Category: Azure – August 2023

Azure Container Apps: What's New - August 2023

Azure Container Apps: What’s New – August 2023

Azure Container Apps: What’s New and Why You Should Care

Azure Container Apps is a service that enables you to deploy and run containerized applications and microservices without managing the underlying infrastructure. It is a serverless hosting service that supports any container and any programming model. You can scale your apps in response to HTTP request events or run them as always-on background jobs.

This blog post will explore some of the latest features and enhancements announced for Azure Container Apps on August 30, 2023.

Workload Profiles Environment

Workload profiles are designed to optimize spend and performance for microservices by selecting either serverless Consumption compute or customized Dedicated compute. These determine the amount of compute and memory resources available to your apps in an Azure Container Apps environment.

You can have multiple workload profiles of varying sizes within the same Container Apps environment and select the optimal compute size for each of your applications’ resource requirements. This is ideal for developers when deploying a microservice solution.

A Consumption workload profile is available by default and provides serverless scale all the way to zero, and bills only for resources your apps use.

Dedicated workload profiles provide dedicated compute resources for your apps and are ideal for running apps requiring more compute and/or memory resources. You can select from a range of compute sizes and types up to 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory. Apps running in these dedicated workload profiles use the new Dedicated pricing plan which bills per compute instance and provides better cost predictability.

Azure Container Apps Dedicated Plan

Dedicated plan is a new option to run your apps on dedicated compute resources, select from a range of compute sizes, and types up to 32 vCPUs and 256 GiB of memory. You can choose from general-purpose or memory-optimized workload profiles depending on your apps’ needs.

The Dedicated plan offers several benefits, such as:

  • Better cost predictability as you are billed per compute instance rather than per app.
  • Higher performance and scalability as you can allocate more resources to your apps.
  • Greater flexibility as you can mix and match Consumption and Dedicated plans within the same Container Apps environment.

Additional Networking Features

Azure Container Apps also supports additional networking features that enable you to configure your apps’ connectivity and security. These include:

  • User defined routes (UDR) – Specify custom routes for outbound traffic from your apps.
  • Smaller subnet sizes – Use smaller subnets for your Container Apps environments, reducing IP address consumption.
  • Network address translation (NAT) gateway – Use a single public IP address for outbound traffic from your apps.

Azure Container Apps Jobs

Jobs are a new feature that allow you to run containerized jobs on demand, on a schedule, or in response to events. These are ideal for scenarios such as data processing, batch processing, or scheduled tasks.

There are certain characteristics that can be attributed to jobs:

  • Run until completion or until a specified timeout.
  • Configured with retries, concurrency limits, and dependencies.
  • Triggered by HTTP requests, events from Event Grid or Service Bus, or cron expressions.
  • Access secrets from Azure Key Vault or environment variables.
  • Use any container image from any registry.

Conclusion

Azure Container Apps is a powerful and flexible service that enables you to run your containerized applications and microservices without having to worry about the infrastructure. With the latest features and enhancements, you can optimize your costs, performance, and scalability and run jobs for various scenarios.

If you want to try out Azure Container Apps, you can get started with the following resources:

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Azure Virtual Machines: Updates for August 2023

Azure Virtual Machines: Updates for August 2023

Azure VM Updates in August 2023

Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) are undeniably one of the cornerstones of Azure, offering flexible and scalable compute resources for a multitude of workloads. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the latest updates and features for Azure VMs that were unveiled in August 2023.

Azure Advisor’s Availability Zone Recommendation

Azure Advisor now offers an Availability Zone recommendation feature to enhance VM resiliency. This capability assists you in migrating VMs to availability zones within an Azure region, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance for your applications. Azure Advisor takes a deep dive into your VMs, considering performance, cost, and compliance factors. Once the analysis is complete, you can effortlessly implement the recommendation with just a few clicks. Alternatively, Azure Resource Manager templates or PowerShell scripts can automate the process. The good news is that this feature is now generally available.

Cross Subscription Restore for Azure Virtual Machines

Another exciting feature that has become generally available is Cross Subscription Restore for Azure VMs. This capability lets you restore your VMs from a backup to a different subscription within the same Azure Active Directory tenant. It’s an incredibly useful tool, especially in disaster recovery, testing, or migration scenarios. Whether you prefer the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell, you have the flexibility to perform cross-subscription restore operations.

Retirement of ND-series and NC-series VMs

In a significant move, Azure will be retiring ND-series and NC-series VMs, powered by NVIDIA Tesla P40 and K80 GPUs, on August 31, 2023. These VMs are making way for newer GPU VMs that offer higher performance and support newer CUDA compute capability levels. If your operations rely on ND-series or NC-series VMs, planning your migration to these newer GPU VMs before the retirement date arrives is essential. To assist you in this transition, you can utilize Azure Migrate or other similar tools to assess your readiness for migration and facilitate the process.

