Network Address Translation (DNAT) on Azure Firewall Private IP address is now in Public Preview. This feature is ideal for enterprises dealing with overlapping IP networks, especially when integrating new partners or during mergers. It facilitates seamless communication by enabling connections between private resources over non-routable IP addresses. Additionally, DNAT proves beneficial for hybrid environments, as it helps bridge on-premises datacenters to Azure, improving connectivity and operational continuity for enterprises in complex networking scenarios.

Advanced Container Networking Services for AKS (preview)

The Public Preview of Advanced Container Networking Services introduces enhanced security and observability for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Key features include FQDN filtering, which allows network policies to be defined based on domain names rather than IP addresses. This simplifies policy management while ensuring precise control over domain-specific access, reducing security risks. Additionally, a High Availability (HA) DNS proxy ensures uninterrupted DNS resolution, improving the reliability and availability of containerized applications. These features are designed to enhance security, minimize administrative overhead, and ensure consistent policy enforcement.

Storage

Force Detach Zone Redundant Data Disks During Zone Outage

Azure has introduced the ability to force detach zone-redundant storage (ZRS) data disks during a zone outage, now generally available. This feature allows users to detach ZRS data disks from a virtual machine or virtual machine scale set affected by a zone failure and reattach them to another VM, reducing the recovery time objective (RTO). This capability improves the resilience of Azure managed disks, ensuring businesses can quickly recover and continue operations. It is important to note that this feature is not available for ZRS OS disks, but it supports both Premium SSDs and Standard SSDs.

Azure Data Box 80 TB in Azure China

Azure Data Box 80 TB SKU is now generally available in Azure China. Azure Data Box is an offline data transfer solution, designed to transfer large amounts of data to and from Azure Storage securely and efficiently. The service allows users to import or export petabytes of data using a dedicated Azure Data Box device. With the general availability in China, customers can now benefit from quick, inexpensive, and reliable data migration between Azure China regions, enhancing data handling capabilities in compliance with regional standards.

Azure NetApp Files Reserved Capacity

Azure NetApp Files Reserved Capacity is now available, providing significant savings for predictable workloads. Customers can commit to one-year or three-year reserved capacity terms and save up to 34% on Azure NetApp Files usage. Reserved capacity is offered in increments of 100TiB or 1PiB, covering Standard, Premium, and Ultra service levels. This option is beneficial for customers with stable, long-term workloads who wish to optimize costs while improving financial predictability. The reserved capacity is applied to existing capacity pools, and any additional usage will continue to be billed at the standard pay-as-you-go rate.

Access-Based Enumeration and Non-Browsable Shares for Azure NetApp Files

Access-Based Enumeration (ABE) and Non-Browsable Shares for Azure NetApp Files are now generally available. ABE ensures that users only see files and folders in directory listings that they have permission to access, providing an additional layer of security in shared environments. This capability hides inaccessible items from users, protecting sensitive data. Additionally, Azure NetApp Files now supports non-browsable shares, preventing specific volumes from appearing in the Windows File Explorer, further enhancing security for sensitive content. Both features enhance data protection and access control, making Azure NetApp Files a more secure and flexible storage solution for enterprises.

Live Resize for Azure Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks (preview)

The Public Preview of Live Resize for Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks is now available. This new feature allows users to dynamically increase the storage capacity of their disks without disrupting their running applications. It is designed to reduce costs by enabling users to start with smaller disks and scale up as needed, ensuring no downtime during the resizing process. This feature is particularly useful for businesses that require flexible storage solutions without compromising on operational efficiency.

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 Stack. 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 IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (September 2024 – Weeks: 35 and 36)

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

Azure

General

Microsoft Fabric is available on Italy North Azure Region

Microsoft has expanded the availability of Microsoft Fabric by launching it in the ItalyNorth Azure Region. This strategic move allows organizations in Italy to leverage the advanced capabilities of Microsoft Fabric, enhancing their data integration, transformation, and analysis efforts. By being hosted locally, businesses can also benefit from reduced latency and improved compliance with regional data residency requirements. This expansion underscores Microsoft’s commitment to providing localized services that meet the needs of diverse global markets.

Compute

VMSS Automatic Instance Repairs – Reimage, Restart Repair Actions

Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) now offer more flexible automatic instance repair options, allowing users to choose between Replace, Reimage, or Restart as default actions when an “Unhealthy” signal is detected. The introduction of Reimage and Restart provides less disruptive repair processes, which maintain VM properties and metadata, making it ideal for customers with sensitive workloads. This new functionality is designed to enhance application availability while minimizing the impact on VM instances during repairs.

Networking

Azure Public IPs are Zone Redundant by Default

Azure Public IPs are now zone redundant by default, improving the resiliency of applications using these public IPs. Unless a single zone is specifically chosen when creating Standard Public IPs, they will be automatically created across all three zones of a region. This ensures that the IP can survive any single zone failure, providing greater stability for hosted applications. Notably, this enhancement comes at no additional cost. Currently, the functionality is available in limited regions, with plans to expand further.

Azure Bastion: Entra ID Support for SSH Connections in Portal

Azure Bastion has introduced support for Microsoft Entra ID authentication for SSH connections within the Azure portal. This new integration offers two major benefits to users. First, it eliminates the reliance on local authentication mechanisms, reducing the risk of security breaches. Second, the Entra ID authentication simplifies the user experience by enabling a seamless one-click sign-on to virtual machines, enhancing both security and convenience for administrators managing their environments.

