Azure This Week

Microsoft Build 2022 highlights

Episode description

David Tucker joins us again for Azure news this week. It’s all about Microsoft Build 2022, as David dives into all the Azure updates across four categories: containers, DevOps, AI and ML, and data! Azure Service Bus Explorer gets a welcome update, and we get Azure SQL ledger – a blockchain-like verified ledger, without the complexity of setting up a blockchain environment. All this, and so much more in Azure This Week! Oh, and try our free storage course: https://bit.ly/3NLnNA7

1:05 Containers
1:30 Azure Kubernetes Service sees significant updates
https://bityl.co/CU5C
2:04 Azure Container Apps is now GA
https://bityl.co/CU5B
2:40 DevOps and developer tools
2:46 Azure Service Bus Explorer
https://bityl.co/CU5N
3:11 GraphQL Passthrough Support is GA
https://bityl.co/CU5N
3:33 App Service gRPC Support
https://bityl.co/CU5P
3:53 Microsoft Dev Box
https://bityl.co/CU5Q
4:32 AI and ML
4:41 Azure OpenAI in Preview
https://bityl.co/CU5U
5:14 Azure ML Responsible AI Dashboard
https://bityl.co/CU5V
5:50 Data
5:55 CosmosDB’s new capabilities
https://bityl.co/CU5Z
6:26 Azure SQL new capabilities
https://bityl.co/CU5Z
6:55 SQL Server 2022 Public Preview
https://bityl.co/CU5b

Free course:
Introduction to Networking on Azure https://bit.ly/3F0nPiH

Join the discussion in Discord: https://bit.ly/3jZSjct

Series description

Azure This Week is your weekly news roundup for all things Azure. Join our expert hosts as they cover everything you need to know about the past week’s developments, keeping it short, fun and informative. Whether you’re just beginning your cloud journey, or you know your stuff, there’s something for everyone!

How can I possibly share all of the  Azure awesomeness from Microsoft Build   in a single episode? How can I share this  news without breaking into tears of joy?   I must do it. I must do it for the viewers. I  can do this. I'm David Tucker for A Cloud Guru,   and this is the post-Microsoft Build edition of  Azure This Week. Now, while we could easily spend   an hour talking about Build, I'm gonna give  you a lightning round of the announcements I   am most excited about coming out of  this event. There will be new services,   services becoming generally available,  and yes, maybe even a few tears of joy.   I'm going to attempt to pack in more announcements  per second than you've ever seen before, across   four key areas: containers, DevOps and developer  tools, AI and ML and data. Let's get to the news.

Oh, and if you want to know about all of  the amazing Azure news – not just from   Build but throughout the entire  year, hit that subscribe button. It's not a surprise that containers were a key  part of the announcements for Build. In the last   episode of Azure this week, Erik covered the  release of Draft 2, but the AKS announcements   don't end there. Microsoft had a whole host  of announcements all centered on enabling   more developers to deploy their applications into  Kubernetes, without having to deal with as much   boilerplate configuration. Now, as a part of this,  they launched the web application routing add-on,   which makes it easier to deal with all of the  configuration around DNS, and certificates,   and ingress settings. And they also launched  the KEDA, or Kubernetes-based event-driven  

autoscaling) add-on for AKS. Developers can  now configure scaling rules via KEDA in a way   that is fully supported by the service. There  were also a ton of announcements around Azure   Arc support for AKS, for organizations  leveraging a hybrid cloud strategy. Now, if you think that's enough container  announcements for a week, you'd be wrong. We also   saw Azure Container Apps transition from preview  to being generally available. Now this service,  

