Quantcast
Channel: Category Name
Viewing all 10804 articles
Browse latest View live

Safeguard your business with new security features for Microsoft 365 Business

$
0
0

Many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are concerned about their ability to protect their business from cyberattacks and keep their data safe—but lack basic protection against the most common threats. Recently, we conducted a survey of SMBs and found that 71 percent feel vulnerable to a cyberattack, jumping to 87 percent for businesses that have already experienced a breach.

Despite these concerns, only 41 percent of SMBs say they have the ability to remotely remove data from a lost or stolen device, and only half said they use email encryption—two capabilities considered essential by larger enterprises. SMBs say they lack the expertise to implement sophisticated IT solutions, which many of them see as unaffordable and too complex. You can explore the survey data further in our interactive infographic below.

Microsoft 365 Business—built for SMBs

To further protect SMBs from cyberthreats and safeguard sensitive information, today we’re announcing the addition of advanced security features in Microsoft 365 Business, which gives businesses with up to 300 employees an affordable, comprehensive solution for empowering employees and safeguarding business data. Microsoft 365 Business includes Office 365 for productivity and collaboration, plus device management and security capabilities to protect company information across the devices people use for work. Now we’re adding new ways to protect against phishing and ransomware and prevent unintentional leaks of business data.

SMB security survey—interactive infographic


Protect your employees from phishing and ransomware

Cyber criminals use phishing and ransomware attacks to get people to download viruses and malware or unwittingly give out sensitive information. These attacks can cause significant issues for a business, ranging from loss of customer trust to financial woes.

To help bolster your defenses against phishing, malware, and viruses, Microsoft 365 Business now includes advanced protection from cyberthreats, including:

  • Sophisticated scanning of attachments and AI-powered analysis to detect and discard dangerous messages.
  • Automatic checks of links in email to assess if they are part of a phishing scheme and prevent users from accessing unsafe websites.
  • Device protection to prevent devices from interacting with ransomware and other malicious web locations.

Prevent unintentional leaks of business data

Most SMBs handle sensitive information, with over half collecting and storing social security numbers, and 29 percent handling bank account details. Preventing unintentional leaks of these types of sensitive information can be a challenge, despite the best efforts and good intentions of employees.

To help you protect your sensitive business data, we’re adding the following capabilities to Microsoft 365 Business:

  • Data loss prevention policies to identify, monitor, and protect sensitive information such as social security and credit card numbers.
  • Information protection in Outlook to let you and your employees manage access to sensitive data in emails. For example, you can set encryption rules to prevent an email from being forwarded, copied, or pasted into other programs.
  • Email archiving and preservation policies to help ensure data is properly retained with continuous data backup and compliance.
  • The ability to enforce BitLocker device encryption on all Windows devices to help protect against data theft or exposure if a protected device is lost or stolen.

Microsoft 365 Business also offers industry-leading privacy protections. You remain the sole owner of your data, with controls over who in your business can access which data.

Comprehensive protection in a single subscription

CEO of Solace IT Solutions, Chris Oakman, works with SMBs to help them get up and running with the right technology. He says it doesn’t have to be complicated and expensive to keep your team productive and your business data secure.

“I work with a lot of small businesses that have historically had to pay for individual security services like spam filtering and anti-phishing,” said Oakman. “For these businesses, Microsoft 365 Business could save them up to $3,000 per year while including these and many other data protection capabilities in a more integrated way.”

With the addition of these new capabilities, Microsoft 365 Business offers your business a complete solution for productivity, security, and device management. Watch this video to learn how iSalon Software, a U.K.based developer of software solutions for hair salons, uses Microsoft 365 Business to be more productive and secure:

Learn more

The threat protection, archiving, and information protection features are available to new Microsoft 365 Business customers and will roll out to existing customers over the next few weeks. Data loss prevention and support for features dependent on the Office desktop applications will roll out in the coming months. Read our support article for Microsoft 365 Business to learn more about how to enable the security enhancements.

Microsoft is committed to helping empower and safeguard SMBs across the globe. To learn more about how Microsoft 365 Business can help your business, take a guided tour. You can also contact your Microsoft Partner, or visit a Microsoft Store to sign up for a Microsoft 365 Business: Safe and Secure or Cybersecurity for Small Business free in-store workshop.

The post Safeguard your business with new security features for Microsoft 365 Business appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.


Turbocharge cloud analytics with Azure SQL Data Warehouse

$
0
0

Data is transformative. The ability to turn data into breakthrough insights is foundational to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive market.

To help our customers deliver fast insights from exponentially growing data, today we are announcing the general availability of the Compute Optimized Gen2 tier of Azure SQL Data Warehouse. With this performance optimized tier, we are bringing the best of Microsoft software and hardware innovations to dramatically accelerate query performance and concurrency for our customers.

Fast, flexible, and secure cloud data warehouse

We launched Azure SQL Data Warehouse three years ago to make a powerful SQL based MPP (massively parallel processing) architecture data warehousing accessible to all. It was the first data warehouse that helped customers reduce costs by enabling them to scale compute and storage independently, and by offering pause and resume capabilities. This flexibility, combined with fast query performance, comprehensive data security, and governance capabilities has led to adoption by thousands of customers like Adobe, Toshiba, and LG Electronics. To keep up with customer demand, we have expanded the service to 33 Azure regions and it is now the most globally available of all cloud data warehouse services.

