We talk to Edward Walton, a Cloud Solution Architect @ Microsoft, about a topic that he is very passionate about - making the Enterprise Cloud Secure & Productive. Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode171.mp3   Other updates: Announcing Support for Multi-member Consortium Blockchain Networks on Azure https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/multi-member-consortium-blockchain-networks-on-azure/   Azure AD B2C Access Tokens now in public preview https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-ad-b2c-access-tokens-now-in-public-preview/   Lighting up network innovation https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/lighting-up-network-innovation/   Announcing Azure Service Fabric 5.5 and SDK 2.5 https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-azure-service-fabric-5-5-and-sdk-2-5/   Azure Resource Manager template reference now available https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-resource-manager-template-reference-now-available/  

Evan and Sujit talk to Gino Filicetti & Jim Priestley, both Cloud Solution Architects @ Microsoft about how they help customers realize the potential of the cloud by starting with Disaster Recovery using OMS and implementing a DevOps mentality. @gino_msft    @cloudynj     Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode170.mp3   Other updates: Last year, we introduced Azure App Service certificates, a certificate lifecycle management offering. The Azure portal provides a user-friendly experience for creating App Service certificates and deploying them through Azure Key Vault to App Service apps. But customers have been asking for the ability to use these certificates outside the App Service platform, say with Azure Virtual Machines. You can now create a local PFX copy of an App Service certificate so that you can use it anywhere you want. For more information, read our blog post. You can now use SELECT..INTO in your SQL code when you want to persist the results of a SELECT statement into a table. The SELECT..INTO syntax is streamlined. With very little effort, your results will be stored in a round_robin clustered columnstore. From there, you can conduct further analysis as required. Azure SQL Data Warehouse also continues to support CREATE TABLE AS SELECT (CTAS). CTAS affords greater control on the structure of the resulting table but requires a little more effort on your part. To compare SELECT..INTO to CTAS, please refer to the recent blog post and product documentation, which highlight the differences between these approaches.

Are you confused about the which Azure compute option to pick when you are building for or migrating apps to Azure? Azure Principal PMs Yochay Kiriaty & Sean McKenna set out to demystify the options available to you and help you select the most appropriate one for your workload.   https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/appserviceteam @yochayk  @seanmckmsft   Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode169.mp3   Other updates: General availability: MySQL in-app feature The MySQL in-app preview feature launched last year in August. The feature's primary objective was to make it easier to build and test MySQL-based applications on Azure App Service. Today, the MySQL in-app feature is generally available.  The MySQL in-app feature now supports one-click export/import of a local development database to a production database. Read more about the benefits of this feature in our team blog.   Enterprise Ethereum Alliance https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/eealliance/   Portal Preview of Azure Resource Policy https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/portal-preview-of-azure-resource-policy-2/   Announcing Azure SQL Database Premium RS, 4TB storage options, and enhanced portal experience https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/sql-database-4tb-premium-and-premium-rs-preview/   Increasing PolyBase Row width limitation in Azure SQL Data Warehouse https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/increasing-polybase-row-width-limitation-in-azure-sql-data-warehouse/   Azure Data Factory February new features update https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-data-factory-february-new-features-update/   Visual Studio 2017 RTM https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/whatsnew/    

Evan, Russell, Alex and Sujit talk to Barry Luijbregts, an Independent Azure Architect from the Netherlands, about building apps that span the globe using the right Azure PaaS offerings. Barry is an independent software architect and developer with a passion for the cloud. He is also a Pluralsight author. He has worked for lots of companies throughout the last decade and is keen to share his knowledge with the community. He has a broad and deep knowledge of the Microsoft stack with a special interest on web technology and the cloud. He co-runs a usergroup focused on technology and soft-skills called .NET Zuid (South) and currently teaches people about the benefits of the cloud. He lives in the Netherlands with his beautiful wife and baby girl and loves to play with their two Siberian huskies. Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode168.mp3   Other updates: Announcing new Azure Functions capabilities to accelerate development of serverless applications Azure Command Line 2.0 now generally available Microsoft MPI v8.0 release Azure Data Sync update Azure IoT Suite adds device management capability updates VS2017 launch – Tues 7th - free training on 8th Azure SQL Database enables the direct load of files stored in Azure Blob storage by using BULK INSERT and OPENROWSET commands.

