Category Archives: Log Analytics

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in March 2020

In March there have been several news announced by Microsoft on the Azure management services and System Center. In this summary, that we report on a monthly basis, major announcements are listed, accompanied by the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies on.

Azure Monitor

Azure Security Center integration

In Azure Security Center (ASC) integration with Azure Monitor has been introduced. In fact, in ASC it has been made available the ability to export continues toward a Log Analytics workspace. With this feature, you can configure Azure Monitor alert rules against recommendations and alerts exported from the Security Center. As a result, you can enable action groups to achieve automation scenarios supported by Azure Monitor.

Service availability Azure Monitor for VMs

In Azure monitor, the service that monitors virtual machines has been released, calledAzure Monitor for VMs. This service analyzes the performance data and the status of virtual machines, makes the monitor of the installed processes and examines its dependencies.

The serviceAzure Monitor for VMsis divided into three different perspectives:

Health: the logical components present on board of the virtual machines are evaluated according to specific pre-configured criteria, generating alerts when certain conditions are met.
Performance: shows summary details of performance, from the guest operating system.
Map: generates a map with the interconnections between the various components that reside on different systems.

This solution can be used on Windows and Linux virtual machines, regardless of the environment in which they reside (Azure, on-premises or at other cloud providers).

New agent version for Windows and Linux systems

A new version of the Log Analytics agent has been released this month for Window systemss and for Linux systems. In both cases they are introduced several improvements and increased stability.

SHA-2 signing for the Log Analytics agent

The Log Analytics agent for Windows will start enforcing SHA-2 signings from 18 may 2020. This change requires action if you are running the agent on a legacy version of the operating system (Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008) . Customers who are in this condition should apply the latest updates and patches on these operating systems before 18 may 2020, otherwise their agents will stop sending data to Log Analytics workspaces. The following Azure services will be affected by this change: Azure Monitor, Azure Automation, Azure Update Management, Azure Change Tracking, Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel, Windows Defender ATP.

Azure Site Recovery

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 45 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.

Azure Backup

Azure Backup Report

Azure Backup has announced the release of the solution Azure Backup Report. It's a tool available in the Azure portal that provides reports to answer many questions about backup progress, including: “What backup items consume more storage space?”, “Which machines have consistently had abnormal backup behaviors?”, “What are the main causes of the backup job failure?”. Reports provide cross-sectional information across different types of workloads, Vaults, subscriptions, regions and tenants. This tool also provides support for Windows Server 2008, to facilitate the migration steps of the on-premises systems based on Windows Server 2008 to Azure, process by which you can continue to get security patches.

Azure Automation

Availability in new regions

Azure Automation is now available in preview in the regions ” US Gov Arizona”.

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.

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in February 2020

The month of February was full of news and there are different updates that affected the Azure management services and System Center. This article summarizes to have a comprehensive overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these topics and have the necessary references to conduct further exploration.

Azure Monitor

Changes to the Log Analytics schema

Important news has been made to the Azure Monitor Log Analytics schema to help you browse your content faster and easier.

Updates in the log view

Azure Monitor Log Analytics has greatly improved the appearance in the log view. New charts have been introduced that can quickly and easily display the collected data and provide the ability to obtain more information from it effectively.

Azure Site Recovery

Retirement of some protection scenarios

Starting from 1 march 2023 you will no longer be able to use Azure Site Recoivery for the following security scenarios:

Between customer-owned sites managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)
Between sites managed by SCVMM to Azure

Therefore, by this date, you must modify the configuration to use the protection scenario between Hyper-V and between Hyper-V and Azure, always without SCVMM. Data for protection scenarios that are no longer supported will be removed from the specified date.

Retirement of Azure Site Recovery data encryption functionality

Starting from 30 April 2022 Azure Site Recovery data encryption functionality will be retired and replaced with more advanced encryption mechanisms such asEncryption at Rest with Azure Site Recovery, usingStorage Service Encryption (SSE). Thanks to the adoption of SSE, the data will be encrypted before residing on the storage and decrypted when it is picked up.

Azure Backup

Azure Offline Backup with Azure Data Box

Customers using Azure Backup can now take advantage of Azure Data Box to move large backups through an offiline migration mechanism. The solution is to use both Azure Data Box (appliance from 100 TB) and also Azure Data Box disks (up to 8 TB each), through Azure Recovery Services Agent, to place large initial backups (up to 80 TB per server) in offline mode to an Azure Recovery Services Vault. Subsequent backups will then be made over the network.