Azure SQL Data Warehouse Compute Optimized Gen2 tier sets new performance standards for cloud data warehousing. Customers now get up to 5 times better query performance, 4 times more concurrency, and 5 times higher computing power compared to the current generation. It can now serve 128 concurrent queries from a single cluster, the highest of any cloud data warehousing service.

final image

Powering these performance gains is adaptive caching technology that understands where data needs to be and when it needs to be there for the best possible performance. Azure SQL Data Warehouse takes a blended approach of using remote storage in combination with a fast SSD cache layer (using NVMes) that places data next to compute based on user access patterns and frequency. We have also added Transparent Data Encryption with customer-managed keys to keep your data truly in your control.

Customers such as DriveTime, a leading used car retailer in the US, are taking advantage of the new tier to significantly improve performance while lowering their costs.

“DriveTime manages a lot of data: 400,000 loans per month with up to 1,000 data elements per loan,” says Peter Grisolano, Managing Director for Database Development at DriveTime. “We were impressed by how quickly we could analyze this data with SQL Data Warehouse Compute Optimized Gen2 tier.”

Azure is the best place for analytics

With its native integration with Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory, Blob Storage and Power BI, Azure SQL Data Warehouse allows customers to build new analytics solutions to support modern data warehousing, advanced analytics, and real-time analytics scenarios.

Azure SQL Data Warehouse also works with leading data integration and business intelligence solutions such as Informatica, Talend, Tableau, MicroStrategy, Qlik, and Alteryx. Additionally, we have invested in partnerships with Datometry and Attunity to enable customers to simplify the migration of on-premises data warehouse to the cloud. These ecosystem investments allow our customers to build upon their existing infrastructure and significantly accelerate time to value for powerful analytics solutions.

Rich Partner Network

To find out more, you can:

Adaptive caching powers Azure SQL Data Warehouse performance gains

$
0
0

Today we made Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW) Compute Optimized Gen2 Tier generally available to our customers. Even though data and data sources grow exponentially, organizations continue to demand faster and faster insights. Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier delivers on this need with major performance improvements made possible through adaptive caching.

Analytics workload performance is typically determined by two major factors, I/O bandwidth to storage and repartitioning speed, also known as shuffle speed. This blog post looks under the hood of how Azure SQL DW exploits the latest hardware trends to improve effective I/O bandwidth available.

One of the recent hardware innovations becoming widely available are NVM Express (NVMe) solid-state drive (SSD) devices. NVMe SSDs offer significantly more I/O bandwidth than SATA SSDs or hard drives. A typical single NVMe device used in Azure, generally offers up to 2GB/sec of local I/O bandwidth, with multiple devices available per physical host, resulting in bandwidth previously reserved only to very high-end storage systems. Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier fully takes advantage of NVMe devices through adaptive caching of recently used data on NVMe. With this breakthrough on customer workloads, we have observed up to five times the improvement in query performance, compared with the first generation of Azure SQL DW and some workloads improved even more.

“After upgrading to the Gen2 of Azure SQL Data Warehouse, our data warehouse workload has seen an average of 4 times performance improvement. We have been working with Azure SQL Data Warehouse Compute Optimized Gen2 tier since its inception and the use of NVMe SSDs have shown the largest performance improvement we have seen to the service” said Rajeev Acharya, Senior Software Engineer at the Windows Data and Analytics (DnA) team for Microsoft.

Before we delve into details, I’d like to describe on how SQL Server implements industry leading columnar storage, which is the default storage type used in Azure SQL DW. Columnstore divides table rows into 1 million row units called rowgroups and compresses each column within the row group. A variety of compression techniques are used, such as dictionaries, bit-packing, and run-length encoding. When data is scanned, only required columns are read into memory. Compression and columnar oriented storage results in significant reduction of I/O requirements. In addition, in many cases SQL Server engine operates directly over compressed data, taking full advantage of vectorized CPU extensions such as AVX. The combination of both techniques often results in up to 10 times the improvement in query speeds over row-stores.

Using column stores does not require the applications to remove updates or deletes, those are tracked into delta store tables and once enough changes happen, the data is recompressed back into the column store representation. You can find a more detailed description of SQL Server column stores.

Azure SQL DW is comprised of multiple compute nodes, each running an instance of SQL Server engine and a Data Movement Service (DMS) which is responsible for data repartitioning operations. SQL DW decouples compute from storage – both can scale independently, and the data warehouse instance can be paused while keeping all the data resident in Azure storage. This gives our customer flexibility to build a cloud data warehouse solution, for their unique needs, and scale up and down easily, truly leveraging the elasticity of cloud computing.

For Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier, each compute node runs on NVMe based node with configuration close to Azure E64_v3 series VM instances. Each SQL DW compute node maintains a cache of recently accessed SQL Server columnar storage segments, optimized for local access and available via network to other Azure SQL DW nodes as needed. Because the SQL DW cache tracks columnar segments, only frequently accessed tables, rowgroups and columns end up being cached at the correct granularity.

