MICROSOFT AZURE

INTRODUCING AZURE DEDICATED HOST

Now in preview and available in most Azure regions, Azure Dedicated Host acts as a dedicated physical server to host your Azure VMs for Windows and Linux. Perfect for those companies with compliance requirements such as physical security, or for organisations in need of host-level isolation, Azure Dedicated Host promises to:

• Provide visibility into, and control over, the server infrastructure running your Azure VMs
• Help address compliance requirements by deploying your workloads on an isolated server
• Let you choose the number of processors, server capabilities, VM series, and VM sizes within the same host
• Offer pricing and benefits for Windows Server and SQL Server available only on Azure

Got a question? Have a read of the Azure Dedicated Host FAQs.

SQL SERVER 2019 RELEASE CANDIDATE NOW AVAILABLE

The first public release candidate for SQL Server 2019 is now available for download. SQL Server 2019 builds on previous releases to grow SQL Server as a platform that gives you choices of development languages, data types, on-premises or cloud, and operating systems. It introduces Big Data Clusters for SQL Server, allowing intelligence over your data, and so far has delivered:

• Data virtualisation with PolyBase
• Choice of platform and language
• Industry leading performance and availability
• Unparalleled security

Click here to read more about the new features and enhancements for SQL Server 2019.

SQL Server 2019. Source: Microsoft

AZURE AVAILABLE FROM NEW CLOUD REGIONS IN SWITZERLAND

The new cloud regions, based near Zurich and Geneva, come as a response to the rapid cloud adoption in Switzerland. In their announcement in August, Microsoft stated that more than 30 customer and partner organisations are already using Azure in these regions.

You can read the full announcement here.

PYTHON SUPPORT IN AZURE FUNCTIONS NOW GENERALLY AVAILABLE

Python support in Azure Functions is now generally available and ready to host your production workloads across data science and machine learning, automated resource management, and more. You can now develop Python 3.6 apps to run on the cross-platform, open-source Functions 2.0 runtime. These can be published as code or Docker containers to a Linux-based serverless hosting platform in Azure.

Easier development with Python Support in Azure Functions. Source: Microsoft

AZURE AVAILABILITY ZONES NOW GENERALLY AVAILABLE IN AZURE FIREWALL

Azure Firewall can now be deployed to span multiple Availability Zones for increased availability. With this, your availability increases to 99.99% uptime when two or more Availability Zones are selected. The capability is generally available in all Azure regions that support Availability Zones. Have a read of all the Azure Firewall feature updates here.

AZURE SITE RECOVERY NOW SUPPORTS DISASTER RECOVERY OF AZURE DISK ENCRYPTION ENABLED VMs

In August Microsoft announced that Azure Site Recovery now supports disaster recovery of Azure disk encryption (V2) enabled virtual machines without Azure Active Directory application. While enabling replication of your VM for disaster recovery, all the required disk encryption keys and secrets are copied from the source region to the target region in the user context. If the user managing disaster recovery does not have the appropriate permissions, the user can hand over the ready-to-use script to the security administrator to copy the keys and secrets and proceed with configuration.

Disaster recovery of Azure disk encryption enabled VMs. Source: Microsoft

This feature currently supports only Windows VMs using managed disks. The support for Linux VMs using managed disks will be available in the coming weeks. This feature is available in all Azure regions where Azure Site Recovery is available. 

BUILD HIGHLY AVAILABLE AZURE STORAGE APPLICATIONS WITH GZRS

Geo-zone-redundant storage (GZRS) is now in preview. GZRS marries the high availability of zone-redundant storage (ZRS) with protection from regional outages as provided by geo-redundant storage (GRS). Data in a GZRS storage account is replicated across three Azure availability zones in the primary region and also replicated to a secondary geographic region for protection from regional disasters. Each Azure region is paired with another region within the same geography, together making a regional pair.

With a GZRS storage account, you can continue to read and write data if an availability zone becomes unavailable or is unrecoverable. Additionally, your data is also durable in the case of a complete regional outage or a disaster in which the primary region isn’t recoverable. GZRS is designed to provide at least 99.99999999999999% durability of objects over a given year.

Unfortunately, GZRS is only available in US East at the moment, but stay tuned, we don’t think it will be long before we’re able to get our hands on it!

MICROSOFT OPENS AZURE SECURITY LAB

At Black Hat USA 2019 Microsoft launched the Azure Security Lab, a set of dedicated cloud hosts for security researchers to test attacks against IaaS scenarios. As part of the launch of this new space, Microsoft have doubled the top bounty reward for Azure vulnerabilities to $40,000.

‘To make it easier for security researchers to confidently and aggressively test Azure, we are inviting a select group of talented individuals to come and do their worst to emulate criminal hackers in a customer-safe cloud environment called the Azure Security Lab.’ (Source: Microsoft)

Interested in applying to join the Azure Security Lab? You can do so here!

IN OTHER NEWS:

Azure AD provisioning, now with more apps and better insights

Microsoft announces Code Browser with Github integration and one-click Azure Deployment

Introducing the new HBv2 Azure Virtual Machines for high-performance computing

Announcing new AMD EPYC™-based Azure Virtual Machines

Azure Archive Storage pricing dropped by up to 50%

Announcing the general availability of Azure Ultra Disk Storage

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