Storage

Azure File Sync v19 Agent Now Available

The Azure File Sync v19 agent is now available and can be downloaded via the Microsoft Update Catalog. This version brings several key improvements, including faster server provisioning and enhanced disaster recovery options for Azure File Sync server endpoints. Previously, provisioning a new server endpoint could take hours or even days, but with the latest update, the process is significantly faster. Additionally, there are sync performance improvements, specifically for file share migrations and scenarios where only metadata, such as ACLs, is updated. The new release also adds support for Windows Server 2025 and includes various reliability and telemetry enhancements for cloud tiering and sync. A restart is required for servers running versions earlier than 18.2, and the latest agent version is 19.1.0.0.

Managed Identity Support for Azure File Sync (preview)

Azure File Sync now supports managed identities, which enhances the security and ease of use for this service. By leveraging Microsoft Entra ID’s system-assigned managed identity, users no longer need to rely on shared keys for authentication. This feature, currently in preview, offers a more streamlined and secure method of managing Azure File Sync service and server authentication. Managed identities simplify the process and improve the overall security posture by automating identity management for Azure resources.

New Azure Data Box Capabilities to Accelerate Your Offline Data Migration

Azure Data Box, the offline data transfer solution, has introduced several new capabilities to enhance the efficiency and security of data migration to Azure Storage. This service allows users to transfer petabytes of data quickly, cost-effectively, and reliably using secure hardware devices. The new features include the general availability of self-encrypted drives in the Azure Data Box Disk SKU, which facilitates fast data transfers on Linux systems. Additionally, users can now ingest data into multiple blob access tiers within a single order. A preview of cross-region data transfers has been introduced, allowing seamless data ingestion from a source country or region to select Azure destinations in different countries or regions. Furthermore, Azure Storage Mover now supports online catch-up data copying, enabling the synchronization of changes made by active workloads post offline migrations. Azure Data Box has also achieved HIPAA/BAA, PCI 3DS, and PCI DSS certifications, ensuring compliance with industry standards. These enhancements make Azure Data Box an even more robust solution for secure and efficient offline data migrations.

Azure Storage Mover with Bandwidth Management

Azure Storage Mover now supports bandwidth management scheduling, providing users with the ability to set bandwidth limits for Storage Mover agents. This feature optimizes file migration processes by preventing agents from consuming excessive WAN link upload bandwidth during peak times. By allowing users to schedule bandwidth usage, Azure Storage Mover helps maintain smooth network performance, especially in on-premises data center environments.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack HCI Supportability Forum

Microsoft has introduced the Azure Stack HCI Supportability Forum, a public repository designed to centralize troubleshooting guides (TSGs), known issues, and user feedback for Azure Stack HCI. This repository provides a hub for community-driven support content and is referenced by both Customer Support Services and the Azure Stack HCI engineering team when addressing support incidents. Users can also access this repository to discover solutions to active system issues on their own. This initiative is part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to enhancing the support experience for Azure Stack HCI users by making critical information easily accessible and user-driven.

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 Stack. 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 Management services: what’s new in August 2024

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:

Figures 1 – Overview of Management Services in Azure

Monitor

Azure Monitor

Support for Operator and CRD with Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus (preview)

Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus introduces support for CRD (Custom Resource Definition) based configurations for scrape jobs, useful for collecting metrics from workloads running in the AKS cluster. With this update, the Managed Prometheus service configuration will distribute custom resource definitions for Pod and Service Monitor, allowing the creation of resources similar to the OSS Prometheus Operator. This functionality simplifies the configuration of scrape jobs in any namespace, eliminating the need to update the common ConfigMap in the kube-system namespace.

Dedicated Log Analytics tables for Application Gateway

Application Gateway now allows storing logs in dedicated Log Analytics tables. With this new feature, customers can choose to use resource-specific tables instead of the existing Azure Diagnostic table. In resource-specific mode, individual tables are created in the selected workspace for each category defined in the diagnostic settings. This new approach significantly improves log query capabilities while reducing ingestion latencies and query response times.

High Scale mode for Azure Monitor – Container Insights (preview)

The public preview of High Scale mode in Container Insights is designed to increase the log collection capacity from Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters. By enabling High Scale mode, Container Insights automatically makes configuration changes, significantly improving overall throughput. These optimizations occur in the background without requiring customer intervention or configuration, offering more efficient large-scale container log management.

Retirement of Azure Monitor Experience (preview) in HDInsight by February 1, 2025

As of February 1, 2025, Azure HDInsight will retire the use of Log Analytics in its Azure Monitor Experience (preview). Users who have already migrated from Classic Log Analytics to the new Azure Monitor Experience (preview) will have already made the necessary adjustments to the new table formats. In this case, it will be sufficient to recreate the cluster using image 2407260448 to switch to the Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) by January 31, 2025. Those who are migrating from Classic Log Analytics to Azure Monitor Agent (AMA), which replaces the Log Analytics agent, will need to make some changes to the new table formats to complete the transition.

Govern

Azure Policy

Azure Policy support for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server

Azure Policy now supports Azure PostgreSQL – Flexible Server, allowing you to easily apply and verify the compliance of Azure resources. With this functionality, it is possible to define, assign, and manage rules applicable to instances of Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server, facilitating governance, improving security, and offering greater control over databases. Users can leverage predefined policies provided by Microsoft or create custom policies to meet specific business requirements.