Azure NetApp Files Cloud Backup for Virtual Machines

Introducing Azure NetApp Files Cloud Backup for Virtual Machines is a noteworthy development. This feature empowers you to back up and restore your Azure VMs leveraging Azure NetApp Files as their storage solution. Azure NetApp Files is a fully managed file storage service known for its high performance, scalability, and robust security for file-based workloads. Cloud Backup protects your data from accidental deletion, corruption, or even ransomware attacks. You can configure backup policies, set schedules, and define retention periods per your business needs. Moreover, you can restore your data to any point within the retention period. As of now, this feature is in the public preview stage.

In conclusion, these are just some of the highlights of the Azure VM updates that unfolded in August 2023. For a comprehensive look at these updates and more, please explore the Azure updates page or check out the Azure blog.

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Exploring the Exciting Azure SQL Updates Unveiled in August 2023

Azure SQL Updates for August 2023

Azure SQL Updates

Azure SQL offers secure SQL database engines for applications. This post highlights August 2023 updates.

External REST Endpoint Invocation

Now, let’s explore External REST Endpoint Invocation. Microsoft Build 2023 introduced it—a way to integrate Azure Services into Azure SQL Database effortlessly with just one line of code. This feature enriches data, handles complex calculations, and invokes machine learning models. For instance, you can analyze customer reviews by calling an Azure Function via an external REST endpoint.

XML Compression for Azure SQL

Next, focus on the second feature, available since August 2023. XML compression reduces storage needs for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance by compressing off-row XML data. Using ALTER INDEX, apply XML compression to existing XML indexes to reduce storage space by up to 75%.

Always Encrypted with Intel SGX Enclaves

Always Encrypted secures sensitive data within client applications. Extend it with secure enclaves, enabling computations on encrypted data within the database server’s protected memory region. You can perform operations like pattern matching and sorting on encrypted data without decryption.

In August 2023, Always Encrypted with Intel SGX enclaves entered public preview for Azure SQL Database on DC-series hardware with up to 40 vCores, offering better performance.

New JSON Type and JSON Aggregates

Without delay, explore Azure SQL’s latest JSON features. Since 2016, Azure SQL has supported JSON as a native data type. It lets you store and query JSON documents using standard SQL operators and functions. August 2023 introduced two new features: a lightweight JSON type and JSON aggregates.

Currently in public preview, the new JSON type outperforms NVARCHAR(MAX) by offering faster parsing, better storage efficiency, JSON Schema support, partial updates using JSON Patch, and change tracking with JSON Diff.

The JSON aggregates are a set of new aggregate functions that allow you to perform calculations on JSON values and return JSON results. These functions include:

  • JSON_ARRAYAGG: This returns a JSON array containing the aggregated values.
  • JSON_OBJECTAGG: It Returns a JSON object containing the aggregated key-value pairs.
  • JSON_QUOTE: Function returns a JSON string containing the quoted value.
  • JSON_MERGE: Returns a JSON value that results from merging two or more JSON values.

Conclusion

In summary, these updates and enhancements from August 2023 strengthen Azure SQL, helping you build more powerful, secure applications.

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August 31, 2023 Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Azure PostgreSQL Updates for August 2023

Azure PostgreSQL Updates for August 2023

Azure PostgreSQL Updates: Overview

If you are using Azure PostgreSQL, you might be interested in the latest updates and enhancements released in August 2023. It is a fully managed service that offers high availability, scalability, security, and performance for PostgreSQL applications.

Minor Version Updates

Azure PostgreSQL supports multiple minor versions of PostgreSQL, from 11 to 15. In August 2023, PostgreSQL released the latest minor version updates for all supported major versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements. You can find the detailed release notes for each minor version on the official PostgreSQL website.

The latest minor versions are:

  • 11.21
  • 12.16
  • 13.12
  • 14.9
  • 15.4

You can upgrade your PostgreSQL server to the latest minor version using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Upgrading to the latest minor version is recommended to ensure optimal performance and security for your PostgreSQL server.

Azure PostgreSQL: PgBouncer Support

PgBouncer is a lightweight connection pooler for PostgreSQL that reduces the overhead of opening and closing connections. It can improve the scalability and throughput of your PostgreSQL applications by reusing existing connections and balancing the load among them.