Cale unravels the mystery that is Blockchain, as we understand what is happening under the covers of a simple 'Hello World' app. Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode167.mp3   Other updates: Blockchain on NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=515728601   Kubernetes now Generally Available on Azure Container Service Kubernetes now generally available (GA) – We announced preview support for Kubernetes in November 2016. Since then, we have received a lot of valuable feedback from customers. Based on this feedback we have improved Kubernetes support and now move it to GA. For more details, check out Brendan’s blog titled, "Containers as a Service: The foundation for next generation PaaS". Preview of Windows Server Containers with Kubernetes – Coinciding with latest Kubernetes release, adding support for Windows Server Containers and coupled with enterprise customers expressing strong interest in adopting and going into production with Windows Server Containers, this is a great time to provide additional choice in orchestrator for Windows Server customers using ACS. Customers can now preview both Docker Swarm (launched in preview last year) as well as Kubernetes though ACS, providing choice as well as consistency with two of the top three Linux container orchestration platforms. DC/OS 1.8.8 update – We are updating our DC/OS support to version 1.8.8. DC/OS is a production-proven platform that elastically powers both containers and big data services. ACS delivers the open source DC/OS while our partnership with Mesosphere ensures customers requiring additional enterprise features are catered for. Key features of 1.8.8 include a new orchestration framework, called Metronome, to run scheduled jobs. This has been added to a new Jobs tab in the DC/OS UI, along with a number of other UI improvements; and the addition of GPU and CNI support in the Universal container runtime. Based on Apache Mesos, DC/OS is trusted by Esri, BioCatch and many other Fortune 1000 companies. We have worked with Mesosphere to produce an e-book called "Deploying Microservices and Containers with ACS and DC/OS."     New Lower Prices on Azure Virtual Machines and Blob Storage    New in Azure Stream Analytics: Geospatial functions, Custom code and lots more!   Native support for Geospatial functions Starting today, customers can easily build solutions for scenarios such as connected cars, fleet management, and mobile asset tracking with tremendous ease using Azure Stream Analytics. Developers can now leverage powerful built-in geospatial functions in their stream-processing logic to define geographical areas, and evaluate incoming geospatial data for containment, proximity, overlap, and generate alerts or easily kick-off necessary workflows etc. These geospatial capabilities are in alignment with the GeoJSON specification.   Custom code with JavaScript user defined functions With Azure Stream Analytics, customers can now combine the power of JavaScript with the simplicity and pervasiveness of SQL. Historically, Azure Stream Analytics let developers express their real-time query logic using a very simple SQL like language. That said, customers have also been asking us to support more expressive custom code to implement advanced scenarios. Today, in our journey to offer richer custom code support, we are pleased to announce the support for User defined functions using JavaScript in Azure Stream Analytics. With this new feature, customers can now write their custom code in JavaScript, and easily invoke it as part of their real-time stream processing query. Visual Studio tools for Azure Stream Analytics To help maximize end-to-end developer productivity across authoring, testing and debugging Stream Analytics jobs, we are rolling out a public preview of Azure Stream Analytics tools for Visual Studio. Local testing on client machines to enable tru

Russell, Cale and Sujit talk to Mike Becker and Marcel Bindseil from Microsoft Germany about an innovative solution they developed for a customer, that uses App Service to build a complete EAI integration solution. @winmike64 @Bindsi Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode166.mp3   Other updates: Ruby support is available on Web Apps on Linux    Public preview: Cross-subscription virtual network peering Virtual networks that are created through the Azure Resource Manager deployment model and classic deployment model—but that belong to different subscriptions—can now be peered through this preview release. Read the Create a virtual network peering using Azure PowerShell article for further details. Note that you can peer virtual networks that exist in two different subscriptions as long as a privileged user of both subscriptions authorizes the peering and the subscriptions are associated with the same Active Directory tenant. You can find more information in the Virtual network peering article.   Key updates to Azure Backup Server https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-backup-server-key-features/   Azure Application Insights JavaScript SDK: reliability and performance improvements https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-application-insights-javascript-sdk-reliability-and-performance-improvements/   What’s new in Azure Active Directory B2C https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/new-in-azure-ad-b2c/   Adding #AzureSearch to #DocumentDB collections with a click of a button https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/adding-search-to-documentdb-collections-with-a-click-of-a-button/   Bletchley – The Cryptlet Fabric & Evolution of blockchain Smart Contracts https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/scanatomy-2/   10 GitHub samples with Azure DocumentDB you shouldn’t miss! https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/10-github-samples-with-azure-documentdb-you-shouldn-t-miss/