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.

Secure

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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, the main updates include:

  • Enabling Microsoft Defender for SQL Server at scale: It is now possible to enable Microsoft Defender for SQL Server at scale. This feature allows enabling Microsoft Defender for SQL on multiple servers simultaneously, simplifying the protection of SQL servers.
  • New version of File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) based on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (preview): The new version of File Integrity Monitoring, based on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, is now available in public preview. Part of the Defender for Servers Plan 2, this version helps meet compliance requirements by monitoring critical files and logs in real-time and auditing changes made. Additionally, it allows for identifying potential security issues by detecting suspicious changes in file contents. With the release of this version, the FIM experience via AMA will no longer be available in the Defender for Cloud portal, while the FIM experience on MMA will remain supported until the end of November 2024. Starting in September, an integrated experience will be released, allowing the migration of the FIM configuration from MMA to the new FIM version on Defender for Endpoint.
  • Retirement of the integration of Defender for Cloud alerts with Azure WAF: The integration of Defender for Cloud alerts with those of Azure WAF will be retired on September 25, 2024. No action is required from users. Sentinel customers can configure the connector for the Azure Web Application Firewall to continue monitoring their systems.

Protect

Azure Backup

Vaulted backup for Azure Blob Storage

The Vaulted Backup functionality for Azure Blob Storage is now generally available. This native, secure, managed backup solution offers an isolated copy of data, protecting critical business information stored in Azure Blob Storage from accidental deletions, corruption, and malicious attacks. With Vaulted Backup, customers can ensure rapid data recovery and maintain operational continuity, minimizing the impact of potential losses. Additionally, the solution supports regulatory compliance through long-term retention and improves backup security, making recovery possible even in the event of cyberattacks. Vaulted Backup uses blob object replication (OR) to copy data and create recovery points in storage accounts managed by Microsoft. These recovery points can be used by customers to restore data in case of loss. General availability includes new features such as prefix-based granular restores, automation tools for managing backups via PowerShell, CLI, REST API, or Bicep templates, and the ability to limit data replication exclusively to the Microsoft tenant for backup purposes, reducing the risk of data exfiltration.

Azure Evaluation

For those who wish to explore and personally evaluate the services offered by Azure, a unique opportunity is available: by accessing this page, you can test various features and services for free. This will allow you to better understand how Azure can adapt and improve your IT operations, while ensuring security and innovation.

Azure IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (August 2024 – Weeks: 33 and 34)

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

Azure

General

Enable Multifactor Authentication by 15 October 2024

Starting on 15 October 2024, Azure will require all users to utilize multifactor authentication (MFA) when signing into the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center. To ensure continued access for users, it is crucial to enable MFA by the specified date. For those unable to implement MFA by 15 October 2024, there is an option to apply for a postponement of the enforcement date. Failure to enable MFA or apply for a postponement will result in users being required to set up MFA when accessing these services. Azure provides documentation to assist in identifying which users are signing in with or without MFA.

Azure Chaos Studio Supports New Network Isolation Fault for Virtual Machines

Azure Chaos Studio has introduced a new agent-based fault action for both Windows and Linux virtual machines (VMs) and virtual machine scale sets (VMSS). The Network Isolation fault allows customers to isolate an Azure VM from network connections by dropping all packets for a specified duration, subject to certain environment limitations. This feature is designed to help test the resilience of applications running inside VMs against network traffic loss. Users can implement this fault in Chaos Experiments through templates, the REST API, or directly in the Azure portal.

Compute

Attach and Detach of VMs on Virtual Machine Scale Sets for a Single Fault Domain (preview)

In a new public preview, Azure now offers support for attaching and detaching Virtual Machines (VMs) to and from Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) configured with Flexible Orchestration Mode and a fault domain count of 1. Once a VM is attached to the VMSS, it becomes part of the scale set, gaining access to features such as autoscale, Instance Repair, and Automatic OS Upgrades, all without requiring downtime. Conversely, if troubleshooting outside of the scale set is needed, the VM can be easily detached for further investigation. This functionality is designed to streamline the management of VMs within and across scale sets.

Instance Mix on Virtual Machine Scale Sets (preview)

Azure has introduced the public preview of Instance Mix, a feature designed to enhance the flexibility and cost efficiency of Virtual Machine Scale Set (VMSS) deployments. Instance Mix allows users to specify a variety of VM sizes within a single VMSS, enabling better alignment with workload requirements. The feature also includes an allocation strategy that optimizes either price or capacity. Key benefits include the ability to mix different VM sizes to meet diverse task demands, achieve cost savings by utilizing appropriately sized VMs, and simplify management by overseeing a heterogeneous VM set under one scale set. This new capability helps to maximize performance by ensuring the right resources are allocated to each task.

Networking

Dedicated Log Analytics Tables in Application Gateway

Azure Application Gateway has introduced general availability for storing logs in dedicated log analytics tables. This new feature allows customers to opt for resource-specific tables instead of using the existing Azure Diagnostic table. In resource-specific mode, separate tables are created for each selected category in the diagnostic settings within the chosen workspace. This enhancement offers better log querying capabilities, along with reduced ingestion latencies and faster query times, making it easier to analyze and manage logs efficiently.