Windows Server support 2008

Azure Backup announced support for Windows Server systems 2008. This facilitates the migration of On-premises systems based on Windows Server 2008 to Azure, so you can continue to get security patches.

Selective exclusion of disks to be protected

Azure Backup now allows you to selectively exclude disks to protect on a virtual machine. This allows you to achieve cost savings for your solution if there are disks that you don't want to protect using Azure Backup.

Backup Explorer

Azure Backup now offers a new solution, currently in preview, called Backup Explorer, an integrated Azure Monitor Workbook which allows for centralized control in real time on the progress of the various backup.

System Center

Update Rollup 1 for System Center 2019

For System Center 2019 it was released the first update rollup. This update introduces new features, make error corrections and affects the following products:

Microsoft Endpoint Manager

New releases for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager were released in the Technical Preview Branch the’update 2001.2, the’update 2002 and the’update 2002.2. Among the main innovations, improvements to Desktop Analytics and task sequences are introduced. They also allow to obtain novelty inherent in Orchestration Groups, an evolution of the Server Groups.

To check the details of what's included in these updates, you can check these documents:

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

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in January 2020

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

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in December 2019

In December have been announced, by Microsoft, a significant number of news regarding Azure management services and System Center. Our community releases this monthly summary that gives you a comprehensive overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these news and have the necessary references to conduct further study.

Azure Monitor

Improvements in Azure Monitor for containers

The new Azure Monitor agent for containers, introduces several improvements in resource utilization and data volume optimization, thus helping to reduce costs. This update also changes some tables where data is consolidated and you may need some changes to existing queries if they use these fields: Name and Image in the table ContainerLog.

New features in Azure Monitor Metrics Explorer

For Azure Monitor, the Metrics Explorer component has seen the release of the following new features:

More flexibility in chart generation.
The resource selector supports the ability to choose multiple resources in scoping.
More granular charts such as number of data points.
Improved Chart Legends.

For more details you can refer this article.

Azure Backup

Azure Backup: resource group management for virtual machines

Azure Backup introduces the ability to customize the name of the resource group created by the service, acting on the backup policy for protecting virtual machines. Azure Backup creates a specific resource group where restore point collections are placed, hosting the instant recovery points of the managed VMs. Of dafault the naming of this resource group is as follows: AzureBackupRG_Geo_n, but now you get the ability to customize it.

Support for encrypted VMs larger than 4TB

The ability to back up and restore encrypted virtual machines larger than 4 TB has been extended to all Azure regions. In this way, the experience and capabilities provided by Azure Backup to protect these machines is the same, regardless of size.

Microsoft Endpoint Manager

New Update for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (current branch)

Configuration Manager has officially released the update 1910 that formalizes that Configuration Manager is now part ofMicrosoft Endpoint Manager. The new version also introduces several changes aimed at enriching and improving different features of the solution.

To verify the details about what's new in this update you can see this document.

New release for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released in the Technical Preview Branch the update 1912 and one of the main innovations allows a device to upload its client logs to the site server. All this is possible by sending a client notification action from the Configuration Manager console.

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

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in November 2019

In November, accomplice also the Microsoft Ignite conference 2019, Microsoft has unveiled a number of new features regarding Azure management services and System Center. Our community, through these articles that are released on a monthly basis, want to provide an overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these arguments and have the necessary references for further information.

Azure Log Analytics

New version of the agent for Linux systems

This month, the new version of the Log Analytics agent for Linux systems introduces improvements regarding the installation process, performance and resolution of issues in the use of custom logs. For more information about this, you can access theGitHub official page.

Azure Site Recovery

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 42 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.

Improvements in resource clean-up

In Azure Site Recovery, the replication scenario of VMs between different Azure regions, the improvements were introduced regarding the clean up of the virtual machines and the related deallocated NIC (failed back), when the primary site is restored as a result of a failback process. In this way are easier the necessary operations to rehabilitate the protection. Furthermore, if you disable replication after a failback, Site Recovery also cleans up disks in the secondary region, as well as the VMs and their NIC.

Azure Backup

New features to protect SQL Server

In Azure backup the following new features regarding SQL Server protection was made available:

Native Protection of SQL Server 2019 on virtual machines Windows Server 2019 in Azure.
Protection of SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 for systems migrated to Azure.
Ability to make “Restore as Files”, that enables you to recover protected data as files .bak. This feature allows you to move files anywhere (different subscriptions, regions and on-premises) introducing more flexibility in performing restore operations.