which I covered on a recent episode of Cloud  Builder Live, gives developers an even easier   pathway to getting their containers into the  cloud. This service, which actually runs on   Kubernetes, provides an opinionated configuration,  which takes away most of the boilerplate   configuration while still supporting open-source  Kubernetes tools like KEDA, Dapr, and Envoy. Now,   since it's now GA, you can start planning for  it to be a part of your production workloads. Honestly, everyone, this is  where I may cry a tear of joy.   Microsoft announced an updated Service Bus  Explorer for the portal, which brings all actions,   including sending and receiving messages into your  grasp without having to install any third-party   applications. Now, this is the kind of update I  love as it truly makes a developer's life just a  

bit easier by putting everything in one place. It  brings me joy. Give me a minute to compose myself.   Okay. We also saw significant updates to both  API Management and App Service. The GraphQL   passthrough support for API Management has  graduated to being generally available.   Another big announcement is the support of  resolvers to create synthetic GraphQL services.   This exciting new feature is available in  preview. App Service adds a lot as well.  

One of the highlights was support for gRPC  when leveraging Linux on Azure App Service.   This is currently supported in .NET, but  support for Node and Python are expected   in the near future. Now we also have updated  networking support and new Landing Zones   to help organizations deploy production App  Service apps. Now next we're starting to see   more and more of the development experience  move directly into the cloud. While we have  

seen a first phase with GitHub Codespaces, we  now have the next generation with Azure Dev Box. With this new service in preview organizations can  configure a complete development environment that   can be spun up in a matter of minutes, instead  of days of configuration. Unlike Codespaces,   Dev Box runs on Windows and can be configured for  any tool that can run on Windows. In addition,   organizations can efficiently manage  access using Azure AD. Now you can sign   up from the link in the description  to request access to this preview.

Next, we have AI and ML, and it wouldn't be a  stretch to say there was a huge emphasis placed   here during Build. One key announcement  was the expansion of the OpenAI service,   which has been in preview since it's launched  back in November. This service was launched as   a partnership between Microsoft and the OpenAI  organization, with the goal of bringing OpenAI   services, such as the popular and mind-blowing  GPT-3 model to any Azure developer. With the   announcement at Build, organizations can  now apply to be included in the preview. Also, the service now supports increased use  cases with additional managed models from OpenAI.  

Now, another challenge that Microsoft  sought to address was helping organizations   innovate responsibly in AI. And this was  made possible through the new Azure ML   Responsible AI Dashboard, which  is currently available in preview.   This one dashboard pulls in metrics for both model  debugging and business decision making to ensure   organizations are acting on the right data. Now  not all frameworks are supported for all metrics.   So check out the documentation to see what  is supported with this preview release.   Now we've made it through three of the four  categories, we're in the home stretch now.

Finally, we have data and we have a lot to get to.   First up in this category we have  CosmosDB and, and don't worry,   no bad news this time, just the good news with  new capabilities available in public preview. Now this includes burst capacity, which  enables your workloads to still function,   even if you've temporarily exceeded  your throughput. The serverless   container capacity has also increased, up  to 1TB, and there also are major upgrades   on how to deal with partitions that  include hierarchical partition,   keys, and partition merge. Get all the  details from the link in the description. Also Azure SQL is making it easier for you  to build cloud applications on your own   machine. How? Well they now have released  a local developer experience for Azure SQL  

with a containerized runtime  alongside a VS Code extension.   This update alone would be newsworthy, but  they have also announced the availability of   Azure SQL ledger, which provides a blockchain-like  verified ledger, but without the complexity of   setting up a blockchain environment. Now, we  also cannot forget that, for the first time,   many of us can get our hands on the public preview  of SQL Server 2022. And this release continues to   blur the lines between SQL Server and Azure  with integrations we simply have not seen in   previous versions. So check out the link in the  description to see how you can grab it today. Well, I think that is all they'll let me cram into  a single episode, and remember I did it for you,   the viewers! Don’t forget that the cloud  never slows down, so you can come back next   week for even more Azure announcements here on  Azure this Week. Be sure to let us know if you  

have any comments below, and if you’ve enjoyed  this, hit the like and share it with others.

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