https://mc.merill.net/ Latest Azure updates from azure.microsoft.com/updates. en-us Mon, 26 Oct 2026 16:02:05 GMT 60 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577782 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577782 Mon, 26 Oct 2026 16:02:05 GMT Azure Network Watcher VNet flow logs filtering is now generally available, enabling you to control which network traffic flows are logged based on specific criteria such as IP addresses, ports, protocols, encryption state, flow state, and traffic direction. With this capability, you can focus logging on the traffic that matters most for monitoring, troubleshooting, security, compliance, and network optimization. Filtering helps reduce log volume by capturing only relevant flows, which can lower... Azure Updates Network Watcher https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577963 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577963 Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:21:07 GMT Azure Backup now supports Item-Level Recovery (ILR) for Azure virtual machines using Premium SSD v2 and Ultra disks with both 512 byte and 4KB logical sector sizes. You can now recover individual files and folders from your Azure VMs with Premium SSDv2 and Ultra disks. You can generate a file-recovery executable or script through the Azure portal, CLI, or PowerShell, then run it on a compatible machine to access the recovery point, selectively browse, and copy individual files or folders without... Azure Backup Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577618 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577618 Thu, 22 Oct 2026 18:01:00 GMT ABFS Vectored Read helps compatible analytics engines reduce request overhead for selective reads in Azure Data Lake Storage. By combining nearby file ranges into fewer storage requests and executing reads asynchronously, it can reduce network round trips for workloads such as selective Parquet queries. Compatible Spark workloads can enable the capability through configuration, without rewriting queries or migrating data. Learn more . Azure Blob Storage Azure Data Lake Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577273 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577273 Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:38:32 GMT What and why Starting October 30, 2026, Microsoft Entra ID will make the Choose Your Own Telephony Provider experience available. This feature enables organizations to use a supported third-party telecommunications provider for SMS and voice authentication. Organizations select a supported provider through Microsoft Security Store and manage their commercial relationship directly with the provider. Microsoft recommends phishing-resistant authentication methods, such as passkeys, instead of SMS o... Azure Updates Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576716 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576716 Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:13:16 GMT Safe Key Rotation for Azure Cosmos DB is now generally available. You can view timestamp metadata showing when each account key was last used, helping you identify active keys before rotating or retiring credentials. This visibility helps reduce the risk of service disruptions caused by disabling keys that are still in use. It also gives you actionable insights to improve credential management, maintain application continuity, and support modern security and compliance practices. Learn more . Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576242 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576242 Tue, 20 Oct 2026 18:55:47 GMT Announcing the public preview of disable VNet peering route, a route-table capability that gives you more control over traffic between peered virtual networks. DPR suppresses system-generated peering routes on subnets associated with the route table while preserving the peering connection itself. In large hub-and-spoke networks, you can pair this feature with a summarized user-defined route to direct traffic through a network virtual appliance, such as Azure Firewall, instead of maintaining a se... Azure Updates Virtual Network https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577156 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577156 Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:57:35 GMT Announcing the general availability of the service tag match condition for Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) custom rules on Azure Front Door Premium. Service tags represent groups of IP address prefixes used by Azure services, and Microsoft updates them automatically as addresses change. Custom rules can now match a HTTP request's source IP address against service tags, so you can control traffic from Azure services without building and maintaining lists of IPs. With service tag matching, yo... Azure Front Door Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577130 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577130 Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:55:59 GMT Azure Application Gateway now supports keyless TLS termination using certificates whose private keys stay in Azure Key Vault Managed HSM. Each TLS handshake signature is performed inside the HSM, and the private key is never exported to the gateway. This integration helps you: Maintain private key custody within a dedicated HSM boundary. Use managed identities and role-based access control for key access. Monitor signing operations through Managed HSM diagnostic logs. Obtain cryptographic eviden... Application Gateway Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ575329 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ575329 Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:54:24 GMT Advanced platform metrics for Azure Monitor are now generally available. Advanced platform metrics provide finer-grained signals that help customers more quickly and accurately identify changes and trends within their resources. With this release, customers can enable advanced platform metrics directly from the Azure portal, with an in-product banner prompting enablement for subscriptions where the feature is not yet enabled. Advanced platform metrics are also now available in Fairfax and Moonca... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577165 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ577165 Mon, 19 Oct 2026 20:23:15 GMT Metrics usage insights is now generally available, giving you greater visibility into what’s driving metrics usage across your Azure Monitor workspace. Monitor workspace utilization, identify unused metrics, understand usage trends, and investigate changes in ingestion volume to help optimize costs and plan capacity. Learn more . Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573917 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573917 Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:55:40 GMT Azure DNS now provides DNS based load balancing by seamless integration with Azure Traffic Manager. Customers can directly associate an Azure DNS record set with a Traffic Manager profile, eliminating the need to create a CNAME record pointing to the trafficmanager.net domain. This integration reduces DNS lookup latency by removing the additional CNAME lookup and enables DNSSEC compatibility for load-balanced records by removing the unsigned trafficmanager.net domain from the DNS resolution chai... Azure DNS Azure Updates Traffic Manager https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576556 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576556 Fri, 16 Oct 2026 16:59:02 GMT Private network gateway for Azure Databricks is now in Public Preview, enabling serverless compute to connect to resources in your virtual network (VNet) and transitively connected networks through a single managed gateway. Customers can use the gateway to access multiple private resources, route serverless egress through their own firewalls or network security appliances, and use stable, identifiable source IP addresses. This simplifies secure connectivity for serverless workloads while giving... Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574296 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574296 Fri, 16 Oct 2026 16:50:27 GMT External key management for Azure Key Vault Managed HSM is now generally available in all Azure public regions. For organizations with regulatory or sovereignty requirements to retain physical control of key-encryption keys, it lets Azure services that support customer-managed keys with Managed HSM use keys held in a customer-operated hardware security module (HSM) outside Microsoft infrastructure. Managed HSM delegates key wrap and unwrap operations through a customer-operated proxy; the extern... Azure Updates Key Vault https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576542 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576542 Thu, 15 Oct 2026 19:05:18 GMT Azure Files customers can now copy and synchronize file share data across storage accounts, Azure regions, and subscriptions within the same tenant using Azure Storage Mover. Schedule incremental transfers to maintain secondary copies that can support business continuity scenarios, copy data across regions, consolidate file shares, or place data closer to applications and analytics workloads. Centralized scheduling, monitoring, auditing, and metadata preservation provide a managed approach to re... Azure Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571025 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571025 Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:39:51 GMT Standard service endpoint, a new capability in the Azure Private Link family, provides a scalable and secure approach for connecting Azure IaaS workloads to Azure PaaS services. Standard service endpoint addresses the manageability, and the scale limitations of traditional service endpoints by using Public IP addresses as network identifiers and integrating with network security perimeter. This enables organizations to achieve large-scale IaaS-to-PaaS connectivity while maintaining strong networ... Azure Private Link Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576334 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576334 Thu, 15 Oct 2026 16:54:20 GMT Automatic zone balance for Virtual Machine Scale Sets is now generally available. This feature continuously monitors scale sets deployed across availability zones and automatically redistributes VM instances when zonal imbalances occur. This helps reduce the risk that a single-zone outage disproportionately affects an application. Automatic zone balance uses a create-before-delete approach: Azure creates a replacement VM in an under-provisioned zone and validates its health before removing an in... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576377 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576377 Wed, 14 Oct 2026 19:17:47 GMT Hardware Audit Logging for Azure Cloud HSM provides hardware-generated audit records for supported HSM management operations, helping organizations strengthen security monitoring, compliance reporting, governance, and forensic investigations. Customers can access human-readable records alongside HSM-signed binary audit data, signatures, and certificates to independently verify the authenticity and integrity of signed audit batches. Audit events are delivered to Azure Monitor Log Analytics for us... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576214 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ576214 Wed, 14 Oct 2026 19:13:31 GMT Azure Site Recovery (ASR) now supports disaster recovery for Azure ARC-enabled Windows VMWare virtual machines and on-premise physical servers. Customers can protect ARC-managed machines with ASR while continuing to use Azure ARC for governance, inventory, monitoring and management capabilities. Learn more. Azure Site Recovery Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570313 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570313 Fri, 09 Oct 2026 20:27:17 GMT The Azure Key Vault Secrets Provider Extension for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes will be retired on October 9, 2027. Customers currently using the extension should plan to migrate to the Azure Key Vault Secret Store Extension before the retirement date. The Azure Key Vault Secret Store Extension provides equivalent functionality for accessing and synchronizing secrets from Azure Key Vault for workloads running on Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters. In addition, the Azure Key Vault Secret Store... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574430 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574430 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 22:51:01 GMT AKS will now provision and manage a StandardV2 NAT Gateway for clusters using an AKS-managed virtual network. StandardV2 is now the default managed NAT Gateway SKU for new clusters in supported regions when using the managedNATGateway outbound type. StandardV2 NAT Gateway provides zone redundancy by default, higher bandwidth and throughput, and IPv6 support. Existing AKS clusters can migrate from a managed Standard NAT Gateway or load balancer to a managed StandardV2 NAT Gateway. Learn more . Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure NAT Gateway Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573691 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573691 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:56:31 GMT Now you can deploy Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server in the East US 3 Azure region. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567933 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567933 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:23:25 GMT Microsoft Dev Box will retire on September 18, 2028. Beginning on September 14, 2026, Microsoft Dev Box will begin the closing-down process. After retirement, Microsoft Dev Box will no longer be available. Microsoft Dev Box is currently in maintenance mode, and Microsoft’s investments for developer cloud environments are focused on Windows 365. Existing Microsoft Dev Box usage remains supported during the transition period, and we recommend that you begin planning your migration now to avoid dis... Azure Updates Microsoft Dev Box https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567934 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567934 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:20:34 GMT Azure Deployment Environments will retire on February 22, 2027. Beginning on September 14, 2026, Azure Deployment Environments will begin the closing-down process. After retirement, the service will no longer be available. To help avoid disruption, we recommend that you begin assessing your current usage and planning your transition now. Review the environments, templates, and workflows in your organization that depend on Azure Deployment Environments and identify the replacement approach that b... Azure Deployment Environments Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574343 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574343 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 17:29:30 GMT Announcing the general availability of exceptions for Web Application Firewall on Azure Application Gateway and Azure Front Door. Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) helps protect your web applications from common threats and attacks. In some cases, WAF may block requests that are safe and expected for your application. Existing exclusions help reduce false positives by omitting specific request attributes, such as headers, cookies, query string arguments, or body fields, from WAF evaluation wh... Application Gateway Azure Front Door Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574204 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ574204 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 17:24:34 GMT The integration between Microsoft Agent 365 and Azure API Management is now available in public preview, helping organizations connect centralized governance with runtime enforcement for MCP servers and tools. With this integration, organizations can: Discover Azure API Management gateways and MCP servers in Agent 365 , creating a centralized inventory of gateway-managed tools. Control access to MCP servers from Agent 365, with enforcement applied by Azure API Management at runtime. Apply tool-l... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571831 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571831 Thu, 08 Oct 2026 14:17:44 GMT Multiparty private offers give Microsoft partners a way to procure third-party cloud and AI solutions for customers through Marketplace. Software companies can expand into new markets by working with partners that bring established customer relationships, while customers rely on their trusted partners to manage their cloud and AI initiatives. Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573744 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573744 Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:06:00 GMT Anyscale on Azure is now Generally Available. Anyscale on Azure is a managed platform for running distributed Python workloads on Ray. It deploys directly onto your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster and integrates with the Azure services your team already uses. Unlike other processing engines which either only support one hardware type (e.g. CPUs) or focus on a single workload (e.g. inference), Ray turns a heterogeneous cluster of CPUs and GPUs into a single Python runtime composing data pr... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573443 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573443 Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:57:04 GMT Starting with SQL Server 2025 CU9 and SQL Server 2022 CU27, SQL Server on Linux supports the bulkadmin fixed server role and the ADMINISTER BULK OPERATIONS permission for performing bulk data import operations without requiring users to be members of the sysadmin fixed server role. This capability enables you to use operations such as BULK INSERT and OPENROWSET(BULK...) while following a least-privilege security model. Previously on SQL Server on Linux, these operations required sysadmin members... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570232 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570232 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 22:37:54 GMT Beginning September 30, 2027, support for the pod name dimension on the following Azure Monitor platform metrics is retiring, and these metrics are transitioning to aggregate pod counters: Number of pods by phase (kube_pod_status_phase) Number of pods in Ready state (kube_pod_status_ready) After this change: Metric names remain unchanged. Aggregate pod counts remain available. Namespace-level monitoring scenarios remain supported. The pod name dimension will no longer be available for filtering,... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568178 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568178 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:24:43 GMT Azure App Service on Azure Stack Hub will be retired on September 30, 2029 . Starting September 30, 2026 , new installations will no longer be supported, and no new product releases, features, or enhancements will be made available. Existing supported deployments can continue to run and upgrade to the latest available release until retirement. Customers should begin planning migration to Azure App Service in Azure now to continue receiving support, security updates, platform improvements, and ne... App Service Azure Stack Hub Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568585 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568585 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:21:59 GMT On September 1, 2027 support for Java 8, 11 and 17 will end. Your apps that are hosted on App Service will continue to run, but security updates will no longer be available, and we’ll no longer provide customer service for Java 8, 11 and 17. Required action To avoid potential security vulnerabilities and minimize risk for your App Service apps, follow the steps to upgrade your app to Java 25 before September 1, 2027. Learn more . App Service Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569236 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569236 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:42:33 GMT Always Encrypted with Intel SGX enclaves in Azure SQL Database will retire on October 31, 2027 as support for SGX-enabled DC-series hardware is phased out. Customers should transition to Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) enclaves, a hardware-independent alternative, or consider SQL Server on Confidential VMs. Customer impact After retirement, workloads using Intel SGX enclaves will no longer have enclave functionality. Databases running on DC-series compute tiers should be migrated to supporte... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573782 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573782 Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:44:06 GMT Running Kubernetes on-premises often means adding a virtualization layer, adapting to unfamiliar infrastructure, or giving up control over the hardware and software your applications depend on. For AI workloads, these tradeoffs can limit access to local data, reduce available compute capacity, and restrict your choice of GPUs, drivers, and runtimes. AKS on bare metal Ubuntu, now in public preview, brings the AKS experience directly to customer owned Ubuntu infrastructure. Deploy a complete Kuber... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572940 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572940 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:51:57 GMT Azure HorizonDB is expanding to additional Azure regions, giving you greater flexibility to deploy PostgreSQL workloads closer to your applications and users. With expanded regional availability, you have more options when choosing where to deploy Azure HorizonDB based on your workload needs. Learn more . Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571499 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571499 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:12:09 GMT SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines is now available in Azure Bleu, enabling you to deploy and manage SQL Server workloads in France's sovereign cloud environment while meeting data residency and sovereignty requirements. Learn more. Azure Updates SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573875 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573875 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 17:55:23 GMT Starting October 15, 2026, Search in Microsoft Fabric will return tables from semantic models, lakehouses, and mirrored databases as individual results. Users can search by table name or description, or find a table by an exact column-name match. More object types will become available over time. This applies to Fabric's global search, the OneLake Catalog UI, the Search API, search in Fabric's MCP servers, the /find command in the Fabric CLI, and the discovery skill. What you need to know: Table... Azure Updates Microsoft Fabric https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573425 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573425 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 17:44:31 GMT Azure Backup for PostgreSQL flexible server and elastic cluster (v2) preview brings enterprise-grade long-term retention to PostgreSQL. Backups are taken as physical backups from managed disk snapshots and vaulted in an Azure Backup vault, so protection now extends to servers of up to 32 TB on Premium SSD v1 and up to 64 TB on Premium SSD v2. The first backup is full and every backup after it is incremental, which keeps daily protection practical at multi-terabyte scale, with a recovery point ob... Azure Backup Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573861 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573861 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 17:41:41 GMT Announcing the Public Preview of IPv6 support for Application Gateway WAF. Application Gateway Web Application Firewall (WAF) now supports inspection and enforcement for IPv6 traffic in Public Preview, marking a major step forward in modernizing the platform for dual‑stack environments. As IPv6 adoption accelerates globally due to IPv4 exhaustion and modern connectivity requirements, this enhancement enables customers to embrace IPv6 without compromising their security posture. With this update,... Application Gateway Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571504 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571504 Fri, 02 Oct 2026 17:35:21 GMT MVUs are now available for elastic clusters in Azure Database for PostgreSQL. You can upgrade an existing elastic cluster to a supported newer PostgreSQL version in place without provisioning a replacement cluster, migrating distributed data, or changing your application connection endpoint. This managed upgrade experience helps reduce the downtime, complexity, and operational effort associated with traditional migration-based upgrades. You can use MVUs to keep distributed PostgreSQL workloads o... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569653 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569653 Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:57:11 GMT We’re happy to announce the public preview of reader endpoint support to simplify connection management when using multiple replicas in Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server. A reader endpoint enables automatic load balancing of read-only connection traffic across multiple replicas. It simplifies application architecture by giving you a single endpoint for read operations, enhancing both scalability and fault tolerance. Azure Database for MySQL supports up to 10 read replicas per primary se... Azure Database for MySQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569592 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569592 Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:02:55 GMT On October 31, 2029, DCsv3 and DCdsv3-series Azure Linux, Windows and Dedicated Host virtual machines will be retired. After that date, they will no longer be available for use or purchase. Before October 31, 2029, migrate your workloads to one of the following options that best aligns with your business needs: To use a VM-based programming model consider DCasv6 / DCadsv6 / DCesv6 / DCedsv6 or memory optimized ECasv6 / ECadsv6 / ECesv6 / ECedsv6 series confidential VMs (CVMs), For containerized... Azure Updates Linux Virtual Machines Virtual Machines Windows Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571894 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571894 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 21:13:13 GMT The public preview of Microsoft-managed performance monitoring for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines is now available. You can now monitor SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines without building custom collection scripts or correlating telemetry across disconnected tools. The SQL IaaS Agent extension collects performance data from your SQL Server instances and sends it to a Microsoft-managed telemetry pipeline for processing and storage. Resource-level and estate-wide dashboards help you identi... Azure Updates SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573414 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573414 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:26:47 GMT On September 30, 2026, Microsoft Azure retired the Standard_NV12s_v3, Standard_NV12hs_v3, Standard_NV24s_v3, Standard_NV24ms_v3, Standard_NV32ms_v3, and Standard_NV48s_v3 virtual machines (VMs) in the NVv3-series VMs. Any remaining NVv3-series VMs will be set to a deallocated state. They'll stop working and no longer incur billing charges. NVv3 will no longer be under SLA or have support included. Note: 1-year and 3-year Reserved Instance (RI) purchases for the NVv3-series ended on November 2, 2... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573415 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573415 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:24:01 GMT On September 30, 2026, Microsoft Azure retired the Standard_NV4as_v4, Standard_NV4ahs_v4, Standard_NV8as_v4, Standard_NV8ahs_v4, Standard_NV16as_v4, Standard_NV16ahs_v4, Standard_NV32as_v4, and Standard_NV32ahs_v4 virtual machines (VMs) in the NVv4-series VMs. Any remaining NVv4-series VMs will be set to a deallocated state. They'll stop working and no longer incur billing charges. NVv4 will no longer be under SLA or have support included. Note: 1-year and 3-year Reserved Instance (RI) purchases... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573214 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573214 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:11:11 GMT Teams running Ubuntu node pools on AKS need to stay current with Ubuntu LTS releases, but each OS transition can introduce package footprint, security, and compatibility concerns. Ubuntu 26.04 support introduces the Ubuntu2604 OS SKU using Ubuntu Minimal as the baseline image, while preserving existing AKS create, update, and node pool workflows. You get a smaller default host footprint, Linux LTS kernel 7.0, and a controlled migration path with rollback flexibility to Ubuntu 24.04 where support... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573385 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573385 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:09:51 GMT Discover Azure canvases for GitHub Copilot, interactive shared workspaces that bring Azure tools, dashboards, and guided workflows directly alongside your Copilot conversations. Explore Azure resources, analyze costs, and build hosted skills while keeping progress, controls, and next steps visible and actionable in one workspace. Learn more . Azure Copilot Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572346 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572346 Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:07:30 GMT As part of the Microsoft Azure VM lifecycle policy , Microsoft is announcing the retirement of the Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, and Esv3 Azure VM series in public cloud Azure regions. These VMs will enter the End-of-Life lifecycle stage and retire on November 15, 2029. We know migrating production workloads takes planning and engineering time. To keep your applications and workloads running without interruption, migrate any Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, or Esv3 series VMs to a newer VM series before November 15, 2029. Aft... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ-transition-to-using-standard-tests-for-singlestep-availability-testing-in-azure-monitor-application-insights-by-30-september https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ-transition-to-using-standard-tests-for-singlestep-availability-testing-in-azure-monitor-application-insights-by-30-september Wed, 30 Sep 2026 16:18:26 GMT URL ping tests in Application Insights were originally planned for retirement on September 30, 2026. In response to customer feedback requesting more time to complete migration, the retirement date has been extended by 24 months to September 30, 2028. On September 30, 2028, existing URL ping tests are removed from your resources. Review the pricing for standard tests and transition to using them before September 30, 2028, to ensure you can continue to run single-step availability tests in your A... Application Insights Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570800 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570800 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:41:09 GMT The Functions on Azure Container Apps (ACA) V1 will be retired on September 29, 2027. After this date, existing Functions on ACA V1 Apps will stop running and no longer process requests or event-driven triggers. Action required Review your Azure environments and migrate all affected apps to the Functions on Azure Container Apps(ACA) V2 hosting model before September 29, 2027 to avoid service disruption. Functions on ACA V2 uses a native Azure Container App configured with `kind=functionapp`. You... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572630 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572630 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:27:09 GMT The Laosv5 series and Lasv5 storage optimized VMs, based on the 5th Gen AMD EPYC™ processor (Turin), are now generally available. Lasv5 and Laosv5 VMs have sizes ranging from 2-160 vCPUs, with 8GiB of memory and 720GB of local NVMe disk capacity per vCPU. Both support 200Gbps of network bandwidth and deliver up to 35% better average CPU performance. The Lasv5 VMs offer up to 30.7TB of local storage capacity with 9.6M read IOPS performance, while the Laosv5 VMs offer up to 138TB of local storage... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571075 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571075 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:17:59 GMT Automatic Zone Placement for VM Scale Sets (Public Preview) enables Azure to automatically select the best availability zones for your scale set based on SKU availability, capacity, and placement requirements. Instead of manually maintaining zone lists for each region, customers can use a consistent configuration across regions while Azure handles zone selection. Key benefits include: Simplified multi-region deployments with no region-specific zone management. Capacity-aware zone selection to im... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570696 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570696 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:07:44 GMT Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server is now available in Germany West Central, enabling you to connect SQL Server instances to Azure Arc and take advantage of Azure-based inventory, governance, security, assessment, and license management capabilities. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570763 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570763 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:06:50 GMT Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server is now available in Italy North, enabling you to connect SQL Server instances to Azure Arc and take advantage of Azure-based inventory, governance, security, assessment, and license management capabilities. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571909 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571909 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 18:14:46 GMT Ultra Disk support is now available in public preview for Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. You can use Azure’s highest-performance managed disk option for I/O-intensive and transaction-heavy PostgreSQL workloads that require consistently low sub-millisecond latency, high IOPS, and throughput. With independently configurable capacity and performance, you can align storage needs more closely with your workload requirements. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571867 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571867 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 18:13:31 GMT The public preview of Microsoft-managed performance monitoring for Azure SQL Database is now available. You can now monitor Azure SQL Database without building custom collection scripts or correlating telemetry across disconnected tools. Built-in data collection sends performance telemetry from your databases to a Microsoft-managed telemetry pipeline for processing and storage. Resource-level and estate-wide dashboards help you identify performance trends, anomalies, and resource bottlenecks. In... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571904 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571904 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 18:11:15 GMT The preview of performance monitoring for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc is expanding with more flexible ways to explore and visualize your performance data. You can query Microsoft-managed monitoring data directly through a telemetry endpoint. The built-in Azure portal experience now uses Grafana dashboards, providing ready-to-use views without requiring you to deploy and manage a monitoring pipeline. You can also connect your own Grafana environment to the same telemetry endpoint and build da... Azure Arc Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571643 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571643 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 18:05:11 GMT The following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: Scale larger workloads on Azure SQL Database Hyperscale Premium series with new 160-vCore and 192-vCore options, delivering up to 50% greater compute capacity than the previous 128-vCore maximum. Enable automatic index compaction to reduce storage space consumption and save resources without index maintenance jobs. Query and explore Azure SQL Database directly from the Azure portal with the modern, browser-based SQL Query Editor, wit... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571783 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571783 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:57:36 GMT Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server now supports cross-tenant customer-managed keys (CMK). You can encrypt your data using keys stored in an Azure Key Vault or Azure Managed HSM that resides in a different Microsoft Entra tenant than your PostgreSQL server. This update is ideal for SaaS providers and ISVs that need to keep database operations and key ownership in separate tenants. With cross-tenant CMK, you can keep full control of your encryption keys while applications and databases... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571810 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571810 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:52:59 GMT A new deployment experience for SQL Server on Linux Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) replaces legacy marketplace images with automated script-based provisioning. This release provides greater flexibility, simplified management, and improved customization. You can deploy a standard Linux VM, configure SQL Server, and automatically install and register SQL Server through an integrated workflow. Learn more . Azure Updates SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571836 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571836 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:51:34 GMT Now you can use ALDO to extend SQL Server support to environments that can’t maintain continuous connectivity to Azure. ALDO is designed for operations in highly regulated, secure, remote, or air-gapped environments, where internet connectivity is restricted or unavailable. SQL Server workloads continue to run entirely on Azure Local infrastructure while maintaining operational independence from cloud connectivity. In addition to traditional database workloads, you can use ALDO to support local... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571841 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571841 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:50:20 GMT With SQL Server on Azure Local, you can run SQL Server workloads on Azure Local infrastructure while leveraging Azure services for centralized management, governance, monitoring, security, and licensing experiences. By connecting to Azure through Azure Arc, you can maintain a consistent hybrid operating model across on-premises, edge, and cloud environments. In addition to traditional database workloads, you can use SQL Server on Azure Local to provide a foundation for AI-powered applications an... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571846 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571846 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:49:15 GMT In late September 2026, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: Database Hub in Microsoft Fabric is a unified experience for discovering, managing, monitoring, and optimizing databases across SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB, and Fabric SQL. By bringing AI-powered insights and agents into a single control plane, Database Hub simplifies database operations and helps you modernize your data estate. You can now increase the number of databases allowed in a H... Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571852 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571852 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:42:47 GMT In SSMS, you can now use Microsoft.Build.Sql projects to help you implement, manage, and collaborate on database changes, by providing a local definition of the database objects. A SQL database project is a local representation of SQL objects that comprise the schema for a single database, such as tables, stored procedures, or functions. With this support for the development cycle of a SQL database project, you can integrate database development into continuous integration and continuous deploym... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571857 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571857 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:40:40 GMT Auto-pause and auto-resume are now available in public preview for Azure SQL Hyperscale databases using the Serverless compute tier. You can configure databases to automatically pause during periods of inactivity and automatically resume when activity returns, helping reduce costs for workloads that experience extended or predictable idle periods. When a database is paused, compute billing stops and only storage-related charges continue to apply. Auto-pause and auto-resume can be enabled for bot... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571872 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571872 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:39:36 GMT You can now format SQL scripts directly in Visual Studio Code using SQL Formatter for more consistent, readable code. Customizable formatting options help you match your preferred coding style, so you can keep queries tidy without manual reformatting. Now available in general availability, this feature makes it easier to standardize SQL across your projects and streamline everyday development. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571899 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571899 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:38:16 GMT SQL Migration Agent Skills help you automate and streamline the end-to-end migration journey from SQL Server to Azure. These reusable AI-powered skills help guide you through assessment, target selection, migration execution, and post-migration validation, so you can migrate with less manual effort and more confidence. These skills are designed to work across multiple Microsoft user interfaces while preserving migration context, keeping you in control of critical decisions. Key capabilities: Ass... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570283 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570283 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:36:13 GMT Microsoft is retiring Azure Arc-enabled System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) in September 2029. Customers must plan and transition to alternative solutions. What does this mean for you? If you are using Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM for: Azure services and Azure Arc capabilities such as monitoring, security, governance, updates, and licensing for Extended Security Updates and Pay-as-you-go SQL and WS, we recommend switching to Azure Arc-enabled Servers. VM lifecycle and powercycle operations... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571795 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571795 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:34:44 GMT You can now select Azure SQL Database, including Hyperscale, as a migration target directly from the database migration experience in Azure Arc. The workflow brings Azure Database Migration Service and Self-hosted Integration Runtime setup into the guided portal journey, allowing you to assess your SQL Server estate, choose your target, configure your migration and monitor progress without leaving Arc. Until now, your path from assessment to migration required stepping outside Arc, learning a se... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573003 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573003 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:31:11 GMT Microsoft SQL Agent Skills help you get more accurate, product-specific guidance when using AI agents to build, operate, and migrate SQL workloads. You can use these skills with Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Database container, SQL Server to Azure migration, and Fabric Database Hub scenarios. The skills provide SQL-specific guidance that helps your AI agent work more effectively with Microsoft SQL technologies, making it easier to complete common development, migration, and management tasks. Lea... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571914 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571914 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:28:57 GMT LTR v2 is the next-generation long-term backup solution for Azure Database for PostgreSQL that moves from logical backups (pg_dump/pg_restore) used in LTR v1 to physical snapshot-based backups integrated with Azure Backup Vaults. With this release, you can now support daily backups while gaining much greater scalability for large databases through physical snapshots rather than pg_dump-based exports. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570046 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570046 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:26:50 GMT Microsoft is retiring all versions of HPC Pack. End of Support is August 27, 2027. HPC Pack is now entering a one-year retirement period. Microsoft will provide limited, retirement-only support during this period. The scope of this support is defined below so customers know what to expect. In scope until End of Support: • Security/CVE response and necessary security updates. • Guidance from existing documentation and validated configurations. • Assistance with supported components and documented... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569914 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569914 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:25:10 GMT Azure IoT Central will be retired on September 20, 2029. You can continue using Azure IoT Central until the retirement date, but we recommend starting your transition planning early. Why is this happening? As Azure IoT evolves, Microsoft is focusing future investment on Azure IoT platform services that provide greater scalability, architectural flexibility, lifecycle management, and integration with Microsoft Fabric for analytics and AI-driven workloads. Azure IoT Hub, Device Provisioning Servic... Azure IoT Central Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573027 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573027 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:12:40 GMT Large volume breakthrough mode in Azure NetApp Files enables extreme performance and scalability for demanding HPC and EDA workloads. It supports large volumes up to 2PiB, delivering throughput up to 80 GiBps, depending on workload characteristics. Large volume breakthrough mode uses six storage endpoints for each large volume ensuring consistent performance. Storage systems hosting breakthrough mode volumes are reserved for each customer to provide peak performance and not compete with other wo... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573032 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573032 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:09:58 GMT QoS update with cool access enabled on Premium and Ultra service levels improves how Azure NetApp Files balances performance and cost for mixed hot and cool workloads. Throughput automatically adjusts as data moves to cool storage, maintaining hot‑tier performance while enabling customers to benefit from cool access at scale. This enhancement continuously optimizes pool and volume throughput as cool access patterns change, delivering a seamless experience without manual tuning. Learn more: What'... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573041 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573041 Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:07:55 GMT Azure NetApp Files now supports Microsoft Entra Kerberos authentication for SMB volumes. The capability enables users with hybrid or cloud-only identities to authenticate through Microsoft Entra ID using cloud-issued Kerberos tickets. This capability removes the requirement for SMB clients to have network line-of-sight to Active Directory Domain Services domain controllers in the authentication path. It helps organizations simplify identity architecture, reduce infrastructure dependencies, and m... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571800 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571800 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 22:07:19 GMT Vector search and vector indexes are now generally available in Azure SQL Database. Using the CREATE VECTOR INDEX and VECTOR_SEARCH T-SQL capabilities, you can perform efficient approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) searches for AI scenarios such as semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), recommendation systems, and image search. Built on the DiskANN algorithm, vector indexes enable efficient vector similarity search over large datasets while allowing you to combine vector search wit... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572998 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572998 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 22:06:05 GMT Azure SQL Dev Hub gives you a central starting point for building applications with Azure SQL, whether you’re developing directly or using AI agents. You can find guidance for connecting to Azure SQL from .NET, Python, Node.js, and Java, along with resources for working with schemas and queries. You can also access runnable samples, troubleshooting guidance, and SQL agent skills in one place, making it easier to get started and build with Azure SQL using the tools and frameworks you already use.... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571632 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571632 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 18:52:10 GMT In late September 2026, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL Managed Instance: Use the flexible memory feature in Azure SQL Managed Instance to change the amount of memory allocated to your SQL managed instance without changing the number of vCores. Get support for higher transaction log write throughput limits in Azure SQL Managed Instance Business Critical, enabling greater performance for write-intensive workloads. Learn more: Flexible Memory in Azure SQL Managed Inst... Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572968 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572968 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:08:48 GMT We are announcing the general availability of the Luxembourg Azure Extended Zone. Azure Extended Zones are small-footprint extensions of Azure placed in metro areas, industry centers, or specific jurisdictions, to serve low latency and data residency workloads. They support a selection of virtual machine (VMs), container, networking, storage, and other Azure services. Azure Extended Zones can run latency-sensitive and throughput-intensive applications close to end users, within data residency bo... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ494438 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ494438 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:18:48 GMT Azure Backup now supports operational backup for Elastic SAN, offering a fully managed solution for backing up and restoring Elastic SAN volumes. This integration helps protect data against accidental deletions, ransomware attacks, and application updates by exporting Elastic SAN volumes to independent Managed Disk Incremental Snapshots. These snapshots are stored in locally redundant storage and are independent of the Elastic SAN volume lifecycle. The solution supports up to 450 restore points... Azure Backup Azure Elastic SAN Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573048 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ573048 Fri, 25 Sep 2026 18:07:26 GMT Azure HorizonDB is a fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible, cloud-native database service designed for scalable, high-performance workloads. Azure HorizonDB, now in public preview, includes PostgreSQL 18 support. Learn more . Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ557117 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ557117 Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:51:23 GMT Microsoft will retire several standalone Azure Communication Services (ACS) offerings on September 30, 2028. After this date, the affected services will no longer be available. Details Beginning September 30, 2028, the following ACS services will be retired and will no longer function: Email SMS Advanced Messaging with WhatsApp Chat Chat for Teams Meeting Interop Rooms Number Management (Direct Offer) Direct Routing Job Router Web UI Library SDK Mobile UI Library SDK Several ACS services will al... Azure Communication Services Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572573 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572573 Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:04:16 GMT Instant Access for application-consistent restore points on virtual machines (that have Premium v2 or Ultra disks as data disks) is now generally available. With Instant Access, you can begin restoring a disk from a restore point as soon as the snapshot is created, instead of waiting for the background data replication to complete fully. That shortens your recovery time objective when you are bringing a VM back online. What's new at general availability This release introduces “instantAccessStat... Azure Disk Storage Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561262 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561262 Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:50:55 GMT Teams building agentic applications, multi-tenant platforms, development environments, and CI/CD systems have often had to stitch together custom infrastructure to run untrusted code safely, preserve state across sessions, and handle bursty demand without paying for idle capacity. Azure Container Apps Sandboxes addresses that challenge with a new first-class resource type in Azure Container Apps that provides fast, secure, ephemeral compute environments with built-in suspend and resume capabilit... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ559242 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ559242 Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:50:49 GMT Azure Container Apps Express is now generally available. It is the simplest and fastest way to launch and scale powerful applications on Azure, from zero to hyperscale, without infrastructure decisions. It represents the first Azure compute platform purpose-built for agent and developer use alike. Express is based on years of experience running Azure Container Apps at a large scale. We have learned that most developers working on web apps, APIs and agents want to deploy quickly, have automatic s... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572770 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572770 Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:50:05 GMT Support for PowerShell 7.4 will end on November 10, 2026, please transition to PowerShell 7.6. Your Azure Function apps will continue to run, but security patches and updates will no longer be provided and customer support for PowerShell 7.4 will be discontinued. Running function apps on unsupported runtime or language version, may lead to issues and degraded performance. Required action To avoid potential security vulnerabilities, minimize risk for your Azure Functions apps, and take advantage... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572838 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572838 Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:46:49 GMT Support for .NET 8 and .NET 9 will end on November 10, 2026. Please transition to .NET 10 by that date. Your Azure Function Apps will continue to operate, but security updates will no longer be provided, and support for .NET 8 and .NET 9 on Azure Functions will end. Running Function Apps on an unsupported runtime or language version might lead to security and performance issues. Upgrade to .NET 10 before November 10, 2026 to remain on a supported version. Learn more about Azure Functions stack v... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572771 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572771 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 19:22:34 GMT Support for Node.js 22 will end on April 30, 2027, please transition to Node.js 24 by that date. Your Azure Function apps will continue to run, but security patches and updates will no longer be provided and customer support for Node.js 22 will be discontinued. Running function apps on unsupported runtime or language version may lead to issues and degraded performance. Upgrade is required to maintain support eligibility. Required Action To avoid potential security vulnerabilities, minimize risk... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571919 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571919 Tue, 22 Sep 2026 18:51:48 GMT Flex Nodes for AKS is a deployment option for application and platform teams to use hybrid and edge infrastructure as connected worker nodes to an AKS control plane in Azure. Flex Nodes provide a consistent Kubernetes control plane while enabling teams to govern and secure compute for latency, regulatory, or sovereign needs. Rather than deploying an operating a complete Kubernetes cluster with a local control plane, Flex Nodes for AKS are designed for connected environments where only the worker... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572579 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572579 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 18:44:49 GMT Azure Sphere OS version 26.09 is now available in the Retail feed. This release includes updates to the Azure Sphere OS only, with no update to the SDK. If your devices are connected to the internet, they will receive the updated OS from the cloud. The 26.09 OS Retail release migrates the underlying Azure Sphere OS Linux Kernel version from the 5.10.x to 6.1.x branch, aligning Azure Sphere with the Linux CIP Platform for Super Long-Term Support. This will be Azure Sphere's final major kernel upd... Azure Sphere Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572214 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572214 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:58:19 GMT Today we're previewing a new way to build cloud apps with GitHub Copilot in VS Code: a guided Copilot experience that takes you from idea to a deployed Azure app through a structured, predictable workflow instead of a free-form chat session that may or may not land where you need it to. The problem: Copilot is powerful, but unpredictable Ask Copilot to "build me a Node.js API on Azure Functions with a Postgres database" today, and you might get a working project, or you might not. Sometimes Copi... Azure Updates Visual Studio Code https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572219 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ572219 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:55:34 GMT Azure Functions support for PowerShell 7.6 is now generally available. You can now develop apps using PowerShell 7.6 locally and deploy them to Azure Functions plans. Learn more: Updating your app to PowerShell 7.6 What's new in PowerShell 7.6? Azure Functions PowerShell versions and their end of support dates Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563536 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563536 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 19:10:53 GMT In public preview, Foundry Agent Service adds Foundry Routines, a native trigger primitive for running published agents automatically. Production agents often need to run on a schedule or when a business event occurs, and today that means assembling external glue such as Logic Apps, Azure Functions, webhooks, queues, custom storage, and separate identity and role assignments. The agent is governed in Foundry, but the trigger layer has been customer-owned infrastructure with its own configuration... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571530 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571530 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:29:29 GMT The Mdsv4 and Msv4 Series are memory-optimized virtual machine series built on 6th Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and enhanced with advanced security capabilities and the latest Azure Boost technologies. Designed for demanding memory-intensive and mission-critical workloads, including SAP workloads, these new series deliver improved performance, scalability, efficiency, and reliability to help customers run large-scale enterprise applications more cost-effectively. Learn more: Annou... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571826 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571826 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:24:02 GMT Microsoft Foundry now exposes enable and disable actions for Foundry agent objects within the Agent 365 governance surface in Microsoft Admin Center, generally available. Administrators can control whether a Foundry agent is available for use across their organization using the same elevation pattern applied to comparable agent application actions, without requiring developer intervention. This fills a core governance gap by bringing Foundry agents into the Admin Center alongside other agent typ... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571821 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571821 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:23:21 GMT In public preview, Microsoft Foundry now lets customers govern the outbound connections a hosted agent can make. Customers author ordered rules matched on destination host, including FQDN with wildcards such as *.contoso.com, with actions to allow, deny, transform outbound request headers, or rewrite the destination. Rules live in the agent's Responsible AI policy and are enforced inside the Foundry-managed agent sandbox before traffic leaves the runtime, so no separate network appliance is requ... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571816 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571816 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:21:06 GMT Publishing Microsoft Foundry agents to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams is now generally available. An agent only delivers value once it reaches the people who need it, and Foundry developers previously had no native path to make their agents operational across Microsoft 365, requiring separate deployment pipelines, bot registrations, and app manifests. With this release you publish an agent directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams, where it becomes discoverable to end users in the surfaces... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568414 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568414 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 16:44:11 GMT You can now monitor the synchronization status of your logical replication slots in Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server using the new logical_replication_slot_sync_status metric. This Azure Monitor metric shows whether each logical replication slot is synchronized, catching up, or in an unknown state, helping you validate replication health and slot readiness. This feature is especially useful when using logical decoding or change data capture (CDC) tools like Debezium or Kafka. With... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571042 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571042 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:51:06 GMT Updated troubleshooting guidance is now available for Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. You can use the expanded documentation to diagnose high CPU, memory, IOPS, temporary file usage, and autovacuum issues, helping you identify root causes and resolve performance problems more efficiently. The updated guidance provides end-to-end investigation workflows for the built-in troubleshooting guides and explains how to correlate Azure Monitor metrics, Query Store statistics, session data,... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571047 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571047 Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:49:46 GMT Azure Database for PostgreSQL elastic clusters now support PostgreSQL 18, bringing the latest PostgreSQL capabilities to distributed, cloud-scale workloads. You can build new applications or modernize existing ones with the performance, reliability, and developer improvements of PostgreSQL 18—combined with the flexible scaling and operational simplicity of Azure Database for PostgreSQL elastic clusters. You can explore PostgreSQL 18 performance improvements, new SQL capabilities, and developer-f... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570509 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570509 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 18:36:44 GMT Azure Payments HSM v2 is a highly available, single-tenant Payment HSM service for payment processing, credential issuance, PIN processing, key management, and authentication data protection. Customers retain exclusive administrative control of an isolated, single-tenant Payment HSM cluster while Microsoft manages the underlying infrastructure, availability, and lifecycle operations. Azure Payments HSM v2 enables customers to protect sensitive payment assets, maintain key sovereignty, and meet t... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571572 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571572 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:40:33 GMT High-scale mesh using connected group in Azure Virtual Network Manager is now in general availability. In available regions, customers may connect up to 3,000 virtual networks in a single mesh connectivity configuration by default and higher scale IP connectivity within those virtual networks available by request. Manage connectivity across large virtual network environments without creating and maintaining individual peerings. High-scale mesh uses the familiar network group and connectivity con... Azure Updates Azure Virtual Network Manager https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571342 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571342 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:19:02 GMT The containerized SAP data connector retired on September 14, 2026 and is unsupported and unmaintained. Existing TLS-compliant agents may continue sending logs through the retired HTTP Data Collector API. Container images will be removed on October 14, 2026, preventing new pulls, installation, redeployment, scaling, replacement, and disaster recovery. Customers must migrate to the supported SAP agentless connector. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571056 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571056 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:15:10 GMT In mid-September 2026, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: Configure soft delete for the Azure SQL logical server. When the logical server is deleted, it goes into a soft deleted state and is self-restorable during the configured retention period. Any accidental deletes of the logical server can now be self-recovered within the retention period predictably and consistently, without having to call Microsoft support. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571621 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571621 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:13:08 GMT Azure Red Hat OpenShift with hosted control planes is now in public preview. It is a new deployment option for Azure Red Hat OpenShift that runs the OpenShift control plane as a fully managed service, separate from the worker nodes that run customer applications. Azure Red Hat OpenShift with hosted control planes accelerates application modernization by providing a fully managed OpenShift platform operated by Microsoft and Red Hat SREs, allowing teams to focus on building applications instead of... Azure Red Hat OpenShift Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569664 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569664 Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:07:14 GMT The PostgreSQL skills and MCP plugin turns supported AI coding assistants into context-aware PostgreSQL experts that can both provide guidance and act on a connected database. The bundled plugin combines expert-curated skills for PostgreSQL and Azure Database for PostgreSQL with an MCP server that can inspect your live database context, run queries, apply changes, and support database operations. The plugin uses your schema, PostgreSQL version, extensions, and Azure environment to deliver releva... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571360 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571360 Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:24:04 GMT Beginning in early October 2026, Windows App will begin using three new wildcard fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) for client-side service traffic to Azure Virtual Desktop. These domains are already included in the cloud-side connectivity requirements. If your organization applies network controls to devices running Windows App, you must allow these endpoints before activation. If the endpoints are not reachable, users may experience sign-in and connection failures. This is a client-side chan... Azure Updates Azure Virtual Desktop https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571123 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571123 Mon, 14 Sep 2026 17:55:00 GMT Announcing public preview support for HTTP/3 over QUIC on Azure Application Gateway. HTTP/3 is the next evolution of HTTP and uses QUIC to improve connection setup time, reduce latency, and provide better resiliency for modern web applications and APIs. With HTTP/3 support, Application Gateway can now serve frontend client connections over QUIC, helping improve performance for latency-sensitive workloads such as web applications, messaging platforms, mobile experiences, transactions, and APIs. Q... Application Gateway Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571257 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ571257 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 18:08:28 GMT Support for Azure Linux with OS Guard in Azure Kubernetes Service will end on December 10, 2026. Azure Container Linux is the replacement for Azure Linux with OS Guard (preview). Starting on December 10, 2026: Users won’t be able to create new Azure Linux with OS Guard (preview) node pools. AKS won’t produce new node images for affected node pools. Existing node pools won’t receive security patches. On March 10, 2027, AKS will remove the Azure Linux with OS Guard node images. After the images ar... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570910 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570910 Fri, 11 Sep 2026 15:58:56 GMT Azure Storage Mover now supports agentless migration of on-premises SMB file shares to Azure Files (SMB), in public preview. You can move file data from Windows Server or NAS shares into Azure without deploying, registering, or maintaining a migration agent on-premises. With agentless migration, the Storage Mover service connects directly to your SMB share over your existing private connection (VPN or ExpressRoute) and copies data to the destination Azure file share. Source credentials are store... Azure Storage Mover Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570940 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570940 Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:12:49 GMT Azure Functions Flex Consumption support for TLS/SSL certificates is now generally available through a new site-scoped certificate model. Each function app can hold up to 3 private (.pfx) and 3 public (.cer) certificates uploaded directly, imported from Azure Key Vault, or issued as free App Service Managed Certificates to enable custom domains, client-certificate authentication, and mutual TLS scenarios on Flex Consumption. End-to-end TLS encryption is also generally available for Flex Consumpt... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570980 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570980 Thu, 10 Sep 2026 15:25:52 GMT Azure Copilot Troubleshooting Agent is now generally available. Troubleshooting Agent is a unified, built-in Azure Copilot capability that helps customers investigate and resolve operational issues faster. Available through both Azure Copilot and Support + Troubleshooting in the Azure portal, Troubleshooting Agent enables you to move from issue detection to resolution faster by bringing together troubleshooting insights, operational context, and recommended actions in a single experience. Learn... Azure Copilot Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569241 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569241 Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:30:41 GMT Announcing the addition of enhanced secure authentication in Azure Storage that combines the flexibility of user-delegation shared access signature (SAS) with the user-bound access of Entra ID. User-bound user delegation SAS is now generally available for all regions. User delegation SAS is an existing feature that allows users to create secure SAS tokens that are tied to the delegator, meaning the delegator must verify their identity with Entra to create the token. The resulting token can be tr... Azure Blob Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570551 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570551 Wed, 09 Sep 2026 21:24:37 GMT Azure Ephemeral OS Disk with full caching is now generally available for new virtual machines and Virtual Machine Scale Sets. The capability caches the complete OS image on a VM’s local storage, eliminating remote-storage reads after caching finishes. This delivers consistently fast, low-millisecond OS disk access, up to 10× better I/O performance, and greater resilience during storage interruptions—without slowing VM provisioning because caching runs asynchronously after boot. It is designed fo... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570919 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570919 Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:35:32 GMT Playwright Workspaces in Azure App Testing is now generally available in Switzerland North, Japan East, and Australia East. Playwright Workspaces provides fully managed cloud-hosted browsers for running end-to-end Playwright tests at scale, with parallel execution, rich debugging artifacts including traces, videos, and screenshots, and seamless CI/CD integration. Customers can use their existing Playwright test suites and get started in minutes. Learn more . Azure Load Testing Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570881 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570881 Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:18:38 GMT The Azure Developer CLI (azd) Extension Framework is now generally available. The framework enables developers, teams, and partners to extend Azure Developer CLI with custom capabilities that support their preferred application development workflows. With the GA release, organizations can build and distribute extensions that integrate custom tools, automate development and deployment tasks, and provide tailored experiences for cloud application development on Azure. The extension framework helps... Azure Blob Storage Azure Container Apps Azure Container Registry Azure Functions Azure Updates Key Vault Microsoft Foundry SDKs https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570557 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570557 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:17:08 GMT Azure Virtual Network Manager IP address management is now generally available in additional regions: US Gov Virginia, US Gov Texas and US Gov Arizona, and China North 3 and China East 3. In complex network environments, managing IP addresses effectively is essential. This feature centralizes IP planning and allocation, allowing users to automatically assign non-overlapping addresses and prevent conflicts between Azure, on-premises, and multi-cloud address spaces. It also provides clear insights... Azure Updates Azure Virtual Network Manager https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565103 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565103 Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:09:44 GMT Azure Site Recovery now supports replication and disaster recovery for Linux Azure Virtual Machines running on NVMe-enabled Generation 2 VM families, such as the Da/Ea/Fa v6-series and Ebsv5/Ebdsv5 in the Azure-to-Azure scenario. This support is limited to RHEL 9, SLES 15 and Ubuntu 24 distros of Linux. This enhancement allows customers to enable disaster recovery and replication for their Azure VMs running high-performance, I/O-intensive workloads (limited to ASR churn support) with the NVMe di... Azure Site Recovery Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569804 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569804 Wed, 02 Sep 2026 17:00:51 GMT Azure Front Door’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) now supports profile and route level WAF policy associations in public preview. This gives you more flexibility to apply broad baseline protection across an Azure Front Door profile while using targeted policies for specific applications, domains, or routes that need different controls. With this update, you can associate WAF policies at the profile, domain, or route scope. For example, you can use a profile level policy for common protections ac... Azure Front Door Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570282 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570282 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 22:34:43 GMT Customers can now bring Azure Container Apps environments into Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s Serverless Containers Posture experience, helping security teams extend posture management across more of their container estate from a single workflow. This makes it easier to gain visibility into Container Apps resources and assess risks across areas such as identity, networking, and container or image configuration. With this capability, teams can more consistently evaluate risk across container envi... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570090 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570090 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 22:31:50 GMT Organizations running Windows-based workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) face increasing pressure to modernize as support timelines for older Windows Server versions approach retirement. To help customers prepare, AKS now offers GA support for Windows Server 2025, bringing significant improvements such as Stable ABI, Generation 2 VM default, containerd 2.0, and FIPS enablement by default. Learn more. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570095 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570095 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 22:30:59 GMT You can now accelerate your containerized workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) using Azure Container Registry (ACR) with Artifact streaming. Artifact streaming will allow you to scale your workloads without having to fully wait for images to be pulled into the clusters. Learn more. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570100 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570100 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 22:30:18 GMT Confidential Virtual Machines (CVM) offer strong security and confidentiality for tenants. CVM for Azure Linux in AKS is now generally available and enables node pools with CVM to target the migration of highly sensitive container workloads to AKS without any code refactoring while benefiting from the features of AKS. You can create new node pools using supported CVM vm sizes with Azure Linux 3. The nodes in a node pool created with CVM use a customized Azure Linux 3 image specially configured f... