Microsoft Cloud Updates (week of 02nd March 2020)

#IaaS

Azure Site Recovery mobility service automated deployment using JetPatch.

Automate the Azure Site Recovery mobility service deployment using JetPatch for on-premises VMware virtual machines and physical servers.

Automatic instance repairs for Azure virtual machine scale sets now in preview

Azure virtual machine scale sets now provide the capability to automatically repair unhealthy instances based on application health status. Configure the scale set instances to emit application health by using either the application health extension or Azure load balancer health probes.

NDv2-Series VMs are now Generally Available

NDv2 GPU VMs for high-end deep learning training and HPC workloads are now generally available in East US, South Central US, and West Europe

NVv4-Series VMs are now Generally Available

NVv4 VMs are now generally available in US South Central and Europe West regions.

Backup Reports is now in preview

Azure Backup has released a new and improved reporting solution. With Backup Reports, you can now gain rich insights on your backups by aggregating data over a long period of time

Active Directory for authentication on SMB access to Azure File in preview

Azure Files Active Directory authentication is now in preview. Mount your Azure Files using Azure AD credentials with the exact same access control experience as on-premises.

Virtual machine scale sets now simpler to manage

Three new capabilities that simplify the overall management of virtual machine scale sets in Azure are now available.

PowerShell 7.0 is now generally available

PowerShell 7.0, the next major release of PowerShell, is now available. This latest release makes PowerShell a truly cross-platform automation tool and configuration framework

#DataAnalytics

Updates to Azure HDInsight

Microsoft now fully supports distributions of Apache analytics projects in-house. Also, we will soon launch the next generation of HDInsight with improved provisioning and management experience, reserved instance pricing, low-priority virtual machines (VMs) and auto-scale.

Data Factory adds Flatten transformation, single-row lookups and updated UI for container activities

Azure Data Factory added several new features to mapping data flows and pipeline activities this week: Flatten transformation, Lookup transformation, container UI.

#IoT

Azure IoT Python SDK v2—New improvements are now available

Azure IoT Python SDK v2 has just been released with major new improvements.

New features in Azure Cosmos DB Jupyter notebooks are now in preview

Azure Cosmos DB has several new features available in the preview of built-in Jupyter notebooks, making it easier for developers and data scientists to analyse and visualise their Azure Cosmos DB data.

#Data

New features in Azure Cosmos DB Jupyter notebooks are now in preview

Azure Database for MariaDB—Planned maintenance notifications now in preview

The planned maintenance notifications feature of Azure Database for MariaDB is now in preview. Use this feature to receive alerts for upcoming planned maintenance to your Azure Database for MariaDB.

Azure Database for MySQL—Planned maintenance notification now in preview

The planned maintenance notifications feature of Azure Database for MySQL is now in preview. Use this feature to receive alerts for upcoming planned maintenance to your Azure Database for MySQL.

Azure Database for PostgreSQL—Planned maintenance notifications now in preview

The planned maintenance notifications feature of Azure Database for PostgreSQL—Single Server is now in preview. Use this feature to receive alerts about upcoming planned maintenance to your Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

#Dev

Azure DevTest Labs—Security alerts for lab environments

View Azure Security Center alerts for your Azure Resource Management environments deployed through the Azure DevTest Service.

#CloudSecurity

Active Directory for authentication on SMB access to Azure File in preview

Azure Files Active Directory (Azure AD) Authentication is now in preview. Use it to mount your Azure Files using Azure AD credentials with the exact same access control experience as on-premises.