SAP HANA backup

In Azure Backup, SAP HANA DB protection on virtual machines is available in the UK South region, all in an integrated way and without having to provide a specific backup infrastructure. This solution is officially certified BackInt from SAP.

System Center Updates Publisher

New version

A new version of System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) has been released and is available to this link.

Microsoft Endpoint Manager

New brand for Configuration Manager

Microsoft Endpoint Manager is the name assigned to the Microsoft solution for the integrated management of all devices. Microsoft has decided to unify Configuration Manager and Intune, without having to deal with complex migrations and simplifying licensing. With this approach, Microsoft helps you take advantage of your investments in Configuration Manager and take advantage of the benefits and capabilities of the Microsoft cloud.

The Microsoft Endpoint Manager brand includes the following Microsoft management solutions:

Configuration Manager
Intune
Desktop Analytics
Autopilot
All of the features in theDevice Management Admin Console

New version for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1911 (Technical Preview Branch) that among the main innovations officializes that Configuration Manager is now part of Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

To verify the details about what's new in this update you can see this document.

Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Desktop Analytics is now available

The Desktop Analytics solution is publicly available. It is a tool that can provide useful information and provide the automations necessary to keep the Windows machines up-to-date. The possible integration of Desktop Analytics with System Center Configuration Manager, adds the value given by the cloud solution to the local infrastructure.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in October 2019

In October were announced, by Microsoft, a considerable number of news regarding the Azure management services and System Center. Our community, through these articles that are released on a monthly basis, want to provide an overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these arguments and have the necessary references for further information.

Azure Log Analytics

Availability in new regions

Azure Log Analytics is now available in the new regions “Switzerland North”, to allow you to collect log and perform related trend analysis on the use of resources.

New option for the pricing model

For Azure Monitor Log Analytics is available from November 1 2019 a new pricing model, allowing you to pay a fixed fee for data ingestion, based on the capacity of the selected tier. The tier start at 100 GB per day and allow you to get a saving of up to 25%, compared to the Pay-As-You-Go cost.

New version of the agent for Linux systems

This month the new agent version of Log Analytics introduces enhancements for Linux systems in particular concerning the installation process and performance. For more information about this, you can access theGitHub official page.

Retention configurable by data type

Azure Monitor Log Analytics introduces the ability to configure data retention, that is, the retention period of the data, for each type of data, instead of having a single retention setting for the entire workspace. The configuration at the time must be made through ARM commands. This new possibility allows for greater flexibility and savings in retention costs from the collated data from October (release date of this functionality). For more details please visit the Microsoft's official documentation.

Changing the saving of data in Service Map in Log Analytics

Data for Service Map, until now saved in custom log tables ServiceMapComputer_CL and ServiceMapProcess_CL will be moved to specific Log Analytics data types. These new tables will be called VMComputer and VMProcess, Inl.

Azure Site Recovery

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 41 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.

Update for Windows servicing stack and SHA-2

For the Azure Site Recovery Mobility agent was issued a specific update required to enable Windows servicing stack and SHA-2 support.

Availability in new regions

Azure Site Recovery is now available in “Norway East” and “Norway West, North Dakota”. To check the availability of the service in all the Azure regions you can consult this document.

Azure Backup

Support for disks up to 32 TB

Support for large Managed disks has been announced for Azure Backup, up to 32 TB. For further information you can consultthis article.

System Center Configuration Manager

New releases for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1910 that one of the main innovations is the ability to deploy and manage Microsoft Edge. With this integration, you can also easily manage the deployment of new versions of Microsoft Edge from the beta channel (updated every 6 weeks) and the Dev channel (updated weekly).

To check the details of what's included in these updates, you can see this document.

Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

To test and evaluate free of charge the service offered by Azure you can access this page, while to try out the various components of System Center you must Access to theEvaluation Center and, after registering, you can start the trial period.

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in August 2019

Microsoft constantly releases news regarding the Azure management services and System Center. Our community publishes this monthly summary to provide an overview of the top news released in the last month. This allows you to stay up-to-date on these topics and have the necessary references to conduct further investigations.

Azure Site Recovery

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 39 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.

Availability in new regions

Azure Site Recovery is now available in these new regions: West India, UAE Central, UAE North, South Africa North, and South Africa West.