PostgreSQL now supports PgBouncer version 1.20 for all PostgreSQL versions in all supported regions. You can enable PgBouncer for your Azure PostgreSQL server using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Also, configure various PgBouncer settings, such as pool mode, max connections, idle timeout, and more.

PgBouncer provides metrics that you can monitor using Azure Monitor or other tools. You can view metrics such as active connections, waiting requests, server latency, etc. These metrics can help you troubleshoot issues and optimize your PgBouncer performance.

Conclusion

The Azure PostgreSQL is constantly adding new features and updates to provide the best experience for PostgreSQL users. In August 2023, it released minor version updates and PgBouncer support for all PostgreSQL versions. These features can help you enhance your PostgreSQL applications with high availability, scalability, security, and performance.

To learn more, visit the official documentation or sign up for a free trial today.

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Azure Help API: Empowering Users with Immediate Assistance

Azure Help API: Now Available for Users

Overview

Are you looking for a way to troubleshoot and resolve issues with your Azure resources without contacting support? If yes, then you will be happy to know that Azure has launched a new Help API feature that allows you to access self-help diagnostics from your applications or tools.

This blog post will give you an overview of Azure Help API, how it can help you, the prerequisites to use it, and how to get started.

What is Help API?

Help API is a RESTful web service that exposes a set of endpoints for retrieving diagnostic information and recommendations for your Azure resources. You can use Help API to programmatically access the same self-help content that is available in the Azure portal, such as problem descriptions, root causes, mitigation steps, and links to relevant documentation.

How Can Help API in Azure Help You?

Help API can help you in several ways, such as:

  • Reducing the time and effort required to troubleshoot and resolve issues with your Azure resources.
  • Automating the diagnosis and remediation of common problems using scripts or tools.
  • Integrating the self-help content with your own monitoring or management systems.
  • Enhancing the user experience and satisfaction by providing timely and relevant guidance.

What are the Prerequisites to Using Help API?

To use Help API, you need the following:

  • An Azure subscription and an active resource group.
  • A service principal or a managed identity with the appropriate permissions to access the resources you want to diagnose.
  • A client application or tool that sends HTTP requests and parses JSON responses.

How to get started with Help API?

To get started with Help API, you need to do the following:

  • Register the Help API provider in your subscription using the Azure CLI or PowerShell.
  • Obtain an access token for your service principal or managed identity using the Azure AD authentication library (ADAL) or MSAL.
  • Send a GET request to the Help API endpoint for the resource type and problem category you want to diagnose, passing the access token in the Authorization header.
  • Parse the JSON response and display or use the diagnostic information and recommendations.
  • For more details and examples, please refer to the Help API documentation.

Conclusion

Help API is a powerful feature that enables you to access self-help diagnostics for your Azure resources from your applications or tools. It can help you reduce the time and effort required to troubleshoot and resolve issues, automate the diagnosis and remediation of common problems, integrate self-help content with your systems, and enhance the user experience and satisfaction.

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August 25, 2023 Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Azure’s New Offering: Durable Functions to Extend Your Azure Capabilities

Durable Functions, an Extension of Azure Functions

Overview

Durable Functions, an extension of Azure Functions, enables you to write stateful functions in a serverless environment. In this blog post, we will explain how they can help you solve complex orchestration problems, highlighting the prerequisites for using them and guiding you through how to get started.

The Functions are like regular Azure Functions but with some added benefits. They can maintain state across multiple executions, handle lolong-runningnd asynchronous operations, and reliably coordinate multiple functions. They use the Durable Task Framework, which implements the Event Sourcing pattern to persist in the state of your functions.

How Durable Functions Help

Durable Functions can help you simplify the development of complex workflows that involve multiple functions and external services. For example, you can use the extension to implement scenarios such as fan-out/fan-in, human interaction, approval workflows, monitoring, and retry policies. The extension also provides built-in resiliency and scalability, ensuring they can handle failures and restarts without losing state or duplicating work.

Durable Functions: Pre-requisites

Before diving in, you must have an Azure subscription and an Azure Storage account to use it. You must also install the Azure Functions Core Tools and the Durable Functions extension on your development machine. Furthermore, you can use any language supported by Azure Functions, such as C#, JavaScript, Python, or Java.

Conclusion

This powerful extension of Azure Functions allows you to write stateful and orchestration functions in a serverless environment. You can use this extension to implement complex workflows that involve multiple functions and external services with built-in resiliency and scalability. To delve deeper into this topic, you can check out the official documentation and some tutorials on creating and deploying your first Durable Function app.