SQL DW columnar cache is a built-in feature for Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier, no additional set up or configuration is required. For example, we have optimized the cache to work well with occasional large queries which may access more data than local NVMe storage capacity available to Azure SQL DW instance. The columnar storage cache is also resilient to failures, so a failure of SQL DW node will not result in loss of performance for the cached data, and additional copies of cached data get created as needed.

Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier blends fast local performance enabled by NVMe devices with elasticity only possible in cloud. The presence of adaptive caching continues to allow the data warehouse instance to be resized or paused to save our customer money. When an SQL DW instance is resumed after a pause, SQL DW populates cache again from Azure Storage as data is queried.

You can now learn more about:

Write Accelerator for M-Series virtual machines now generally available

$
0
0

We are excited to announce the general availability of a new feature for Azure virtual machines (VMs) called Write Accelerator! Write Accelerator is a new disk capability that offers customers sub-millisecond writes for their disks. Write Accelerator is initially supported on M-Series VMs with Azure Managed Disks and Premium Storage. Write Accelerator is recommended for workloads that require highly performant updates, such as database transaction log writes. Write Accelerator is an exclusive functionality for Azure M-series virtual machines in recognition of the performance sensitive workload that is run with these types of high-end VMs. Technical details on enablement and restrictions can be found in our documentation.

Customer benefits

Low latency, high transaction workloads – Write Accelerator, in conjunction with M-Series VMs on Managed Disks, is targeted towards database platforms that benefit from highly performant, transactional updates like SQL Server, Oracle, and SAP HANA. Write Accelerator is ideally suited where log file updates are required to persist in disk in a highly performant manner for modern databases. Write Accelerator disks offer the same reliability as Azure Premium Disks. In tests, customers reported factors of higher speed for disk writes into the performance and scalability of critical transactions and redo logs of their mission critical databases. You can also cache the Write Accelerator disks so that reads are serviced from the cache for ultra-low latencies. Here is an example of IO performance with 4k writes on an M128s VM:

4k writes on an M128s VM

Enabling Write Accelerator

Write Accelerator can be enabled through the well-known Azure interfaces:

Write Accelerator needs to be applied per Azure disk. Applying Write Accelerator to a disk can be done:

  • While deploying a new disk to a VM
  • For a disk that is already deployed and attached to a VM

To verify that Write Accelerator is enabled for your VM disk, you can check in the disk status under Host Caching in the Azure portal as shown below.

WA_scrnsht (003)

For more details, please see our technical documentation.

Azure.Source – Volume 29

$
0
0

Microsoft Build 2018 is only a short week away on May 7-9. Whether you can’t make it to Seattle or you just want to enhance your on-the-ground experience at the event, Microsoft Build Live brings you live as well as on-demand access to three days of inspiring speakers, spirited discussions, and virtual networking. The livestream gives you another way to connect, spark ideas, and deepen your engagement with the latest ideas in the cloud, AI, mixed reality, and more.

Now in preview

How Azure Security Center helps detect attacks against your Linux machines - Azure Security Center (ASC) is now extending its Linux threat detection preview program, both on cloud and on-premise. New capabilities include detection of suspicious processes, suspect login attempts, and anomalous kernel module loads. Security Center is using auditd for collecting machines’ events, which is one of the most common frameworks for auditing on Linux. Any Linux machine that runs auditd by default and is covered by Security Center will benefit from this public preview. This post will also walk you through an example of detection analytics in action in the form of malicious crypto coin mining. It also includes some tips on using Azure Log Analytics with Linux machines.

Per disk metrics for Managed & Unmanaged Disks now in public preview - The public preview of per disk metrics for all Managed & Unmanaged Disks enables you to closely monitor and make the right disk selection to suit your application usage pattern. You can also use it to create alerts, diagnosis, and build automation. With this release, it is easier to drill down to a specific disk and figure out the performance characteristics of your workload. Additionally, because of Azure Monitor integration with Grafana, it’s very easy to build a Grafana dashboard with these metrics.

Azure Monitor integration with Grafana example

Also in preview

Now generally available

Azure Container Instances now generally available - Azure Container Instances (ACI) is a serverless way to run both Linux and Windows containers, and is now generally available. ACI offers you an on-demand compute service delivering rapid deployment of containers with no VM management and automatic, elastic scale. We also announced new lower pricing, making it even less expensive to deploy a single container in the cloud. ACI continues to be the fastest cloud-native option for customers in the cloud, getting you compute in mere seconds that also provide rich features like interactive terminals within running containers and an integrated Azure portal experience.

Azure Container Instances GA: A new compute primitive - Justin Luk joins Scott Hanselman to discuss how Azure Container Instances provide a new compute primitive in the form of on-demand containers. ACI provides efficient, granular compute that starts in seconds with simple packaging and no VM management. Discover use cases and ways to leverage ACI in new and existing infrastructure in this episode!

Replicated Tables now generally available in Azure SQL Data Warehouse - Replicated Tables, a new type of table distribution, are now generally available in Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW). SQL DW is a fully managed, flexible, and secure cloud data warehouse tuned for running complex queries fast and across petabytes of data. With Replicated Tables, data is available on all compute nodes, hence data movement is eliminated, and queries run faster. During the public preview of Replicated Tables, SQL Data Warehouse customers saw up to 5x performance gains while transforming data with Replicated Tables when compared to using Round Robin distribution.