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569700 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569700 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 18:40:59 GMT Align Microsoft Marketplace purchases to your business's accounting needs. Purchase order mapping helps allocate your Microsoft invoice, including Marketplace purchases, making it easier to reconcile your organization's cloud and AI spend. Get supplemental invoice views by purchase order and remap spend for up to three months after invoicing, so your teams get the flexibility to adapt as your needs evolve. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570474 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570474 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 17:10:38 GMT Azure Firewall’s auto-learn SNAT routes is now generally available, automatically learning registered and private destination prefixes periodically and applying them as No-SNAT ranges to preserve original source IPs and simplify SNAT management. Learn more . Azure Firewall Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570250 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570250 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:31:14 GMT Azure Copilot Observability Agent, an AI-powered operational companion in Azure Monitor, is now covering Log Analytics data in Basic and Auxiliary table plans during interactive analysis and deep investigations. Teams can move high-volume telemetry - including container stdout and stderr , audit trails, and node syslog - to lower-cost table plans while keeping supported data available to the agent alongside metrics, traces, topology, and Azure resource context. This is especially useful for Kube... Azure Copilot Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569899 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569899 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:29:24 GMT The Auxiliary table plan in Azure Monitor Logs is a cost-effective option for ingesting and retaining high-volume, verbose logs used for compliance and auditing. Auxiliary Logs is now generally available in the sovereign clouds: Azure Government (Fairfax) and China. Learn more. Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569904 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569904 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 16:25:33 GMT The Auxiliary table plan in Azure Monitor Logs gives you a cost-effective way to ingest and retain high-volume, verbose logs that you keep for compliance and auditing but rarely query. Two highly requested capabilities are now generally available. Auxiliary now supports a subset of standard Azure tables, in addition to DCR-based custom tables (_CL). You can keep low-value data on its original standard table — retaining its name, schema, and existing queries — instead of building custom pipelines... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569711 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569711 Mon, 31 Aug 2026 23:11:39 GMT Azure automatically recovers a VM when it loses access to an attached managed disk for an extended period. The VM is shut down and powered back on after disk connectivity is restored, with no customer action required. This remains the default behavior. Now in public preview in select regions, per-disk resiliency provides another option for applications that can tolerate the temporary loss of an individual data disk. When enabled, Azure detaches and takes only the affected disk offline while the... Azure Disk Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570364 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570364 Mon, 31 Aug 2026 18:36:12 GMT Announcing the public preview of Azure Multicloud Interconnect, a managed service that provides private connectivity between Azure and supported cloud providers, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) available as the first supported provider in preview. As organizations increasingly distribute applications, data, AI services, and business-critical workloads across multiple clouds, establishing and operating cloud-to-cloud connectivity can become complex and operationally intensive. Azure Multicloud Int... Azure ExpressRoute Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570120 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570120 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:25:22 GMT The Azure Files Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) now supports workload identity for pod-level authentication to SMB file shares. Previously, managed identity support in AKS enabled workloads to mount Azure Files without using storage account keys. With workload identity support in AKS, applications can leverage pod-level least-privilege access to Azure Files. This provides granular security control for regulated industries operating under stringent compl... Azure Files Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570105 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570105 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:45:32 GMT Overview: Azure VM Image Builder is now generally available in Azure Government, China North 3, Azure Government Secret, and Azure Government Top Secret. You can now use the same managed image-building service across your sovereign and air-gapped environments that you use in global Azure. What you can do with it: Automate image customization with a secure, fully managed service. There's no self-hosted build infrastructure to deploy, patch, or operate. Use consistent image pipelines across global... Azure Updates Azure VM Image Builder https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570020 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570020 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:57:56 GMT Azure Bastion shareable link expiration is now generally available. When creating a shareable link, administrators can specify the date and time when the link should expire. After the configured expiration time, the link can no longer be used to connect to the target resource. This helps organizations limit persistent access and better manage temporary connections provided through Azure Bastion. Learn more . Azure Bastion Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570025 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570025 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:56:29 GMT Azure Bastion support for IPv4 and IPv6 dual-stack configurations is now available in public preview. Customers can configure a newly created Bastion deployment with both IPv4 and IPv6 public IP addresses. IPv6 is supported for connections between the user and Azure Bastion. Connections from Azure Bastion to target virtual machines continue to use IPv4. Existing IPv4-only Bastion deployments cannot currently be converted to dual stack. Learn more . Azure Bastion Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570030 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ570030 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:55:25 GMT Azure Bastion integration with Azure Kubernetes Service is now generally available. Customers can establish a secure tunnel from their local machine through Azure Bastion to an AKS cluster API server. The integration enables customers to use standard Kubernetes tools while avoiding public exposure of private cluster endpoints. It reduces the need to deploy and maintain separate jump boxes, VPN servers, or additional access agents. Learn more . Azure Bastion Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569690 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569690 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:52:23 GMT We're excited to announce Live Reports, now in Public Preview for Azure SRE Agent. Live Reports help operations teams create dynamic operational views directly from SRE Agent conversations and keep them continuously up to date with the latest data from connected environments. Instead of manually rebuilding dashboards or collecting information across multiple tools, teams can use Azure SRE Agent to automatically generate the report and return to it anytime, with fresh data surfaced on a daily, we... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569695 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569695 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:51:31 GMT Azure SRE Agent VNet Integration is now generally available. VNet integration enables Azure SRE Agent to operate within your existing network controls, including Network Security Groups (NSGs), private DNS, and firewall policies, etc. With VNet support, the agent can securely access private resources, including services behind private endpoints, during incident investigation and remediation without requiring changes to your network boundary. This capability helps organizations extend Azure SRE A... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569760 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569760 Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:50:22 GMT New customers can now get started with Azure SRE Agent through a 30-day trial experience. During the trial, customers can create SRE Agents and connect them to your operational tools and data sources, and explore capabilities at their own pace without baseline always-on charges. Customers pay only for Azure Agent Units (AAUs) consumed when agents perform work. Here are a few practical ways developers, SREs, and IT operations teams can use the 30-day trial: Investigate a root cause: Let the agent... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569910 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569910 Tue, 25 Aug 2026 19:55:34 GMT Aspire 13.5 refreshes the dashboard and aspire.dev, expands the Interaction Service, adds cross-scope Azure references and persistent Kubernetes volumes, and brings live terminals into the apphost. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569546 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569546 Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:05:54 GMT Azure announces the general availability of 248 and 372 vCPU Dl/D/E v7 VM sizes, powered by Intel® Xeon® 6 processors. These general-purpose and memory-optimized VMs deliver up to 20% better compute performance than prior-generation Intel-based v6 VMs, with major scale, networking, and storage gains. The new VMs scale to 372 vCPUs and 2.8 TiB of memory, enabling larger in-memory databases, agentic AI workloads with larger context windows, and lower-latency applications through fewer cross-node n... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569526 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569526 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:15:05 GMT Extended Support for Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server helps you maintain secure, supported workloads while transitioning to newer PostgreSQL versions. With access to critical security updates, critical bug fixes, and technical support for eligible versions after community support ends, you can upgrade on your timeline with greater flexibility and confidence. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569873 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569873 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:36:01 GMT eBPF Host Routing in Advanced Container Networking Services for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is now generally available. eBPF Host Routing improves Kubernetes networking performance by moving packet forwarding and routing decisions directly into the Linux kernel using eBPF. This removes the overhead of iptables-based processing and reduces dependence on the host networking stack, resulting in lower latency, fewer network hops, and higher throughput for application traffic. For large-scale AKS... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567334 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567334 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:30:43 GMT On April 30 2027, support for Node 22 LTS will end. Your apps that are hosted on App Service will continue to run, but security updates will no longer be available, and we’ll no longer provide customer service for Node 22 LTS. Required action: To avoid potential security vulnerabilities and minimize risk for your App Service apps, follow the steps to upgrade your app to Node 24 LTS before April 30, 2027. Learn more . App Service Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569504 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569504 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:25:03 GMT Announcing the General Availability of custom block response code and body for WAF integrated with Application Gateway Azure WAF integrated with Application Gateway now supports customizable response status codes and bodies for blocked requests, enabling greater flexibility and control. By default, when the WAF blocks a request due to a matched rule, it returns a 403 status code with a "The request is blocked" message. As with WAF with Azure Front Door, now customers can also define a custom res... Application Gateway Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569743 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569743 Thu, 20 Aug 2026 17:02:23 GMT Summarized advertised gateway prefixes for route advertisement is now generally available. You can specify aggregated (summarized) prefixes for an Azure gateway to advertise to your on-premises networks, rather than having every individual virtual network address space advertised. The capability is supported on both ExpressRoute Gateway and VPN Gateway, and covers IPv4 and IPv6 address spaces. Large hub-and-spoke deployments often approach the advertised-prefix limits of ExpressRoute and VPN Gat... Azure ExpressRoute Azure Updates Virtual Network VPN Gateway https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569685 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569685 Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:08:02 GMT Starting in August 2026, customers can engage directly with Azure Copilot agents to move more quickly from questions to action. With this update: Choose the right agent for your goal. Customers can select the specific agent best suited to their needs and get to the right action faster. Agents are enabled by default. Azure Copilot agents are enabled by default for users who have access to Azure Copilot. Admins have granular control. Global administrators can enable or disable individual agents di... Azure Copilot Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569684 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569684 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:04:18 GMT Lakebase is now generally available in four additional Azure regions: North Central US, France Central, Germany West Central, and East Asia. This expansion provides customers with additional deployment options and broader regional availability for Lakebase workloads. The newly supported regions are: North Central US (northcentralus) France Central (francecentral) Germany West Central (germanywestcentral) East Asia (eastasia) Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569145 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569145 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:01:47 GMT In mid-August 2026, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: You can customize keyboard shortcuts for Quick Queries, the Results Grid, and the Query Editor directly within Visual Studio Code—without leaving your editor. Shortcut Configuration helps you complete your data tasks faster. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569155 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569155 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 21:00:19 GMT With SQL Formatter, you can format SQL scripts directly in your editor for cleaner, more consistent, and readable code. Now in public preview, it includes more customizable formatting options to match your preferred coding style and streamline development. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569160 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569160 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:59:19 GMT With Azure SQL Database provisioning, you can create and connect to a fully managed cloud database directly from your editor—at no cost. Now generally available, the feature also includes ready-to-use Azure Resource Manager (ARM), Bicep, and Terraform templates for repeatable deployments, along with additional options to help you get started faster. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569051 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569051 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 17:20:42 GMT Today, we are announcing the General Availability of VM vCore Customization for Azure Virtual Machines, introducing two new capabilities: Disable Simultaneous Multi-Threading/Hyper-Threading (SMT/HT) and Configurable Constrained Cores. These features provide greater control over virtual CPU configurations, helping customers optimize performance while reducing software licensing costs. With VM vCore Customization, customers can now disable SMT/HT on supported VMs to provide workloads exclusive ac... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569515 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569515 Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:36:30 GMT Azure Site Recovery now lets you use and attach an existing, pre-provisioned Network Interface Card (NIC) in the target region for test-failover and failover in the Azure-to-Azure scenario. This helps preserve prepared networking configurations, reserve IPs in the target region and more, giving you greater control over the disaster recovery environment. Learn more . Azure Site Recovery Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569535 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569535 Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:52:06 GMT In November last year, Broadcom changed its VMware licensing policies across all hyperscaler platforms to require customers to “bring your own” portable license for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). What’s changing? On August 30, 2027, as a result of the latest Broadcom VCF licensing change, the AVS license-included service will be retired. Customers currently using license-included Reserved Instance (RI) SKUs will be required to purchase portable Broadcom VCF Licenses and transition to an AVS VCF... Azure Updates Azure VMware Solution https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568952 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568952 Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:26:25 GMT Managed Instance on Azure App Service is now generally available. Managed Instance helps organizations migrate web applications to Azure App Service with minimal configuration and no code changes. Applications running on-premises or in virtual machines can move to a fully managed PaaS environment while maintaining compatibility with Windows-specific dependencies. Many business-critical .NET applications rely on Windows services, third-party libraries, custom runtimes, and other components that c... App Service Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569520 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569520 Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:25:30 GMT Azure Firewall now supports IPv6 in public preview, enabling customers to configure Azure Firewall and Firewall Policy in dual-stack mode for both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. This preview allows native IPv6 network-rule filtering and DNS Proxy support, helping organizations secure cloud, hybrid, and internal IPv6 traffic as they modernize toward dual-stack architectures. Learn more . Azure Firewall Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568344 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568344 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:54:52 GMT You can now benefit from enhanced resilience with the public preview of zone redundancy for Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-gen General Purpose. This update helps you improve business continuity by automatically distributing your compute and data across availability zones, reducing the risk of downtime from localized failures. You gain greater reliability with up to 99.995% uptime without changing your application architecture, while maintaining the cost efficiency and flexibility of the General... Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ557775 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ557775 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:37:49 GMT This release adds Microsoft Marketplace as a new discovery and procurement channel for Dragon Copilot AI apps and agents. Dragon Copilot customers in the United States can now discover, evaluate and purchase Dragon Copilot Physician Apps and Agents through Microsoft Marketplace. Dragon Copilot Physician Apps and Agents enhance clinical workflows using advanced AI for documentation guidance, information surfacing, and task automation. These solutions help physicians in creating, summarizing, sear... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569376 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569376 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:08:40 GMT Azure Linux on WSL is now available in Public Preview (Beta). Extending Azure Linux to the developer workstation means that teams can now: Validate behavior using production-aligned configurations Reproduce issues more reliably Reduce time spent debugging cross-environment differences With WSL support, teams can now use one Microsoft-supported Linux foundation across development, testing, and production. Now you can use familiar tools such as VS Code and Git locally, then deploy to Azure targets... Azure Linux Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569353 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569353 Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:43:51 GMT Azure Databricks Runtime 10.4 LTS, a Databricks-managed runtime available on Azure Databricks, reached end of support on March 18, 2025 and will reach end of life on November 1, 2026. After this date, Databricks Runtime 10.4 LTS will no longer be available or usable, and workloads remaining on this version will no longer run. To avoid disruption, migrate affected clusters and workloads to a supported Databricks Runtime version before November 1, 2026. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568830 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568830 Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:19:56 GMT Control plane metrics collection for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), powered by Azure Monitor Managed Service for Prometheus, is now generally available. This capability gives AKS customers native observability into key managed control plane components, including the API server, etcd, kube-scheduler, kube-controller-manager, cluster autoscaler, and node auto-provisioning. With these metrics, platform teams can better understand how workloads, controllers, automation, and scaling activity interac... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569281 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569281 Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:17:41 GMT We’re excited to announce the GA of Live Resize for shared Premium SSD v2 (Pv2) and Ultra data disks. This feature allows you to dynamically expand the storage capacity of your disks without any disruption to your applications. To optimize costs, you can start with smaller disks and gradually increase their storage capacity as needed, all without experiencing any downtime. Learn more . Azure Disk Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568419 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568419 Thu, 13 Aug 2026 16:13:22 GMT Pre-upgrade validation checks are now generally available for Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server, helping you proactively validate major version upgrade (MVU) readiness before initiating the actual upgrade process. With the general availability of this update, you can now run these checks from both the Azure portal and Azure CLI using the new --validate-only option. With pre-upgrade validation checks, you can independently run upgrade compatibility validations and identify potential b... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568457 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568457 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:41:20 GMT On September 14, 2026 we will retire the containerized data connector agent for the Microsoft Sentinel solution for SAP applications. After this date the agent will be permanently disabled and will stop sending SAP logs to Microsoft Sentinel. The SAP agentless data connector is generally available and is the replacement. Creation of new containerized agents is already disabled. How this affects you: If you use the containerized agent, SAP log collection through it stops on 14 September 2026. Ana... Azure Updates Microsoft Sentinel https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569246 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569246 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:03:08 GMT Batch rule updates are now generally available for Azure Front Door Standard and Premium. This capability enables customers to add, update, delete, or reorder multiple rules in a rule set as a coordinated operation, ensuring that all changes are applied together or not applied at all. Batch rule updates improve deployment safety and predictability for customers managing large or complex rule sets through Terraform and other Infrastructure-as-Code workflows. They help prevent partial rule states,... Azure Front Door Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569251 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569251 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:01:19 GMT Mutual TLS, also known as client certificate authentication, enables Azure Front Door to authenticate clients using X.509 certificates before requests reach an application. It helps protect sensitive applications and APIs across business-to-business, Internet of Things, financial services, VPN, and enterprise network scenarios. Customers can choose from four client certificate validation modes: Require and validate: A client certificate is mandatory. Azure Front Door validates the certificate at... Azure Front Door Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568979 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568979 Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:38:31 GMT Today, we are announcing the public preview of Markdown for Agents in Azure App Service. This feature gives AI agents and other tools a cleaner way to consume content from an App Service app. When a client requests Markdown, App Service can automatically convert the app's HTML response to Markdown without requiring changes to the application code. Learn more . App Service Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569256 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569256 Tue, 11 Aug 2026 17:26:51 GMT Azure Firewall Premium now delivers up to 22 Gbps throughput with TLS inspection and IDPS in Deny mode, a 120% increase from 10 Gbps, and up to 600 Mbps per TCP connection with IDPS enabled in either Alert or Deny mode (doubled from 300 Mbps). Learn more . Azure Firewall Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569140 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ569140 Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:50:54 GMT Starting August 23, 2026, Microsoft Fabric will enable Item Recovery by default for tenants that have not explicitly configured the setting. Supported item types will have a 3-day recovery window by default. Admins can review or change this setting in the Fabric admin portal under Tenant settings > Item Recovery. Azure Updates Microsoft Fabric https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568666 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568666 Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:52:31 GMT Azure ExpressRoute resiliency guard is now available in public preview for ExpressRoute virtual network gateways. The new resiliency model property lets you specify whether a gateway is intended for a single-homed or multi-homed configuration, helping align your deployment with the resiliency requirements of your workloads. For multi-homed gateways, resiliency guard guides you to connect either two ExpressRoute circuits in different peering locations or an ExpressRoute Metro circuit. Portal guid... Azure ExpressRoute Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568964 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568964 Thu, 06 Aug 2026 19:41:52 GMT Free usage of Genie One and Genie Agents in Azure Databricks is now extended through January 31, 2027, from the previous end date of July 31, 2026. Budget controls do not apply to these products during the promotional period. The promotion covers usage by users only - service principals are excluded, and their Genie One and Genie Agents usage continues to be billed. Genie Code is not included in this promotion: each Genie Code user continues to receive 150 free Databricks units (DBUs) per month,... Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567979 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567979 Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:40:19 GMT Azure Storage Mover now supports agentless, cloud-to-cloud migration from AWS FSx for Windows File Server (SMB) to Azure Files (SMB), in preview. You can move your Windows file shares off FSx and into Azure Files without deploying or managing a migration agent — the service handles the transfer for you. File data is copied directly from FSx to your Azure file share over a private connection between Azure and your AWS network. Learn more . Azure Storage Mover Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568905 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568905 Wed, 05 Aug 2026 22:34:02 GMT The SharePoint connector for Azure Databricks is now generally available. Organizations can use Lakeflow Connect to ingest files from SharePoint into Azure Databricks, helping unify enterprise content with data and AI workflows on Azure. The connector supports incremental ingestion, Unity Catalog governance, and multiple authentication methods for enterprise-scale deployments. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568910 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568910 Wed, 05 Aug 2026 22:32:45 GMT Unity AI Gateway is now generally available on Azure Databricks. Unity AI Gateway provides centralized governance for AI models, agents, tools, and MCP services, helping organizations monitor usage, manage costs, apply guardrails, and enforce access controls across AI workloads. Built on Unity Catalog, it extends governance capabilities across both Azure Databricks and external AI services. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568825 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568825 Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:54:08 GMT Azure Firewall explicit proxy is now generally available. Explicit proxy enables customers to configure applications and browsers to send HTTP and HTTPS traffic directly to Azure Firewall using proxy settings, providing an alternative to route-based traffic steering and enabling more granular control over outbound web traffic. The GA release builds on extensive customer validation during public preview, where explicit proxy was enabled across 300+ Azure subscriptions and adopted by approximately... Azure Firewall Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568661 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568661 Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:22:49 GMT On September 1, 2026, the cc_v5 confidential VM series will be retired and will no longer be available for use or purchase. Any affected VM that has not been resized before that date will deallocated. The impacted VM sizes that will be retired are: DCas_cc_v5, DCads_cc_v5, ECas_cc_v5, and ECads_cc_v5. Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568837 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568837 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 18:30:09 GMT Perimeter link (cross-perimeter connectivity) is a network security perimeter capability that allows trusted resources in two different network security perimeters to securely communicate with each other using Managed Identity (MSI), without requiring additional network security perimeter access rules or network configuration changes. It preserves Zero Trust boundaries while enabling controlled service-to-service access across perimeters Learn more . Azure Private Link Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568842 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568842 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 18:29:36 GMT Azure Private Link over IPv6 enables you to privately access Azure PaaS services, such as Azure Storage and Azure SQL Database, over IPv6-based connectivity. You can now use IPv6 private endpoints to connect from IPv6 clients in an Azure virtual network or from on-premises networks over ExpressRoute. Learn more . Azure Private Link Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565214 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565214 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:04:55 GMT Azure DNS now offers a seamless way to integrate with Azure Traffic Manager for DNS-based traffic routing. Customers can now directly associate Azure DNS record set with Traffic Manager profiles without creating CNAME record for trafficmanager.net domain. This improves lookup latency by eliminating a CNAME hop and enables DNSSEC compatibility for load balanced records by removing unsigned trafficmanager.net domain from CNAME lookup chain. Learn more . Azure DNS Azure Updates Traffic Manager https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568605 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568605 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 17:03:38 GMT Azure Virtual Network routing appliance is now generally available. It delivers private connectivity across virtual networks, using specialized hardware for low latency, high throughput, and better performance than virtual machines. Key benefits and functionalities: High-bandwidth east-west routing: provisioned bandwidth tiers up to 200 Gbps per instance. Dual-stack and IPv6 at scale: IPv4, IPv6, and dual-stack virtual networks, including IPv6 access control list enforcement. Scale-out private a... Azure Updates Virtual Network https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568600 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568600 Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:56:26 GMT Trusted Launch as Default (TLaD) is now generally available for new Azure Gen2 virtual machines and virtual machine scale sets. TLaD automatically enables Secure Boot and vTPM for supported deployments, helping customers establish a stronger security baseline for workloads at no additional cost. New Gen2 VMs deployed through Azure Portal, Azure CLI, and Azure PowerShell automatically use Trusted Launch by default. Customers deploying through ARM templates, Bicep, Terraform, and Azure SDKs can ex... Azure Updates Virtual Machine Scale Sets Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568339 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568339 Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:00:56 GMT To enhance backup protection, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance now automatically apply immutability to the most recent seven days of backups. This capability is enabled by default for all databases, regardless of the configured point-in-time restore retention period. No action or configuration is required. Note: Support for Azure SQL Hyperscale backups is coming in a future release. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568591 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568591 Fri, 31 Jul 2026 22:32:52 GMT Eligible SaaS products on Microsoft Marketplace now support a simplified purchase experience in Azure portal. Customers can review plan, billing, resource group, contact details, and terms information on a single page for completing the purchase. This experience isn’t currently supported for SaaS offers that use a custom purchasing experience (i.e. Azure native integrations, Model-as-a-Service, Secure Exchange products, etc.). Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568631 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568631 Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:48:35 GMT Route maps for Azure Route Server are now available in public preview, providing fine-grained control over inbound and outbound routing across hybrid connections. Customers can manage routes advertised to and from Azure Route Server BGP peerings with Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs), ExpressRoute gateways, and VPN gateways in the same virtual network. Route-maps provide the following capabilities: Route summarization: Summarize routes when on-premises networks connect to the virtual network thr... Azure Route Server Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568139 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568139 Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:16:23 GMT In late-July 2026, the following update and enhancement was made to Azure SQL: Regex-based dynamic data masking (DDM) extends the built-in DDM feature with pattern‑based masking to hide sensitive data like emails, phone numbers, and identifiers—centrally enforced at the database layer. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568334 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568334 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:14:44 GMT Now you can deploy Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server in the India South Central Azure region. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568102 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568102 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:10:35 GMT Azure Automation is pleased to announce: General Availability of in-support PowerShell 7.6 runbooks Runtime Environment GA, enabling customers to seamlessly upgrade their outdated scripts to supported runtime versions. Support for Azure CLI commands in PowerShell 7.6 runbooks GA Benefits: Stay current – Access to new language versions for improved security and performance. Faster Runbook upgrade – Easy portability of runbooks across different versions to keep pace with PowerShell and Python rele... Automation Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568514 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568514 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:03:21 GMT Starting February 1, 2027, Azure reservations exchanges will no longer be available for services covered by savings plans. At the time of this announcement, this includes reservations for the following services: Compute services: Azure Virtual Machines, including exchanges between non-premium and premium storage, Azure Dedicated Host, and Azure App Service. Database services: Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Database for MySQL, Azure DocumentDB, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, and Azure... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566746 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566746 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:57:18 GMT We’re announcing post-quantum resilient symmetric keys on Azure Key Vault Premium are now available in public preview. This preview enables customers and partners to evaluate symmetric encryption capabilities using the oct-HSM key type and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm directly within Azure Key Vault. Customers can use AES algorithms to encrypt, decrypt, wrap, and unwrap data while continuing to benefit from Azure-managed security, compliance, and operational controls. AES alg... Azure Updates Key Vault https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568396 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568396 Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:38:15 GMT Azure NetApp Files now supports configuration of SMB opportunistic locking (oplocks) for SMB and dual-protocol volumes. Opportunistic locks (Oplocks) improve SMB client caching and are enabled by default. You can configure oplocks on new volumes or update the setting on existing volumes. System default is the default selection and enables opportunistic locks on the volume. A cross-region replication destination volume can use an oplock setting independent of its source volume. Learn more: Create... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568322 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568322 Wed, 29 Jul 2026 18:52:32 GMT This capability shares telemetry from Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspaces into Microsoft Fabric, making observability data available in OneLake as Delta Parquet, the open format, without duplication and with near real-time availability. All Azure Monitor Logs tiers are supported, including Analytics, Basic, and Auxiliary logs. Once available in Fabric, Azure Monitor data can be analyzed alongside operational and business data using Fabric capabilities such as Eventhouse, Power BI, Spark. What... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568466 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568466 Wed, 29 Jul 2026 18:50:00 GMT Azure Sphere OS version 26.09 RC1 is now available for evaluation in the Retail Eval feed. Whilst this release encompasses no customer-facing changes, it represents a major bump in Azure Sphere's underlying Linux kernel version as part of our long-term support and security commitment, as such, this release will operate for an extended evaluation period, until September 2026, enabling additional time for customer evaluation testing. Whilst we've taken every measure to ensure that this update does... Azure Sphere Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568377 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568377 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:51:02 GMT Announcing the public preview of Azure Enclave for Microsoft Azure, Azure Government, Azure Government Secret, and Azure Government Top Secret. Azure Enclave helps streamline the deployment and management of isolated cloud environments for sensitive workloads across government and other regulated industries. Azure Enclave helps customers quickly deliver their critical workloads while maintaining essential security and isolation. Azure Enclave is designed to isolate virtual networking infrastruct... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568409 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568409 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:50:11 GMT StandardV2 NAT Gateway now supports NAT64, enabling IPv6 workloads to communicate with IPv4-only internet destinations by translating synthesized outbound IPv6 traffic into IPv4 traffic. NAT64 relies on a DNS64-capable resolver to synthesize IPv6 addresses by embedding the IPv4 address within the NAT64 Well-Known Prefix 64:ff9b::/96 – so client traffic is naturally addressed to NAT64 for translation. Learn more . Azure NAT Gateway Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567944 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567944 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:54:22 GMT Managing ingress routing while adopting newer Kubernetes standards can require balancing modernization efforts with existing deployments. Application Routing with Gateway API is now generally available on AKS, bringing the Kubernetes Gateway API to ingress management without requiring a service mesh. Existing ingress-nginx-based Application Routing remains supported until November, and customers can migrate to the Gateway API-based model at their own pace using the open-source ingress2gateway to... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567931 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567931 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:52:51 GMT Managing Kubernetes resources across multiple clusters can require significant manual effort to apply updates and maintain consistency. Resource placement in Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager is now generally available and enables platform and application teams to consistently distribute Kubernetes resources across multiple AKS and Arc-enabled clusters. This release includes the Resource Placement Kubernetes APIs in v1 and introduces a new Azure portal experience for creating, viewing, and managing... Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567939 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567939 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:51:04 GMT In fail-fast update rollouts, a small number of member cluster update failures can halt progress across a broader update deployment. Maximum Allowed Failures for update runs in Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager, now available in preview, introduces an optional setting that allows update runs to continue when some member cluster updates fail. Customers can define failure thresholds at either the stage or group level using fixed counts or percentages. This gives platform teams more control over the b... Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567949 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567949 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:45:37 GMT Organizations running large-scale, AI, GPU, Windows, and other performance-sensitive workloads on AKS often experience longer node startup times because new nodes must repeatedly download container images and perform initialization tasks before workloads can run. With AKS Prepared Image Specification, now in preview, customers can create preconfigured node images that include required container images and customizations ahead of time, enabling new nodes to start in a ready-to-run state. This hel... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568013 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568013 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:40:55 GMT Microsoft announces the opening of its fourth datacenter region in India, India South Central, with campuses in Hyderabad, Telangana. The region will provide customers with local, secure, state-of-the-art cloud infrastructure designed with AI readiness as a key focus. It supports growing demand for cloud and AI services, customer digital transformation, local data residency, improved latency, and resilient cloud capacity in India. Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568316 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568316 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 19:41:46 GMT Azure Databricks now supports Anthropic Claude Opus 5 through AI Model Serving. Claude Opus 5 is Anthropic's latest model for advanced reasoning, coding, agentic workflows, and professional knowledge work. Claude Opus 5 is designed for complex tasks requiring deep reasoning, long-horizon planning, and software development assistance. Customers can use Claude Opus 5 in Azure Databricks to build AI applications and agents on enterprise data. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568115 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568115 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:54:36 GMT Azure Firewall now supports HTTP header insertion, enabling organizations to add or overwrite HTTP/HTTPS request headers directly from Azure Firewall application rules. This capability helps customers enforce security controls, support tenant restriction scenarios, integrate with backend services, and simplify application access management without relying on third-party proxies or on-premises infrastructure. The feature is especially useful for scenarios such as Microsoft Entra tenant restrictio... Azure Firewall Manager Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568184 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568184 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:44:29 GMT The AI Gateway tier for Azure API Management is now available in public preview. Building on the AI gateway capabilities already available across API Management tiers, the new AI Gateway tier provides a dedicated experience optimized for AI workloads. As organizations operationalize AI, platform teams need a consistent way to securely expose AI assets including AI models, MCP servers, and tools. AI Gateway helps organizations apply consistent security, policies, authentication, observability, an... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568063 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ568063 Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:47:24 GMT Azure DDoS Protection custom policy is now in public preview. This capability provides per-resource control over DDoS mitigation thresholds for protected Standard Load Balancer frontend IP configurations. Customers can configure fixed inbound detection thresholds for TCP, UDP, and TCP SYN traffic. Thresholds can be set from 50,000 to 2,000,000 packets per second, helping customers account for predictable or unusual traffic patterns, including planned launches, seasonal peaks, gaming events, and... Azure DDoS Protection Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561475 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561475 Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:57:10 GMT Standard service endpoint is now available in public preview, introducing a scalable and secure way to connect IaaS workloads to Azure PaaS services under the Private Link family. This enhanced capability overcomes the scale and management limitations of traditional service endpoints by integrating with network security perimeter and using Public IPs as network identifiers, enabling large‑scale IaaS‑to‑PaaS connectivity with stronger security controls. With standard service endpoint, customers c... Azure Private Link Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567594 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567594 Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:09:43 GMT Azure Monitor Application Insights now stores generative AI content in a dedicated GenAIContent table (AppGenAIContent in Log Analytics), making it possible to apply newly available access controls to sensitive AI telemetry. Because Application Insights powers observability in Microsoft Foundry, these protections benefit customers using either experience. Since these new protections are built into Log Analytics at the platform layer, they extend beyond just generative AI content. You can now eas... Azure AI Foundry Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567847 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567847 Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:59:26 GMT IPv6 support for Azure VPN Gateway enables customers to run IPv6 inner traffic through VPN tunnels in a dual‑stack configuration. IPv6 is supported on all production SKU gateways that use standard public IPs.IPv6 inner traffic can be configured for both new and existing VPN Gateway deployments in dual‑stack mode, enabling customers to support IPv4 and IPv6 workloads through the same gateway configuration.Site‑to‑Site VPN enables branch and on‑premises networks to connect to Azure over IPsec/IKE... Azure Updates VPN Gateway https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567646 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567646 Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:47:00 GMT You can now develop functions using Python 3.14 locally and deploy them to Azure Functions plans on Linux. Upgrade your apps to Python 3.14 to take advantage of enhanced security, a longer support window, and continued compatibility with the Azure Functions runtime and developer tools. Learn more: Upgrade your app to Python 3.14 Python support in Azure Functions Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567651 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567651 Fri, 17 Jul 2026 17:44:00 GMT Azure Functions support for PowerShell 7.6 is now available in preview. You can now develop apps using PowerShell 7.6 locally and deploy them to Azure Functions plans. Learn more: What's new in PowerShell 7.6 Azure Functions PowerShell versions and their end of support dates Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567527 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567527 Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:55:28 GMT Microsoft Defender Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) assessments for Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server are now generally available. You can use assessments to continuously evaluate the security posture of your Azure PostgreSQL flexible servers and identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that may cause security risks. The assessments are tailored to PostgreSQL-specific security best practices and provide actionable recommendations to help you strengthen your security bas... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567787 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567787 Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:54:09 GMT Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) now generally supports Encryption in Transit (EiT) for Azure Files NFS v4.1 volumes through the Azure File CSI driver. With EiT enabled, data transferred between AKS workloads and Azure Files NFS shares is encrypted using TLS, helping customers meet security and compliance requirements for production workloads. The capability is integrated with the AZNFS mount helper and Stunnel and can be enabled through storage class configuration without requiring application ch... Azure Files Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563571 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563571 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:57:24 GMT Microsoft Agent Framework reaches general availability for multi-agent orchestration patterns, including the dynamic Magentic pattern that delivered 38 percent on GAIA and competitive results on AssistantBench and WebArena in published benchmarks. The GA release covers sequential pipelines, parallel collaboration, and Magentic-style coordination, all expressed in the same framework API so teams can swap patterns without rewriting agent code. Customers running complex research, document processin... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563546 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563546 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:55:40 GMT Microsoft Agent Framework reaches general availability for Agent Harness, the production runtime for agents built with the framework. Customers running pilots on the preview harness can now move the same agent code into production with backwards compatibility, SLA-backed support, and stable interfaces for tool calls, state, and telemetry. The GA release ships in .NET and Python, supports local development, container deployment, and Foundry Hosted Agents from one binary, and emits OpenTelemetry t... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564312 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564312 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:53:28 GMT Microsoft Foundry is now introducing Agent Framework, a unified multi-agent orchestration SDK for C# and Python. This release consolidates patterns previously spread across AutoGen and Semantic Kernel, giving developers a consistent set of abstractions for building, coordinating, and deploying agents. The Microsoft Foundry Agent Framework reduces integration complexity, helps teams avoid conflicting libraries, and streamlines long-term maintenance by providing a single, well-supported model for... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564071 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564071 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:51:45 GMT In public preview, Microsoft Foundry now offers tracing for the Microsoft Agent Framework in both Python and .NET, helping developers observe how agents reason, call tools, and interact with models during execution. This release is part of the broader hosted agents update and emits OpenTelemetry-compatible spans that you can route to Application Insights or other compatible backends, making it easier to debug failures, identify latency hotspots, and validate behavior before deploying to producti... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563566 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563566 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:50:14 GMT Microsoft Agent Framework adds the CodeAct pattern in public preview, which lets agents collapse a multi-step plan into a single executable code block rather than chaining one tool call at a time. In representative workloads, CodeAct cut end-to-end latency by roughly 50 percent and token use by more than 60 percent compared with step-by-step orchestration. The framework runs CodeAct programs inside Hyperlight, a Microsoft-built sandboxed container runtime that boots in milliseconds and isolates... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563561 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563561 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 18:48:54 GMT Microsoft Agent Framework adds episodic procedural memory in public preview, a built-in store that lets agents remember successful task patterns and replay them on similar future requests. The framework records action sequences, tool selections, and intermediate decisions as episodes, then retrieves the closest match when a new user request looks similar. Agents become measurably faster and cheaper at recurring tasks because they reuse proven plans instead of re-deriving them from scratch on eve... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567426 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567426 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:50:44 GMT In mid-July 2026, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: Shortcut Configuration lets you customize keyboard shortcuts for Quick Queries, the Results Grid, and the Query Editor directly within Visual Studio Code—without leaving your editor. You can execute queries, navigate more efficiently, and discover available commands more easily, helping you complete your data tasks faster. The new Results Grid introduces enhanced state management for improved performance and respons... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567362 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567362 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:35:31 GMT The Azure Arc migration solution now supports SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines as a migration target. Arc-enabled SQL Server instances can now be migrated to both Azure SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server on Azure infrastructure using the same unified workflow. Learn more. Azure Updates SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567726 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567726 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:30:11 GMT Starting July 15, 2026, advanced platform metrics are available in Public Preview. This update provides enhanced visibility into platform performance, resource health, and operational trends across supported Azure services. With advanced platform metrics, organizations can access additional telemetry and monitoring signals to help identify potential issues more quickly, improve troubleshooting efficiency, and gain deeper operational insights into their Azure environments. The preview enables cus... Azure Blob Storage Azure Monitor Azure Updates Storage Accounts https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563551 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563551 Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:15:25 GMT Microsoft Agent Framework adds DevUI Agent Inspector in public preview, a local debugging surface that shows agent runs as a navigable tree of model calls, tool invocations, and intermediate state. Developers can pause, replay, and edit prompts mid-run, swap models without restarting, and inspect the full payload sent to each tool. The inspector reads the same OpenTelemetry traces that Foundry observability consumes, so what you see locally matches what shows up in production dashboards. DevUI r... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567402 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567402 Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:03:32 GMT Announcing the public preview of Azure Front Door edge actions (serverless compute at the edge). With edge actions, customers can execute lightweight JavaScript functions during Azure Front Door request processing to make real-time decisions closer to users, improving performance, security, and application flexibility without adding complexity to origin infrastructure. Common scenarios include A/B testing and canary deployments, header manipulation, request filtering, dynamic origin selection, U... Azure Front Door Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567444 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567444 Mon, 13 Jul 2026 17:04:04 GMT Starting July 13th, 2026, customers can use Azure Databricks SQL Serverless in the UK West region to simplify analytics workloads while benefiting from instant compute, automated scaling, and reduced infrastructure management. Eligible UK West workspaces will see Serverless selected as the default option when creating new SQL warehouses in the Azure Databricks workspace UI. Classic and Pro warehouse options will continue to be available, providing customers with flexibility to choose the warehou... Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567556 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567556 Fri, 10 Jul 2026 21:33:34 GMT Starting October 1, 2026, the specified runtime versions Python 2.7, Python 3.8, and PowerShell 7.1 & 7.2. will no longer be supported by Automation. Runbooks using these versions may continue to run but will not receive security updates, bug fixes, or official support. Recommended action: To minimize security risks and take advantage of the latest features and improvements, it is strongly recommended upgrading your runbooks to supported runtime versions of Python and PowerShell. You can refer t... Automation Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567225 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567225 Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:57:33 GMT You can now create and run Azure Chaos Studio resilience Scenarios directly from the Azure CLI with the new az chaos extension — no more hand-assembling REST calls and JSON files. Get started in one step: az chaos setup stands up a workspace, wires up permissions, discovers your resources, and recommends Scenarios (like Zone Down) tailored to what you're running. From there, configure, validate, and run a Scenario in a few clear commands — with built-in --help, tab completion, and table/JSON/TSV... Azure Chaos Studio Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567431 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567431 Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:21:12 GMT Open AI GPT-5.6 is now available on Azure Databricks. You can use GPT 5.6 (purchased on Microsoft Foundry) via Model Serving Endpoint in Azure Databricks. Through integrations across Foundry and Azure Databricks, you can securely build, deploy, and manage AI applications in the context of their data while enforcing governance via Unity AI Gateway. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567218 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567218 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:42:50 GMT Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) helps protect your web applications from common threats and attacks. In some cases, WAF may block requests that are safe and expected for your application. Existing exclusions help reduce false positives by omitting specific request attributes, such as headers, cookies, query string arguments, or body fields, from WAF evaluation while the rest of the request continues to be inspected. Exceptions provide additional flexibility by allowing specific requests to... Application Gateway Azure Front Door Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567184 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567184 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:40:32 GMT Azure Chaos Studio now supports Workspaces and Scenarios, a faster, application-centric way to validate how your workloads hold up during real outages. Point a Workspace at your application's scope—a subscription, resource group, or service group—and Chaos Studio discovers the resources inside it and recommends Scenarios: preconfigured tests that reproduce real-world outage patterns. Select a Scenario, and Chaos Studio injects the right faults, in the right order, across every affected resource,... Azure Chaos Studio Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566591 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566591 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:37:55 GMT The Log Analytics Export job enables you to export historical data from a Log Analytics workspace to an Azure Storage account based on a specified query and time range. This allows you to extract only the data you need and move it to external systems for further processing or long-term retention. Key scenarios include: Compliance and audit – Export data from specific time periods to support audit requests, legal holds, and regulatory requirements. Security investigations – Extract relevant datas... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567203 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567203 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:35:19 GMT Azure Event Hubs now supports Network Security Perimeter (NSP), enabling organizations to define a logical network isolation boundary for PaaS resources and control public network access through perimeter-based access rules. With Network Security Perimeter, you can help reduce data exfiltration risks by restricting access to Event Hubs namespaces and managing inbound and outbound connectivity using centralized security controls. This capability complements existing network security features and... Azure Updates Event Hubs https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567212 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567212 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:33:53 GMT Azure Event Hubs Dedicated now supports Confidential Computing, enabling organizations to protect streaming data while it is being processed in memory. By leveraging hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs), customers can help safeguard sensitive event-streaming workloads against unauthorized access, including access to data in use. This capability is designed for organizations with heightened security, privacy, and compliance requirements, allowing them to process highly sensitive s... Azure Updates Event Hubs https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566732 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566732 Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:31:55 GMT Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) is now generally available in Azure Chile Central , expanding regional availability for OpenShift deployments across South America. With the launch of Microsoft’s first Azure region in Chile, customers can now run fully managed OpenShift clusters closer to their users and data, improving performance and reducing latency for cloud-native applications. This new region enables organizations to deploy Kubernetes-based workloads while meeting local data residency and reg... Azure Red Hat OpenShift Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567085 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567085 Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:54:08 GMT Microsoft Entra ID-based access for Azure Blob Storage SFTP is now generally available in all regions. You can now use Entra ID identities including guest users via Entra External Identities to securely connect to Azure Blob Storage over SFTP, without provisioning or managing local SFTP users. Why it matters Eliminates the operational overhead of managing local SFTP users and credentials. Strengthens security with Entra ID authentication, MFA, and Conditional Access. Accelerates onboarding and e... Azure Blob Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566966 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566966 Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:00:33 GMT Azure Site Recovery now supports up to 5x churn (500 MB/s per VM). This major enhancement empowers customers to confidently run high IOPS workloads with Azure Site Recovery, ensuring robust disaster recovery for even the most demanding applications like databases, big data and analytics systems, etc. Learn More . Azure Site Recovery Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567194 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ567194 Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:21:51 GMT Azure Databricks now supports Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 through Azure Databricks AI Model Serving. Claude Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's most agentic Sonnet model to date, delivering near-Opus-level intelligence with Sonnet's cost efficiency and speed. Designed for coding, agentic workflows, and professional work at scale, it is a hybrid reasoning model with adaptive thinking on by default. Claude Sonnet 5's largest gains are in coding and agentic tasks, making it ideal for teams building long-running... Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566209 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566209 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:19:25 GMT We’re excited to introduce the newly renamed Az.PostgreSQLFlexibleServer PowerShell module, delivering a more streamlined experience for you to manage Azure Database for PostgreSQL with PowerShell. Building on the capabilities of the previous Az.PostgreSql module, the updated module aligns with the new features in the 2026-01-01 preview REST API. This module brings support for PostgreSQL 18, elastic clusters for scalable workloads, and several enhancements designed to simplify management and imp... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563331 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563331 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:04:40 GMT Document-based PII detection in Azure AI Language now ships an initial playground experience in the Microsoft Foundry NextGen portal. The playground loads a prepared sample document, runs it through the document-based PII feature, and shows the redacted output side by side with the source so you can see entity categories, confidence scores, and the resulting file fidelity before integrating the API. This first cut focuses on the built-in sample to make first-touch evaluation fast; configuration... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564382 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564382 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:01:07 GMT Azure AI Language now offers a refreshed Document PII playground in general availability, giving customers a faster way to evaluate personally identifiable information detection on documents. The playground ships with curated sample inputs and outputs, so practitioners can see how the service handles names, addresses, financial IDs, and health identifiers without uploading their own data first. Reviewers can compare detection results across entity types in a single view, then move to live docume... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565758 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565758 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:59:39 GMT Azure introduces Instant Access for VM Restore Points, enabling you to restore disks immediately after a restore point is created—without waiting for background data replication. Key benefits: Faster recovery (lower RTO): Restore disks instantly—no wait for data hydration. High performance from the start: Restored disks are usable immediately while data copies in the background. Consistent recovery: Application-consistent restore points ensure reliable recovery across all VM disks. Flexible cont... Azure Disk Storage Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566948 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566948 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:56:50 GMT Azure Storage Mover now supports cloud-to-cloud migration of data from Google Cloud Storage (GCS) to Azure Blob Storage, helping organizations simplify multi-cloud consolidation onto Azure. Using the S3-compatible interface, customers can migrate data from GCS buckets through a fully managed, agentless experience with HMAC credentials stored securely in Azure Key Vault, no custom tooling required. For workloads with strict security and compliance needs, migrations can run over private network co... Azure Storage Mover Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566895 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566895 Tue, 30 Jun 2026 20:45:26 GMT Azure Blob Storage has long supported data integrity validation, starting with MD5 as part of the original HTTP standards and adding CRC64-NVME support in 2019. Today, CRC64-NVME is now integrated into the latest Azure Blob SDKs for .NET, C++, and JavaScript, extending Azure's data integrity protections all the way into client applications. By extending data protection into client applications, customers can verify end-to-end that data written to and read from Blob Storage remains fully intact—b... Azure Blob Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563481 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563481 Tue, 30 Jun 2026 19:00:51 GMT Microsoft Foundry brings Toolboxes to GA, providing a unified endpoint to invoke the most-used tools in prompt agents and callable outside of prompt agents. Today every agent team hand-assembles its own tool list to solve the same tasks, with no shared artifact to reuse across agents and no agreed way to consume a set of governed tools. Toolboxes provide that artifact: a curated, governed bundle of tools built once in the Foundry portal or in code, configured with governance policies, and reusab... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564806 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564806 Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:00:03 GMT In September 2023, we announced Azure Blueprints would retire on July 11, 2026. We're extending that timeline to January 31, 2027 , with phased retirement beginning July 31, 2026. What's changing? July 31, 2026 , you won't be able to create new blueprint definitions and versions. October 31, 2026 , you won't be able to modify blueprint definitions or create new blueprint assignments. December 31, 2026 , you won't be able to modify existing blueprint assignments. When Azure Blueprints retires on... Azure Blueprints Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566516 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566516 Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:00:43 GMT Application Gateway for Containers is extending its ingress gateway feature set with new AI gateway capabilities. The new inference gateway capability brings the Kubernetes Gateway API Inference Extension to Application Gateway for Containers, enabling load and model-aware routing for self-hosted generative AI workloads on AKS. Application Gateway for Containers' inference gateway capability is purpose-built for serving LLMs and other inference workloads, routing requests based on model server s... Application Gateway Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565480 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565480 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 20:15:55 GMT Azure NetApp Files migration assistant (with SnapMirror) provides efficient and cost-effective data migration leveraging ONTAP's built-in replication engine for seamless transition from on-premises or CVO/other cloud providers to Azure NetApp Files (ANF). This feature offers benefits aligned with the goal to accelerate and simplify migrations of business-critical applications and data to Azure. The feature is now available in Azure Portal and API experiences,and is now Generally Available in all... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ503883 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ503883 Mon, 22 Jun 2026 16:30:01 GMT UPDATED: Microsoft announced the retirement of the AV36 node type on June 30, 2028, that date has changed to align with VMware’s roadmap. Broadcom will end support for the current AV36 version with vSphere 8 on September 30, 2027, and the AV36 SKU is not compatible with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9, the next-generation platform. As part of this transition, and now to align with the AVS License-include service retirement on August 30, 2027, all AV36 SDDCs will be retired after August 30, 2027... Azure Updates Azure VMware Solution https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565706 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565706 Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:00:18 GMT Azure Databricks can now natively write managed Delta tables to Microsoft OneLake. This capability enables customers to use OneLake as a unified storage layer for Azure Databricks workloads without managing separate storage accounts. By storing data directly in OneLake, organizations can maintain a single copy of data that can be accessed across Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks, reducing duplication and simplifying data management. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565733 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565733 Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:00:18 GMT Azure Databricks now supports native read access to data stored in Microsoft OneLake through Unity Catalog. This capability is generally available. Customers can query and analyze data directly in OneLake without moving or copying data, enabling faster access to insights while simplifying cross-platform data access and governance. Learn more . Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566145 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ566145 Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:00:18 GMT Azure Migrate now integrates with GitHub Copilot Modernization (public preview) to deliver at scale code insights. This capability brings together Azure Migrate’s portfolio-level discovery and assessment with GitHub Copilot’s context-aware code analysis. The shared workflow helps migration admins and app developers collaborate more effectively while adhering to organizational security guidelines. Teams can assess multiple applications at once, evaluate Azure compatibility, and make informed refa... Azure Migrate Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565487 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565487 Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:30:04 GMT Azure StandardV2 NAT Gateway now supports outbound ICMP Echo Request and Echo Reply traffic, enabling customers to use tools such as ping to quickly validate outbound connectivity and troubleshoot network issues from workloads behind StandardV2 NAT Gateway. This support extends to IPv4 and IPv6 for existing and new StandardV2 SKU NAT Gateways. Learn more: ICMP Ping Support through Azure NAT Gateway Azure NAT Gateway overview Troubleshoot Azure NAT Gateway Azure NAT Gateway Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562497 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562497 Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:00:15 GMT The Azure Functions extension for VS Code now provides a redesigned Create New Project experience in public preview, featuring a rich, visual template gallery that replaces the multi-step Quick Pick wizard with a searchable, filterable view of project templates. Developers can browse templates by language and use case , search across template names, descriptions, and tags, and start from featured templates. A "Generate with Copilot" mode lets developers describe what they want to build and get a... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562027 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562027 Tue, 16 Jun 2026 17:15:28 GMT A new Azure portal experience for Summary Rules in Log Analytics is now available. Summary Rules enable aggregation of high-volume log data at a defined cadence and store it in summarized tables for improved query performance, reporting, or enhanced data privacy. Also, you can ingest logs at lower tier and summarize the important data you need in Analytics tier. Learn more . Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564774 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564774 Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:00:41 GMT Azure Compute will retire the following Virtual Machine series on November 15, 2028, impacting Azure Batch pools that rely on them: Av2-series F-series, Fs-series, Fsv2-series G-series, Gs-series Lsv2-series After this date: New Batch pools using these VM series cannot be created Existing pools cannot scale out Pools may be forcibly resized to zero nodes Remaining VMs will be stopped/deallocated and no longer covered by SLA Timeline: Now – November 15, 2028: Existing pools continue to run; migra... Azure Updates Batch https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564441 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564441 Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:00:41 GMT As part of our ongoing efforts to streamline the Azure Storage portfolio and deliver enhanced performance, scalability, and cost efficiency, we are announcing the retirement of all General purpose v1 (GPv1) storage accounts. This includes legacy blob storage and Files accounts configurations. Key Dates: October 1 st , 2025: Public announcement. September 1 st , 2026: New account creation blocked October 13 th , 2026: Final retirement. All remaining GPv1 accounts will be transitioned to GPv2. Wha... Azure Updates Storage Accounts https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564772 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564772 Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:00:41 GMT Azure Compute will retire the following Virtual Machine series on May 1, 2028, impacting Azure Batch pools that rely on them: D-series, Ds-series Dv2-series, Dsv2-series Ls-series After this date: New Batch pools using these VM series cannot be created Existing pools cannot scale out Pools may be forcibly resized to zero nodes Remaining VMs will be stopped/deallocated and no longer covered by SLA Timeline Now – May 1, 2028: Existing pools continue to run; migration is recommended May 1, 2028: Fu... Azure Updates Batch https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564734 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564734 Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:45:02 GMT SQL MCP Server is now generally available, giving customers a secure, high-performance way to build agentic solutions with controlled access to production data. Built for SQL and compatible with PostgreSQL and Azure Cosmos DB, SQL MCP Server is a dynamic, self-hosted data-plane endpoint with caching, multiple data sources, REST, and GraphQL in one solution. Open source and free, it runs well in Azure, on-premises, or in any cloud. Learn more. Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565482 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565482 Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:15:07 GMT Update to our previous communication: We previously announced the retirement of all Inbound NAT rules version 1 resources, which included both single-VM NAT rules and NAT pools for Virtual Machine Scale Sets. We have narrowed the scope of this retirement to Inbound NAT pools only. NAT pools are being retired because they provide the same functionality as Inbound NAT rules v2, which offer improved performance and is the recommended option for Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS). Understanding the d... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565154 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565154 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:45:26 GMT Microsoft Entra server principals (logins) for Azure SQL Database is now generally available. You can now use CREATE LOGIN ... FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER in the virtual master database, bringing parity with SQL logins for your Microsoft Entra identities. With Entra logins, you can assign server roles to Entra principals, automate user and database provisioning using service principal logins, and enable Entra-only authentication to disable SQL authentication entirely. If you're already using Entra lo... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ558560 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ558560 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:00:06 GMT As of March 31, 2026, new Azure Cosmos DB NoSQL accounts can no longer enable Azure Synapse Link. Existing customers will remain fully supported until March 31, 2029, when Azure Synapse Link will reach end of life. We encourage all customers to begin migrating to Mirroring for Microsoft Fabric — the recommended go-forward solution for Cosmos DB analytics workloads. Mirroring for Microsoft Fabric delivers the same zero-ETL hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP) capabilities as Azur... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Synapse Analytics Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565393 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565393 Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:15:16 GMT The Azure VPN Client for Linux (Preview) has remained in public preview and does not have a path to general availability (GA). As part of our ongoing efforts to align Azure networking services with current security and reliability standards, this preview client will be retired. Timeline and Impact: August 31, 2026 – Azure VPN Client for Linux (Preview) is retired September 1, 2026 – The Linux preview client is no longer supported for Azure VPN Gateway Point-to-Site (P2S) connections After August... Azure Updates Virtual WAN VPN Gateway https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562637 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562637 Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:45:10 GMT You can now use Agent mode for GitHub Copilot in SSMS to work with your database: investigating performance problems, tuning queries, reviewing maintenance and configuration, identifying security concerns, troubleshooting errors, and assisting with operational workflows. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562084 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562084 Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:45:07 GMT PostgreSQL Hub for Azure Developers brings together key AI and application development resources for PostgreSQL on Azure. It includes curated sample apps and solution accelerators, tutorials, and structured learning pathways to help you build everything from core applications to AI agents. Featured resources stay current with the latest updates. The hub also provides a space to connect with other developers. You can start discussions, share knowledge, and collaborate more closely with Microsoft... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ559756 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ559756 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 23:45:02 GMT W e are pausing the introduction of a minimum billable object size for the cool, cold, and archive access tiers. As a result, b illing behavior will not change on July 1, 2026, for either new or existing storage accounts. We will provide an update on our revised approach and timeline in a future Azure Update. No action is required from customers at this time . Azure Blob Storage Azure Data Lake Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565271 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565271 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:15:14 GMT Azure NCv6-series virtual machines (VMs) are now generally available in the Azure Southeast Asia and West US 2 regions. NCv6 VMs are powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition graphics processing units (GPUs) with each GPU featuring 96 GB of GDDR7 memory, and enable both leading-edge graphics and generative artificial intelligence (AI) compute workloads. The VM host is equipped with Intel Xeon™ 6 "Granite Rapids" 6900P series central processing units (CPUs), providing all-core turbo... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565359 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565359 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:00:23 GMT Azure Premium SSD v2 disks now support non-zonal, single-instance Azure virtual machines in select Azure regions with Availability Zones (AZs). Customers can now deploy Premium SSD v2 with non-zonal virtual machines without selecting an Availability Zone. This allows customers to bring the performance and price benefits of Premium SSD v2 to workloads that have not transitioned to zonal configurations. Azure Premium SSD v2 is a next-generation block storage option for Azure virtual machines that... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563756 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563756 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:15:43 GMT Enhanced maintenance control capabilities are now generally available for Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server. These new capabilities give you greater visibility and flexibility in managing platform maintenance events, helping reduce disruption to your workloads. You can now view upcoming maintenance events directly in the Azure portal, CLI, and APIs, including details such as maintenance type, expected downtime, and deferral eligibility. With the ability to reschedule maintenance by u... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565171 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565171 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:15:43 GMT Starting July 1, 2026, Microsoft Foundry agent security capabilities previously available through Microsoft Defender for Cloud will transition to a Microsoft Agent 365 license. Agent protection in Defender will be powered by Agent 365 observability logs and the Microsoft 365 agent registry — providing a unified source of truth for Microsoft Foundry agent inventory, real-time threat protection through a unified blocking platform, and consistent posture across cloud environments. For tenants with... Azure Updates Microsoft Defender for Cloud https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564873 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564873 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:15:40 GMT With role-based access control (RBAC) for Azure Managed Redis data access, you can precisely control who can read, write, or administer your Redis data using Microsoft Entra ID—without relying on shared keys. Built on top of Redis Access Control Lists (ACLs), this update enables fine‑grained, role‑based permissions aligned with your enterprise identity system. You benefit from stronger security through least‑privilege access, simplified compliance with auditable role assignments, and safer multi... Azure Managed Redis Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565286 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565286 Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:45:48 GMT Metrics Usage Insights now includes an Ingestion Volume Change dashboard to help you compare ingestion volume over time. Quickly detect spikes or drops in time series counts and event ingestion rates, enabling faster investigation of cost changes and more effective capacity planning. Learn more . Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564981 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564981 Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:30:12 GMT Guest RDMA is now in preview on Azure, starting in the UK South region, bringing high-throughput, ultra-low latency networking directly into guest VMs within the same region. By using Azure Boost to enable RDMA in the guest OS, applications can bypass the traditional networking stack and offload transport to the NIC, reducing CPU overhead and improving communication performance. Key benefits include low latency through kernel bypass, high throughput of up to 100 Gb/s in preview depending on VM S... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564176 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564176 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 22:15:50 GMT In public preview, Microsoft Foundry now supports avatar voice sync with custom voices in the Voice Live API, allowing developers to pair branded or persona-specific text-to-speech voices with real-time avatar experiences. This update helps teams building virtual agents, digital humans, and immersive customer engagement scenarios preserve their existing voice identity while taking advantage of low-latency, lip-synced avatar rendering, removing the previous limitation that restricted avatar pairi... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564563 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564563 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:45:11 GMT We’re pleased to announce that Azure Migrate now generally supports discovery and assessment of SMB and NFS file shares hosted on Windows and Linux servers . This gives customers a complete, data-driven view of their file share environment and a clear path to migrate to Azure Files. The capability entered preview in mid-February and is now generally available worldwide . The adoption during public preview has been strong, with hundreds of customers creating file share assessments, actively plann... Azure Migrate Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565090 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565090 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:45:40 GMT Azure Monitor's support for native ingestion of OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) signals is now generally available. This enables you to send telemetry data directly from OpenTelemetry-instrumented applications and platforms to Azure Monitor. You can configure your OpenTelemetry Collector to send data directly to Azure Monitor cloud ingestion endpoints to ingest OTLP metrics, logs and traces using Microsoft Entra for authentication. You can enable OTLP data ingestion in Azure Monitor using Applicat... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565182 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565182 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:45:40 GMT AI pipelines for Azure HorizonDB is now available in public preview. AI pipelines let you describe an AI data ingestion workflow, chunking, embedding, extraction, generation, and ranking, declaratively in SQL, and run it as a fault-tolerant pipeline inside the database. Execution is durable: pipelines survive crashes, retry failed steps automatically, checkpoint incremental work, and resume long-running jobs from the last completed step. This removes the boilerplate ingestion service that many G... Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562733 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562733 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:30:58 GMT Microsoft Discovery is now generally available, providing research and development organizations an enterprise platform for building and governing agentic AI workflows across scientific and engineering disciplines. Also available in preview is the Microsoft Discovery app, a local desktop experience that helps researchers and scientific teams begin working with agentic discovery today without requiring cloud infrastructure. Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563446 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563446 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:30:58 GMT Microsoft Foundry adds Azure SQL Database as a first-class Knowledge Source in Azure AI Search, available in public preview. Enterprise developers and solution architects building Copilot, RAG, and agentic experiences can now expose authoritative tables and views from Azure SQL as searchable, retrieval-ready knowledge for Knowledge Bases, RAG pipelines, and Foundry agents. The capability uses the same indexer-based ingestion patterns developers already know in Azure AI Search and aligns Azure SQ... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563451 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563451 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:30:58 GMT Microsoft Foundry brings Azure API Management support to all Foundry model integrations in Azure AI Search, now in public preview. Enterprise platform engineers and AI solution teams running large-scale RAG pipelines can place Foundry and Azure OpenAI models behind APIM for the GenAI Prompt Skill, embedding models, and vectorizer operations used at indexing and query time. APIM provides traffic shaping, load balancing, custom domains, identity governance, and private connectivity in front of eve... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563506 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563506 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:30:58 GMT Microsoft Foundry adds tool search to Foundry toolboxes in public preview, giving developers and admins a fast way to find the right tool inside large, multi-team catalogs. As your toolbox grows, sending every tool definition on every turn gets expensive. Tool Search retrieves only the most relevant tools at runtime, keeping the model’s context focused and efficient. Instead of browsing lists, the agent describes its intent, discovers the right tools, and executes. Toolbox builders also need con... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563516 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563516 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:15:11 GMT Azure AI Search and Foundry Knowledge Bases now support private, end-to-end network connectivity between search resources and Foundry services. Customers can route ingestion, enrichment, retrieval, and agent traffic over Shared Private Link or Network Security Perimeter so data never traverses the public internet. This release is built for organizations running RAG pipelines, Knowledge Bases, and Foundry agents on regulated or sensitive data, where compliance teams require full network isolation... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563416 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563416 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:15:11 GMT Microsoft Foundry IQ now treats a Microsoft Fabric Ontology as a federated knowledge source in public preview, giving agents a way to query the semantic layer customers already curate in Fabric. Foundry IQ translates natural language questions into ontology-grounded queries and SQL against the entities, relationships, and bindings the Fabric team has defined, then returns results with citations back to the underlying Fabric tables. Analytics and platform teams can expose governed business defini... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563222 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563222 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:15:11 GMT Microsoft Foundry IQ reaches general availability, giving developers a managed knowledge layer that grounds agents in enterprise data without rebuilding retrieval pipelines for each project. Teams connect SharePoint, OneLake, Azure Blob, and other sources once, then Foundry IQ handles ingestion, chunking, vector indexing, and access enforcement using the calling user's permissions. Agents query a single knowledge base and receive ranked, source-cited results, so answers stay tied to the document... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563661 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563661 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:00:34 GMT Azure AI Search now supports Content Understanding chunking and image verbalization in public preview, expanding the built-in skill that parses rich documents during indexing. Indexers can split documents into semantically meaningful chunks and generate text descriptions of embedded images, charts, and diagrams in the same pass. Retrieval-augmented generation apps benefit because each chunk carries the visual context that used to be lost when images were stripped out. Customers indexing slide de... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565159 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565159 Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:30:52 GMT Azure Monitor now includes Service Level Indicators (SLIs) and Service Level Objectives (SLOs), giving teams a clearer way to measure how customers actually experience their applications. Instead of relying only on infrastructure signals like CPU or isolated alerts, SLIs help determine whether an issue is truly affecting users. This shifts the focus from simply asking whether an app is up to understanding whether it is fast, reliable, and meeting expectations. With SLIs and SLOs, teams can cut t... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563217 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563217 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:00:57 GMT Microsoft Foundry now offers MAI-Voice-2 in public preview, a first-party voice model from the Microsoft AI team. MAI-Voice-2 generates natural speech across more than 10 languages and supports voice cloning from a short reference sample, plus voice prompting so developers can shape tone, pacing, and style with plain instructions. Customers can build multilingual virtual agents, accessibility experiences, and audio content workflows without stitching together separate cloning and prompt-engineer... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560810 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560810 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 22:15:24 GMT Ever wondered how to allow auditing personas (i.e. security analyst in your organization or security assessment contractor) the ability to view your ledger files and establish trust in the cryptographic proofs themselves? With the new localized, web ledger explorer tool, ledger files can be imported to verify the authenticity of the ledger and the ledger data in its entirety. This tool enables a simple experience in viewing the merkle-tree proof visually to ensure all ledger contents are chained... Azure confidential ledger Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563431 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563431 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 21:15:57 GMT This feature introduces end user feedback logging semantics that enables developers to capture structured feedback signals from real users interacting with AI agents—such as thumbs up/down, ratings, or custom annotations—and automatically associates that feedback with the underlying request traces in Azure Monitor. By standardizing how feedback is logged and correlated with agent runs and telemetry, the feature closes the loop between user experience and system behavior, allowing teams to analyz... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563671 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563671 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 21:15:57 GMT Azure AI Language brings the next-generation Text Analytics for Health (TA4H) playground to general availability in the Microsoft Foundry portal. Clinical informatics teams and ISVs can paste discharge summaries, doctor's notes, or research abstracts and see extracted diagnoses, medications, symptoms, and time references with UMLS entity linking and relation extraction in a single view. The playground returns FHIR-structured output alongside the standard JSON response, so teams can validate down... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563491 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563491 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:45:02 GMT Microsoft Foundry brings self-serve custom photo avatar creation to GA in the Foundry NextGen fine-tuning portal. Enterprise customers building voice agents with avatars or producing content with avatar and speech often need a branded avatar instead of a standard one, but until now the only path ran through a manual white-glove engagement that was slow and dependent on internal teams. With this release, customers create custom photo avatars directly in the portal through a guided self-serve work... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564849 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564849 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:15:46 GMT Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO) is now generally available in Azure Belgium Central , expanding regional availability for OpenShift deployments across Europe. With the launch of Microsoft’s first Azure region in Belgium, customers can now run fully managed OpenShift clusters closer to their users and data, improving performance and reducing latency for cloud-native applications. This new region enables organizations to deploy Kubernetes-based workloads while meeting local data residency and regula... Azure Red Hat OpenShift Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563716 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563716 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:15:46 GMT Microsoft Foundry Agent Service adds agent-to-agent (A2A) communication in public preview for Prompt agents and Hosted agents that use the responses protocol. Agents can call other agents by name through a managed endpoint, with identity, content safety, and audit logging applied to every hop. Developers can model multi-step business processes as a small set of cooperating agents instead of a single monolithic prompt, then trace the full conversation across agents in Application Insights. Becaus... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563656 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563656 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT Microsoft Foundry introduces rubric evaluators for measuring agent quality, now in public preview for single-turn and multi-turn agent flows. Rubric evaluators enable developers to define context-specific evaluation criteria using agent prompts, production traces and context-specific files with weighted dimensions and optional human review, ensuring that quality is measured against what truly matters for each scenario. This establishes a reliable baseline that is powering downstream workflows, i... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563691 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563691 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT Azure AI Speech moves the Custom Voice authoring experience into the Microsoft Foundry portal in general availability. Approved Custom Voice customers can now upload voice talent recordings and consent statements, run data quality checks, train neural voice models, and deploy to endpoints from the same Foundry project that hosts their text-to-speech, Speech-to-text, and Voice Live workloads. They can also train Personal voice in Foundry. The experience replaces the previous Speech Studio Custom... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563696 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563696 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT Microsoft Foundry observability introduces intelligent trace filtering and sampling for evaluations in public preview. Instead of running evaluations against all production traces, Foundry now select a representative subset of traces using a multi-stage MinHash farthest-first diversity algorithm, including deduplication, hard filers, aggregation and diversity-based selection for evaluation. This approach improves cost efficiency while producing significantly higher lexical diversity and diverse... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563721 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563721 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT The Microsoft Foundry extension for Visual Studio Code reaches general availability with a Build 2026 refresh that brings the full model catalog, model playground, and Hosted agent deployment into the editor. Developers can sign in with their Azure account, create or open a Foundry project, browse over 1,900 models with filters for publisher and capability, and deploy a model into the project without leaving VS Code. The extension also generates starter code for Python, .NET, JavaScript, or Java... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563731 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563731 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT Microsoft Foundry model catalog adds a domain filter in public preview, helping developers narrow the catalog of over 1,900 models to the ones trained for a specific industry or use case. Filters cover domains such as robotics, biomedical sciences, materials discovery, and coding. The filter sits alongside existing filters for publisher, modality, deployment type, and capability, so a developer searching for a robotics-tuned reasoning model can find it in a few clicks instead of scrolling throug... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563736 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563736 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT Use the Azure Developer CLI ( azd ) CLI evaluation experience to add a measured quality loop to an agent created with Microsoft Foundry. It empowers users on the hosted-agent lifecycle in azd , where you create, provision, deploy, initialize evaluation assets, run a first evaluation, inspect the run, and reuse the evaluation recipe for later runs. Learn more . Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564241 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564241 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT In public preview, Microsoft Foundry now offers an updated TextPII NextGen Playground with a refreshed API Configuration Panel, including preview features introduced at Ignite 2025. This update lets developers test predefined PII categories, redaction modes, and language settings interactively before integrating the API into production workflows. By providing a single interactive environment to validate configurations against sensitive text inputs, the playground reduces the learning curve for n... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564246 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564246 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:00:25 GMT In public preview, Microsoft Foundry now offers a Conversational PII (ConvPII) NextGen Playground with transcript input and an API Configuration Panel, enabling developers to validate PII detection across multi-speaker dialogue before integrating the API. This update helps you test conversation-format inputs such as call center transcripts and meeting recordings, iterate on configuration settings, and assess accuracy for informal, multi-turn language. By providing an interactive environment for... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565000 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565000 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:15:04 GMT Microsoft is announcing Confidential Live Migration in Azure, a new capability designed to improve operational flexibility and availability for Intel® TDX Confidential VMs during platform servicing. Confidential Live Migration helps move a Confidential VM to another host with limited interruption while maintaining protections against privileged software access. The capability supports attested transfers, destination authorization, and protected migration of VM memory and execution context. This... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564759 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564759 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 17:15:25 GMT Azure Infrastructure Resiliency Manager is now in public preview, offering a unified, goal-driven experience to design, assess, and improve application resiliency across Azure. It brings together capabilities across Availability Zones, Azure Advisor, Chaos Studio, Azure Monitor, and Copilot into a single workflow for end-to-end resilience. With AI guidance, actionable recommendations, and built-in drills, organizations can proactively build, improve, and validate resiliency end to end. Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563077 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563077 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 17:00:49 GMT Now you can unify your search operations in a single database. Azure DocumentDB has added fuzzy search, proximity search, more language support, and BM25 ranking to its full-text capabilities, bringing vector and advanced text search operations together. Learn more . Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563766 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563766 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 17:00:49 GMT You can now install the DuckDB extension in Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561978 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561978 Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:00:57 GMT We are excited to announce the General Availability of Simple log alerts in Azure Monitor, available starting today. This feature is designed to provide a simplified and more intuitive experience for monitoring and alerting, enhancing your ability to detect and respond to problems in near real-time. Unlike Log Search Alerts that aggregate rows over a defined period, Simple Log Alerts evaluate each row individually. Key Benefits: Simplified Query Language. Low Latency Alerting. Support multiple l... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563197 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563197 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 23:15:29 GMT Microsoft Foundry brings code-first observability to agent developers in public preview, delivered as an observe skill inside the Foundry Plugin for VS Code Copilot Chat. Developers run the full evaluation-driven optimization loop from the editor through natural language commands. The skill orchestrates Foundry MCP tools to auto-generate context-specific evaluators and starter datasets from the agent definition, run batch evaluations, download and cluster failures by root cause, propose prompt i... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563022 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563022 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:30:49 GMT Your AI coding agents just got smarter about building high-performance database applications. The Azure Cosmos DB Agent Kit is now generally available, bringing proven best practices directly into your development workflow. Whether you're designing data models, optimizing queries, or architecting globally distributed applications, your agents now have the expertise to guide every decision. With more than 100 actionable rules covering everything from partition key strategies to SDK optimization p... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563142 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563142 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:15:55 GMT In early June 2026, the following update and enhancement was made to Azure SQL: Now you can use post-quantum resilient AES 256 symmetric keys to configure transparent data encryption (TDE) with customer-managed keys in Azure SQL Database. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565073 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565073 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:00:05 GMT Azure Files now supports access from macOS using Entra ID authentication (Public Preview), enabling secure, identity-based access to file shares for cross-platform teams. This expands support for modern workflows, allowing users on macOS to seamlessly access and collaborate on shared data alongside Windows environments. Key benefits include: Enhanced security posture: Password-less access from macOS using Entra ID - no credential prompts or storage account keys—enforced by Conditional Access, MF... Azure Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565062 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565062 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:30:23 GMT The new file share service management experience for Azure Files is now generally available for NFS 4.1 shares on SSD storage. Powered by the Microsoft.FileShares resource provider, file shares are now top-level Azure resources that you can create, secure, scale, and bill independently, without a storage account. Key benefits: Top-level resource with a familiar, NAS-like management model. Independent performance for each share through the provisioned v2 billing model, with dynamic scaling up and... Azure Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562853 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562853 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:00:30 GMT As organizations adopt multiple LLM providers, developers often need to handle different API formats, SDKs, and integration patterns for each model vendor. This increases application complexity and makes provider switching, failover, and governance more difficult. With the Unified Model API, Azure API Management enables organizations to standardize on a single client-facing API format — such as the OpenAI Chat Completions API — while transparently transforming requests to various backend provide... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563631 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563631 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:00:30 GMT Azure AI Translator's unified Text Translation API reaches general availability, giving developers a single endpoint that fronts neural machine translation, large language model translation, small language model translation, Adaptive custom translation, and classic Custom Translator. Applications send one request and pick the engine that best fits each piece of content based on language pair, latency target, and quality requirements. The unified API consolidates years of customer feedback asking... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564451 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564451 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:00:30 GMT The general purpose Dpsv7 and Dplsv7, memory-optimized Epsv7, high-memory Mpsv4, and dense storage Lpsv5 VMs are now available in preview. These virtual machines deliver significant enhancements over the previous generation Cobalt 100 VMs, offering improved CPU performance, greater scalability, and expanded configuration options to meet the demands of a wide range of workloads. Key improvements include: Up to 50% improvement in CPU performance (workload dependent) 20% improvement in remote stora... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562657 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562657 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:45:52 GMT Global Provisioned Throughput (PTU) reservations are now region-agnostic, enabling a single reservation to cover Global PTU deployments across multiple regions. Why it matters: Optimize savings: One reservation can apply across regions, improving utilization and reducing stranded capacity. Increase flexibility: Deploy workloads where capacity is available without needing region-specific reservations. Simplify cost management: Consolidate reservations instead of managing multiple regional commitm... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562894 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562894 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:45:52 GMT As API estates grow, managing individual custom domains and certificates for every subdomain can quickly become operationally complex and difficult to scale. Without wildcard support, every new subdomain — whether payments.api.contoso.com, inventory.api.contoso.com, or orders.api.contoso.com — requires its own hostname registration and certificate, meaning a team onboarding ten new API surfaces generates ten separate domain and certificate management tasks. With this update, Azure API Management... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562769 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562769 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:15:03 GMT You can now enable vaulted backups for Azure Cosmos DB accounts, protecting mission-critical data with secure, isolated, and resilient backups. Azure Backup for Cosmos DB, now in preview, supports cyber-resiliency and compliance needs, even in scenarios involving accidental deletion, malicious activity, or ransomware. With vaulted backups, Azure Backup maintains an independent copy of your Cosmos DB data in a vault that is isolated from the source account, strengthening protection against operat... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563601 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563601 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:00:59 GMT Microsoft Foundry Agent Service is now generally available for Voice Live integration, allowing developers to connect real-time speech-to-text and text-to-speech to a Foundry Agent without writing their own audio pipeline. Existing agent capabilities — including tool calling, knowledge, memory, guardrails, and enterprise integrations — continue to work seamlessly and are now enhanced with low-latency speech interactions. The agent provides a real-time streaming voice channel with interrupt handl... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563636 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563636 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 20:00:59 GMT Azure Policy now provides centralized governance for deployments using the model router. Organizations can define and enforce routing standards across their environment, helping ensure that model selection aligns with security, compliance, and operational requirements. Built-in policy definitions allow teams to govern deployment regions, approved model lists, required routing rules, and logging configurations. Administrators can apply policies across management groups and subscriptions, identify... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565033 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ565033 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Azure Sphere OS version 26.06 is now available in the Retail feed. This release includes updates to Azure Sphere OS only; it does not include an updated SDK. If your devices are connected to the internet, they will receive the updated OS from the cloud. This release includes quality and underlying build system updates and addresses several CVEs. Learn more . Azure Sphere Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564976 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564976 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Automatic OS Image Upgrades for Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS) using Flexible Orchestration are now in public preview, enabling consistent, fleet-wide OS updates with reduced manual effort. This capability extends automated image upgrades to VMSS Flex, helping customers maintain secure, compliant, and up-to-date infrastructure at scale while lowering operational overhead. With this release, Azure shifts from per-VM patching to platform-driven, orchestrated updates applied across the entire sc... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564802 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564802 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT OpenTelemetry metrics and visualizations in Azure Monitor are generally available , delivering an enhanced, unified monitoring experience for Azure Virtual Machines and Arc Servers. This release consolidates key monitoring capabilities into a single experience and introduces a simplified onboarding experience, helping customers more efficiently observe, diagnose, and optimize their environments. Previously, VM monitoring visualizations were powered by metric data from Log Analytics which continu... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564543 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564543 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Azure Linux 4.0, Microsoft's first-party Linux distribution purpose-built for Azure, is now available in public preview for Azure Virtual Machines and VM Scale Sets. It brings a modernized stack — including Linux kernel 6.18 LTS, dnf5 package manager, glibc 2.42, OpenSSL 3.5, and Python 3.14 — optimized for Azure compute, storage, and networking. It delivers faster VM startup and provisioning with a reduced package footprint and a security-first design. Key highlights: Azure-tuned kernel — Linux... Azure Linux Azure Updates Linux Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564532 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564532 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Azure Event Grid Standard Namespace now supports MQTT v5 subscription identifier capabilities in GA. Now each MQTT subscription can include an identifier that is delivered with incoming messages, enabling applications to route events immediately based on subscription context rather than parsing topic strings. This results in cleaner application logic and faster message handling for scenarios such as dashboards, alerts, and analytics pipelines. Azure Updates Event Grid https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564537 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564537 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Azure Container Linux is a container-optimized, immutable operating system for AKS node pools — derived from Flatcar Container Linux and built on Azure Linux RPM packages. It delivers a locked-down, minimal host purpose-built for running containerized workloads at scale. Key features include: Immutable by design — The root /usr directory is read-only with dm-verity integrity verification. There is no package manager on the host — what ships in the image is what runs in production. This eliminate... Azure Linux Azure Updates Linux Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564446 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564446 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT The Lasv5 and Laosv5 storage optimized VMs, based on the 5th Gen AMD EPYC™ processor (Turin), are in preview. Lasv5-series is designed for storage-intensive workloads requiring high disk capacity, throughput, and I/O, while Laosv5-series is well-suited for workloads requiring significantly higher local storage capacity and performance. Lasv5 and Laosv5 VMs have sizes ranging from 2-160 vCPUs, with 8GiB of memory and 720GB of local NVMe disk capacity per vCPU. Both support 200Gbps of network band... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564431 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564431 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT GitHub Copilot modernization agent is now generally available Coordinated orchestration from estate to code. Scale application assessments and upgrades across your entire app portfolio with GitHub Copilot modernization agent (GA), connecting high-level estate planning to hands-on code transformation. Modernize your way. Custom skills (GA) let teams and partners extend agent behavior with domain-specific expertise, tailoring modernization to the patterns and institutional knowledge unique to thei... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562365 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562365 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Rolling updates are now generally available in the Flex Consumption plan, delivering zero-downtime deployments with a simple configuration change. Instead of forcefully restarting all instances during code or configuration updates, the platform gracefully replaces live instances by draining batches every few seconds while dynamically scaling out the latest version to meet demand. This approach ensures uninterrupted execution and resilient throughput across HTTP, non-HTTP, and Durable workloads -... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561984 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561984 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT We’re excited to announce the General Availability of Dynamic threshold for Log search alerts! Using dynamic thresholds means you don't have to know the right threshold for each Log alert rule - Dynamic thresholds calculate the most appropriate thresholds for you. Key benefits Dynamic thresholds apply advanced machine learning and use a set of algorithms and methods to: Learn the historical behavior of log query results. Analyze these results over time and identify hourly / daily / weekly season... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564495 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564495 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:30:20 GMT Microsoft is announcing the preview of multiparty analytics with Azure Confidential Clean Rooms, resulting in fully managed service that allows customers and their partners to securely analyze privacy sensitive datasets with Apache Spark based big-data analytics (Spark SQL) in a confidential computing based environment which protects their raw data from other collaborators and from the Azure operator by performing the computation in a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). Privacy sensitive datase... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563237 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563237 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Foundry IQ knowledge bases now surface document-extracted images at query time in public preview. When ingestion pulls figures, screenshots, and diagrams out of PDFs, slides, and Office files, Foundry IQ retains each image alongside the text it appeared with and can return it as part of a retrieval result. Agents can show the original chart to the user instead of describing it secondhand, so answers about technical diagrams, product photos, and report figures stay anchored to the source artwork.... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563341 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563341 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Translator now supports synchronous single-document image translation at general availability. Customers can submit a standalone image file (JPEG, PNG, and similar formats) through one synchronous API call and receive the translated result immediately, with original layout fidelity preserved. The service combines OCR and translation behind a single endpoint, so teams no longer need to build and maintain a custom OCR plus translation pipeline. Pricing is clear on a per-image basis, and t... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563326 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563326 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Translator publishes generally available SDKs that target the latest text translation REST API across four languages: C#/.NET, Java, JavaScript, and Python. The SDKs expose Translator API v4 SDK to GA across all four supported programming languages, giving developers a single client surface to choose between traditional neural machine translation and LLM-based translation per request. Teams building multilingual products and support content have had to manage two parallel translation pa... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563307 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563307 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Adaptive Custom Translation (AdaptCT) is generally available in the Azure AI Foundry NextGen playground for Azure Translator. AdaptCT enables enterprises to adapt translations to domain‑specific terminology using small datasets—eliminating the need for traditional model retraining. AdaptCT allows developers to update multilingual content in minutes by indexing high‑value examples and applying them dynamically at translation time (few-shot) to ground selected LLM. This approach helps organization... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563282 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563282 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Photo Avatar in Azure AI Speech is now generally available in standard and custom flavors. Standard Photo Avatar produces a talking head video from a single photo at 512x512 resolution, and custom Photo Avatar lets you fine-tune the look from your own image with one minute of consent audio for the matching voice. Both modes run through the same batch synthesis and real-time synthesis APIs already used for video avatars, so existing avatar code paths keep working. Photo Avatar is built on the VAS... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563267 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563267 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search now emits audit events for Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels carried alongside indexed documents. When the SharePoint in Microsoft 365 indexer is configured to preserve and honor sensitivity labels, query-time filtering decisions and label changes flow into Microsoft Purview activity logs. Security and compliance teams can review who queried labeled content, when label values changed, and how those changes affected search visibility. The capability builds on the existing sensi... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563262 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563262 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT The Azure AI Search SharePoint in Microsoft 365 indexer now indexes ASPX site content and SharePoint Lists in addition to document libraries. The indexer connects through a Microsoft Entra application registration with application or delegated permissions, picks up new and changed items incrementally, and removes deleted items on the next run. Inclusion and exclusion rules let you scope ingestion to specific sites, libraries, lists, or folders, and additional columns can be brought through as se... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563257 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563257 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Content Understanding in Microsoft Foundry now supports an extractionMode setting that lets you choose how documents are analyzed. Pick a layout-aware mode for structured documents where tables, sections, and reading order matter, or a faster text-only mode when you only need clean Markdown for downstream RAG indexing. The same Analyze API call returns field values with confidence scores and source grounding, so downstream automation can branch on whether human review is required. extractionMode... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563247 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563247 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search makes the GenAI prompt skill generally available, letting indexers call chat completion models during enrichment without custom code. Authors point the skill at a Foundry-hosted model, write a prompt template that references field values, and receive structured output written back to the index. The same chat completion capability is also available inside knowledge sources, so retrieval-augmented agents can run a quick model call against retrieved chunks before returning results.... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563242 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563242 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search now supports managed identity authentication for the billing operations it issues against Microsoft Foundry resources, replacing the prior key-based flow. Customers assign a system-assigned or user-assigned identity to the search service, grant it the appropriate role on the Foundry account, and skill executions that call Foundry models for embeddings, chat completions, or extraction bill through that identity. Security teams remove another long-lived secret from their environmen... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563227 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563227 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry IQ adds public preview support for OneLake Catalog as a knowledge source, so agents can ground responses on lakehouse tables, files, and shortcuts already governed in Microsoft Fabric. Data engineers register the OneLake catalog once and Foundry IQ ingests the cataloged items, respecting Fabric permissions and sensitivity labels at query time. Analysts get agent answers that cite the same curated datasets used in dashboards and reports, instead of duplicate copies sitting in a... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563127 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563127 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code now offers data API builder with built-in GitHub Copilot integration as generally available, bringing guided back-end generation into your development workflow. You can generate REST, GraphQL, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoints from your SQL database schema inside Visual Studio Code without manually configuring infrastructure or connection strings. You select tables, define CRUD operations, and configure settings such as authorization roles, pri... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563192 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563192 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Speech SDK 1.50 ships as a generally available release across all supported languages: C#, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, Objective-C, Swift, and Go. The release rolls up the latest speech-to-text and text-to-speech features behind a stable API surface and is published to the standard NuGet, Maven, npm, PyPI, and CocoaPods feeds. Existing apps can move to 1.50 with a package version bump in most cases. The SDK continues to support real-time and offline scenarios against local devices, files, Azu... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563187 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563187 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Deployment templates in Azure Machine Learning add CLI and SDK support in public preview, so platform teams can create, update, delete, and manage templates from infrastructure-as-code pipelines instead of only the portal. The new commands work with az ml deployment-template create, list, show, update, and delete, and the Python SDK exposes the same operations through the azure-ai-ml client. Teams can check deployment templates into Git, review them in pull requests, and manage them through Azur... Azure Machine Learning Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563172 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563172 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Deployment templates in Azure Machine Learning add public preview support for deploying from registries, expanding the set of model registries that customers can use as the source for a templated deployment. Deployment templates package a model, deployment configuration, and container information into a reusable artifact that platform teams can share with development teams. This update makes it easier for platform owners to standardize how a team deploys curated models from registries, while pre... Azure Machine Learning Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563167 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563167 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Choosing the right AI system is rarely as simple as picking the newest or largest model — and agents add their own layer of variability on top. A model that wins on a public leaderboard can still underperform on the reasoning, math, or domain-knowledge questions that matter for your application, and an agent that solves one task well can regress on another after a prompt or tool change. The only way to know is to measure, on the same benchmark, under the same conditions, every time something cha... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563152 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563152 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server continues to expand its global footprint with new regional availability and enhanced availability zone support. You can now deploy Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server in the Denmark East, Austria East, and Belgium Central regions, bringing Azure-managed MySQL closer to your workloads with full support for zone-redundant high availability and geo-redundant backup. This update enables you to meet local data residency requirements while taking advantage... Azure Database for MySQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563147 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563147 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Managing your quota is now faster, simpler, and more transparent. Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server supports self-service quota management through the Azure Quotas blade in the Azure portal. You can view your current quota usage and limits, request quota increases, and track the status of your requests all directly from the portal without needing to file a support ticket. Previously, requesting a quota increase required you to navigate to Help + Support and submit a support request, which... Azure Database for MySQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563137 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563137 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT In June 2026, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL: Execute SQL queries, document with Markdown, and mix kernels like Python using SQL Notebooks in the MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code. Learn more . Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563132 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563132 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT The GitHub Copilot integration with Schema Designer is now generally available in the MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code, expanding the visual schema design experience with AI-assisted capabilities. Based on developer feedback and evolving workflows, this integration enables you to explore, design, and modify database schemas using natural language. You can describe the tables or changes you want, and GitHub Copilot plans and generates proposed updates inside Schema Designer. Each schema cha... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563361 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563361 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry brings Content Understanding into the portal in public preview, ending the context switch to the standalone Content Understanding Studio for everyday work. Developers get Read and Layout playgrounds inside Foundry for OCR text extraction and structural document analysis covering tables, figures, sections, and hyperlinks, all reachable through Foundry model discovery. Prebuilt document and image analyzers appear as first-class Foundry resources, with sample documents, upload, ru... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563122 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563122 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code now introduces Azure SQL Database provisioning in public preview, starting with the free tier so you can create and connect to a fully managed cloud database directly from your editor at no cost. With a guided wizard on the Deployments page, you authenticate with your Azure account, then configure your subscription, resource group, server, and database on a single page. Your connection is added automatically the moment provisioning completes. You never... Azure SQL Database Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563212 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563212 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry adds region-agnostic reservations for Global Provisioned Throughput Units (PTUs) at general availability, letting customers commit to PTU capacity once and consume it from any supported region. Previously, a reserved PTU commitment was tied to a single region, which created friction for customers that operated multi-region applications or wanted to shift workloads as traffic patterns changed. With region-agnostic reservations, finance teams can sign one reservation contract and... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563396 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563396 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search and Foundry IQ Knowledge Sources add incremental SharePoint permissions sync in public preview, keeping document-level, site, and library access control lists current as SharePoint permissions change. Enterprises store business-critical content in SharePoint and expect AI-powered search, RAG, and agent experiences to enforce the same access rules. Today, carrying SharePoint permissions forward into indexing workflows is partial, so downstream AI experiences can drift from current... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563596 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563596 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Hosted agents in Foundry Agent Service are now generally available, running on Azure Developer Compute with microVM-level isolation. You bring a container-based agent built with the Microsoft Agent Framework or any third-party SDK, and the platform operates it: no manual start and stop, no always-warm instances to pay for, and no hosting infrastructure to patch. Every agent session executes in its own isolated sandbox with a clean environment and strong compute boundaries between tenants, so the... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563426 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563426 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry observability adds Trace Replay and new trace visualizations in public preview, giving agent developers a faster way to debug multi-step runs. The replay view rewinds a captured trace step by step, showing the model, tool, and inter-agent calls in the order they happened along with inputs, outputs, latency, and token usage. Updated visualizations group nested spans by agent and tool so engineers can spot the step that introduced an error or a latency spike without scrolling thr... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564868 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564868 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT A new workspace-wide Genie MCP endpoint enables any Microsoft Copilot Studio agent to query natural-language questions across an entire Azure Databricks workspace through a single endpoint. The endpoint auto-routes across all connected Genie spaces and Unity Catalog data, replacing the previous per-space configuration requirement and reducing integration overhead significantly. Business users get governed, workspace-wide data access directly inside Microsoft Teams and M365 Copilot. Learn more. Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564863 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564863 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Developers in Azure Databricks can now create a copy-on-write branch of their Lakebase production database with a single command, connect GitHub Copilot agent mode to the branch endpoint, and debug AI apps and agents against real production data without ever touching production. The workflow is fully Azure-native across GitHub, and Azure Databricks with enterprise compliance workflows included. This reduces AI agent debug cycles from hours to minutes while keeping production data completely safe... Azure Databricks Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564422 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564422 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Translator batch document translation ships generally available improvements for PDF translation. The service uses Azure AI Document Intelligence to recover structure from both digital-native and scanned PDFs, then translates the recognized text and re-renders the document with the original reading order, tables, headings, and image placement preserved. The improved pipeline reduces formatting drift in long, multi-column reports and forms, and continues to flow through the standard batc... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564417 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564417 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Translator batch document translation accepts image files as a generally available input type. Supported formats include `.jpeg`, `.png`, `.bmp`, and `.webp`. The service runs OCR on each image, translates the recognized text into the target language, and writes a translated image back to your Azure Blob Storage target container while keeping the original visual design and layout. Image inputs ride the same async batch REST API, SDK, and managed identity authentication path as Word, Pow... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564412 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564412 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Translator batch document translation now translates text inside images embedded in Word `.docx` files as a generally available capability. The service detects image regions, runs OCR, translates the recognized text, and re-renders it back into the document while preserving the original layout, font, and surrounding formatting. Image-aware translation works through the existing batch translation REST API and SDK paths, with the same source and target Azure Blob Storage container pattern... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564407 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564407 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search makes OneLake catalog integration generally available for knowledge sources, so customers can register a OneLake item once and reuse it across multiple knowledge sources and agents. The integration honors existing OneLake item-level permissions, sensitivity labels, and lineage, so when a Fabric admin restricts access in OneLake the change flows through to every dependent agent on the next query. Developers pick a catalog entry instead of pasting a path, and the knowledge source p... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564402 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564402 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry makes managed virtual network support generally available for evaluations, so customers can run cloud evaluation jobs against models and agents that sit behind private endpoints. The Foundry-managed VNET handles outbound connectivity to the model deployment, the evaluation dataset storage account, and any tool endpoints under test, with no need to maintain bastion hosts or self-hosted runners. Security teams keep network isolation, private DNS, and outbound traffic rules consis... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564387 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564387 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Speech makes the LLM Speech API generally available, delivering state-of-the-art LLM-powered transcription and translation for audio files, with multi-lingual support across 25 languages (90+ locales), improved accuracy, expanded regions, and enhanced prompt-tuning capabilities. Learn more . Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563791 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563791 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now convert Oracle database schema objects to Azure Database for PostgreSQL-compatible schema directly in the PostgreSQL extension for Visual Studio Code. The experience provides a project-based workflow for Oracle to Microsoft for PostgreSQL offerings, using Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server as a scratch database for validation and testing during schema conversion. The workflow automatically flags items that can't be converted as Review Tasks, so you can address them before... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563786 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563786 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now proactively validate Major Version Upgrade (MVU) readiness for Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server before initiating the actual upgrade process. New pre-upgrade validation checks allow you to independently run upgrade compatibility validations and identify potential blockers ahead of time, helping reduce failed upgrade attempts and improve operational predictability. The validation process checks your server against Azure PostgreSQL upgrade policies and PostgreSQL pg_upgrad... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563781 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563781 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now use Microsoft Defender security assessments for Azure Database for PostgreSQL to continuously evaluate your database security posture and identify potential vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. This feature helps you strengthen your security baseline, prioritize remediation based on risk, and align with best practices and compliance requirements. You can proactively protect your PostgreSQL workloads with integrated insights directly in Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563776 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563776 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server now supports cross-tenant customer-managed keys (CMK), in public preview, allowing you to encrypt your data at rest using an Azure Key Vault key that resides in a separate Microsoft Entra tenant from the database service. This capability is designed for software as a service (SaaS) providers and enterprises that need to maintain strict separation of duties and ownership of encryption keys, enabling their customers to retain full control over key li... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563771 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563771 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Now customers can install the pg_ivm extension in Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. Learn more . Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563616 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563616 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry refreshes the Foundry Memory public preview with a redesigned storage model, new retrieval controls, and tighter integration with the Foundry Agent Service tool surface. Agents using Memory can now write, search, and update user-scoped and session-scoped memories through a single tool, with built-in semantic deduplication and TTL controls that keep memory stores from drifting over time. The refresh adds region availability, content safety filtering on memory writes, and improve... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563606 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563606 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search adds Microsoft Purview admin access auditing for sensitivity-labeled content in public preview. Admin operations that touch Purview-labeled documents inside Azure AI Search, knowledge retrieval, and Foundry IQ knowledge bases now flow into Microsoft Purview's unified audit log alongside Microsoft 365 events. Security and compliance teams running AI Search in regulated industries get end-to-end visibility for the same admin actions they already track in SharePoint, Exchange, and O... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563112 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563112 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure DocumentDB now supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP), available in public preview. With the MCP toolkit, you can connect AI agents and LLM-powered applications directly to your DocumentDB database, enabling natural language queries, document retrieval, and data operations without writing custom integration code. You can build agentic workflows that read and write to your DocumentDB collections, perform vector similarity search, and retrieve contextually relevant documents as part of a... Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563591 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563591 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search adds Microsoft Purview sensitivity label support to knowledge sources in public preview. Labels applied at the source system flow through ingestion into Azure AI Search and into the knowledge bases that ground Foundry agents and copilots, so chunk retrieval, vector search, and multi-step agent reasoning all respect the same access and privacy classifications defined by enterprise security teams. Customers building secure agentic workflows over regulated data get end-to-end label... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563586 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563586 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry adds MAI-Transcribe-1.5 to the model catalog in public preview, Microsoft's next-generation speech-to-text model. The release adds improved accuracy with noticeably lower word error rate on long-tail locales than the previous generation, plus faster real-time and batch transcription with predictable latency. Target workloads include call center analytics, media captioning, voice agent transcription, and meeting recording. MAI-Transcribe-1.5 is available via Global Standard depl... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563581 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563581 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry adds MAI-Image-2.5 to the model catalog in public preview, the next generation of Microsoft's in-house image generation model. The release improves photorealism, prompt fidelity, and generation speed compared with MAI-Image-2, and is tuned for marketing creative, product visualization, and content production workloads rather than open-ended consumer art. Enterprise customers get Foundry-native deployment with the same governance, regional availability, and content safety contro... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563531 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563531 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Search now offers a serverless option for native indexers in public preview, removing the requirement to provision and manage indexer compute for ingestion workflows. Indexer execution scales with workload demand, so customers stop paying for idle capacity during off-peak hours and stop over-provisioning to handle bursts. The MVP supports document ingestion and enrichment patterns commonly used in RAG pipelines, Foundry Knowledge Bases, and AI-driven applications backed by Azure AI Sear... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563526 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563526 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Speech is rolling out an updated Neural HD text-to-speech model, moving customers from DragonHDLatest to HDv2.5. The update raises audio quality scores, adds style and paralinguistic tag support for English voices, and reduces word error rate in secondary locales such as Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. Customer-facing voice experiences (call center agents, IVR menus, assistant readouts) sound more natural and expressive without changes to the calling code; the existing endpoints... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563456 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563456 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry adds connectors and time-based triggers to the Foundry Tools toolbox in public preview, giving enterprise developers and automation engineers a native way to build event-driven AI agents. Foundry agents today are invoked only through direct API calls or user interactions, leaving teams to build custom orchestration outside Foundry whenever an agent needs to react to a business event. With this release, agents respond automatically to events from Microsoft 365, Azure, and third-... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563436 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563436 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure AI Speech brings the Custom Avatar and Custom Video authoring experiences into the Microsoft Foundry portal in general availability. Approved customers can upload an actor's video recording, fine-tune a custom video avatar, and generate synthetic talking-head videos through the same Foundry project that runs their text-to-speech and Voice Live workloads. The portal also supports Photo Avatar, where a single reference image plus the Microsoft VASA model produces a head-only avatar. Customer... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563411 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563411 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Microsoft Foundry IQ now supports external MCP servers as federated knowledge sources in public preview, expanding retrieval beyond data customers index themselves. Teams can register MCP servers from systems like Salesforce, Atlassian, Confluence, and ServiceNow, then query them alongside indexed sources in a single agentic retrieval call. Foundry IQ handles cross-source selection automatically, choosing which sources to consult per query and merging results with citations. Because the federati... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563107 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563107 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT BM25 full-text search is now available in public preview for Azure HorizonDB. Now you can get production-quality keyword search powered by BM25, the same relevance ranking algorithm used by Elasticsearch, Solr, and Azure AI Search, running entirely inside your PostgreSQL database as a native extension. You no longer need to deploy and manage a separate search service to get high-quality text search. The full-text search extension replaces PostgreSQL's built-in ts_rank with BM25 scoring, which de... Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562874 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562874 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Integrating apps with SaaS and line-of-business systems today means writing custom API client code, managing credentials, and handling retries, pagination, and webhooks for every service. Connector Namespace is a fully managed service providing pre-built connectors to services like SharePoint, Salesforce, Outlook, and SAP. Each connector exposes typed actions and event triggers through a shared connection model, while the platform handles auth, credential rotation, polling, webhook delivery, and... Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563092 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563092 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Agentic Advisor Solution Accelerator for Azure HorizonDB is now generally available. You can use this financial services-focused reference solution to build multi-agent applications in Python using LangGraph and Mem0, with Azure HorizonDB as the data and intelligence layer. The accelerator demonstrates how you can combine advanced graph generation and querying, hybrid search with full-text search, DiskANN advanced filtering, and Azure HorizonDB AI functions to create more context-aware, explaina... Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562858 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562858 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations integrate external AI providers into production applications, platform teams need consistent ways to secure, govern, and observe model interactions across providers. Without centralized controls and telemetry, managing compliance, troubleshooting issues, and monitoring usage becomes increasingly difficult. With this update, Azure API Management extends AI gateway capabilities to Anthropic and Google Vertex AI models, enabling organizations to apply runtime policies, security con... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562848 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562848 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Organizations using workspace-based API management models previously needed a dedicated workspace gateway and Premium tier deployment to take advantage of API Management workspaces increasing both cost and operational complexity. With this update, Azure API Management customers can now associate workspaces directly with the built-in gateway, extending workspace support across additional tiers and all regions supported by API Management. This helps organizations: Use workspaces in any API Managem... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562843 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562843 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations build more agentic applications, agent-to-agent communication is becoming a critical part of enterprise AI systems. But in many environments, agent traffic operates outside existing API governance layers — making it difficult to apply consistent security, visibility, and operational controls. With support for JSON-RPC–based A2A APIs, Azure API Management enables platform teams and developers to manage agent interactions alongside REST, GraphQL, MCP tools, and AI model APIs using... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562799 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562799 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Global secondary indexes (GSIs) for Azure Cosmos DB are now generally available, giving you a powerful way to accelerate query performance without adding complexity to your application code. GSIs are read-only containers that automatically stay in sync with your source container using the change feed. Each GSI has its own throughput, partition key, and indexing policy, so you can optimize them for any query pattern. With GSIs, you can convert expensive cross-partition queries into efficient sing... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562794 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562794 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT We are announcing the public preview of the Agentic Retrieval Toolkit for Azure Cosmos DB. Motivated by GraphRAG and multiple-hop reasoning problems, this new capability helps you build advanced retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications that go beyond single-pass retrieval by dynamically identifying information gaps and iteratively retrieving additional context. The toolkit combines hybrid search across vector and full-text indexes, diversity-aware document selection, and multiple-round... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562784 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562784 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now improve the relevance of any Cosmos DB query or search with the public preview of semantic reranker in Azure Cosmos DB. Semantic reranker analyzes the meaning of your queries and your data to reorder results based on contextual relevance rather than keyword matching alone. This ranking is especially useful for AI-powered applications such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), question answering, and agentic apps. With semantic reranker, you can deliver more precise and reliable re... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562779 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562779 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now accelerate the development of agentic applications with the new Agent Memory Toolkit for Azure Cosmos DB. This toolkit provides a customizable, code-first solution to help you build scalable, durable, and cost-efficient memory systems for your AI agents, without having to design complex pipelines from scratch. With the Agent Memory Toolkit, you can easily store, update, and retrieve agent memories using a simple interface, while the toolkit handles key tasks such as data processing,... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562774 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562774 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT The safe key rotation feature helps you confidently rotate your Azure Cosmos DB account keys by providing visibility into when each key was last used. Without this insight, you risk rotating a key that may still be actively used by your applications, which can lead to unexpected service disruptions. With safe key rotation, you can identify active and inactive keys before taking action, enabling you to make informed decisions and improve your security posture. This capability supports safer migra... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562764 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562764 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Building AI applications on Azure Cosmos DB just got simpler. With integrated embeddings, now in public preview, Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL can automatically generate and maintain embeddings for your data, without the need to build a separate pipeline. Now you can configure your container's vector embedding policy with one or more source properties, a target property, and a Microsoft Foundry model endpoint. Cosmos DB handles the rest: as items are created or updated, embeddings are generated and... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562759 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562759 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now automate embedding generation from multiple data sources into Azure Cosmos DB and other Azure destinations. Building AI applications often requires stitching together data extraction, embedding generation, and writing to vector databases into a custom pipeline. You have to write extraction logic for each source, integrate with embedding APIs, and build your own sync mechanism to keep embeddings current as source data changes. OmniVec, now in public preview as an open-source project,... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562863 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562863 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Modern integration and automation teams increasingly want the flexibility of writing workflows directly in code while still benefiting from managed orchestration, enterprise connectors, and cloud-scale operational capabilities. Traditional workflow models can create friction for pro developers who prefer imperative programming patterns and code-first development experiences. With Codeful Workflows, Azure Logic Apps extends Logic Apps Standard with a code-first authoring and execution model built... Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562754 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562754 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT We are announcing the general availability of the Azure Cosmos DB Linux emulator (vNext), a cross-platform, Docker-based emulator for local development and testing against Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL. The vNext emulator runs as a lightweight Docker container on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with native support for both x64 and ARM64 architectures. You can use it to develop and test your applications locally without incurring Azure service costs or needing an internet connection. Since public preview,... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562564 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562564 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Customers running regulated or sensitive containerized workloads often need stronger protection for data while it is actively being processed, especially in scenarios that require higher isolation and stricter compliance controls. Confidential Compute in Azure Container Apps provides hardware-backed Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) through workload profiles, extending protection to data in use in addition to data at rest and in transit. With this capability now generally available, teams ca... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562559 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562559 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT In addition to platform-level logs, Azure Container Apps now adds a dedicated Azure Monitor diagnostic setting category, ContainerAppHTTPLogs , that exposes detailed HTTP access logs for incoming traffic and is designed for high-volume request data. With this capability, customers can now troubleshoot ingress and request-flow issues with much greater precision, making it easier to investigate failed requests, latency, retries, WebSocket disconnects, routing behavior, and backend connectivity pro... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562554 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562554 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Container Apps enhances its OpenTelemetry (OTel) capabilities by expanding support for third-party observability platforms. This update introduces additional endpoint options for commonly used monitoring tools such as New Relic, Dynatrace, and Elastic, extending the existing managed OpenTelemetry experience with simpler setup for additional third-party observability platforms. This update makes it easier to send logs, metrics, and traces to more destinations without deploying or managing y... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563102 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563102 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Advanced filtering for DiskANN vector search in Azure HorizonDB is now available in public preview. With this release, you can combine vector similarity search with metadata filters such as category, date range, price, or tenant ID without the performance penalties that typically come with filtered vector queries. DiskANN advanced filtering delivers lower latency on filtered vector search compared to traditional approaches, enabling you to build AI-powered retrieval applications that are both pr... Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562502 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562502 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Functions now supports Go as a first-class language option in public preview. With this release, developers can author event-driven serverless apps in Go using the Azure Functions Go programming model and SDK, while still benefiting from Azure Functions capabilities such as triggers, bindings, and integrated observability. Go support helps teams that standardize on Go deliver cloud-native APIs, automation, and integration workloads without introducing a second language stack. Developers ca... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562492 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562492 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Functions now provides built-in Grafana dashboards. Customers now get a zero-setup, single pane of glass for the health, performance, and scale of their function apps directly in the Azure portal: no Grafana instance to provision, no data sources to wire up, and no extra cost. The default dashboard is purpose-built for Azure Functions and brings together the signals that matter for operating a function app, including execution volume, success and failure rates, latency, resource utilizatio... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562487 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562487 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Developers are already using AI coding assistants to build Azure Functions apps today, but the quality of the help varies widely. It depends on which underlying model the assistant is using and how recent its training data is, which means developers often get advice based on outdated APIs, deprecated patterns, or generic guidance that misses Azure Functions best practices. Azure Functions now provides a set of AI assistant plugins and agent skills in public preview that close that gap. With a qu... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562482 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562482 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Functions now supports building AI agents as a first-class workload using a markdown-first programming model in public preview. With this release, developers can author event-driven serverless agents in natural language. The s erverless a gents r untime helps developers build agents that respond to conversations, react to events, and take actions across enterprise systems without writing framework boilerplate or per-service integration code. Developers can use any Azure Functions trigger —... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562442 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562442 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Functions now includes managed connectors - the same 1,400+ connector ecosystem behind Logic Apps and Power Platform - as first-class triggers and operations. This enables customers to build integrated systems across the broader ecosystem such as Office 365, Teams, SharePoint, Salesforce, and other SaaS services, using familiar Functions workflows. With connectors natively available, developers can build event-driven integrations without custom polling logic or manual SDK integration, simp... Azure Functions Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562099 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562099 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Developers building Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers often rely on plain text responses even when user interactions required richer experiences, such as visual data exploration, complex configuration, real-time status monitoring, or multi-step workflows, which leads to excessive back-and-forth and limited usability. Azure Functions now supports building and hosting MCP Apps using the Azure Functions MCP Extension. MCP Apps enable servers to return interactive user interfaces that render dire... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562569 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562569 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Customers can now bring Azure Container Apps environments into Microsoft Defender for Cloud’s S erverless Containers Posture experience, helping security teams extend posture management across more of their container estate from a single workflow. This makes it easier to gain visibility into Container Apps resources and assess risks across areas such as identity, networking, and container or image configuration. With this capability, teams can more consistently evaluate risk across container env... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562868 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562868 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations adopt AI agents and MCP-based tooling, integration teams often need to build and maintain custom API layers just to make existing workflows callable by agents. This additional plumbing increases development effort, operational complexity, and time to production. With the GA release of the Azure Logic Apps MCP Server, developers can now expose existing Logic Apps workflows as MCP-compatible tools that AI agents can directly discover and invoke — without writing custom API code. T... Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562511 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562511 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure Functions on Container Apps has traditionally used platform-managed scaling, where triggers are automatically translated into KEDA scale rules. With the new allowScalingRuleOverride property, customers can now choose to override platform-managed scaling and define their own custom KEDA scaling rules. When scaling override is enabled, the platform skips automatic KEDA rule generation and applies customer-defined scaling rules while continuing to run on the same native Functions on Container... Azure Container Apps Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563032 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563032 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can use the MCP Toolkit for Azure Cosmos DB, now in general availability, to connect your AI agents and copilots to operational data with enterprise-ready reliability. This release gives you a standardized way to expose Cosmos DB capabilities through Model Context Protocol (MCP), so your teams can build faster, reduce custom integration effort, and scale agent experiences with more confidence. You get a production-focused foundation for secure access patterns, easier tool integration across... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563087 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563087 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure HorizonDB is a PostgreSQL-compatible database service engineered for performance and built for what's next. It delivers future-proof autoscaling storage up to 128 TB, up to three times faster performance than self-managed PostgreSQL, and rapid compute scalability reaching 3,072 vCores, so you can support your most demanding workloads with confidence. Now available in public preview, Azure HorizonDB is designed for mission-critical applications that require enterprise-grade security, reliab... Azure HorizonDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563082 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563082 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT With near-instant provisioning of free tier clusters, you can get started immediately on Azure DocumentDB. Learn more . Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563072 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563072 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Announcing the general availability of the Azure DocumentDB Migration Extension for Visual Studio Code. With this release, you can create, run, and manage migration jobs directly from Visual Studio Code to move data from your on-premises or cloud-based MongoDB deployments to Azure DocumentDB. You no longer need to provision extra infrastructure or rely on complex migration tooling. Instead, you can use a familiar developer environment to plan and execute migrations with secure connectivity, zero... Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563067 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563067 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can build real-time, event-driven applications with change streams in Azure DocumentDB, now in public preview and featuring multi-node support. You can capture live data changes with controlled polling, helping you power instant analytics, automation, and synchronization across distributed systems while reducing operational overhead. You can start streams from any point in the last 30 days to support replay, recovery, and backfill scenarios, giving you greater flexibility in handling delayed... Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563062 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563062 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure DocumentDB is excited to announce the general availability of graceful failovers that promote replica clusters while guaranteeing zero data loss. This feature is an addition to the already existing force promote feature, which immediately promotes a replica cluster in the event of availability loss. Force promote favors availability over consistency and thus does not wait for unreplicated data to make its way to the replica cluster before being promoted. With the graceful promote feature,... Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563057 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563057 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Azure DocumentDB is excited to announce the general availability of service-managed failover for multi-region clusters. In the event of a regional outage, Azure DocumentDB will automatically fail over the globally distributed cluster from the primary region to the secondary region, without any user intervention needed. Learn more . Azure DocumentDB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563052 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563052 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now more easily migrate from relational databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and MySQL to Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL. The Migration Assistant in the Azure Cosmos DB extension for Visual Studio Code guides you through a structured workflow: discovery, assessment, schema conversion and provisioning. It uses GitHub Copilot language models and Azure Cosmos DB Agent Kit skills to analyze your application and schema, generate a target NoSQL design with ready-to-provision containers... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563047 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563047 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Announcing the public preview of distributed transactions in Azure Cosmos DB. You can now perform atomic operations across items and partitions, with changes committing together or rolling back automatically on failure. Distributed transactions eliminate the need for complex application logic to coordinate updates, helping you preserve data integrity and simplify application design. This capability integrates seamlessly with Azure Cosmos DB's consistency and availability models, providing predic... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563042 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563042 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Per-partition automatic failover (PPAF) is now generally available in Azure Cosmos DB, bringing faster recovery and higher availability to your mission-critical applications. With PPAF, you no longer need to fail over an entire account during a regional disruption. Azure Cosmos DB automatically fails over only the impacted partitions, while healthy partitions continue serving traffic. This approach sharply reduces disruption, shortens recovery times, and removes the need for manual intervention... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563027 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563027 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now use AI assistance in the Azure Cosmos DB extension for Visual Studio Code to work with your data faster and with less manual effort. You can ask questions in plain English and get optimized Azure Cosmos DB queries, use chat participant commands to explain and refine queries, and rely on intelligent auto completion while writing queries and code. You also get an Azure Cosmos DB Shell experience powered by Model Context Protocol (MCP), so the agent can use Shell operations to navigate... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563017 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563017 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT You can now change the partition key of an Azure Cosmos DB NoSQL container directly from the Azure portal with just a few clicks. The process supports both online and offline modes by copying data from the source container to a new container through the Change Partition Key option in Data Explorer. Learn more . Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562880 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562880 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations deploy more agentic applications and MCP-based tools, enforcing consistent safety and compliance policies across agent interactions becomes increasingly important. Many teams today rely on fragmented or custom implementations for content filtering and policy enforcement, creating operational complexity and increasing risk. With this update, Azure API Management extends content safety capabilities to MCP tools and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) APIs, enabling centralized enforcement of saf... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562971 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562971 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT The Azure Cosmos DB all versions and deletes change feed mode is now generally available, giving you complete visibility into every change that happens in your containers. Unlike the default latest version mode, which surfaces only the most recent state of an item, all versions and deletes captures every create, update, and delete operation in the order it occurred, including intermediate changes between reads and TTL expirations. This mode opens up scenarios that were previously difficult to bu... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562885 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562885 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations adopt advanced AI models, understanding token consumption is becoming more complex. Traditional metrics focused primarily on prompt and completion tokens often fail to capture newer token categories such as cached, reasoning, or thinking tokens — limiting cost visibility and operational insight. With this update, Azure API Management now enables organizations to log metrics for a broader range of token types into Application Insights, extending observability beyond standard toke... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562899 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562899 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Organizations often need to expose APIs, developer portals, and management endpoints under different branded or organizational domain names- — for example, api.contoso.com for external partners, apis.hrportal.contoso.com for an internal HR platform, and dev.europe.contoso.com for a regional developer portal. Until now, achieving this level of separation frequently required additional API Management instances, increasing operational complexity and cost. With this update, Azure API Management Prem... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562904 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562904 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Managing Kubernetes clusters across hybrid and multi-cloud environments is fragmented by default: different consoles, different tools, different operational models. Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager now supports Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes in GA, so any CNCF-compliant distribution can join a fleet as a member cluster. Once Arc-enabled clusters are joined as members, teams get centralized visibility into cluster health across their entire Kubernetes estate. From there, Fleet Manager's intelligent w... Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562976 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562976 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Plan your Azure Cosmos DB deployment with confidence. The Azure Cosmos DB cost estimator is now in public preview, giving you a fast, accurate way to model throughput, storage, regions, and capacity mode before you provision a single account. Whether you are building a new transactional app, modernizing a legacy database, or pricing out AI workloads with vector search, the estimator turns your design choices into a monthly cost projection in minutes. The pricing model reflects current Azure list... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562914 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562914 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations adopt MCP-based tooling and AI agents at scale, developers need a simpler way to discover and connect to the growing ecosystem of enterprise MCP servers, tools, APIs, and AI assets. With this update, Azure API Center introduces a data plane MCP server that acts as a unified enterprise discovery endpoint — enabling agents and developer tools to access the full catalog of registered MCP servers, tools, APIs, and AI assets through a single connection. This enables teams to: Provide... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562909 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562909 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations increasingly build autonomous AI agents to automate workflows and orchestrate enterprise tasks, developers need a centralized way to discover, govern, and reuse these capabilities across teams. With this update, Azure API Center enables teams to: Register new agents directly into the enterprise catalog Automatically ingest and synchronize agents from Git repositories Keep agent definitions aligned with evolving source-controlled codebases Make production-ready agents discoverabl... API Management Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562924 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562924 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT As organizations move toward agentic automation, developers increasingly need a simpler way to combine workflows, APIs, and AI agents into production-ready business processes. Today, building these systems often requires stitching together multiple Azure services, managing infrastructure complexity, and creating custom orchestration layers across workflows and AI agents. With the new Azure Logic Apps Automation SKU, developers can build AI-driven business process automation using Logic Apps work... Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562929 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562929 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Most RAG implementations today are complex. Teams must build ingestion pipelines, manage chunking and embeddings, configure vector stores, wire up retrieval layers, and then operate the entire system in production. With Azure Logic Apps, RAG becomes a native workflow capability instead of a custom infrastructure project. Developers can: Upload documents directly into a workflow Automatically ingest, chunk, and vectorize content Use retrieval as a built-in workflow step Build grounded and persona... Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562934 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562934 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Now in Public Preview, Anyscale on Azure is a cloud-native managed Ray platform for machine learning engineers and AI developers who need to run Python workloads at massive scale without compromising speed or control. It brings the power of Ray’s distributed execution together with Azure Kubernetes Service to create a purpose-built platform for modern, large-scale AI systems. Anyscale on Azure helps AI teams move from a single-machine experiment to production-grade systems running across hundred... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562939 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562939 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Organizations building AI agents often face a disconnect between where agents are built and where business processes are automated. Now, with improved integration between Azure AI Foundry and Azure Logic Apps, developers can now more easily operationalize Foundry AI agents within enterprise workflows. Azure AI Foundry provides the platform where agents are built, grounded, evaluated, and hosted using enterprise data, models, and tools. Azure Logic Apps provides the orchestration layer where work... Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562919 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562919 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:00:47 GMT Provisioning and maintaining system node pools in AKS requires ongoing work to handle scaling, patching, and availability. Managed system node pools in AKS Automatic remove that responsibility. The platform provisions and operates the infrastructure for core Kubernetes system components, so teams do not need to create, scale, or update system node pools. System workloads run separately from application workloads, reducing contention and improving application reliability. Platform-managed updates... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564668 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564668 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:15:36 GMT Azure Backup now supports snapshot-based backup for SQL Server running on Azure Virtual Machines. This new capability uses Azure disk snapshots combined with native SQL transaction log backups to deliver near-instant, low-impact full backups for large SQL databases, significantly improving backup performance and reducing the load on production workloads compared to streaming backups. You can protect multiple databases under a SQL instance with a single policy and restore using different mechanis... Azure Backup Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564735 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564735 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:00:06 GMT Updated: Microsoft’s support lifecycle is evolving in alignment with VMware’s roadmap. Broadcom will end support for the current AV36 VCF version on September 30, 2027, and the AV36 SKU is not compatible with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9, the next-generation platform. As part of this transition, and to align with the AVS License-include service retirement, all AV36 SDDCs will be retired after August 30, 2027, regardless of individual RI expiration dates. On August 31, 2027, these SDDCs will n... Azure Updates Azure VMware Solution https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562647 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562647 Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:45:09 GMT Azure Functions support for Node.js 24 is now generally available. You can now develop apps using Node.js 24 locally and deploy them to supported Azure Functions plans on Linux and Windows, including the Flex Consumption plan. Please note that Remote Build on Flex Consumption for Node.js 24 is rolling out and will be available in all public regions in the coming week. Learn more: Updating your app to Node.js 24 Azure Functions Node.js versions end of support dates Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ-ai-services-metrics-advisor-will-be-retired-on-1-october-2026 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ-ai-services-metrics-advisor-will-be-retired-on-1-october-2026 Fri, 29 May 2026 19:00:24 GMT Azure AI Metrics Advisor has been retired as of May 18, 2026. We recommend the following alternatives: Azure Monitor , as an official Azure 3P product, anomaly detection and analysis capabilities are provided through multiple interfaces, e.g., Detect and analyze anomalies with KQL in Azure Monitor - Azure Monitor | Microsoft Learn The Open-Source Anomaly Detector , this open-source project provides the same anomaly detection capabilities used by Kensho, Azure Metrics Advisor, and Azure Anomaly D... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564644 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564644 Fri, 29 May 2026 15:15:43 GMT Azure Site Recovery (ASR) now supports replication of virtual machines using Performance Plus enabled managed disks. With this update, virtual machines using Premium SSD, Standard SSD or Standard HDD managed disks with Performance Plus capability for higher IOPS and throughput for their workloads can be protected with ASR for disaster recovery in the Azure-to-Azure scenario. This support further ensures performance consistency between primary and secondary regions during replication, test failov... Azure Site Recovery Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564714 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564714 Thu, 28 May 2026 05:30:31 GMT Application Gateway for Containers service mesh integration with Istio is now generally available. This capability simplifies secure north-south traffic into workloads running in an Istio service mesh by automating mutual TLS (mTLS) connectivity between Application Gateway for Containers and mesh-enabled services. With general availability, customers can use this integration with both upstream open-source Istio and the Istio-based service mesh add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This give... Application Gateway Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563016 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ563016 Wed, 27 May 2026 17:45:45 GMT Multiparty private offers give Microsoft partners a way to procure third-party cloud and AI solutions for customers through Marketplace. Software companies can expand into new markets by working with partners that bring established customer relationships, while customers rely on their trusted partner s to manage their cloud and AI initiatives. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564478 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564478 Tue, 26 May 2026 18:00:01 GMT Azure Virtual Network Manager integration with Virtual WAN is now in public preview, enabling you to use an Azure Virtual WAN hub as the hub in Azure Virtual Network Manager hub-and-spoke connectivity configurations, bringing together Azure Virtual Network Manager 's at-scale network management with Virtual WAN's managed routing, security, and hybrid connectivity. With this capability, you can automatically connect hundreds of spoke virtual networks to a Virtual WAN hub using Azure Virtual Netwo... Azure Updates Azure Virtual Network Manager Virtual WAN https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564689 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564689 Tue, 26 May 2026 16:45:10 GMT Azure virtual network flow logs connector with Microsoft Sentinel is now generally available, enabling you to seamlessly export and analyze network traffic data within your security operations workflows. With this integration, you can bring rich, network-level visibility from virtual network flow logs directly into Microsoft Sentinel, empowering security teams to detect threats, investigate incidents, and correlate network activity with broader security signals across your environment. By combin... Azure Updates Network Watcher https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562359 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562359 Thu, 21 May 2026 22:00:20 GMT Azure Files announces g eneral availability of Entra-only identities for SMB access , enabling organizations to securely access file shares using cloud-native identities without requiring Active Directory or hybrid identity infrastructure. With Microsoft Entra ID as the authentication authority, users can access Azure Files using Kerberos-based authentication backed entirely by cloud identities - eliminating dependency on domain controllers and simplifying storage and identity architecture. Key... Azure Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ557852 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ557852 Thu, 21 May 2026 21:45:32 GMT As part of Azure’s ongoing security improvements, App Service, Functions, and Logic Apps will no longer accept connections using TLS 1.0 or TLS 1.1 after May 31, 2027. Any client, application, or service that continues to use these legacy TLS versions will be unable to connect to these services after his date. Customers should review the applications and services that connect to App Service, Functions, or Logic Apps and ensure they support TLS 1.2 or later prior to this date. View the resources... App Service Azure Functions Azure Updates Logic Apps https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562254 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562254 Thu, 21 May 2026 21:45:32 GMT The Object REST API (an S3-compatible REST API) on Azure NetApp Files bridges the gap between traditional file-based storage and modern cloud services, enabling you to use your existing data in new ways. With the Object REST API, you can seamlessly integrate Azure NetApp Files data with Microsoft Fabric, Azure AI services, and other Azure offerings without the need to move or replicate data. This unlocks new use cases such as advanced analytics, machine learning, and real-time business intellige... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562808 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562808 Thu, 21 May 2026 18:45:42 GMT Flex Consumption introduces a site-scoped certificate model in public preview in all the regions where Flex Consumption is available. Unlike webspace-scoped certificates on other hosting plans which are shared across apps in the same region + resource group, Flex certificates are scoped to an individual function app. Each function app can hold up to 3 private (.pfx) and 3 public (.cer) certificates uploaded directly, imported from Azure Key Vault, or issued as free App Service Managed Certificat... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564460 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ564460 Thu, 21 May 2026 18:45:42 GMT User Groups and IP Address Pools for Point-to-Site connections in VPN Gateway enable customers to assign distinct IP address pools to remote users based on their credentials. With this capability, customers can organize remote users into separate groups and assign a unique IP address range to each group, enabling more granular access control for Azure workloads. User groups within a VPN Gateway can be defined based on Microsoft Entra ID group membership, certificate common name domains, or custo... Azure Updates VPN Gateway https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562079 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562079 Wed, 20 May 2026 23:15:14 GMT You can now take advantage of Microsoft Entra ID token refresh support in Python, .NET, and JavaScript client libraries to simplify authentication in your applications backed by Azure Database for PostgreSQL. With this release, your applications can automatically refresh access tokens, helping you avoid authentication interruptions caused by token expiration. This update makes it easier for you to build resilient, long‑running services and background workloads without adding custom token‑managem... Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562094 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562094 Wed, 20 May 2026 23:15:14 GMT SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines is now generally available in the Malaysia West and Indonesia Central Azure regions. With this regional expansion, you can deploy and manage SQL Server workloads closer to your users while helping meet data residency requirements in Malaysia and Indonesia. Note: SQL Server unified management is not included in this regional enablement. You can learn more in the SQL Server Unified Management documentation. Learn more . Azure Updates SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562074 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562074 Wed, 20 May 2026 17:15:19 GMT You can now build production-ready AI and agent applications faster using the new LangChain and LangGraph integration for Azure Cosmos DB. This Python package enables you to directly use Cosmos DB for vector and hybrid search, semantic caching, chat history storage, checkpointing, and long-term memory, all within familiar LangChain and LangGraph workflows. You can store and retrieve embeddings, combine full-text and vector search for more relevant results, cache LLM responses to reduce cost and... Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562622 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562622 Wed, 20 May 2026 17:00:39 GMT Azure Storage Mover now supports built-in job scheduling, giving customers more control over when migrations run and making it easier to automate repeatable data transfers into Azure. Customers can configure jobs to start automatically at a specific date and time, or set up recurring runs to keep their target storage in sync with data from on-premises environments. In the portal, customers can choose No schedule , a one-time schedule , or a recurring schedule . Recurring schedules support daily,... Azure Storage Mover Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562753 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562753 Wed, 20 May 2026 17:00:39 GMT Azure Storage Mover now supports Blob container-to-Blob container data transfers, enabling customers to move data seamlessly across regions, subscriptions, and accounts with a fully managed experience. Customers can now use Azure Storage Mover to migrate data directly between Azure Blob containers with: Agentless, fully managed transfers—no infrastructure deployment required Support for large-scale parallel data movement, optimized for high throughput migrations Integrated job management, includ... Azure Storage Mover Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562705 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562705 Wed, 20 May 2026 16:45:53 GMT Azure Site-to-Site VPN with digital certificate authentication provides an alternative to the traditional pre-shared key (PSK) model by using a certificate-based asymmetric trust model. In this configuration, Azure and the on-premises VPN device authenticate each other by using separate inbound and outbound certificates. The outbound authentication certificate is stored in Azure Key Vault and is accessed by the VPN Gateway through a user-assigned managed identity with the required Role-Based Acc... Azure Updates VPN Gateway https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562813 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562813 Wed, 20 May 2026 16:45:53 GMT Summarized advertised gateway prefixes for route advertisement is now in public preview, enabling you to define summarized prefixes that Azure gateways, including ExpressRoute and VPN Gateway, advertise to on-premises networks, instead of advertising all individual virtual network address spaces. With this capability, you can reduce the number of prefixes advertised to on-premises in large hub-and-spoke topologies, staying within ExpressRoute and VPN Gateway advertised-prefix quota. Instead of a... Azure ExpressRoute Azure Updates Virtual Network VPN Gateway https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562970 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562970 Wed, 20 May 2026 15:15:40 GMT Gain more flexibility in message handling with Subscription Identifiers by enabling subscribers to identify which subscription triggered delivery, helping streamline client-side processing in more advanced MQTT scenarios. Together, these enhancements strengthen Azure Event Grid namespaces as a powerful foundation for modern MQTT messaging—making it easier to connect devices, applications, and cloud services with greater scale, flexibility, and operational simplicity. Learn more . Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562240 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562240 Wed, 20 May 2026 15:15:40 GMT Azure Event Grid namespaces are expanding MQTT capabilities to help organizations build more connected, scalable, and MQTT V5 standards-based real-time solutions. These updates make it easier to deliver responsive device experiences, simplify backend integration, and accelerate modern IoT application development. MQTT Retain support : Deliver a better subscriber experience by ensuring new subscribers can immediately receive the latest known state for a topic, without waiting for the next message... Azure Updates Event Grid https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561049 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561049 Tue, 19 May 2026 17:15:23 GMT Azure App Configuration now supports a scorecards capability in public preview. Scorecards provide a telemetry-driven view of how feature flag variants are performing in production, helping teams identify measurable changes after a rollout without manually comparing telemetry across dashboards. Built on Azure App Configuration Feature Management and Application Insights telemetry, scorecards help teams use production signals to evaluate rollout impact and guide next steps. Learn how scorecards c... App Configuration Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562259 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562259 Tue, 19 May 2026 17:00:29 GMT Azure NetApp Files cache volumes is now Generally Available. Azure NetApp Files now support cache volumes, which are cloud-based caches of an external origin volume, containing only the most actively accessed data on the volume. This brings data and files closer to the user for faster throughput with a smaller footprint. Azure NetApp Files cache volumes simplify file distribution, reduces WAN latency, and lowers WAN/ExpressRoute bandwidth costs. Cache volumes is available in these regions . Lear... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562690 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562690 Tue, 19 May 2026 16:45:42 GMT Azure Network Watcher rule impact analyzer is now generally available, enabling you to assess the potential impact of your network security group (NSG) or security admin rule changes on live network traffic before applying them. With this capability, you can evaluate how proposed NSG or network manager rule modifications would affect your existing traffic patterns, helping you fine-tune configurations, avoid unintended disruptions, and deploy changes with confidence. This feature is accessible t... Azure Updates Network Watcher https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562695 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562695 Tue, 19 May 2026 16:45:42 GMT Azure Virtual Network has increased the default platform limits for network security groups (NSGs) and route tables. The new defaults are now 2,000 security rules per NSG, 6,000 addresses or ports per NSG rule, 1,000 routes per route table, and 600 route tables per subscription. This update enables customers to: Scale security policies with confidence: Enterprises managing hundreds of application tiers and subnets can define more granular NSG rules without hitting default ceilings or opening sup... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ559494 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ559494 Tue, 19 May 2026 16:00:11 GMT Azure Storage Actions , our fully managed platform that transforms how organizations automate data management tasks for Azure Blob and Data Lake Storage, now supports mock runs - a new way to simulate task execution at full scale without modifying any data. Mock runs enable you to validate your task conditions by scanning and evaluating billions of objects against your storage accounts, generating a detailed report showing exactly which blobs would be affected and what operations would be perfor... Azure Storage Actions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561771 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561771 Mon, 18 May 2026 18:00:18 GMT Auto activation for SaaS solutions is now available in Microsoft Marketplace, making it faster and easier to get the value from your SaaS products. When auto activation is enabled, your subscription—and billing cycle—begins the moment you complete your purchase, removing the need for post-purchase activation steps. Because auto activation is a partner‑controlled setting, availability may vary by offer. You can confirm this with the partner in advance or see the auto activation status in the publ... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562049 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562049 Mon, 18 May 2026 18:00:18 GMT Azure Monitor Application Insights auto-instrumentation for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) apps is now generally available, making it easier to monitor your applications without modifying source code. With just a few configuration steps, you can automatically instrument Java and Node.js workloads running on AKS and start collecting telemetry with Application Insights. This capability helps teams quickly unlock Application Insights experiences such as application maps, end-to-end transaction diag... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562548 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562548 Mon, 18 May 2026 17:45:33 GMT Azure Front Door Standard and Premium now support WebSocket in general availability. WebSocket is enabled by default and requires no additional configuration. WebSocket provides full-duplex communication over a single, long-lived TCP connection, enabling efficient, low-latency data exchange without the need for polling. This reduces overhead and improves resource utilization for real-time applications. With native WebSocket support, Azure Front Door can power interactive and real-time scenarios... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562533 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562533 Fri, 15 May 2026 22:00:42 GMT Role names in Microsoft Foundry have been updated to align with the product brand. The following built-in roles are now renamed: Azure AI Account Owner → Foundry Account Owner Azure AI Owner → Foundry Owner Azure AI User → Foundry User Azure AI Project Manager → Foundry Project Manager In addition, role management capabilities have been enhanced to support evolving Foundry scenarios. Foundry Account Owner and Foundry Owner roles now include the ability to assign select dependent roles needed for... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562516 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562516 Fri, 15 May 2026 18:15:26 GMT The Azure Blob Storage SDK for Rust is now generally available. The Rust SDK allows you to connect to an Azure Blob Storage account and perform operations on containers and blobs, including uploading, downloading, listing, and managing blobs. This release brings production-grade capabilities for secure, reliable access to Blob Storage from Rust, such as Microsoft Entra ID authentication, automatic retries on transient failures, and distributed tracing through OpenTelemetry. You now have stable A... Azure Blob Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561722 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561722 Thu, 14 May 2026 18:00:48 GMT To support seamless migration and operation of workloads that use large files including Azure VMware Solution (AVS) virtual machines with large VMDK disks, Azure NetApp Files now supports file sizes of up to 64 TiB for regular volume s. This enhancement enables the migration of on‑premises workloads with large virtual machine disks to Azure VMware Solution and supports ongoing operation of data‑intensive workloads in Azure. The capability is available in all Azure NetApp Files enabled regions ac... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562350 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562350 Thu, 14 May 2026 17:30:02 GMT Azure Files now supports Managed Identities for SMB access, enabling applications and services to authenticate without storing static credentials or account keys. This feature aligns with Zero Trust principles, allowing workloads to use Entra-issued tokens for secure, short-lived access to file shares. By leveraging Managed Identities, organizations can eliminate service principal secrets and reduce credential sprawl, simplifying compliance and improving security posture. This capability is espe... Azure Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561564 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561564 Tue, 12 May 2026 23:45:17 GMT Azure Monitor dashboards with Grafana are generally available, bringing the power of Grafana’s open and composable visualization platform directly into the Azure Portal. This capability enables developers and operators to create, edit, and share Grafana dashboards without needing to deploy or manage additional infrastructure. Users can seamlessly visualize Azure Monitor metrics, logs and traces, alongside Prometheus, Azure Resource Graph and Azure Data Explorer data using familiar Grafana experi... Azure Monitor Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561942 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561942 Tue, 12 May 2026 18:30:55 GMT Confidential computing for Azure Service Bus Premium is now generally available in Korea Central and UAE North. This capability enables Service Bus to process messages inside hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs), adding protection for data in use on top of existing encryption at rest and in transit. The TEE prevents unauthorized access to data while it is being processed, bringing hardware-level isolation to message handling. Confidential computing works alongside the security fe... Azure Updates Service Bus https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561947 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561947 Tue, 12 May 2026 18:30:55 GMT Starting May 1, 2026, all Azure Service Bus Premium namespaces deployed in regions with Availability Zone support now qualify for a 99.99% uptime SLA . Premium is the tier customers choose for their most important workloads, and this update brings the SLA in line with the zone-redundant infrastructure those namespaces already run on. Previously, the 99.99% SLA required partitioned namespaces to be enabled. That requirement has been removed - any Premium namespace in an AZ region now receives the... Azure Updates Service Bus https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562010 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ562010 Tue, 12 May 2026 17:30:34 GMT Azure Virtual Network Manager rule impact analyzer is now generally available, empowering you to simulate the impact of your security admin rules on your virtual networks before deploying your rules. With this capability, you can simulate the effects of your security admin rules on your virtual networks’ existing traffic flows and modify rules as needed to ensure your desired traffic flows are maintained and reduce the risk of unexpected connectivity issues. This feature is available in the Azur... Azure Updates Azure Virtual Network Manager https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561510 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561510 Tue, 12 May 2026 17:30:34 GMT We’ve rolled out two important improvements to enhance accuracy and control in pattern-based workflows: Revoke fix: Resolved an issue where revoke actions were not consistently applied, ensuring changes now take effect reliably and as intended. Support for AND in pattern parsing: You can now combine conditions using AND, enabling more precise and expressive pattern definitions. These updates help you manage indicators and patterns with greater confidence and precision. Azure Updates Microsoft Sentinel https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561814 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561814 Thu, 07 May 2026 18:15:17 GMT Azure Premium SSD v2 is now available in all three Availability Zones in Japan West. Azure Premium SSD v2 disk, a next-generation general-purpose block storage option for Azure virtual machines, offers sub-millisecond latencies and exceptional price performance for IO-intensive workloads at a low cost. Premium SSD v2 is suited for a broad range of enterprise production scenarios, including SQL Server, Oracle, MariaDB, SAP, Cassandra, MongoDB, big data/analytics, and gaming on virtual machines or... Azure Compute Fleet Azure Disk Storage Azure Migrate Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560734 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560734 Thu, 07 May 2026 18:00:38 GMT Azure has announced the general availability of the new Dl/D/E v7 Virtual Machines , powered by the latest Intel® Xeon® 6 (Granite Rapids) processors. These general‑purpose and memory‑optimized VMs deliver up to 20 % better general compute performance compared to previous generation Intel‑based v6 VMs, alongside major improvements in scale, networking, and storage. The v7 families support three memory-to-vCPU ratios (2:1, 4:1, and 8:1) and offer configurations with or without local NVMe temp dis... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560283 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560283 Wed, 06 May 2026 23:00:22 GMT In early May 2026, the following update and enhancement was made to Azure SQL: Right‑size memory for Business Critical Azure SQL Managed Instance to improve performance without overprovisioning. Learn more . Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561176 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561176 Wed, 06 May 2026 22:15:33 GMT On March 30, 2029, Azure Document Intelligence v3.0 API will be retired. Please migrate to latest generally available Azure Document Intelligence API version, v4.0, by that date. After March 30, 2029, Azure Document Intelligence v3.0 API will no longer be supported and will become unusable. Azure AI Document Intelligence Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561373 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561373 Wed, 06 May 2026 19:45:54 GMT Azure Backup now supports ‘Bulk Restore’ for Azure virtual machines (VMs), enabling customers to restore multiple VMs (upto 100) in a single operation. This feature simplifies large-scale recovery scenarios while preserving control and granularity at an individual VM level. Customers can select multiple VMs, choose restore points, apply common restore parameters and track restore progress centrally. This feature is optimized for scenarios such as outages, ransomware recovery, improving recovery... Azure Backup Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560668 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560668 Wed, 06 May 2026 18:45:15 GMT Azure NetApp Files now enables backup by default when creating new volumes, delivering a more seamless and secure data‑protection experience. Backups are automatically provisioned during volume creation, reducing setup effort while still allowing customers to opt out when needed. This enhancement improves usability, strengthens data resilience, and is available across all Azure NetApp Files regions Learn more: What's new in Azure NetApp Files Protect Azure NetApp Files volumes Create an SMB volu... Azure NetApp Files Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561162 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561162 Wed, 06 May 2026 18:45:15 GMT Azure Cosmos DB Shell is now available in public preview, introducing a modern command-line experience with agentic capabilities powered by Model Context Protocol (MCP). You can now query, explore, and manage your data more efficiently through intelligent, AI-assisted workflows. Learn more . Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561167 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561167 Wed, 06 May 2026 18:30:28 GMT Azure Cosmos DB now offers spherical quantization in public preview to help you achieve faster vector indexing with higher recall and accuracy at scale. Spherical quantization is an advanced vector compression technique designed to preserve search quality while improving vector indexing and search performance. Learn more . Azure Cosmos DB Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560948 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560948 Tue, 05 May 2026 20:00:13 GMT Starting July 1, 2026, purchases and renewals will no longer be available for one-year Azure Reserved VM Instances for the Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, and Lsv2 VM series. Additionally, one-year and three-year reserved instances (RIs) for the Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, and Esv3 VM series will no longer be available for purchase and renewal. To avoid unexpected billing changes or lapses in commitment savings, we recommend reviewing your current RI orders for impacted VMs and the... Azure Updates Virtual Machines https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ558403 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ558403 Tue, 05 May 2026 17:30:03 GMT We previously announced the availability of Application Gateway for Containers and the Application Gateway for Containers AKS Add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). At that time, one limitation was that Application Gateway for Containers could not be provisioned into an AKS Automatic cluster. Application Gateway for Containers can now be used with AKS Automatic through the Application Gateway for Containers AKS Add-on. With this update, customers using AKS Automatic can deploy Application Ga... Application Gateway Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560899 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560899 Tue, 05 May 2026 16:00:38 GMT Azure Elastic SAN now supports single volume snapshots, enabling incremental, point‑in‑time backups of individual SAN volumes. Snapshots capture only changes since the previous snapshot and reside within the SAN, allowing customers to quickly deploy new volumes from a restore point or export data to managed disk snapshots for long‑term retention. Snapshots are capacity efficient, consume SAN storage instead of incurring separate billing, and inherit the redundancy configuration of the parent SAN... Azure Elastic SAN Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560909 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560909 Tue, 05 May 2026 16:00:38 GMT Elastic SAN datastores deliver simpler connectivity and improved performance when used with AVS Gen2 Private Cloud : Simpler connectivity & configuration No ExpressRoute gateway required A single Private Endpoint is sufficient to configure the optimal number of iSCSI sessions Higher performance No throughput limitations imposed by ExpressRoute gateway bandwidth Ability to achieve the entire provisioned Elastic SAN throughput This significantly simplifies deployment while maximizing performance f... Azure Elastic SAN Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560894 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560894 Tue, 05 May 2026 16:00:38 GMT Azure Elastic SAN datastores are now supported with AV64 SKUs, enabling higher-scale and higher-performance storage options for Azure VMware Solution deployments. Azure Elastic SAN Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560957 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560957 Mon, 04 May 2026 17:45:58 GMT The Durable Task Scheduler Consumption SKU is now generally available. Run durable workflows and AI agent orchestrations on Azure with pay-per-use pricing. No storage to manage, no capacity to plan, and no idle costs. The Consumption SKU charges only for actions dispatched, making it ideal for bursty workloads like AI agent orchestration, event-driven pipelines, and API-triggered workflows. It supports up to 500 actions/second, 30-day data retention, a built-in monitoring dashboard, and identity... Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561432 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561432 Mon, 04 May 2026 17:45:58 GMT We have identified an issue impacting Multi-line (Multiple Number Assignment) feature for Teams Phone enablement related to the usage of AlternateId in customer internal implementations for Azure Communication Services (ACS). AlternateId is an Microsoft internal usage parameter for phone numbers related to Multi-line in Teams Phone. To ensure compatibility with the phone system, AlternateId should not be used by any customer for ACS. We have detected that some customer configurations are current... Azure Communication Services Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561392 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561392 Fri, 01 May 2026 21:45:13 GMT We support customer choice, including the choice to transfer your data between Azure and environments outside of Azure. Azure has offered free egress and at-cost data transfer for customers and CSP partners in Europe transferring data via the internet between Azure to another data processing service provider. This situation is common where multiple services of different providers are used in parallel, in an interoperable manner. We have made some changes for customers with billing address in the... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561257 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561257 Thu, 30 Apr 2026 18:00:11 GMT Support for prefix-scoped access for User Delegation SAS for Azure Blob Storage is generally available in all Azure regions. SAS tokens for Blob Storage have historically supported two levels of scope: container and individual blob. With this release, you can now scope access to a prefix or virtual directory within a container, granting access to all blobs beneath the path. This is especially valuable for applications that organize data by tenant, workspace, project, or department within a share... Azure Blob Storage Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560879 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560879 Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:15:44 GMT Azure Functions support for Java 25 is now generally available. You can now develop apps using Java 25 locally and deploy them to supported Azure Functions plans on Linux and Windows, including the Flex Consumption plan. Learn more: Update your app to Java 25 Learn more about Java 25 Azure Functions Java versions and their end of support dates Azure Functions Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561135 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561135 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:00:48 GMT The Austria East region is now generally available to Azure Red Hat OpenShift customers and partners. The region includes three availability zones, supporting resilient and scalable operations. Why it matters: In-country data residency: Data stored in Austria East remains within Austria, helping organizations meet local and EU regulatory requirements such as GDPR. Lower latency: Local infrastructure reduces latency for applications serving users in Austria and nearby regions. Supports regulated... Azure Red Hat OpenShift Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560982 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560982 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:15:05 GMT Microsoft Agent Framework is now version 1.0 for both .NET and Python , with stable APIs and a long-term support commitment. Agent Framework 1.0 supports multi-agent orchestration, multi-provider model support, and cross-runtime interoperability via A2A and MCP. Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560992 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560992 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:55 GMT Foundry’s memory (preview) is a managed long-term memory capability built directly into Foundry Agent Service and now integrates natively with Microsoft Agent Framework and LangGraph— no external databases to provision, scale, or secure. Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561020 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561020 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 21:30:30 GMT Troubleshooting Kubernetes networking issues is often slowed by logs and metrics scattered across multiple tools, requiring engineers to manually correlate signals during incidents. The Container Network Insights Agent provides a lightweight, web‑based interface that translates natural‑language problem descriptions into read‑only diagnostics using live AKS cluster telemetry. It orchestrates safe diagnostic workflows and consolidates networking insights into structured summaries with recommended... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560914 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560914 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 20:30:56 GMT Azure Elastic SAN now supports volume connectivity for Windows Virtual Machines using the Elastic SAN VM extension, directly from the Azure Portal. This capability enables customers to connect Elastic SAN volumes during virtual machine deployment, simplifying setup by reducing the need for manual post‑deployment configuration. Learn more . Azure Elastic SAN Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561067 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561067 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:45:04 GMT Managing IP address space across multiple regions can be difficult to scale and prone to configuration mistakes. With cross-region IPAM pool association, you can associate a single IPAM pool with virtual networks across multiple Azure regions. This helps centralize address planning, simplify governance, and maintain consistent CIDR allocation across global environments. Key benefits: Centralized address management: Use one multi-region IPAM pool instead of creating and maintaining separate pools... Azure Updates Azure Virtual Network Manager https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561148 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561148 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:45:04 GMT Announcing the public preview of the HTTP DDoS Ruleset on Azure Front Door Premium. HTTP-layer DDoS attacks remain a leading cause of application downtime, and traditional static controls often fall short against evolving botnets. The new HTTP DDoS Ruleset for Azure WAF introduces automated, adaptive Layer 7 protection that learns, detects, and defends with minimal configuration. Once assigned, the ruleset continuously baselines normal traffic for each Azure Front Door Profile and, when attack s... Azure DDoS Protection Azure Front Door Azure Updates Web Application Firewall https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561002 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ561002 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:00:52 GMT Foundry Agent Service now supports bring ‑ your ‑ own ‑ model scenarios, allowing agents to use AI models deployed and managed outside of Foundry, including models hosted behind enterprise AI gateways such as Azure API Management. This enables organizations to integrate custom, fine ‑ tuned, open ‑ source, or third ‑ party models into Foundry agents while retaining control over model endpoints, security policies, and governance. Learn more . Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ502936 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ502936 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:15:55 GMT Prompt Flow will be retired from Microsoft Foundry and Azure Machine Learning on April 20, 2027 and replaced by a single, modern orchestration platform: Microsoft Agent Framework . This change unlocks powerful new capabilities, including a unified, future-proof foundation for building intelligent agents and workflows with support for advanced agent architectures. Key dates: April 3, 2026: General Availability (GA) of Microsoft Agent Framework. April 20, 2026: Public announcement of Prompt Flow d... Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560904 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560904 Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:30:50 GMT Azure Backup now supports Elastic SAN, offering a fully managed solution for backing up and restoring Elastic SAN volumes. This integration helps protect data against accidental deletions, ransomware attacks, and application updates by exporting Elastic SAN volumes to independent Managed Disk Incremental Snapshots. These snapshots are stored in locally redundant storage and are independent of the Elastic SAN volume lifecycle. The solution supports up to 450 restore points with 24 hours backup fr... Azure Elastic SAN Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560015 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560015 Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:15:17 GMT WireGuard in‑transit encryption is now generally available for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters using Azure CNI powered by Cilium and Advanced Container Networking Services (ACNS). This capability enables transparent, node‑level encryption for inter‑node pod traffic using WireGuard’s modern cryptography, helping protect data in transit as it traverses the underlying network infrastructure without requiring application changes. Key capabilities: In‑transit encryption for inter‑node pod tra... Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Azure Updates https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560987 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560987 Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:15:17 GMT The Foundry Toolkit for Visual Studio Code is now generally available with full hosted-agent support, aligned with the Hosted Agents GA release. It brings the complete hosted-agent lifecycle, create, debug, evaluate, and deploy, inside the editor, so developers move from local code to a running hosted agent without switching tools or hand-packaging builds. The toolkit integrates natively with the Microsoft Agent Framework and the Foundry SDK, keeping teams in a familiar environment while giving... Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560997 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ560997 Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:15:17 GMT Hosted agents run in an isolated execution sandbox that provides a dedicated, secure runtime per agent session. Sessions start with a clean environment with no shared state between sessions, no cross-session data leakage, and strong compute boundaries between tenants. Azure Updates Microsoft Foundry https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ558033 https://mc.merill.net/message/AZ558033 Fri, 24 Apr 2026 17:45:05 GMT On November 10, 2026, support for .NET 8 (LTS) will end. Your apps that are hosted on App Service will continue to run, but security updates will no longer be available and we'll no longer provide customer service for .NET 8 (LTS). Required action: To avoid potential security vulnerabilities and minimize risk for your App Service apps, follow the steps to upgrade your app to .NET 10 (LTS) before 10 November 2026. Help and support: If you have questions, get answers from community experts in Micr... App Service Azure Updates