We talk to Azure Automation expert Matthew Hofacker (a.k.a. Hellboy) from the Microsoft Azure Support team about the service and what you can do to make your scripts run efficiently.   Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode197.mp3 Indexed video: https://www.videoindexer.ai/media/de10e219df/ Limitations/ Capacities : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-subscription-service-limits#automation-limits   Canned/Start Stop VM solution : https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-solution-vm-management   Main link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-intro   Other updates: Public preview: SQL Vulnerability Assessment  Monday, September 25, 2017  SQL Vulnerability Assessment is now available for public preview.  You can use Vulnerability Assessment to track and monitor your database security settings, so that you can maintain compliance and ensure visibility and control of potential risks to the safety of your data.  Vulnerability Assessment offers a scanning service built into the Azure SQL Database service. The service employs a knowledge base of rules that identify security vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices, such as misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and exposed sensitive data. Results of the assessment include actionable steps to resolve each issue and customized remediation scripts where applicable. The assessment report can be customized for each environment and tailored to specific requirements. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-sql-vulnerability-assessment   AZURE LOAD BALANCER  You can use Azure Load Balancer Standard to create public and internal load-balanced deployments with much greater scale, resiliency, and ease of use for all your virtual machine instances inside a virtual network. The preview includes the following key scenarios:  Any virtual machine in a virtual network can now be part of the back-end pool, including up to 1,000 instances for virtual machine scale sets and multiple virtual machine scale sets. The backend pool is no longer limited to a single availability set.  Advanced analytics through Azure Monitor are available, including continuous in-band measurements for data plane health, per-endpoint health probe status, and counters for packets, bytes, connection attempts, and outbound connections.  Load balance across availability zones with zone-redundant and zonal public and internal Azure Load Balancer front ends and cross-zone load balancing for the back-end pool, as well as zone-redundant outbound connections.  HA Ports is available on an internal load balancer, enabling more resilience and scalability for network virtual appliance scenarios and other applications. A single rule can be configured to load-balance TCP and UDP flows irrespective of layer 4 port and allows faster failover and n-Active scale-out.  Network Security Groups are required for new public IP standard and any back-end instances for greater security and control.  A new model for outbound SNAT connections provides greater resiliency and scale.  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/public-preview-load-balancer-standard    Preview: Azure Data Box  The Azure Data Box service is available in preview. You can use it to move hundreds of terabytes of data into Azure with high speed, by using secure transfer appliances. We accelerate the movement of your data by shipping you a proprietary, secure, and tamper-resistant transfer appliance, and by handling the end-to-end logistics.  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-data-box-preview