Azure World Newsletter – Issue 4.16

August 9, 2023

Welcome to the sixteenth edition of the Azure World Newsletter in 2023.

Some think summertime is a good time to take it easy. Many sensible people go on vacation this month, and even some businesses shut down around this time for a holiday break. Not Microsoft, however. In the past month, Microsoft has decided to update almost every one of their exams. So I have been busy recording videos to update my courses to cover the new topics.

Luckily, they often remove topics from exams, too, so that’s somewhat easier to deal with. Either way, I have that familiar feeling of trying to catch up to the changes that seem to happen simultaneously. Luckily, things should be quiet for me from now until MS Build happens in November. If past history repeats itself.

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ONE.

Azure seems to be testing a new way to manage large numbers of resources in a simplified fashion. This method is called Deployment Stacks. This new resource is in Preview mode.

A Deployment Stack is a set of resources deployed using a single ARM Template or Bicep. A deployment stack can be created at different scopes – resource group, subscription, and management group scope.

A stack can deploy resources across multiple resource groups or subscriptions. You could, for instance, deploy a developer jump box with a public IP and RDP enabled across several regions at once.

You can then make bulk updates to all resources in the stack, such as deleting all of the resources using a single call. You can also use stacks to block unwanted changes to the group of resources it controls.

If this sounds interesting, you can read more about it here.

For more:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-governance-and-management/arm-deployment-stacks-now-public-preview/ba-p/3871180

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/bicep/deployment-stacks?tabs=azure-powershell

TWO.

As much as I don’t like the name of Microsoft Entra ID, I do like the name of a new Azure feature called Azure Boost.

Boost sounds fast. And it is.

Actually, maybe they should have called it “Turbo Mode.”

Unfortunately, Boost runs behind the scenes at the data center hardware layer, and I probably will never get to interact with it directly.

Azure Boost offloads the virtualization process that the hypervisor (and host OS) usually performs onto custom-developed hardware and software.

By taking the virtualization function away from the host, Azure Boost significantly “boosts” the networking and storage throughputs that customers can expect to see.

For instance, with Azure Boost, a VM can see 200 Gbps networking throughput and a storage throughput of up to 400,000 IOPS at 10 Gbps.

For now, you can’t specifically choose a VM host with Boost enabled, but Azure has been working with certain customers to test it. In fact, Microsoft claims “millions of Azure VMs” are getting the benefit of Boost without even knowing.

For more on this:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/preview-azure-boost/

AZURE PLATFORM UPDATES.

A few updates for you this week.

Azure Media Services is being retired on 30 June 2024
Crash Consistent VM Restore points, in preview
Azure Boost, in preview
Azure Application Gateway for Containers, in preview
The Classic VMs retirement deadline is now September 6, 2023
JSON support for active geo-replication on Azure Cache for Redis
Azure Load Testing: Run tests with 100,000 virtual users
Azure Load Testing: Run tests for up to 24 hours
Azure Chaos Studio supports new faults for App Service and Virtual Machines, in preview
Azure Storage Mover support for SMB and Azure Files, in preview

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.

Been hard at work with a few things. Microsoft dropped dozens of changes across multiple exams during July, and I had to obviously go and make new videos for those courses. AZ-900, AZ-104, and others received updated content. My teaching assistant Sean Xie quickly updated the study guide for AZ-900 for the new requirements. So there’s lots going on.

And still, I was able to complete a new TOGAF 10 Part 1 certification course that is being published on Udemy. TOGAF 10 is just a relatively small update for the foundational level content, but all new videos have been recorded, and the course is available for students to join.

For the launch day pricing of US$9.99, click here: https://sjd.ca/togaf10pt1