Content by john savill (18)

John Savill walks through recent identity and authentication changes for Azure Files, focusing on Microsoft Entra ID–integrated authentication scenarios including managed identity access, cloud-only identity access, and macOS Platform SSO (PSSO) access.

John Savill gives an overview of Azure HorizonDB, explaining how it relates to PostgreSQL and walking through its cloud-native architecture, core components, and key capabilities like standby replicas and other platform features, plus a high-level look at pricing and where to find the official docs.

John Savill gives a very quick introduction to HorizonDB, framing it in the context of Azure and PostgreSQL as a cloud database option.

John Savill rounds up a week of Azure platform changes and retirements, spanning compute/storage updates, database and identity improvements, monitoring changes, and several developer-facing AI items including GitHub Copilot Agent Mode in SSMS and Azure AI Foundry agent licensing and model availability.

John Savill gives a fast-paced rundown of key announcements from Microsoft Build 2026, highlighting notable platform updates across Azure, AI, and identity/security topics such as Entra and passkeys.

John Savill explains how Microsoft Entra ID’s passkey registration campaign works, why passkeys are useful, and how the campaign “nudges” users to register. He also covers the policy prerequisites and the key behaviors that determine when users see registration prompts.

John Savill runs through a Build-special weekly Azure update, covering a wide set of platform announcements across compute, containers, integration, monitoring, databases, Fabric/Databricks, and Azure AI Foundry—plus security-focused items like confidential computing and Purview agent integrations.

John Savill explains Azure’s new native File Shares resource, contrasting it with the classic Azure Files share experience and walking through limits, scaling considerations, pricing, and when you should choose one approach over the other.

John Savill recaps the major Microsoft AI updates from May 2026, covering new model availability in Azure AI Foundry, platform features like evaluation and networking, and notable changes across Copilot Studio and GitHub Copilot.

John Savill shares a quick weekly Azure update covering what’s new across the Azure platform, aimed at keeping practitioners current on recent changes and announcements.

John Savill explains what “AI skills” are, why they matter for working with AI assistants, and how to use them effectively through progressive disclosure, sequencing, and practical examples, including where skills can be used in environments like GitHub Copilot.

John Savill runs through the weekly Azure update for 22nd May 2026, covering a wide set of platform changes across AKS, Functions, App Service, networking, storage, Event Grid, databases, and Azure AI Foundry, including retirements, new limits, and feature updates developers and operators should track.

John Savill runs through the key concepts and Microsoft services covered by the AI-901 Azure AI Fundamentals exam, including responsible AI, Azure AI Foundry, models, agents, embeddings, and the main Azure AI service areas (language, speech, vision, and document extraction), plus core authentication options with keys and Entra ID.

John Savill runs through the 15 May 2026 Azure update, covering a set of new and updated services across networking, storage, messaging, monitoring, and Azure AI Foundry.

John Savill explains why enterprises need a data virtualization layer and how to build one using Microsoft Fabric OneLake, including a single namespace approach, shortcuts, mirroring, governance, and semantic models to make data easier to use for analytics and AI.

John Savill runs through the Azure updates for 8th May 2026, covering changes across compute, storage, Kubernetes, databases, and Azure AI services, including retirements and new capabilities that may affect existing deployments.

John Savill breaks down practical ways to change an AI model’s behavior, from prompt and context techniques through to retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and fine-tuning approaches like LoRA.

John Savill runs through the 1st May 2026 Azure update, covering new and preview features across AKS networking and troubleshooting, Azure Front Door WAF protections, Elastic SAN improvements, PostgreSQL read replica scaling, and major AI platform changes like Microsoft Agent Framework GA and Prompt flow retirement.