Azure World Newsletter – Issue 3.14

July 27, 2022

Welcome to the fourteenth edition of the Azure World Newsletter in 2022. 

I mentioned in the last newsletter about traveling for a quick birthday holiday. My wife and I went to Scotland for a few days, which was lovely. It has never been in my top 10 dream destinations, but I was utterly charmed by Edinburgh and Glasgow. I posted a couple of pictures on my Twitter feed. I would go there again. Thank you, Scotland!

If you’re looking to save some money on my Udemy courses, the latest coupon code is at the end of the newsletter.

Thanks so much for being a subscriber! The unsubscribe link is at the bottom if you want to stop receiving these emails.


ONE.

Microsoft released its quarterly earnings last night.

Although earnings were slightly up over a year ago, the numbers were below what stock analysts expected. Revenue was up 12%, while net income was up 2%.

Azure and other cloud services grew by 40%, which is still great. But that number continues to fall. Analysts were predicting 44% growth in Azure.

The strong US dollar is continuing to impact Microsoft’s business as people who do not live in the United States do not pay in US dollars. So Microsoft sees declining foreign revenue when converting everything to US dollars.

As I write this, I think some people are still digesting what it all means. The stock was initially down, but now it’s up. Google also released its earnings around the same time, so the market is really just trying to figure out if we’ll be going into a big recession or not.

Source: https://news.microsoft.com/2022/07/26/microsoft-cloud-strength-drives-fourth-quarter-results-4/


TWO.

For those command-line aficionados, there is a new tool called Azure Developer CLI (azd).

The Azure Developer CLI (azd) provides a set of developer-friendly commands that map to key stages in your workflow – code, build, deploy, monitor, repeat.

We should be clear here. The Azure Developer CLI (azd) and Azure CLI are different things.

The Azure CLI allows you to access the Azure Resource Manager control plane, which allows you to create, modify and destroy Azure resources of all types.

The azd focuses on developer workflow. You can create Azure resources, but you can also interact with code and deploy projects. For instance, there is an “up” command that does a bunch of tasks in a single step.

i.e. azd up –template todo-nodejs-mongo

This will download the template code, initialize a project, and create and configure all the necessary Azure resources. In the end, you’ll have a local clone of the repo, a bunch of resources provisioned in your Azure subscription, and the app has been built and deployed to Azure.

Of course, this command line tool is reminiscent of the “docker” command line. But instead of only interacting with containers, the azd command line works with App Services, Container Apps, Static Web Apps, and Functions too. One command line to rule them all.

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/azure-developer-cli/overview?tabs=nodejs


AZURE PLATFORM UPDATES.

Now that July is here, the pace of announcements has slowed. We still saw a few interesting things. The following announcements were made in the last two weeks:

  • Azure Gateway Load Balancer, in GA
  • Most Face API features to be retired June 30, 2023
  • Migration of Face API out of North Central US Region by June 30, 2023
  • Premium SSD v2 Disk Storage, in preview
  • TLS 1.3 support on Application Gateway, in preview
  • Virtual machine restore points, in GA
  • Customer managed keys for Azure Database for MySQL, in preview
  • Premium-series hardware for Azure SQL Managed Instance, in GA
  • Azure Confidential Ledger, in GA
  • Microsoft Azure Web PubSub Premium Tier, in preview
  • Bring your own Container Network Interface plugin with AKS, in GA
  • Azure Functions support for PowerShell 7.2, in GA
  • Calico for Windows on AKS, in GA
  • Tag filtering in Azure Advisor, in GA
  • Azure Monitor for SAP solutions, in preview
  • Azure confidential VMs (DCasv5/ECasv5-series VMs), in GA
  • Microsoft Cost Details API for EA and MCA customers, in GA
  • Share images across subscriptions and tenants with new Compute Gallery feature, in preview
  • VM Applications – Manage and deploy applications to VMs and VMSS, in GA

Check out the Azure Updates page if any of these affect you.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/


COMING UP FOR ME.

Several courses need some small updates, and I might look at those as we go into August. No big announcements from me yet. Soon I hope, but not yet.

Coupon alert!

I just created a coupon for my Udemy courses today called BDAYCOUPON. Use that code at checkout to ensure the biggest discount I can get. The coupon expires in 5 days. Prices start at US$9.99.

My Azure and TOGAF Udemy courses are available on the following link: https://www.udemy.com/user/scottduffy2/


WHERE TO FIND ME.

And that’s it for issue 3.14. Thanks for reading this far. Talk to you again in two weeks.

What is your favorite platform to be on? Perhaps we can connect there.

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