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August 25, 2023 Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Scaling Seamlessly: Adapting to Varied Workloads with Autoscale IOPS in Azure Database for MySQL

Azure Autoscale IOPS for MySQL: Effortless Scaling

Autoscale IOPS in Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server: A Closer Look

Overview

If you are using Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server, you may have noticed a new feature that was recently announced: Autoscale IOPS. This feature allows you to automatically adjust the IOPS (input/output operations per second) of your database server based on the workload demand. In this blog post, I will explain what Autoscale IOPS is, how it benefits you, and how to utilize it effectively.

What is Autoscale IOPS?

Autoscale IOPS is a feature that dynamically changes the IOPS of your database server according to the actual usage. By enabling Autoscale IOPS when you create or update a Flexible Server instance, you can specify the minimum and maximum IOPS values that you want to allow. The minimum IOPS value is the baseline performance level that you pay for, while the maximum IOPS value is the peak performance level that you can scale up to.

How does Autoscale IOPS benefit you?

Autoscale IOPS can significantly improve the responsiveness and cost efficiency of your database server in two ways:

  • Enhancing responsiveness during high demand: By increasing the IOPS to match the workload, Autoscale IOPS reduces latency and improves user experience during peak periods.
  • Cost savings during low demand: During periods of low demand, Autoscale IOPS decreases the IOPS to match the workload, saving you money by avoiding overprovisioning.

How to utilize Autoscale IOPS?

To utilize Autoscale IOPS effectively, ensure you have a Flexible Server instance with General Purpose or Memory Optimized storage type. You can enable Autoscale IOPS when creating a new instance or updating an existing one using the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell. Additionally, you can monitor the IOPS usage and scaling history of your instance through the Azure portal or Azure Monitor.

Conclusion

Autoscale IOPS is a powerful new feature in Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server, offering better performance and cost efficiency for your database server. By leveraging Autoscale IOPS, you enable Azure to automatically adjust the IOPS based on workload demands, within your specified range. This ensures improved server responsiveness during peak times and cost savings during off-peak periods. For more detailed information on Autoscale IOPS, refer to the official documentation.

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August 7, 2023 Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
Staying Ahead with Azure Load Testing: Embracing the Latest Innovations

Azure Load Testing: What’s New

Azure Load Testing: What’s New and How to Use It

Azure Load Testing: Overview

Utilize Azure Load Testing, a cloud-based service that empowers you to effortlessly produce and execute load tests for your web applications, APIs, and microservices. Moreover, it enables you to gauge your applications’ performance, scalability, and reliability under realistic user load scenarios.

In this blog post, we will explore some of the latest updates and features of Azure Load Testing. We’ll delve into how they can significantly benefit you and your applications.

JMeter Backend Listeners Support

One of the new features introduced is the seamless support for JMeter backend listeners. JMeter, an immensely popular open-source tool for load testing and performance measurement, allows you to configure backend listeners. These listeners export load test results to a data store of your preference, such as Azure Application Insights, Azure Monitor Logs, or Azure Storage.

This feature streamlines the process of collecting and analyzing load test metrics, enabling you to visualize them effortlessly in dashboards and reports. Additionally, you can utilize this data to set up custom thresholds and criteria for triggering alerts and notifications.

To utilize this feature, upload your JMeter test plan file (.jmx) to Azure Load Testing. Then, specify the backend listener configuration in the test settings. For added convenience, you can also leverage the Azure CLI to create and manage your tests and test runs, incorporating JMeter backend listeners.

Extended Test Duration and Scale

Another notable update is the expanded capability to run tests for longer durations and larger scales. Presently, you can execute tests for up to 24 hours, a valuable asset for testing the endurance and stability of your applications over an extended period. Moreover, you can run tests with up to 100,000 virtual users, utilizing up to 400 engine instances. It effectively evaluates your applications’ peak performance and capacity under heavy loads.

These remarkable features empower you to simulate more intricate and realistic user scenarios, facilitating the identification of performance bottlenecks, errors, or failures during test execution.

To employ these features, you must specify the desired test duration and the number of virtual users in the test settings. For streamlined management, the Azure CLI can be employed to create and oversee tests and test runs, encompassing extended duration and scale.

Azure Load Testing: Conclusion

Azure Load Testing emerges as a powerful and user-friendly service. It is designed to aid you in creating and executing load tests on your web applications, APIs, and microservices. With the recent introduction of new features and updates, the service has bolstered its capabilities and benefits significantly.

This blog post covered two of these notable features: JMeter backend listeners support and extended test duration and scale. By explaining their significance and providing guidance on their utilization, you are now better equipped to harness the full potential of Azure Load Testing.

So, go ahead and embark on your load testing journey with confidence! Happy load testing!

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August 7, 2023 Azure - August 2023, Azure - What's New No comments yet
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