News & updates

Propel your IoT platform to the cloud with Azure Time Series Insights! - Time Series Insights is evolving from a short-term asset monitoring and diagnostics service to a modern cloud IoT platform for customers and partners to build highly-capable and scalable IoT solutions. Later this year, Azure Time Series Insights will deliver two new capabilities: a cost-effective long-term storage that enables a cloud-based solution to trend years’ worth of time series data pivoted on devices/tags; and a device-based (also known as “tag-based”) user experience backed by a time series model to contextualize raw time series data with device metadata and domain hierarchies. Additionally, Time Series Insights will be integrating with advanced machine learning and analytics tools like Spark and Jupyter notebooks to help customers tackle time series data challenges in new ways.

Azure Time Series Insights block diagram

Azure Analysis Services integration with VNets via On-Premises Data Gateway - Azure Analysis Services now provides integration with cloud data sources residing on Azure Virtual Networks (VNets). Organizations use VNets for enhanced security and isolation. Cloud data sources such as Azure SQL DW and Azure Database can be secured with VNet endpoints.

What’s brewing in Visual Studio Team Services: April 2018 Digest - Get an overview of the latest updates to Visual Studio Team Services, which offers the best DevOps tooling to create an efficient continuous integration and release pipeline to Azure. With the rapidly expanding list of features in Team Services, teams can start to leverage it more efficiently for all areas of their Azure workflow, for apps written in any language and deployed to any OS.

Bing Custom Search: Build a customized search experience in minutes - You can use the Bing Custom Search offering for either powering your site search or building the vertical search experience through multiple relevant domains. Bing Custom Search is an easy-to-use, ad-free search solution that enables users to build a search experience and query content on their specific site, or across a hand-picked set of websites or domains. Read the full blog post at, Bing Custom Search: Build a Customized Site Search in Just a Few Minutes.

Azure #CosmosDB: Secure, private, compliant - A database that holds sensitive data across international borders must meet high standards for security, privacy, and compliance. Azure Cosmos DB is a multi-tenant hyper scale cloud platform that is available in all the Azure regions, more than 50 regions worldwide, so customers can specify the region(s) where their data should be located. To help customers meet their own compliance obligations across regulated industries and markets worldwide, Azure maintains the largest compliance portfolio in the industry both in terms of breadth (total number of offerings), as well as depth (number of customer-facing services in assessment scope). Seee this post for the full list of certificates for Azure Cosmos DB as of April, 2018.

HDInsight tools for VS Code now supports argparse and Spark 2.2 - HDInsight Tools for VSCode now supports argparse and accepts parameter based Pyspark Job submission. We also enabled the tools to support Spark 2.2 for PySpark author and job submission. The argparse feature grants you great flexibility for your PySpark code author, test and job submission for both batch and interactive query.

OS Disk Swap for Managed Virtual Machines now available - The OS Disk Swap capability, which was previously only available for Unmanaged Disks, is now available for VMs using Managed Disks. OS Disk Swap makes it easy to restore a previous backup of the OS Disk or swap out the OS Disk for VM troubleshooting without having to delete the VM.

Additional news & updates

SDKs, technical content & training

Get the Azure Quick Start Guide for .NET Developers - If you’re a .NET developer, there's a new, free resource that can help you learn about Azure: The Azure Quick Start Guide for .NET Developers. This guide shows .NET developers how they can start with Azure and get the most out of it. The e-book is also great for .NET developers who already use Azure and want to learn more about which Azure services are available to them, and the tools they can use to develop applications for the platform.

Get started with Azure for .NET developers - Azure MVP Barry Luijbregts stops by to chat with Scott Hanselman about how .NET developers can easily get started with Azure. They talk about the free e-book: Getting started with Azure for .NET developers and they discuss and show some of the awesome tools that can help you get started with Azure today.

Azure IoT Hub SDK officially provides native iOS support - Whether your iOS project is written in Swift or Objective-C, you can now leverage our Azure IoT Hub C SDK and service directly and begin turning your iOS device into an IoT device. Libraries are available on CocoaPod, a popular package manager for iOS, and the source code is available on GitHub. The Azure IoT Hub C SDK is written in C99 for maximum portability to various platforms. The porting process involves writing a thin adoption layer for the platform-specific components, and you can find code for it on GitHub.

Storage scenarios for Cray in Azure - When you get a dedicated Cray supercomputer on your Azure virtual network, you also get attached Cray® ClusterStor™ storage. This is a great solution for the high-performance storage you need while running jobs on the supercomputer. When the jobs are done, Azure has a broad portfolio of storage products and solutions, such as Azure Blog Storage, Azure Archive storage, Azure Data Box, and more. No matter what kind of storage you need around your Cray supercomputer, Azure has a product that works for you.

The edge of possibility: best practices for IoT-driven infrastructure transformation - A recent Forrester report titled “Edge Computing: IoT Will Spawn A New Infrastructure Market” highlights many of the changes and challenges that must be faced in the rapid evolution required by IoT solutions of IT networks. This post takes a look at a few of the highlights and includes a link to the full Forrester report.

Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ integrates with HDInsight Ambari and supports Spark 2.2 - To provide more authentication options, Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ now supports integration with HDInsight clusters through Ambari for job submission, cluster resource browse and storage files navigate. With this release, you can benefit the new functionalities and consume the new libraries & APIs from Spark 2.2 in Azure Toolkit for IntelliJ.

Azure Toolkit for Eclipse integrates with HDInsight Ambari and supports Spark 2.2 - To provide more authentication options, Azure Toolkit for Eclipse now supports integration with HDInsight clusters through Ambari for job submission, cluster resource browse and storage files navigate. With this release, you can benefit the new functionalities and consume the new libraries & APIs from Spark 2.2 in Azure Toolkit for Eclipse.

Accelerate real-time big data analytics with Spark connector for Microsoft SQL Databases - Apache Spark is a unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing. Today, you can use the built-in JDBC connector to connect to Azure SQL Database or SQL Server to read or write data from Spark jobs. The Spark connector for Azure SQL Database and SQL Server enables SQL databases, including Azure SQL Database and SQL Server, to act as input data source or output data sink for Spark jobs. It enables you to utilize real-time transactional data in big data analytics and persist results for adhoc queries or reporting. Read this post to get started moving data between Spark worker nodes and SQL databases.

Organizing subscriptions and resource groups within the Enterprise - Learn how Microsoft's Core Services Engineering and Operations teams secure their Azure footprint for their Line of Business applications while still giving developers the freedom to go fast, have visibility into our environment and use the capabilities of Visual Studio Team Services for CI/CD, Release, and much more. Learn how they use the combination of subscriptions, resource groups, and Role Based Access Control to ensure compliance with a set of guidelines.

Azure tips & tricks

Use Tags to quickly organize Azure Resources

Quickly Connect to Windows VMs with RDP

Events and webinars

Migrating your apps, data and infrastructure to Azure is easier than ever - Azure gives you a flexible migration path with hybrid consistency across your on-premises assets and the cloud. You don’t have to move everything all at once. Whether your business requires a hybrid state long-term or only during the migration period, Azure is hybrid by design and can support your needs. Get started with Azure migration by visiting the Azure migration center for guidance or for connecting with a migration expert. And to learn more about Azure’s migration capabilities from our Azure engineering leaders Rohan Kumar and Corey Sanders, register for this webcast on May 17, 2018.

Train an IoT-equipped drone and compete to win at Microsoft Build - We’re having a drone contest at Build 2018. Participants will compete against fellow conference goers to see whose drone can complete the outdoor search and rescue course designed specifically for Microsoft Build. You’ll get hands-on, end-to-end experience with Microsoft’s intelligent cloud platform, Azure IoT Edge, and be eligible to win a DJI Mavic Air drone.

The Azure Podcast

The Azure Podcast: Episode 226 - API Management Best Practices - Thuru Vijayakumar, a Technology Architect at Tiqri and a Microsoft MVP for Azure. He gives us great advice on using API Management for various scenarios and tips and tricks to avoid common mistakes with the service.

Developer spotlight

Acquire the cloud skills you need, at your own pace: Enjoy hands-on learning on your schedule with these free, Self-paced Labs, and keep your cloud knowledge fresh:

DevOps for Game Developers with Microsoft Azure - In this Azure theater session from GDC 2018, Abel Wang covers DevOps: any language, any platform. Abel is a Senior Cloud Developer Advocate specializing in DevOps and Azure with a background in application development. Before joining Microsoft, Abel spent seven years as a Process Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master helping customers globally develop solutions using agile practices and Team Foundation Server. Prior to that, Abel founded and sold his own software company.

Setup your CI/CD pipeline for Node.js, Python, .NET, Go, Ruby, or Java - in Minutes - VSTS and Azure together enable developers to create a customize a highly sophisticated CI/CD pipeline for the backend of their service, their website, etc. and getting started on Azure with DevOps projects is beyond easy. Lets talk about why developers should care, how to get started and even how the platform extensibility lets you work with many other build system, source repo providers or even other cloud.

Azure Friday

Virtual Kubelet Introduction - Ria Bhatia joins Scott Hanselman to discuss Virtual Kubelet and Azure's provider, the ACI Connector. The ACI Connector paired with Kubernetes enables you to quickly spin out container instances from an AKS cluster. This is the fastest way to scale a Kubernetes cluster in the cloud.

Ingest, prepare, and transform using Azure Databricks and Data Factory - Today's business managers depend heavily on reliable data integration systems that run complex ETL/ELT workflows (extract, transform/load and load/transform data). Gaurav Malhotra joins Scott Hanselman to discuss how you can iteratively build, debug, deploy, and monitor your data integration workflows (including analytics workloads in Azure Databricks) using Azure Data Factory pipelines.

AzCopy on Linux now generally available

$
0
0

Today we are announcing the general availability release of AzCopy on Linux. AzCopy is a command line data transfer utility designed to move large amounts of data to and from Azure Storage with optimal performance. It is designed to handle transient failures with automatic retries, as well as to provide a resume option for failed transfers. This general availability release includes new and enhanced features, as well as performance improvements thanks to the feedback we received during the Preview.

You can get started with the latest AzCopy release following the documentation.

What's new?