Storage

Double Encryption at-Rest for Azure NetApp Files

Azure NetApp Files has introduced a double encryption at-rest feature, adding multiple independent encryption layers to protect data from threats that could compromise a single encryption layer. This feature mitigates risks such as the compromise of a single encryption key, errors in encryption algorithm implementations, and misconfigurations in data encryption. Users can opt for double encryption when creating capacity pools, ensuring that all volumes within these pools are automatically protected without additional steps. Customers requiring their own encryption key management can configure customer-managed keys for this purpose. Importantly, this enhanced security does not significantly impact performance, allowing existing applications to benefit from FIPS-140 certified double encryption without sacrificing efficiency.

Azure NetApp Files Now Supports 50 GiB Minimum Volume Sizes

Azure NetApp Files has introduced support for 50 GiB minimum volume sizes, a significant enhancement from the previous 100 GiB minimum. This new capability allows customers to create storage volumes as small as 50 GiB, optimizing costs for workloads that require less storage. By enabling customers to right-size their volumes, this update offers more efficient storage management and cost savings, particularly for those with smaller-scale storage needs.

Azure NetApp Files Storage with Cool Access for All Service Levels

Azure NetApp Files has reached general availability with its cool access feature, offering a cost-effective storage solution across all service levels, including standard, premium, and ultra. The cool access feature allows data that is infrequently accessed to be transparently moved to Azure storage accounts, optimizing storage costs. This feature includes configurable options for the “coolness period”, determining the duration after which cold data is tiered to a cool storage tier, based on your workload’s access patterns. While this may introduce some latency due to data being tiered, it significantly reduces overall storage expenses. Additionally, in scenarios involving cross-region or cross-zone replication, cool access can be configured for destination volumes, ensuring data protection while optimizing costs.

Customer Managed Planned Failover for Azure Storage (preview)

Azure Storage has introduced a public preview of the planned failover feature, empowering users with enhanced disaster recovery capabilities. Planned failover allows for the seamless failover of a storage account while maintaining geo-redundancy, with no data loss and without the need to reconfigure geo-redundant storage (GRS) after the operation. This feature facilitates the swapping of primary and secondary endpoints, ensuring continuous availability of storage service endpoints. Once the failover is completed, all new data writes are directed to the region that was previously the secondary, now designated as the new primary region. This feature is ideal for scenarios like planned disaster recovery testing, proactive disaster preparedness, or recovery from non-storage related outages.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack HCI

Upgrade and Update from Azure Stack HCI Version 22H2 to 23H2 Now Available

Azure has announced the gradual availability of upgrade and update from Azure Stack HCI version 22H2 to 23H2, the latest iteration of its hyper-converged infrastructure solution. This new version integrates seamlessly with Azure Arc infrastructure, enabling streamlined provisioning and management of workloads such as Arc-enabled virtual machines, Azure Kubernetes Services, and Azure Virtual Desktop. With the 23H2 release, Azure Stack HCI transitions from being solely a cloud-connected operating system to becoming a fully Arc-enabled solution. This evolution layers Azure Arc and the Orchestrator (also known as the Lifecycle Manager) atop the base operating system, packaged together following an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) model for improved deployment and management efficiency.

Upgrading from version 22H2 to 23H2 introduces a host of new capabilities and represents a significant advancement in functionality. The upgrade process involves several key steps: first, updating the existing operating system to the new version using preferred methods such as PowerShell (recommended), Windows Admin Center, or other manual approaches; followed by performing necessary post-upgrade tasks, validating the solution’s readiness, and finally applying the complete solution upgrade.

It’s important to distinguish this upgrade from regular updates, which are periodic changes applied to enhance performance, security, or stability within the same version. Organizations are encouraged to perform this upgrade to leverage the enhanced features and integrations offered by Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2.

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 Stack. 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 IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (August 2024 – Weeks: 31 and 32)

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

Azure

General

Azure Carbon Optimization (preview)

Azure Carbon Optimization, now in preview, equips Azure developers and IT professionals with the data and insight to optimize the carbon footprint of their cloud consumption. By providing insights into carbon emissions and offering recommendations to enhance the efficiencies of cloud resources, organizations can make more informed decisions to meet their business and cloud sustainability goals. Key features include granular emissions data at the resource level, optimization recommendations, role-based access control, carbon equivalents for better visualization, and integration with Microsoft Azure emissions insights (preview) for deeper analytics capabilities.

Storage

Azure Blob Storage Lifecycle Management Now Supports Improved Control on Archiving

Lifecycle management now offers users more control over how objects rehydrated from the archive tier are returned to archive after access. The daysAfterLastTierChangeGreaterThan option has been expanded, allowing users to specify a minimum duration that rehydrated objects stay accessible in an online tier. This prevents immediate re-archiving of recently rehydrated objects by applying the daysAfterLastTierChangeGreaterThan property in lifecycle rules based on Creation Time and Last Accessed Time, in addition to the existing Last Modified Time.

Azure NetApp Files zone volume placement enhancement – Populate existing volume
Azure NetApp Files has introduced an enhancement to its availability zone volume placement feature, allowing users to populate previously deployed, existing volumes with logical availability zone information. This update aligns volumes with other Azure services within the same availability zone, without moving them between zones. The enhancement is particularly beneficial for workloads initially deployed regionally, enabling them to align with virtual machines in the same failure domain, which is essential for high-availability architectures across availability zones. Additionally, this feature supports replication across availability zones, facilitating improved data protection.

