Browse All Azure Content (639)

Shamir AbdulAziz lays out a practical operating model for “Zero Ops” using Azure SRE Agent: agents handle investigation and remediation work, while humans focus on intent, governance, and outcome review. The post breaks down how to scope agents, connect context, build repeatable artifacts, and safely graduate from human-in-the-loop to autonomy.

John Savill runs through the 7th August 2026 Azure update, covering changes across compute, networking, security, storage, SQL, and Databricks—highlighting VM defaults and retirements, new routing and proxy capabilities, Private Link over IPv6, and several Databricks and Azure SQL enhancements.

sbaynes outlines an Azure-native reference architecture for deploying Fireworks AI open-model inference on Azure AI Foundry, with guidance on moving from prototype to production while tracking latency, token usage, and cost. The post highlights optional platform components for caching, rate limiting, secrets management, and observability.

Mason Torres announces the general availability of Windows Server 2016 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) enabled by Azure Arc, explaining how to onboard servers, enroll in ESUs through the Azure portal or Azure Policy, and use Azure services like Update Manager and guest configuration to manage patching and compliance.

Strahinja Rodic explains the Azure SQL Managed Instance free offer and demonstrates how to create a free instance in the Azure portal, connect to it, restore a database, monitor the included credits, and upgrade to a paid tier when the offer expires.

Mike Hulme explains why Microsoft was named a Leader in Gartner’s 2026 Magic Quadrant for AI-augmented code modernization tools, and outlines how GitHub Copilot modernization and Azure are positioned to assess, upgrade, and migrate legacy applications with agentic workflows while keeping developers in control.

Jatin Garg explains how to choose between Microsoft Foundry and PyRIT for AI red teaming, framing the decision around whether you’re testing a model in a managed Foundry/Azure OpenAI surface or attacking a full RAG/agent application with custom endpoints and orchestration.

Dona Mukherjee announces a public preview of Confidential Virtual Machines on Azure Local, explaining how hardware-backed memory encryption and attestation can protect data-in-use on customer-managed edge infrastructure, including how Azure Attestation and Azure Key Vault enable secure key release for sensitive workloads.

EldertGrootenboer explains why some .NET Framework WCF Relay listeners start failing against Azure Relay after TLS 1.0/1.1 retirement, and outlines practical fixes ranging from app config changes to code updates and machine-wide registry settings.

amitmishra introduces the public preview of Azure Private Link over IPv6 and provides a practical setup guide for reaching Azure PaaS services via IPv6 private endpoints, including native Azure and on-premises connectivity over ExpressRoute, plus DNS and validation steps.

Ran Rosin summarizes why KuppingerCole named Microsoft a Leader in its 2026 CNAPP Leadership Compass, and what that says about where cloud security is heading: unified risk management across cloud infrastructure, identities, data, applications, and AI, with runtime-driven prioritization and SOC integration.

robece-msft explains how to choose between Business Events, Fabric Events, and Azure Events in Microsoft Fabric, focusing on how each “event pillar” fits different event-driven architecture needs and enterprise implementation patterns across the Fabric platform.

Dan Hellem announces the general availability of the Azure DevOps Remote MCP Server, explaining how AI assistants can securely connect to Azure DevOps via a hosted endpoint. The post covers the minimal mcp.json setup, Entra ID authentication requirements, current client support, and when to use the local MCP server instead.

Lee Stott introduces Microsoft’s end-to-end agent platform (now GA) using the FibreOps reference implementation: build agents with the Microsoft Agent Framework and GitHub Copilot SDK, run them as hosted agents in Microsoft Foundry Agent Service, and distribute them to Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, with evaluation, routines, memory, and observability.

WSilveira explains how the Logic Apps Standard extension for VS Code can use Managed Identity for connectors during local development, so the same connection setup works both on your machine and after deployment. The post covers required versions, the WORKFLOWS_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD setting, and connector-specific behavior and limitations.

Anshu Verma announces the general availability of Azure Virtual Network routing appliance and explains where it fits in large-scale Azure network designs, including hub-and-spoke growth, private connectivity patterns, IPv6/dual-stack adoption, and multi-region connectivity with Azure-native operations and monitoring.

MattH_OneLake announces preview mirroring features in Microsoft Fabric that let teams surface Azure Monitor (Log Analytics) tables and AWS Glue-cataloged Apache Iceberg tables in OneLake using a zero-copy, metadata-based approach for cross-domain and cross-cloud analytics.

John Savill recaps major Microsoft AI updates from July 2026, including new and updated models, Azure AI Foundry changes, and GitHub Copilot feature additions such as new “harness” options, @-mentioning app agents, and browser tools for Copilot in VS Code.

kinfey explains how Kars (Agent Reference Stack for Kubernetes) runs long-lived, tool-using AI agents with a tight blast radius by making the pod the trust boundary, brokering identity and egress through an in-pod router, and enforcing content safety, token budgets, and tamper-evident auditing on AKS.

larohra explains how Azure Functions Agents now includes built-in OpenTelemetry tracing, so each agent run automatically appears as a structured trace in Application Insights. The post shows how to enable export with a single runtime extra and an App Setting, then uses Foundry Model Router as an example of making model selection visible.