Throughput improvements up to 3X

Investments in performance improvements and leveraging .Net Core 2.1 have boosted the AzCopy throughput significantly. In our tests, we have seen up to three times the improvement in throughput for large, multiple files as well as up to two times the throughput improvement in scenarios where millions of small files are transferred.

Easy installation

AzCopy now packages .NET Core 2.1 thereby eliminating the need to manually install .NET Core as a pre-requisite. You can now extract the AzCopy package, and start using. You might however need to install the .NET Core dependencies in some Linux distributions. Please consult the documentation for the installation instructions.

Pipe from stdin

AzCopy now supports redirecting from standard input, which was a frequent ask by our users. Just gzip and upload to Blob in a single command. Below is a sample.

gzip mydata -c | azcopy --destination https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/mydata.gz --dest-key <redacted>

Single File support

AzCopy on Linux, as well as on Windows, now supports transferring a single file to and from Azure Storage. This was a frequent ask by our users who wanted to move large disk images. This is now as simple as:

azcopy –source https://myaccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/mydata.gzip --source-key <redacted>  --destination https://myotheraccount.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/mydata.gzip --dest-key <redacted>

Feedback

As always, we strive to make everything better in Azure! Let us know should you have any feedback about AzCopy.

Happy data transfers! AzCopy Team

Secure credential management for ETL workloads using Azure Key Vault and Data Factory

$
0
0

Secure credential management is essential to protect data in the cloud. With Azure Key Vault, you can encrypt keys and small secrets like passwords that use keys. Azure Data Factory is now integrated with Azure Key Vault. You can store credentials for your data stores and computes referred in Azure Data Factory ETL (Extract Transform Load) workloads in an Azure Key Vault. Simply create Azure Key Vault linked service and refer to the secret stored in the Key vault in your data factory pipelines.

image

image

Azure Data Factory will now automatically pull your credentials for your data stores and computes from Azure Key Vault during pipeline execution. Using Key Vault, you don’t need to provision, configure, patch, and maintain key management software. Just provision new vaults and keys in minutes. Centrally manage keys, secrets, policies and refer to the keys in your data pipelines in data factory. You keep control over your keys by simply granting permission for your own and data factory service to use them as needed. Data Factory never has direct access to keys. Developers manage keys used for Dev/Test and seamlessly migrate to producing the keys that are managed by security operations.

With Azure Key Vault integration and Data Factory you can manage all the credentials in one place, keep them secure in key vault, and simply refer the credentials in your pipelines. Our goal is to continue adding features and improve the usability of Data Factory tools. Get more information and detailed steps on storing credentials in Azure Key Vault.

Get started building pipelines easily and quickly using Azure Data Factory. If you have any feature requests or want to provide feedback, please visit the Azure Data Factory forum.

Make a sculpture in LEGO from a photo, with R

$
0
0

The entrance to our office in Redmond in is adorned with this sculpture of our department logo, rendered in LEGO:

We had fun with LEGO bricks at work this week. APEX is our internal team name, this was fun. Oh and we're hiring for all roles in Azure! pic.twitter.com/VlNNaTexA5

— Jeff Sandquist (@jeffsand) March 30, 2017

Our team, the Cloud Developer Advocates, has a logo as well, created by the multitalented Ashley Macnamara. (The mascot's name is Bit: he's a raccoon because, like developers, he's into everything.) It would be nice to have a LEGO rendition of Bit for the wall as well, but converting an image into LEGO bricks isn't easy ... until now.

This R script by Ryan Timpe provides everything you need render an image in LEGO. It will downscale the image to a size that meets your bricks budget, convert the colors to those available as LEGO bricks, and divide the image up into LEGO-sized pieces, ready to lay out on a flat tray. The script is super easy to use: just source a file of utility functions and then:

(You can also use readJPEG to read in JPG images; I just loaded in the png package and used readPNG which works just as well.) Here's what the output looks like. (Click to see the original, for comparison.)

Bit-azure-64

The script also provides a shopping list of the bricks you need by color and size: this particular project will require 1842 LEGO bricks in 19 different colors to create the 48x48 image. It will even provide a series of step-by-step instructions showing how the project will look in various stages of completion:

Bit-instr-64
The R script is available on GitHub, here, and works with any recent version of R and with up-to-date tidyverse installation. (I used R 3.5.0.) You can find a complete walkthrough of using the scripts in the blog post at the link below.

Ryan Timple: How To: LEGO mosaics from photos using R & the tidyverse


What’s new in Microsoft Edge in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update

$
0
0

The next update to Microsoft Edge is now available with the Windows 10 April 2018 Update! This update includes EdgeHTML 17, the next major version of Microsoft Edge’s rendering engine, as well as new features and everyday improvements across the product.

You can get your hands on the April 2018 Update today by checking for updates on your Windows 10 device, or, if you don’t have one, by downloading a free virtual machine from the Microsoft Edge Developer Site. You can also test Microsoft Edge for free in BrowserStack, which offers instant cloud-based manual and automated testing from a Mac or PC. BrowserStack will be updated to include the final release of EdgeHTML 17 in the coming weeks.

In this post, we’ll highlight what’s new in Microsoft Edge for users, and the new capabilities for site developers in EdgeHTML 17.