Azure NetApp Files cross-zone replication
Azure NetApp Files has launched a new cross-zone replication feature, enabling asynchronous replication of volumes across different availability zones within the same Azure region. Leveraging SnapMirror® technology, this feature ensures that only changed blocks are transferred in a compressed format, optimizing network usage and reducing replication times. Cross-zone replication is designed to protect data against unforeseen zone failures without requiring host-based replication. It minimizes data transfer requirements, thereby lowering replication time and achieving a smaller Restore Point Objective (RPO). Additionally, this feature is highly cost-effective as it does not involve any network transfer costs.

Azure NetApp Files Volume Encryption Key Transition (preview)

This new feature in preview allows customers to transition their existing volumes protected with platform-managed keys (PMK) to volumes encrypted using customer-managed keys (CMK) stored in Azure Key Vault. CMK provides enhanced key manageability and security by enabling direct management of key rotation, access, permissions, and auditing tasks. This feature helps organizations comply with regulatory requirements and manage encryption keys securely without impacting performance, as the CMK protects the account encryption key using Azure Key Vault.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack HCI

Optimize Azure Stack HCI with the Well-Architected Framework

Microsoft is announcing the Azure Well-Architected Framework Service Guide for Azure Stack HCI. This guide contains design checklists and detailed configuration recommendations to assist cloud architects in designing and deploying Azure Stack HCI according to the guiding principles of the Well-Architected Framework: Reliability, Security, Cost Optimization, Operational Excellence, and Performance Efficiency. Whether planning a new deployment or enhancing an existing one, the guide provides tailored advice, rationales for recommendations, and links to product documentation for further details.

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 Stack. 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 Management services: what’s new in July 2024

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:

Figures 1 – Overview of Management Services in Azure

Monitor

Azure Monitor

Introduction of Agent and Gateway Extensions in Azure Monitor SCOM MI

Microsoft has announced the general availability (GA) of Agent and Gateway Server extensions in Azure Monitor SCOM MI. This new functionality enables large-scale, programmatic monitoring on Windows machines in Azure and Azure Arc-enabled machines. Now, it is possible to monitor virtual machines both in Azure and outside of Azure.

The Agent and Gateway extensions offer the following advantages:

  • Monitoring Anywhere: SCOM MI can monitor virtual machines and guest applications hosted both in and outside Azure through the Arc channel. Managed Gateways can monitor isolated virtual machines.
  • Large-scale Deployment: Users can enable large-scale virtual machine monitoring through the Azure portal or PowerShell scripts, improving operational efficiency.
  • Agile Transition: With multi-homing support, users can transition monitoring from on-premises SCOM to Azure Monitor SCOM MI at their own pace and needs.
  • Security and Automatic Updates: SCOM MI agents use managed identities and certificate-based authentication, providing a significant improvement over legacy Kerberos authentication. Agents are automatically updated, eliminating the need for frequent update management.

Thanks to these capabilities, Azure Monitor SCOM MI becomes easier to operate. During the Public Preview, over 20 customers deployed more than 1,200 agents, and their feedback has helped further streamline the experience.

As more SCOM customers are expected to transition to monitoring with SCOM MI, the goal is to make the process as smooth as possible through the following features:

  • Extended Onboarding Experiences: Onboarding monitoring agents at scale via ARM templates, Azure policies, and Azure Automation.
  • Scheduled Updates: Providing the flexibility to schedule agent updates according to the organization’s change management process.

New Azure Monitor Auxiliary Logs Plan (Preview)

Azure Monitor Logs introduces a new tiered strategy plan for optimal consumption and cost optimization: Auxiliary Logs. Auxiliary Logs are designed for verbose logs and are economical, while providing a range of functionalities to manage and consume data.

Azure Monitor’s multi-tier strategy now supports three plans – Analytics, Basic, and the new Auxiliary – allowing all logs to be stored in one place and different types of data to be retained for the desired time at a cost-effective price.

With Auxiliary Logs, you can:

  • Optimize Costs: Funnel low-value or verbose logs into the Auxiliary table.
  • Long-Term Data Retention: Retain data for up to 12 years at a low cost.
  • Query Access: Use queries to access the last 30 days of data or search for older data using search jobs.
  • Summary Rules (Preview): Aggregate data and ingest the results into a table with an Analytics plan for use in dashboards, alerts, or performing complex analysis on aggregated data.

During the initial preview period, billing for Auxiliary Logs (ingestion, long-term retention, query, and search jobs) is not yet enabled. The billing start date will be announced on Azure Updates, and current feature users will be given advance notice before billing begins. The Auxiliary Logs plan is currently in public preview and subject to certain limitations, including regional availability, as indicated in the Microsoft documentation.

New Features Added to Azure Monitor Basic Logs Plan

The Azure Monitor Basic Logs plan has seen widespread adoption by customers and continues to grow rapidly. To meet the increasing demand and customer needs, Microsoft is enhancing Basic Logs with additional features that provide greater benefits. The following improvements are being introduced for this plan:

  • Extended Interactive Retention Period: The interactive retention period has been increased from 8 to 30 days, with support for interactive queries throughout the period.
  • Enhanced Query Language Capabilities: Support for queries on Basic Logs has been extended from reduced KQL to full KQL on a single table, with the ability to search for additional data in Analytics tables.