Disaster recovery of Azure Disk Encryption-enabled virtual machines

Azure Site Recovery introduced support for virtual machines with disks that use Azure Disk Encryption without using Azure Active Directory app. This feature is currently only supported for Windows virtual machines that use managed disks. Soon will be introduced the support for Linux virtual machines, using managed disks.

Monitor in Log Analytics

The ability to send diagnostic logs to a Log Analytics workspace has been introduced to the Site Recovery vault. These logs are generated in addition to virtual machines in Azure, also from VMware virtual machines and physical systems protected by Azure Site Recovery.

Azure Backup

Availability in new regions

Azure Backup can now also be used in these new regions: West India, UAE Central, UAE North, South Africa North, and South Africa West.

Support for disks up to 30 TB

For Azure Backup has been announced support, currently in limited public preview, for large Managed disks, up to 30TB. For further information you can consult this article.

Soft Delete for protected virtual machines

In order to increase the protection of the backups made by Azure Backup, was introduced the soft delete for IaaS virtual machines. This allows you to have a higher level of protection from accidental or malicious deletions of IaaS VMs backups.

System Center Configuration Manager

New releases for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1908 that among the main innovations there is the ability to activate the’High Performance Power Plan during the execution of the task sequence, for performance benefits.

Furthermore, it was released the update 1908.02 that includes the integration with Teams messaging in the Configuration Manager console.

To check the details of what's included in these updates, you can see this document for update 1908 and this document for update 1908.02.

Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in July 2019

Microsoft announces constantly news about Azure management services and System Center. As usual our community releases this monthly summary that provides 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 Log Analytics

Availability in new regions
Azure Log Analytics is now also possible to activate it in these new regions: South Africa North, Brazil South, UK West and North Central US.

New search capabilities in Azure Monitor Log

Azure Log Monitor has introduced the ability to check the logs directly on specific Azure resources, thereby allowing you the ability to filter it more easily on the resource. The logs are also aggregated from all workspaces that contain logs associated with that specific resource.

What's new in the interface

In July there have been several innovations in the interface of Log Analytics, described in detail in this article.

Azure Automation

Azure Update Management: non-targeted in Azure

In Azure Update Management it was introduced the feature that allows dynamic targeting, with systems not in Azure environment, for deployments of patches. The machines not in the Azure environment can be dynamically added to the patch distributions based on the criteria specified in a saved search in Log Analytics.

Azure Site Recovery

Added support for disks of size up to 8 TB

In Azure Site Recovery you can now protect data disks of size up to 8 TB. This functionality is available for all virtual machines with Azure managed disks and also for all the on-premises machines that are replicated on managed disks.

System Center Configuration Manager

New release for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1907 that among the main innovations provides the ability to search in the Task Sequence Editor, useful when you have a particularly complex Task Sequence.

To verify the details about what's new in this update you can see this document.

Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Desktop Analytics available in Public Preview

The solution Desktop Analytics is available in public preview. It is a tool that can provide useful information and provide the automation necessary to keep update your Windows machines. The possible integration of Desktop Analytics with System Center Configuration Manager, adds the value given by the cloud solution to the local infrastructure.

Released version 1906 for the Current Branch

There are many new features in this release designed to enrich and improve different features of the solution. The main innovation is the integration with Desktop Analytics. To get the complete list of new features introduced with this build, you can consultthis official document. The transition to version 1906 can be done by following theinstallation checklist, at the end of which it is appropriate to continue with theChecklist post-update.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in June 2019

In June have been announced, by Microsoft, a considerable number of news regarding the Azure management services and System Center. From our community, through these articles released monthly, aims to provide a general overview of the main new features of the month, in order to stay up to date on these issues and have the necessary references for further information.

Azure Log Analytics

Azure VMBoundPort Monitor

In Azure Monitor was announced the availability, in all the regions supported by Log Analytics, to consult theVMBoundPort data set. VMBoundPort contains information about all ports that accept incoming traffic and that can potentially accept it. This is a very useful feature, to analyze what ports are open and which are active, to carry out analysis of security or for troubleshooting.

New region supported for Azure Monitor for VMs

Azure Monitor for VMs, the service that allows you to analyze the performance and health of both Windows and Linux VMs, by monitoring their processes and ralative dependencies with other resources, is now also available in the region of West US 2. They become so seven Azure regions that currently support Azure Monitor for VMs.

Availability in new regions
Azure Log Analytics is now also possible to activate it in these new regions: South Africa North, Brazil South, UK West and North Central US.

