Welcome to the FOURTH edition of this bi-weekly newsletter, covering the world of cloud computing and Azure.
It’s hard to believe we’re already two months into 2020. Time is just flying by. A few things to talk about though. So let’s get into it!
ONE.
A few things happened in the world of Azure that I’ll list here but won’t spend too much time digging into. Check the articles if the topic is of interest.
- Amazon gets a restraining order to block Microsoft’s Pentagon JEDI cloud contract – Amazon to Seek Order Blocking Microsoft From Work on US Contract
- Azure opening new regions in Mexico and Spain – Microsoft to open Azure regions in Spain, expands Telefonica relationship
- Azure has a new blog post on its own “safe deployment” practices to better understand the steps they take to minimize the impact of bugs in the production environment – Advancing safe deployment practices | Azure Blog and Updates
- Azure Virtual Machine A8 to A11 instance sizes to be retired in March 2021 – always thought it was weird to have “High-Performance Computing” instances among the general-purpose ones.
TWO.
The AZ-204 Azure Developer exam has gone into beta.
Exam AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure (beta) – Learn
Here’s what we know about AZ-204:
- Went into beta February 24
- Previous exam, AZ-203, can be taken until May 31, 2020
The changes for AZ-204 are summarized as follows:
- Slightly less emphasis on “compute” and storage topics
- Slightly more emphasis on security and integration topics
- Azure Search, Azure Batch no longer on the exam
- SQL Relational Databases no longer on the exam
- Implement scaling no longer on the exam
All in all, it’s a more focused exam. By removing a few things, it makes it easier to study and practice, and you’re less likely to get obscure questions about Search and Batch that might not be part of your normal day to day job.
Of course, the AZ-203 course will be updated in the coming days to reflect these changes.
AZURE PLATFORM UPDATES.
There were a lot of little announcements from Azure over the past two weeks. Here are a select few that caught my eye.
- Azure Sphere, a foundation for IoT devices, now in General Availability
- Updated Cost by Resource view in Cost Analysis including a drill-down experience
- Azure Bastion rolled out to 20 new regions
- Azure Backup now has Offline Backup with Azure Data Box
- Azure Private Link now in General Availability
Be sure and check out the Azure Updates page if any of these affect you.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/
COMING UP FOR ME.
In a couple of weeks, I’ll be in the Seattle area for the NA MCT Summit (Bellevue, Washington to be precise). If anyone is in the area and wants to have a coffee, dinner or something, I would be happy to try to arrange something. Reply to this email and we can see if our schedules allow.
I have been recording every day, and hope to have something new released next week. I’ll keep that a surprise for now. This course was based on a student suggestion, and so if you have a suggestion for a course, be sure and let me know.
WHERE TO FIND ME.
Thanks for sticking it out this far! This is the end of issue 1.3! Hopefully, you found it valuable, at least a little bit!
What is your favorite platform to be on? Perhaps we can connect there.
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/getcloudskills/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottjduffy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getcloudskills.ca/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottjduffy
Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/user/scottduffy2/
LinkedIn Learning: https://www.lynda.com/Scott-Duffy/1993589682-1.html
See you in two weeks!