VM insights based on Log Analytics agent: Migration Required by August 31, 2024

Microsoft has announced that by August 31, 2024, VM insights based on the Log Analytics agent will be retired. Users are encouraged to migrate to VM insights based on Azure Monitor agent. This new version offers several improvements, including enhanced security and performance, data collection rules that help reduce costs, and a simplified management experience that includes troubleshooting. It is essential to complete the migration by the specified date to continue using a supported version of VM insights

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.

Azure Arc

Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes Available in the Italy North Region

Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes is now available in the Italy North region of Azure. This service allows users to manage and govern Kubernetes clusters distributed anywhere, leveraging the centralized management capabilities of Azure Arc.

Secure

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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:

  • Security Assessments for GitHub Without Additional License: Starting July 22, 2024, GitHub users in Defender for Cloud no longer need a GitHub Advanced Security license to view security assessments. This change covers code vulnerabilities, IaC misconfigurations, and container image vulnerabilities detected during the build phase. Users with a GitHub Advanced Security license will continue to receive additional assessments for exposed credentials, open-source dependency vulnerabilities, and CodeQL results.
  • End of Support for MMA in Defender for Servers Plan 2: The Log Analytics agent will no longer be supported from August 2024. Server protection will rely on integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) and agentless capabilities provided by the cloud platform. Some functionalities will continue to be supported until November 2024: File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) and Security Baseline.
  • Public Preview of Binary Drift for Containers: The public preview of Binary Drift for Defender for Containers is available, identifying and reporting potentially malicious binary processes in containers.
  • Automatic Remediation Scripts for AWS and GCP: Automatic remediation scripts for AWS and GCP are available in GA, allowing programmatic correction of recommendations on a large scale.
  • Update GitHub Application Permissions: GitHub users need to update the Microsoft Security DevOps application permissions to include read permissions for GitHub Copilot Business.
  • New Compliance Standards: Compliance standards added in preview in March, such as CIS Google Kubernetes Engine Benchmark, ISO/IEC 27001 and 27002, and others, are now available in GA.
  • Inventory Experience Improvements: Starting July 11, 2024, the inventory experience has been improved with updates to the Azure Resource Graph query logic.
  • Default Running Container Mapping Tool in GitHub: From August 12, 2024, the container mapping tool will run by default as part of the Microsoft Security DevOps action in GitHub.

Protect

Azure Backup

Customer-Managed Key Encryption for Backup Vaults

Azure Backup now supports the use of customer-managed keys (CMK) for encrypting backup data in Backup Vaults. This functionality, already available for Recovery Services Vaults, is now accessible for all Backup Vaults in Azure public regions. Users can create new backup vaults or update the encryption settings of existing ones to use CMK.

Backup and Restore of Virtual Machines with Private Endpoint-Enabled Disks

Backup and restore of Azure virtual machines using disks with private endpoints enabled are now available. This support is available for both standard and enhanced backup policies and can be configured through standard Azure Backup experiences. During the restore, users can specify the network access settings for the restored disks, choosing from using the same network configuration as the source disks, access only from specific networks, or public access from all networks.

Azure Site Recovery

Support for Azure Trusted Launch VMs (Windows OS)

Microsoft announces the availability of support for Azure Site Recovery for Azure Trusted Launch VMs. Azure Trusted Launch VMs offer advanced security for Azure Generation 2 VMs, enabling Secure Boot and vTPM capabilities. This availability is specific to Windows operating systems.

Deletion or Reset of Azure Site Recovery Replication Appliance

Microsoft has announced the option to delete or reset the Azure Site Recovery replication appliance. If all components of the appliance are in a healthy state, it is possible to reset the appliance to factory state. If the appliance is in a critical state and there is no connectivity with the appliance, it can be deleted from the Azure portal.

Azure Evaluation

For those who wish to explore and personally evaluate the services offered by Azure, a unique opportunity is available: by accessing this page, you can test various features and services for free. This will allow you to better understand how Azure can adapt and improve your IT operations, while ensuring security and innovation.

Azure IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (July 2024 – Weeks: 29 and 30)

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

Azure

General

Azure Lab Services is being retired on June 28, 2027

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027, due to the availability of other Microsoft VDI services such as Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, Azure DevTest Labs, and Microsoft Dev Box. Existing customers can continue to use the service until the retirement date, but new customers will not be allowed to sign up starting July 15, 2024. Microsoft recommends reviewing the retirement guide for more details about partner options. After June 28, 2027, Azure Lab Services will no longer be supported, and users will lose access to their lab accounts, lab plans, and labs.

Compute

Upgrade existing Azure Gen1/Gen2 VMSS to Gen2-Trusted launch (preview)

Microsoft is excited to announce preview support for enabling Trusted launch on existing Azure Gen1/Gen2 Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) Uniform by upgrading the VMSS Uniform resource to Gen2-Trusted launch. This upgrade aims to improve the foundational security of existing Azure VMSS resources. Trusted Launch VMs provide enhanced compute security for Azure Generation 2 VMs by enabling Secure Boot and vTPM capabilities, which protect the OS against rootkits and bootkits and enable attestation by measuring the boot chain of the VM.

