December 14, 2022
Welcome to the twenty-second and final edition of the Azure World Newsletter in 2022.
Have you been watching the World Cup at all? There have been some amazing upsets where traditionally strong teams have been ejected from the tournament early. But that also means some underdog teams, where few people expected them to go far, are making it into the semi-finals and beyond. Exciting!
Meanwhile, time marches on relentlessly. We are about two weeks until the end of the year. 2022 is almost in the books. Time to finish off those things you said you would do this year!
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ONE.
The first version of SQL Server I ever used was SQL Server 6.0. This was a long time ago, while we were still trying to grasp how big a deal the Internet was. In the Floppy Disk era.
Fast forward ~30 years. SQL Server 2022 was recently announced, and it apparently has the most connections to Microsoft Azure “ever”.
Whereas you’ve been able to extend SQL Server into the cloud (SQL Server Stretch Databases) for a few years, now you can almost fully manage your on prem SQL Server environment from within Azure.
Azure Arc allows you to manage your on prem SQL Servers in the cloud. Azure Synapse Analytics allows you to run analytics in the cloud for your on prem data. Microsoft Purview helps with governance, while Azure Active Directory takes care of access management. You can protect your on prem SQL Server using Microsoft Defender for SQL, and use SQL Managed Instance for disaster recovery.
Naturally, many companies might be wary of increasing the connectivity between their internal corporate database and the cloud, these integrations seem more about the management of the server itself (including security and permissions) and less about exposing more of your actual data to the cloud.
Another related announcement has to do with “pay as you go” pricing coming to SQL Server 2022. So you can use consumption-based billing for your on prem databases, instead of the traditional “fixed price per CPU” model. Consumption-based pricing can save you money.
See more:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/microsofts-sql-server-2022-is-all-about-azure/
TWO.
For years, I’ve seen people talking about the programming language golang (or just Go). If you wanted to use Go in Azure, you could have installed its runtime in a web app or a virtual machine.
But now, Azure offers native Go support in Azure Web Apps.
Go is an open-source language initially developed at Google. In fact, Kubernetes and Docker are both written in the Go language.
Go is a modern programming language developed around 15 years ago, and so it avoids some of the legacy problems older languages like C++ have. But despite its relative youth, the language is fairly stable and its syntax and structure are fairly set. You’re not working with a “beta” product that is constantly changing fundamentally.
You can now begin playing with golang apps in App Services, currently in preview mode.
Learn more:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/go/
AZURE PLATFORM UPDATES.
The following announcements were made in the last two weeks:
- Day 0 support for .NET 7.0 on App Service, in GA
- Go language support on Azure App Service, in preview
- Python 3.10, PHP 8.1 and Node 18 in Azure App Service, in GA
- New HPC instances available – HX series and HBv4
- Build and deploy to Azure Container Apps without a Dockerfile from the Azure CLI, in preview
- Azure Pipelines task to build and deploy to Azure Container Apps, in preview
- GitHub action to build and deploy to Azure Container Apps, in preview
- Inbound IP restrictions support in Azure Container Apps, in preview
- Durable Functions support for .NET 7.0 isolated model, in preview
- Azure SQL Trigger for Azure Functions, in preview
- Additional Always Free Services for Azure Free Account and PAYG
- Use tag inheritance for cost management, in preview
Important retirement or migration announcements:
- Community support for Azure Functions Proxies will end on 30 September 2025
Check out the Azure Updates page if any of these affect you.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/
COMING UP FOR ME.
In the last newsletter, I mentioned my video courses on Udemy. Those are still available, and you can use the coupon code DEC2022 to get the best discount this month.
But one thing that might be helpful for you is Practice Labs that guide you through various aspects of Microsoft Azure.
I offer labs for sale on my website, getcloudskills.com. To end the year, I have decided to offer something special to you for the last two weeks of December.
- One year of access to the labs
- A variety of labs, from easy (guided) to advanced (not guided)
- Over 700+ labs to choose from
- Covering Azure, AWS, Linux, and Cybersecurity topics
- One year of access to an Azure account to practice the labs
- One year of access to an AWS account to practice those labs
- Buy the code today, but don’t need to activate it until you’re ready to use it
- Limits: Maximum of 3 attempts per lab, and each lab has a limited time to complete
- Note: activating the code starts the one-year timer
- No refunds once the code is activated, and I am unable to extend the expiry date
Use the link below to get those ONE YEAR of labs for only US$98.
https://softwarearchitect.thrivecart.com/all-labs/?coupon=LABSSALE
WHERE TO FIND ME.
And that’s it for issue 3.22. Thanks for reading this far. This is the final newsletter of 2022. We’ll take a few weeks off, and see you again in 2023!
What is your favorite platform to be on? Perhaps we can connect there.
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