Ricardo M. Martins describes a reference Azure-based operations assistant that uses RAG over runbooks and gates any write action (like incident creation) behind explicit user confirmation, with practical notes on Azure AI Search ingestion pitfalls, identity boundaries, managed identity, and idempotency.

nzagorac-ms announces a preview feature for SQL database in Microsoft Fabric that streams row-level changes (inserts, updates, deletes) into Fabric Eventstream or Azure Event Hubs, enabling near-real-time pipelines that connect operational data to analytics workflows inside Fabric.

jordanselig announces the public preview of Markdown for Agents in Azure App Service, a feature that converts HTML responses into Markdown to reduce noise and token usage for agent and LLM scenarios, with steps to enable it via REST, ARM/Bicep, or Azure CLI and to request Markdown using an HTTP header.

aimeelittleton explains a recommended Azure outbound networking design that pairs Azure Firewall with StandardV2 NAT Gateway to get centralized inspection plus scalable, zone-resilient SNAT with predictable egress IPs, and shows what’s changed in the Azure portal create flow to set this up faster.

farhakareem announces the beta of Azure Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), aimed at reducing environment drift by letting developers use the same Microsoft-supported Linux base locally that’s used across Azure infrastructure, AKS, and container workloads.

John Savill explains Azure Standard Service Endpoints, focusing on how Network Identifiers (NIDs) simplify and scale VNet-to-PaaS access, and how they work alongside Network Security Perimeter controls for securing inbound access to supported Azure services.

John Savill gives a quick overview of Azure’s new Standard service endpoints, focusing on what they are and why they matter for networking scenarios that connect VNets/subnets to Azure platform services.

This week in Azure, the focus shifted from AI prototypes to production agentic apps, with GPT-5.6 now GA in Microsoft Foundry, stronger Agent Service hosting and observability, and practical IDE support in the Foundry Toolkit for VS Code. FinOps and governance got more actionable too, as MCP toolsets exposed cost and pricing data to agents, and APIM patterns tightened real-time enforcement for BYOK and token controls. On the platform side, Azure API Management introduced an AI Gateway tier in preview, Azure Monitor logs moved closer to Fabric and OneLake via zero-copy style previews, and Terraform AzureRM provider 5.0 GA landed with upgrade-impacting changes. The thread running through everything is clearer operational controls (identity, telemetry, policy, and budgets) that help teams ship AI and cloud workloads with fewer surprises.

Pamela Fox shares the materials from the “Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python” livestream series, showing how to ground AI apps and agents using Web IQ, Work IQ, Fabric IQ, and Foundry IQ via MCP endpoints, plus code samples, slides, and write-ups for building and deploying Python agents.

shashankamalladi outlines updated scale limits for Azure Network Security Perimeter, including new hard limits for perimeters, profiles, rule elements, and associated PaaS resources, plus what changes apply to existing configurations through the 10/31/26 transition window.

nelsontam introduces Microsoft’s MARS (Map Autoregressive) model on Microsoft Foundry and explains how it converts satellite imagery into GIS-ready vector map data. The post outlines an end-to-end workflow with Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro, including STAC/COG ingestion requirements and practical deployment settings for running geospatial feature extraction at scale.

John Savill rounds up a week of Azure platform updates, spanning AKS, networking, API Management, monitoring, data services, and regional expansion, plus a few notable AI model availability items and security-related changes like Azure Enclave and Key Vault symmetric keys.

TomClaes explains how to govern Azure Log Analytics retention across many workspaces by keeping workspace defaults low, setting per-table interactive retention, and using long-term retention only where needed. The post includes an Azure Policy-based, DeployIfNotExists solution with auditing, drift detection, and automated remediation.

junjieli summarizes the July 2026 releases (1.6.3–1.6.6) of the Foundry Toolkit for VS Code, focusing on a flatter, tabbed workspace, inline tool wiring, deeper agent debugging via event-level inspection, and a new Agent Optimization preview that supports measured compare-and-deploy tuning for hosted agents.

Zoran Jovanovic breaks down the main regional distribution patterns for Azure workloads—single region, failover, parallel (active-active), segmented, and portable—framing each as a deliberate reliability and risk decision with clear trade-offs around cost, complexity, RTO/RPO, and service capabilities.

Kristen Womack’s July 2026 roundup for Azure Developer CLI (azd) summarizes releases 1.27.0 through 1.29.0, including new extension install options, a full tool uninstall workflow, Azure AI Foundry resource modeling in azure.yaml, container deployments to Azure App Service, and CI-friendly non-interactive behavior plus a breaking flag rename.

arindamc explains how Workspace Outbound Access Protection (OAP) in Microsoft Fabric controls outbound connectivity for Eventstream, so streaming pipelines can only read from approved sources and write to approved destinations (including cross-workspace routes) using data connection rules.

Abhishek Tiwari explains how Azure Front Door edge actions adds customer-defined logic in the request path while keeping hyperscale performance predictable, enforcing strong tenant isolation with Hyperlight micro-VMs, and building resiliency through bounded latency, fast-fail behavior, and validated fallback mechanisms.

MattH_OneLake announces two Microsoft Fabric preview features that mirror Azure Monitor (Log Analytics) tables and AWS Glue Data Catalog-managed Apache Iceberg tables into OneLake. The post explains the zero-copy, metadata-based approach and outlines how to set up each mirroring source for analysis across Fabric workloads.

Alym Rayani rounds up July 2026 updates across Microsoft Security, focusing on securing AI and agent environments. The post highlights Project Perception’s agentic SecOps approach, new Microsoft Defender protections (including prompt-injection defenses and cloud agent runtime coverage), Entra identity updates like passkeys-by-default, and Purview controls for data protection and investigations.