Microsoft Azure

Microsoft has released a special ‘Hyper-V Server‘ core edition with every release of Windows Server Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC 2012 R2, 2016, 2019). This past summer, while Windows Server 2022 was being developed and finalized, questions arose amongst IT Pros (hey, that rhymes…someone set that to music right away) about the possibility of Hyper-V Server…

Microsoft announced the availability of hotpatching – aka rebootless patching –  in Windows Server Azure Edition earlier this year. At Ignite in November 2021, Microsoft announced that rebootless patching is coming to Windows Server on-premises via Azure Stack HCI. Azure Stack HCI, Microsoft’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) operating system, which is delivered as an Azure service,…

Microsoft recently made changes to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to mitigate an issue where private key data stored in an Azure AD application or service principal could be read in clear text. Some Azure services were incorrectly storing private key data in Azure AD in the keyCredentials property when creating applications for customers. Microsoft…

I think you’ll find that there are quite a few announcements this month. The summer quiet period is over, and we’re into a whole new development/release semester in Microsoft, not to mention the countdown to the usual peak release season for Microsoft Ignite has started – most releases announced at Ignite happen well before Ignite….

July – a month that many take a vacation in, and it’s the start of the commercial year for Microsoft. That year kicks off with Microsoft Inspire, a conference for the partner community to learn about what Microsoft is launching and how Microsoft wants their partners to sell to customers. Most of the content is…

As part of the Automatic VM Guest Patching for Azure VMs preview announced at Ignite in March, Microsoft introduced Windows Server hotpatching. Hotpatching lets organizations apply security patches to Windows Server without rebooting. A feature that’s been part of other server platforms for years, hotpatching finally comes to Windows Server. But there are some caveats….

Microsoft announced at its recent Ignite conference that WAC in the Azure Portal in now available in public preview. Prior to this update, it was only possible to manage VMs at the infrastructure level in the Azure Portal. But WAC in the Azure Portal lets administrators manage Windows Server VM guests at a more granular…

During the first part of Ignite in September 22-24, 2020, Microsoft announced that it was bringing Windows Admin Center (WAC) to the Azure Portal. Windows Admin Center (WAC) is a complete reimagination of the built-in management consoles (MMC) that are used to configure Windows Server. WAC is a web-based administration portal for managing local or…

Azure Automanage helps you to make sure your virtual machines (VM) are consistently configured with Microsoft’s best practice recommendations. And that’s a valuable service because Azure is constantly growing and changing, making it hard for IT professionals to keep up with best practice recommendations. Automanage is currently in preview. It is designed to configure and…

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently released a PowerShell-based tool to help organizations detect compromised accounts and applications in Microsoft Azure and 365.