Public Preview: 6th generation Intel-based VMs – Dv6/Ev6 (preview)

Microsoft is pleased to announce the public preview of the D and E family VMs built on the new 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8537C (Emerald Rapids) processor. These new Intel-based VMs come with three different memory-to-core ratios and offer options with and without local SSD across all the new VMs – the General Purpose Dsv6, Dlsv6, Ddvs6, and Dldsv6 series and the Memory Optimized Esv6 and Edsv6 series. Additionally, constrained core variants for the Esv6 series are ideal for workloads that require high data throughput without a high number of vCPUs.

These VMs, available initially in the US West and US East regions, offer up to 27% higher vCPU performance and 3x larger L3 cache than the previous generation Intel Dv5/Ev5 VMs, with up to 192vCPU and 1.8TB of memory. Azure Boost technology enables up to 400k IOPS and 12 GB/s remote storage throughput and up to 200 Gbps VM network bandwidth. The new Dv6 VMs balance memory to vCPU ratio with scalability up to 128 vCPUs and 512 GiB of RAM, while the Ev6 VMs cater to memory-intensive workloads with up to 192 vCPUs and 1832 GiB of RAM. These VMs also feature enhanced security through Total Memory Encryption (TME) technology and significantly larger local SSD capacity.

Networking

Azure Virtual Network Manager mesh and direct connectivity

As of June 13, 2024, Azure Virtual Network Manager’s mesh connectivity configuration and direct connectivity option in the hub and spoke connectivity configuration are generally available in all public regions. This feature allows a group of virtual networks to directly communicate with each other without an additional hop, reducing latency and management overhead. For instance, in a hub and spoke topology, a subset of spoke virtual networks that require low latency can directly communicate with each other. Traffic between these virtual networks can be filtered using network security groups (NSGs) and Azure Virtual Network Manager’s security admin rules while maintaining direct connectivity.

ExpressRoute FastPath Support for VNet Peering & UDR

Microsoft is announcing support for ExpressRoute FastPath VNet Peering and User Defined Routes (UDR) connectivity. This feature enhances data path performance between on-premises customer networks and Azure Virtual Networks, enabling 100Gbps connectivity to VMs in hub and spoke designs over ExpressRoute. With FastPath enabled, network traffic is sent directly to virtual machines within the virtual network, reducing hops and potential bottlenecks. While a virtual network gateway is still required to exchange routes between the virtual network and on-premises network, FastPath now supports traffic directly to VMs in “spoke” virtual networks and honors any UDRs configured on the Gateway Subnet.

ExpressRoute Traffic Collector support for provider circuits

Azure ExpressRoute customers can now configure ExpressRoute Traffic Collector on their 1G+ provider circuits. This expansion of the existing service, which previously only supported ExpressRoute Direct circuits, allows for improved visibility into circuit traffic. ExpressRoute Traffic Collector is a fully managed traffic monitoring solution that logs IPFIX flow records, which can then be queried for insights into circuit traffic patterns.

Storage

Azure Data Box now supports select cross region transfers (preview)

Azure Data Box has introduced cross-region data transfer capabilities, now in preview, to support seamless ingestion of on-premises data from a source country/region to select Azure destinations in a different country/region. For example, data can now be copied from Singapore or India to the West US Azure destination region. The Azure Data Box device is not shipped across commerce boundaries; instead, it is transported within the originating country or region, and data transfer to the destination Azure region occurs over the Azure network without incurring additional fees.

Azure NetApp Files Large Volume Enhancement – Increased Throughput and Maximum Size Limit of 2 PiB Volume

Azure has announced an exciting update to Azure NetApp Files, significantly enhancing large volumes with increased maximum throughput and size limits. The update brings a size limit increase to 1-PiB, accessible via Azure Feature Exposure Control (AFEC), offering more robust data management solutions for workloads such as HPC, EDA, VDI, and more. Additionally, a public preview of an even larger volume type, ranging from 1-PiB to 2-PiB, is available upon request, subject to regional availability and capacity. Key benefits of this update include performance enhancements up to 12.5-GiB/s per large volume, scalability from 50-TiB to 2-PiB, selection of service levels (Standard, Premium, Ultra), advanced data management features, and cost efficiency through consolidation.

Convert to Azure Premium SSD v2 disks (preview)

Azure has announced the Public Preview of the feature for converting to Premium SSD v2 disks (Pv2). This new feature allows users to confidently move their workloads to Pv2, leveraging its balance of price and performance. The conversion process is designed to be straightforward, enabling the migration of existing Standard SSD, Standard HDD, or Premium SSD v1 disks to PV2 disks with minimal downtime. Notably, this feature avoids disk destruction, eliminates the need to use snapshots as a staging resource, and removes the requirement for waiting for background data copying. This enhancement simplifies the migration process and ensures that users can take full advantage of Pv2 disks efficiently.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack HCI

Introducing the Comprehensive Azure Stack HCI OEM License

The new Azure Stack HCI OEM license is designed to provide a streamlined and efficient licensing solution for Azure Stack HCI hardware, including Azure Stack HCI Premier Solutions, Integrated Systems, and Validated Nodes. This license is valid for the entire lifetime of the hardware and covers up to 16 cores, with additional two-core and four-core license add-ons available for larger systems.

The Azure Stack HCI OEM license includes three essential services for your cloud infrastructure:

  1. Azure Stack HCI – Ensures you have a robust and scalable cloud infrastructure.
  2. Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS) – Provides container orchestration for deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications.
  3. Windows Server Datacenter 2022 or earlier version supported guest virtual machines (VMs) – Supports your virtual machine needs with the latest Windows Server capabilities.

