Azure Updates From MS Build 2019

This is the final part in the four-part series bringing you up to date with all of the big announcements about Azure at MS Build 2019. We have covered a lot of information and there’s a lot to digest – hopefully, you will have learned something that will help you in your cloud endeavors!

For reference, here are the links to the previous parts of this article,

New networking features for App Service Linux are now in preview

There was a common request from customers asking for the virtual network integration capability for app services. Azure has listened to them this time. Virtual networking allows virtual machines to communicate with each other.

Now with this new feature Linux machines working on Standard and Premium v2 tiers can now be connected to a virtual network. This will enable Linux machines to communicate with other resources which are running on the same network. These resources are reachable via Express Route, or Site-to-Site VPN, and other platform services provided by Azure like a database.

Perpetual free tier offering for Linux-based applications on App Service

Now, Linux based web application can be easily explored on the cloud-based development environment.

Now, we can build, deploy and run node.js, Pythons, and PHP web applications at no cost with the App services for Linux based machines. These services are free and perpetual, the free service will not be ending soon. You can easily select a free tier by selecting SKU, which can be fixed for a lifetime. You need to study the tier available and opt for a suitable one while creating the new web application.

Setting up SKU for new web application

Improved distributed tracing of serverless applications built with Functions and API Management is now available

This is good news for developers working on distributed and serverless applications. Now Azure API Management has enabled easy integration with Azure applications, a service which will enable developers to build and manage their applications on multiple platforms.

It provides a dedicated view called “Map view” which enables to visualize the relation between API Management and Functions. Functions act as a dependency to API Management system which maps and pinpoints your problems across your applications and access its performance. This enables us to monitor, debug and maintain our application using Application Insights.

Expose a Function App via API Management by linking it to a new or existing API is now available

Microservices are shaping up the industry to scale up applications enabling multiple developers to work on the same project and multiple aspects. Now it is the time to enable linking of these independently developed applications.

Azure API Management

API Management enables you to decouple microservices from internal microservices. API’s in Azure API share a hostname and static IP address.

Azure Cosmos DB API for etcd in preview

Azure Cosmos DB is a managed database service. This enables you to distribute the database globally, and with a single click enables you to add or remove the regions to share the data from the database. Applications can have a single-digit millisecond read with a write latency of 99.99% available globally. It also allows a multi-master replication system with freedom to choose five well-defined consistency models.

With Azure Cosmos DB API, we have the option to use etcd datastore for Kubernetes. This enables storing and replicating cluster states. The API of Cosmos DB for etcd will ensure developers have the best of both Cosmos DB and etcd. It will ensure high-availability of DB with reliability and globally distributed Kubernetes and K8 tools.

Azure Cost Management multi-cloud for AWS is in preview

Multi-cloud is used at an enterprise level, where they can have various cloud platforms which would deliver a specific requirement for each project.

Managing the cost of each platform is now made easy with Azure Cost Management multi-cloud for AWS platforms. This tool allows you to manage cloud spending and check the cost of each project you are handling. It helps in accountability with the budget, cost allocation, and chargebacks. It represents the data in charts and represents the analysis in secured and compliance environment.

Azure Cloud management

Inline Code for Azure Logic Apps is in preview

While adding Azure logic app, developers need to write inline code to work on data to be consumed in the downstream process of application. To enable this Azure has an Inline Code feature for customers which would allow writing code, executable snippets, or ECMAScript, which would then be used in applications.

Writing inline code is hassle-free. It provides additional resources, creates a workflowContext object to trigger references, actions, and workflows. It also enables scenarios and returns data via a dynamic content token.

Inline Code

RosettaNet connector and standard support is now in preview

RosettaNet is a consortium which establishes a standard process for sharing business information. These are widespread in electronics, semiconductors, etc. It is based on XML and it defines guidelines, interfaces and implementation frameworks for interaction.

Now RosettaNet connector provides an ability to send and receive the message by Logic Apps. This enables to support operations to decode and encode messages. This includes actions, signals, and acknowledgments.

Azure Container Registry virtual network and firewall rules support is now in preview

As application moves to production, access to an application is reduced for the security of data. Due to this concern, public endpoints are reduced or limited. By using VNet and firewall, security measures are achieved for every project. This reduces the burden to manage storage, security, reliability and registry requirements.

In addition, in order to restrict registry access, we can whitelist IP addresses and ranges for services like Express route connected devices.

Oracle to Azure Database for PostgreSQL online migration is in preview

For legacy projects working on Oracle DB, Azure database is a boom. Now, it gives an opportunity to migrate legacy project running on Oracle to Azure DB hosted on Virtual Machines with minimal downtime.

It provides a step to step documentation on how to achieve reliable migration, with maintained integrity of DB.

New enhancement for Azure Bot Service, QnA Maker, is now in preview

Azure Bot Service is an AI tool which is offered by Azure. It adds agents which would offer the ability of conversations with lack of resources assigned to them. Azure makes it easy for creating a bot who can speak, listen, see and learn from users.

Now to enhance these features and to make it more interactive, QnA maker is added to Azure Bot service. Now, it supports multi-turn dialogs, in addition to creating the bot is made easy. You can now work on your QnA to make your bot more interactive.

Azure Bot Services

Azure Container Registry Helm webhooks is now in preview

Azure Container Registry stores private Docker container images. In order to use registry, we need to create a container registry using SKU, which is offered by Azure. Later, we need to set up Docker host and access Docker CLI.

Now with the addition of creating the Helm webhooks, you can trigger webhooks whenever the Helm charts are pushed or deleted from a container registry. This helps in continuous integrations and deployment workflows based on new updates.

Azure Container Registry tag locking policy is now generally available

Azure Container Registry is used to build and push the image to your registry. Generally, these were mutable. With the risk of getting the image deleted, Azure has not come with the concept of immutable images where we can tag the image and lock it. When this immutable container image is deployed it cannot be removed or deleted accidentally. Thus increases the stability of deployments.

Locking the image using the tag feature

Azure Dev Spaces is now generally available for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Dev spaces are now allowed to be shared with Kubernetes services. This will allow the developers and tester to work on the development and testing simultaneously. This will reduce the mocking and replicating the entire system for testing. This also provides minimal steps required for development machines, enabling the new developers to work quickly.

Implement custom de-serializers in Azure Stream Analytics (in preview)

De-serializers are part of every application. Now, with the addition of custom de-serializers like Parquet, Protobuf, XML or any binary format, developers can have their own format to de-serialize the events received by Stream Analytics.

Azure Serial Console updated with VMSS support and improved language support

Azure Serial console helps in troubleshooting scenarios where you can't connect to VM. Now Azure Serial Console update gives us the Virtual Machine Scale Set (VMSS) instances to help you with troubleshooting and diagnosing with Serial Console. This console can be used as the console of Virtual Machine to diagnose connectivity issues with improved addition of languages.

Azure SQL Database Hyperscale support for single databases is now available

Hyperscale is designed for high-performance scaling of PostgreSQL database. It works well by horizontally scaling a single database on the various nodes to enhance its speed. This allows more room for memory, enough transactions for parallelizing queries across nodes and data indexing at a faster speed. This also provides the ability to scale, compute and storage resources independently. Moving on Hyperscale support will eliminate pre-provision storage and gives an instant growth to the app with unlimited storage size.

Azure Application Gateway Standard v2 and WAF v2 SKUs generally available

Application Gateway is an application delivery controller (ADC) as a service. It enables you to set up application-level routing and services for load balancing to build scalable and web-available, web front end.

It offers a firewall enhancing your security by reducing vulnerabilities with cross-site and SQL injection.