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Cloud Platform Release Announcements for July 10, 2017

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This is a blog post for a new, ongoing series of consolidated updates from the Cloud Platform team.

We’re here to help you embrace the cloud. Realize your true potential with our unique innovations, comprehensive mobile solutions, and developer tools across the breadth of our product portfolio. To help you stay current, here are our latest releases.

  • Azure Stack | Available to Purchase
  • Azure Managed Applications Preview
  • Azure Service Health Preview
  • SQL Data Warehouse | Increased performance and scaling
  • Azure HDInsight | Kafka for Azure Managed Disks Preview
  • Virtual machine scale sets | New networking features for Azure virtual machine scale sets general availability (GA)
  • Azure Service Bus | Hybrid Connections in Sovereign Clouds GA
  • Microsoft Cloud App Security | New features (ransomware policy, Role-Based Access Control,  Microsoft Teams)

Azure Stack | Available to Purchase

You can now order an Azure Stack integrated system with Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo. You can also plan your purchase with software pricing and availability information, and try the free single-server deployment option of Azure Stack to build and validate applications for integrated systems deployments.

Learn more about ordering an Azure Stack integrated system.

Azure Managed Applications Preview

Azure Managed Applications for Azure Marketplace Preview is now available. Managed Applications enables managed service providers and partners to deliver turnkey solutions through the Azure Marketplace. It serves as a channel to sell infrastructure or software through the marketplace, and offers a way to attach services and operational support to Azure customers. Furthermore, managed applications are self-contained and sealed to the customer, enabling the managed service provides and partners to reliably deliver a high quality of service.

Read more details on Azure Managed Applications.

Azure Service Health Preview

Azure Service Health Preview provides guidance and support when issues in Azure services affect customers. It provides timely and personalized information about the impact of service issues and helps users prepare for upcoming planned maintenance. Azure Service Health Preview  sends alerts  by email, text messages, and webhook notifications when business-critical resources are impacted.

Learn more about Azure Service Health Preview.

SQL Data Warehouse | Increased performance and scaling

Azure SQL Data Warehouse previews three times compute increase with bottomless columnar storage

We're excited to announce that Azure SQL Data Warehouse is increasing its maximum scaling power threefold, from 6,000 DWU to 18,000 DWU. You will see query performance and queries per second improve dramatically on petabyte storage scale, all with elasticity and pause/resume benefits so customers can optimize costs.

You will soon be able to request access to preview the new performance levels of SQL Data Warehouse at DW9000 and DW18000. You'll be able to scale with more compute capacity than ever before to answer analytical queries using a fully-featured SQL engine. SQL Data Warehouse supports unlimited columnar storage at these new performance levels. You'll be able to load and store as much data as needed to drive insights.

Please sign up for the preview in the Azure portal. We look forward to welcoming you onto the service.

Azure HDInsight | Kafka for Azure Managed Disks Preview

Azure HDInsight Kafka for Azure Managed Disks Preview now available

We're pleased to announce the Apache Kafka with Managed Disks Preview on the HDInsight platform. This new feature abstracts the storage account specification for you, allowing for an easier managed route to disk usage. This new capability also enables exponentially higher scalability and lower cost as the workloads increase. Learn more by visiting the Azure blog.

Virtual machine scale sets | New networking features for Azure virtual machine scale sets general availability (GA)

New networking features in virtual machine scale sets

New networking features in virtual machine scale sets allow a wider range of applications that deploy virtual machines at scale to take advantage of the simple deployment, elasticity, and autoscale capabilities of scale sets.

Azure Service Bus | Hybrid Connections in Sovereign Clouds GA

The Hybrid Connections feature of Azure Relay is now available to the public in national clouds for China and Germany. Using open standard web sockets, Azure Relay allows customers to securely expose services inside a corporate network to the cloud without opening a firewall connection or changing the corporate network. As a result, customers can keep their data where it is while enabling access from the cloud.

Features

  • Uses HTTPS and WebSockets to securely connect resources.
  • Leverages the robust management and monitoring features of Azure Relay.
  • No need for changes in your virtual private network, firewall, or proxy.

Pricing information is found on the Service Bus page. Learn more about Azure Relay.

Microsoft Cloud App Security | New features (ransomware policy, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Microsoft Teams)

Cloud App Security new feature releases

We're excited to share the new updates and releases for Microsoft Cloud App Security:

  • It now includes support for the Microsoft Teams activities that are supported in the Office 365 audit log.
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) support is now available in the Cloud App Security portal. This feature helps manage the permissions granted to your admins inside the Cloud App Security console. By default, all Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), Office 365 global admins, and security admins have full permissions in the portal, and all security readers in Azure AD and Office 365 have read-only access in Cloud App Security. Additional admins can be added or permissions changed using the “Manage Access” option. For more information see Managing admin permissions.
  • A new policy template to detect potential ransomware activity was added to the portal that includes the signature extension of WannaCrypt.
  • With enhanced governance options in Azure AD, users can now be required to sign in again to all Office 365 and Azure AD apps as a quick and effective remediation for suspicious user activity alerts and compromised accounts.

Get a free trial, evaluate Cloud App Security and try the new features.

For more information about Cloud App Security, please visit the technical documentation page.