Better browsing: What’s new in Microsoft Edge

In every release, it’s our goal to make the web sing on Windows by making Microsoft Edge the fastest, easiest, and most productive place for you to enjoy your favorite sites and web apps. Below, you’ll find the biggest new features for Microsoft Edge.

Mute tabs with a click

We hear feedback every day that it’s too hard to find where audio is coming from, especially with lots of tabs open. In the April 2018 Update, the hunt to mute videos is over! When you hear unwanted audio playing in the browser, just press This tab is playing media Speaker icon on the tab to turn the audio on or off.

Illustration showing the “This tab is playing media” speaker icon in the tab bar in Microsoft Edge.

Mute tabs with a single click

Our goal is to put users in control of autoplay content on the Web, so we’re continuing to explore more features to intelligently restrict autoplay audio and video content in future releases.

Automatically fill forms and credit card details

Microsoft Edge can now remember your name, credit card details, and other info when you’re signed in with a Microsoft Account. With your permission, we’ll save your form entries and give you the option to complete forms automatically.

Better reading with annotations, grammar tools, and more

We’ve overhauled the reading and Books experiences in Microsoft Edge, bringing a new, consistent, more powerful experience across all your documents, whether they’re EPUB or PDF books, documents, or web pages in Reading View.

Animation showing an EPUB in Microsoft Edge toggling between Dark and Light themes, with a note pane open on screen.

The new reading experience uses Fluent Design System elements like motion and Acrylic material to provide a fluid, delightful experience that keeps the focus on the page.

In EPUB books and the Reading View for websites, you can now use the new Grammar Tools button to enable new comprehension aids. Grammar Tools can break the words on the page into syllables, as well as highlight different parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

You can now also save EPUB books—whether downloaded from the web or purchased from the Microsoft Store—add bookmarks, and manage them all at the Books tab in the Microsoft Edge ”Hub” menu. You’ll also find suggestions there based on your reading habits.

For a distraction-free reading experience, you can now take books, PDFs, and Reading view pages full-screen. To enable full screen reading, just click the double arrow icon on the reading bar or press F11 on your keyboard.

Clutter-free printing

When printing a web page, you can now save paper by only printing the content you need. Select the “Clutter-free printing” option to print webpages without pop-ups and other unnecessary clutter.

Improved support for touchpad gestures

Microsoft Edge now supports custom multi-touch gesture support on devices with a precision touchpad, such as modern Surface laptops. On supported sites like Bing Maps, you can now use pinch-to-zoom and two-finger panning gestures to navigate maps just like you would on a touch screen.

Offline web sites and push notifications

Microsoft Edge now supports new web standards that allow web pages to send push notifications to your Action Center, even when the browser is closed. In addition, certain web pages can now work offline and improve performance, by using locally cached data when the cache is up to date, or when your device has a poor connection. You can learn more about these features in our post Service Workers: Going beyond the page.

New features for Extensions

We’re adding new extensions for Microsoft Edge every day, allowing users to customize their browsing experience with their favorite ad blockers, password managers, and more. To make it easier to find the extensions you’re looking for, Microsoft Edge will now show a dynamic list of suggested extensions under the “Extensions” menu.

Improvements for everyone

That’s just scratching the surface of what’s new in Microsoft Edge – you can learn more about these features at Microsoft Edge Tips, and see a list of everything that’s new over at the Microsoft Edge Changelog.

In every release, we make changes based on your feedback. Once you’ve tried out Microsoft Edge in the April 2018 Update, we want to hear what you think! You can send feedback on these features and suggestions for future improvements by selecting “Send feedback” from the “…” menu in Microsoft Edge.

Better basics: Improved performance and power efficiency

Windows users spend more time in web content than in any other activity on Windows. The Microsoft Edge engine powers not only the browser, but also powers web content throughout Windows—including in Windows apps and throughout the Windows shell itself—so performance and power efficiency is a major area of focus for the Microsoft Edge team in every release.

In the April 2018 update, we’re introducing dozens of optimizations that improve real, day-to-day performance and efficiency in every area of the product.

Making the browser more responsive

Input responsiveness is key to making the browser feel fast even when interacting with heavy websites or running on a busy system. In the April 2018 update, we’ve made improvements to make Microsoft Edge much more responsive on busy systems—such as when lots of other apps or background tasks are running.

Users will notice this most dramatically when something outside the browser such as a game or other high-impact application is busy in the background, which previously could cause input (such as typing) to be delayed, sometimes substantially dramatically.

Thanks to improved thread management in the April 2018 Update, this input will be more aggressively prioritized above background tasks, so Microsoft Edge will be much more responsive even when resources are limited.

We’ve also made improvements to responsiveness on busy pages. When the browser is busy with work that blocks user interactivity, we’ll more aggressively interrupt those tasks to put the user’s input first.

Better efficiency for an internet of GIFs

Regardless of how you pronounce them, GIFs are here to stay! In this update, we’ve dramatically reduced the power efficiency impact of rendering animated GIFs, especially on pages with lots of GIFs. Around 20 percent of pages loaded in Microsoft Edge include at least one GIF, so these improvements add up to even more battery life for Microsoft Edge compared to previous versions and to other browsers.