Advanced Data Security available for SQL Server VMs in Azure

Advanced data security is available in preview for SQL Server on Azure VMs. This feature allows you to protect your SQL Server installations made on board of Azure virtual machines. This service currently includes the capabilities necessary to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities on databases and detects unusual activity that may indicate the presence of a security threat on the server.

Updates to the User Interface in Azure Monitor Log Analytics

During the month, some elements of the Azure Monitor Log Analytics underwent a change, For more details you can refer this document.

New version of the agent for Linux systems

This month the new agent version of Log Analytics for Linux systems introduces improvements relating in particular to the installation process and performance. To get more information about it you can access the GitHub official page.

Azure Site Recovery

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was releasedUpdate Rollup 37 solving different problems and introduces some improvements. The details and the procedure to be followed for the installation can be found in the specific KB 4508614.

Data replication of new disk added

Azure Site Recovery introduced the ability to enable replication of data disks, only if managed type, that are added to a Azure VM, that has already enabled the ability to make disaster recovery.

New support limits for the Mobility service for DR scenarios of VMware VMs and physical servers

Azure Site Recovery is now able to support up to five GPT partitions on UEFI, when you use the Mobility service for disaster recovery scenarios of VMware VMs and physical servers.

Using an existing automation account for automatic updates of Mobility service

When you set up automatic updates of the Azure Site Recovery Mobility service extension running on Azure VMs enabled for disaster recovery scenarios, introduced the ability to select an existing automation account to use, instead of using the default created by Site Recovery.

Azure Backup

Support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on VMs in Azure

The 9 July 2019 officially ends support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 and thanks to the Microsoft approach, which guarantees other 3 years of security updates if migrated to Azure environment, many customers are proceeding with its migration. In the event you choose to move the SQL Server on-premises, in a VM in Azure environment, is appropriate to manage the backup and for this reason, Microsoft has decided to introduce in Azure Backup the support (at the time public preview) of SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 from Windows 2008 R2 SP1.

System Center Configuration Manager

New release for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1906 that among the main innovations provides the ability to specify a user category as a filter in the applications that are on the Software Center page.

To verify the details about what's new in this update you can see this document.

Please note that the releases in Technical Preview Branch help you to evaluate the new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

System Center Updates Publisher

Announced the availability of System Center Updates Publisher preview (SCUP) June 2019.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in May 2019

To stay up to date on news about Azure management services and System Center, our community releases this monthly summary, allowing you to have an overview of the main new features of the month. In this article you will find the news, presented in a synthetic way and accompanied with the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies.

Azure Log Analytics

New version Agent for Linux systems

This month the new agent version of Log Analytics for Linux systems introduces improvements concerning the stability and reliability. For more information about this, you can access the GitHub official page.

Availability in new regions

The availability of Azure Log Analytics has been extended for another five new regions: Central US, East US 2, East Asia, West US and South Central US.

Azure Site Recovery

Improvements in the monitor of VMware and physical systems

In the replication scenario of VMware systems and physical machines , the role Process Server acts as replication gateway, then receives replication data, performs an optimization through caching and compression mechanisms, provides encryption and sends them to the storage in the Azure environment. This role is also responsible to make the discovery of virtual machines on VMware systems. There are several factors that may impact on the smooth functioning of this component: high data change rate (churn), network connectivity, bandwidth availability, undersizing of the computing capacity required. In ASR were added different States of health that facilitate troubleshooting for this component. For each alert is also proposed corrective action deemed necessary, in order to better manage this role, essential for the proper functioning of the replication process.

Azure Backup

Network Security Group service tags for Azure Backup

Microsoft announced the ability to use within the Network Security Groups (NSGs) the service tag for Azure Backup. Using the tag AzureBackup it is possible to allow in the NSG outbound access to the Azure Backup service, so you can protect your workloads (SQL Server) on board of the virtual machines, instead of having to manage a whithelist that contains the IP addresses of the service. This is useful, in addition in the presence of the SQL Server workloads to be protected, also to make VM backup via MARS agent.

System Center Configuration Manager

New release for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1905 that among the main innovations provides the ability to create application groups to be sent to collection of users or devices into a single deployment. The applications in the group can be installed with a specific order and the group will be displayed in Software Center as a single entity (suite of products).

To verify the details about what's new in this update you can see this document.

Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

To test and evaluate free of charge the services offered 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.