We talk to Travis Falls, a Senior Consultant at Microsoft about DSC. He shares his stories about the advantages of DSC in general and specifically in a DevOps world.   Twitter: @travisfalls Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode165.mp3   Other updates: Azure Active Directory Domain Services is available in 10 new Azure regions: West Central US North Central US Canada East Canada Central Brazil South Central India West India South India Japan East Japan West       Azure IP Advantage Protecting your innovation in the cloud Reduce risk, innovate with confidence, and operate with freedom in the cloud. Azure IP Advantage provides the industry’s most comprehensive protection against intellectual property (IP) risks.   Announcing the new Azure Marketplace experience https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-new-azure-marketplace-experience/   Microsoft and Tierion collaborate on attestations & Blockchain proofs https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/blockchain-identity-proofs/   Webjet's Travel Bookings Blockchain Will Move to Pilot in 2017 http://www.coindesk.com/webjets-travel-bookings-blockchain-will-move-pilot-2017/   Announcing general availability of Managed Disks and larger Scale Sets https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-general-availability-of-managed-disks-and-larger-scale-sets/   Azure DocumentDB: Entry point for partitioned collections now 75% cheaper https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-documentdb-entry-point-for-partitioned-collections-now-75-cheaper/   Announcing preview of Storage Service Encryption for File Storage https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/preview-storage-service-encryption-for-file-storage/    

Evan and Sujit have a great discussion with Kevin Loh, a Director with Worldwide Licensing and Pricing @ Microsoft on what customers should be thinking about and how they can get the best value when migrating to Azure. Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode164.mp3 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter/Privacy/GDPR http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/default.aspx Other updates: Get early access to the newest Azure portal features Try https://preview.portal.azure.com and let us know what you think by sending a smile in the portal to provide feedback or by posting your ideas on the Azure portal feedback forum. You can go back to the public portal anytime. Check back in to see what else is in the works (and follow @AzurePortal on Twitter for more updates).     Connect to DocumentDB by using BI analytics tools with the ODBC driver You can use the Azure DocumentDB ODBC driver to connect to DocumentDB by using BI analytics tools such as SQL Server Integration Services, Power BI Desktop, and Tableau. You can then analyze and create visualizations of your DocumentDB data in those solutions. The driver offers rich features to help you renormalize data in DocumentDB. By using the driver, you can represent data in DocumentDB as tables and views. The driver enables you to perform SQL operations against the tables and views, including grouping by queries, inserts, updates, and deletions. To learn more, see the documentation page.   Azure DevTest Labs: Set expiration date for new VMs from Azure portal In Azure DevTest Labs, you can now set VMs to expire on a specific date. Although the ability to set an expiration date has been available through Azure Resource Manager templates, there's now a counterpart to set expiration on the Azure portal. When you set an expiration date, the VM will be deleted on the specified day. If you want to use DevTest Labs for a hackathon or class, this feature can help control costs and clean-up if you set the VMs to expire shortly after the events are over. You can set the expiration date when you provision a new VM in the lab. From the Create lab blade, select Advanced settings and select a date.  

The guys discuss some interesting topics around VMs taken from these series of blog posts: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-virtual-machine-internals-part-1/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-virtual-machine-internals-part-2/     Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode163.mp3     Other updates: Finally – Query editor for SQL Azure in the Azure portal again!!! https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-sql-data-warehouse-public-preview-t-sql-editor/    Cool new TSQL string functions https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/new-t-sql-string-functions-are-availabe-in-azure-sql-database/    -> SQL Azure gets them first!   Blockchain MVA is live!   https://mva.microsoft.com/en-US/training-courses/microsoft-blockchain-as-a-service-17104   Microsoft Unveils Project Manifest, A Plan For Blockchain Product Tracking http://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-unveils-project-manifest-a-plan-for-product-tracking-via-blockchain/   Azure Analysis Services now available in North Central US and Brazil South https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-analysis-services-now-available-in-north-central-us-and-brazil-south/   Manage App Service, SQL Database, and more - Azure Management Libraries for .NET https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/manage-app-service-sql-database-application-gateway-and-more-using-simpler-azure-management-libraries-for-net/   Modern Data Warehousing with Continuous Integration https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/modern-data-warehousing-with-continuous-integration/   Event Hubs Dedicated Offering https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/event-hubs-dedicated-offering/

Evan, Russell and Cale talk to Mat Clothier of Cloudhouse Technologies, an Azure partner. www.cloudhouse.com Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode162.mp3