Microsoft Azure

The latest release of SQL Server 2019 has several important enhancements for high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR). Let’s take a look at some of the main HA and DR changes in SQL Server 2019.

Microsoft has launched a public preview of Arc-enabled Azure Stack HCI. The Redmond giant says that the new integration enables customers to manage Linux or Windows virtual machines (VMs) on Azure Stack HCI via Azure Arc. For those unfamiliar, Azure Arc is a multi-cloud management service that enables customers to use Azure services with Azure…

Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled its plans to expand the Secured-Core initiative to its server products to help protect organizations from firmware attacks. The company has recently unveiled its plans to expand the Secured-Core initiative are now available for enterprise customers. “Partnering with leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and silicon vendors, Secured-core servers use industry-standard…

Microsoft unveiled a slew of updates for its Azure services at the annual Build developer conference. The Redmond giant has also announced a new cloud data platform called “Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform” in an effort to consolidate its existing database, analytics, and governance services. Microsoft highlights that its Intelligent Data Platform will enable organizations to…

Microsoft has announced new initiatives to decrease the licensing costs and restrictions for small cloud vendors. The Redmond giant plans to make some changes to its restrictive cloud-licensing policies in response to complaints from rival European cloud vendors. Back in 2019, Microsoft changed the terms of its outsourcing license agreement that increased the cost of…

Microsoft adds a subset of existing Azure server security and auditing features to Azure Arc for organizations that need to manage workloads on different platforms and locations.

Microsoft has added re-authentication support in Azure AD Conditional Access. The company says that it’s one of the top-requested features from customers, who will now be able to configure policies to require authentication by end-users. Microsoft defines sign-in frequency as the time period before a user is required to log in again when accessing a…

Microsoft has released new patches to address critical security vulnerabilities affecting its Azure PostgreSQL product. Discovered by security researchers from Wiz Research, the “chain” of flaws dubbed “ExtraReplica” could be exploited to gain unauthorized cross-account database access. According to the security advisory published by the Wiz Research team, the vulnerabilities allow attackers to bypass tenant…

Aidan Finn explains how app services, or web apps, can be connected to external users or services.

In this post, I will show you how to architect an Azure Firewall deployment where a centralized firewall will inspect traffic that is flowing across a VPN connection before it reaches the Azure virtual network(s) or returns to on-premises. Design Concept The premise of this design is a simple and, probably, a familiar one: anything…