Key Benefits:

  • Simplified Licensing and Activation: A single license covers Azure Stack HCI, AKS, and Windows Server 2022 guest VMs, reducing complexity and cost.
  • No Activation Tools Needed: The Azure Stack HCI operating system is automatically activated without additional tools or keys.
  • Unified Procurement and Support: Purchase hardware, software, and get full stack support from a single vendor, streamlining your procurement process.

Requirements and Recommendations:

  • Active Azure Account: Necessary for license activation.
  • Latest Software Installations: Ensure you install the most recent versions of Azure Stack HCI, AKS, and Windows Server Datacenter 2022 guest VMs.
  • Continuous Updates: Keep Azure Stack HCI and AKS up to date to receive the latest features and security patches. Upgrade to newer versions when the current version reaches the end of its lifecycle.

For managing Windows Server VMs, you can use Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) client keys through Windows Admin Center or PowerShell.

In mixed-node scenarios, where clusters consist of different hardware models, operating system versions, or billing models, the OEM license ensures clarity. If any server in your cluster lacks the OEM license, you will receive a notification in your monthly billing statement. To identify servers without the OEM license, check the OEM license column under Overview > Nodes.

The Azure Stack HCI OEM license not only simplifies the licensing process but also enhances the operational efficiency of your cloud infrastructure by ensuring you have access to the latest technologies and support in a unified manner.

Azure Arc gateway for Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2 (preview)

For enterprises implementing Azure Stack HCI, the new Arc gateway will significantly streamline the deployment and management process. The Arc gateway reduces the number of required endpoints for Azure Stack HCI clusters. Upon creating the Arc gateway, it can be used for both new and existing deployments. This gateway introduces the Arc gateway resource, which serves as a common entry point for Azure traffic through a specific domain or URL, and the Arc proxy, which runs as a service and functions as a forward proxy for Azure Arc agents and extensions. Traffic flows through Arc agentry, gateway router, enterprise proxy, Arc gateway, and finally to the target service, with each Azure Stack HCI cluster node having its own Arc agent.

Local UI to bootstrap Azure Stack HCI (preview)

Microsoft has introduced a new local web-based UI to facilitate the bootstrapping and registration of servers intended to cluster as an Azure Stack HCI system. This local UI simplifies the initial setup and management of Azure Stack HCI clusters, making the process more user-friendly and efficient.

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 Stack. 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 IaaS and Azure Stack: announcements and updates (July 2024 – Weeks: 27 and 28)

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

Azure

Compute

Retirement: Azure Cloud Services Guest OS Families 2, 3, and 4

In July 2024, Azure announced the upcoming retirement of Guest OS Families 2, 3, and 4 for Cloud Services and Cloud Services Extended Support. The end-of-life dates are as follows: Windows Server 2008 R2 will retire in December 2024, while Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 will retire in February 2025. Customers utilizing these OS families need to take action to ensure their cloud services remain supported. To identify which cloud services are running the soon-to-be-retired OS Families, Azure provides a PowerShell script. The script will help pinpoint services that need migration, with recommendations to move to Guest OS family 7 (Windows Server 2022) for continued functionality and support.

Networking

Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) integration with Virtual WAN (preview)

Azure has announced the public preview of integrating Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) with Virtual WAN. Customers can now deploy Cisco FTD directly into a Virtual WAN hub, jointly managed by Microsoft Azure and Cisco. This integration allows the Cisco FTD in the hub to perform Next-Generation Firewall capabilities, inspecting all North-South, East-West, and Internet-bound traffic.

Storage

Azure File Sync Agent v18.2 Release

Azure has released version 18.2 of the Azure File Sync agent, now available on Microsoft Update and Microsoft Download Center. This release includes a rollup update for previous v18 and v18.1 releases, along with sync reliability improvements. It supports installations on Windows Server 2016, 2019, and 2022. Notably, a server restart is required for existing agent installations. The agent version for this release is 18.2.0.0, with detailed installation instructions provided in KB5023059.

Azure Elastic SAN Feature Updates

Azure has introduced significant updates to the Elastic SAN feature, now generally available. Customers can delete unused space on their SANs and scale down as necessary. This capability is useful for those who realize they do not need as much capacity as initially allocated. Note that scaling down can only occur at the SAN level, not at the volume level. Additionally, Azure has released diagnostic logging capabilities, allowing configuration of Elastic SAN to send Azure platform logs and metrics to various destinations. Two log configurations are available: “All” for every resource log and “Audit” for logs that record customer interactions with data or service settings.

Azure Stack

Azure Stack HCI

CISPE and Microsoft Agree Settlement in Fair Software Licensing Case

On July 11, 2024, Microsoft and CISPE reached an agreement related to CISPE’s competition complaint filed against Microsoft with the European Commission in November 2022. Microsoft committed to changes addressing European CISPE members’ claims, leading CISPE to withdraw its complaint. Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and AliCloud are excluded from these terms. A significant part of the agreement is the collaboration to release an enhanced version of Azure Stack HCI for European cloud providers. This will include features such as multi-session virtual desktop infrastructure, free Extended Security Updates, and pay-as-you-go SQL Server licensing. An independent European Cloud Observatory will monitor the agreement’s implementation. Microsoft has nine months to fulfill its commitments, or CISPE may refile its complaint.

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 Stack. 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.