We’ve also made overall improvements to how we load images—on webpages with lots of images, we’ll now load the page noticeably faster by laying out page content without waiting to download the image in most cases.

Using resources more intelligently

Many web pages use resources continuously even when the user is not interacting or when the window is not in the foreground. When a tab is open for long periods of time, especially when lots of tabs are open, this impact adds up to reduced performance and battery life.

To prioritize the user experience, Microsoft Edge now intelligently suspends background tabs after the user has not interacted with them for a while, caching the content and suspending all CPU activity on that tab. This means improved performance and reduced power usage over time, with a minimal impact to the user experience. Tabs are then rapidly rehydrated when the user clicks on them. Our data from Windows Insiders previewing this feature shows that most suspended tabs are restored in less than half a second.

We’re also making foreground tabs more efficient. If a page is focused, but the user is not interacting with it (for example, scrolling or clicking links), Microsoft Edge will reduce the frame-rate of the tab to conserve power. This doesn’t impact video or 3D content on the page, and the browser will restore the full 60fps frame-rate as soon as the user interacts again.

New developer features for more engaging sites and web apps

The April 2018 Update brings with it EdgeHTML 17, our fifth major version of the Microsoft Edge rendering engine. This release brings powerful new developer capabilities for web sites and web apps, including the foundation for full-featured Progressive Web Apps on Windows.

A foundation for Progressive Web Apps

Starting in EdgeHTML 17, Service Workers and push notifications are enabled by default; you can learn more about these features in the blog post Service Worker: Going beyond the page. This completes the suite of technologies (including Fetch networking and the Push and Cache APIs) that lays the technical foundation for progressive Web Apps (PWAs) on Windows 10.

"PWA" logo

PWAs are simply web apps that are progressively enhanced with native app-like features on supporting platforms and browser engines, such as installation / home screen launch, offline support, and push notifications. On Windows 10 with the Microsoft Edge (EdgeHTML) engine, PWAs enjoy the added advantage of running independently of the browser window as Universal Windows Platform apps.

Beyond PWAs, Service Workers and the Cache API allow developers the ability to intercept network requests and respond from the cache. A website need not even been a full-blow web app to take advantage of the Service Worker cache for fine-tined page load performance and reliability, as well as the ability to provide an offline experience during periods of no internet or poor-quality connection.

Head over to our Progressive Web Apps docs to learn more about Service Workers and details about PWAs on Windows 10.

Expressive, performant typography with Variable Fonts

Full support for Variable Fonts, including CSS font-variation-settings and font-optical-sizing is available in EdgeHTML 17. Variable fonts enable developers to achieve the look of seemingly different typefaces with a single font by adjusting various axes – reducing the need for multiple font files and bettering performance.

Learn more about variable fonts and how to use them on your site at our Test Drive guide: Variable Fonts: An exploration of expressive, performant typography.

More powerful extensions

Microsoft Edge now supports the Notification API which displays notifications from extensions. Extension developers can now create different types of notifications (basic, list, image etc.) which support full user interaction. The notifications are also automatically logged into the Action Center. EdgeHTML 17 now also supports the Tabs.reload() method as part of the standard tabs API class.

Visit the notifications sample on how to use this API in your extension.

Improved accessibility via ARIA 1.1 Roles, States, and Events

EdgeHTML 17 now includes support for roles, states, and properties from the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1 specification, including banner, complementary, aria-haspopup, aria-placeholder, and many more. Check out the Accessibility docs for more information about accessibility in Microsoft Edge.

Customizable multi-touch scrolling and gestures with Pointer Events

On devices with a Precision Touch Pad (PTP), Microsoft Edge will now fire Pointer Events with a pointerType of “touch” in response to PTP gestures.

Animation showing a two-finger Touchpad gesture (pinch-to-zoom) mapped by EdgeHTML two a two-finger "touch" Pointer Event (pointerType of "touch")

This allows site developers to provide a customized multi-touch experience on modern Windows devices, including pinch-to-zoom and two-finger panning gestures, while preserving the highly optimized scrolling behaviors that users have come to expect from Precision Touch Pad devices.

CSS transforms on SVG elements

EdgeHTML 17 now supports CSS transforms on SVG elements and presentation attributes. This allows SVG elements to be visually manipulated, including rotating, scaling, moving, skewing, or translating.

More powerful developer tools

The tools have been updated with a number of major features, including basic support for remote debugging (via our new DevTools Protocol), PWA debugging features, IndexedDB cache management, vertical docking and more! We also continued the overall refactoring effort started last release as part of ongoing investments in performance and reliability.

You can learn more about what’s new in the Microsoft Edge DevTools at DevTools in the latest Windows 10 update (EdgeHTML 17).

Plugin-free screen sharing via the Media Capture API

Microsoft Edge now supports Screen Capture in RTC via the Media Capture API. This feature lets web pages capture output of a user’s display device, commonly used to broadcast a desktop for plugin-free virtual meetings or presentations. We’ll be sharing more about the Media Capture API in Microsoft Edge in an upcoming blog post.

Improved Web Security

EdgeHTML 17 introduces support for Subresource Integrity (SRI). Subresource Integrity is a security feature that allows browsers to verify that fetched resources (e.g. images, scripts, fonts, etc.) are delivered without unexpected manipulation.

Also new in EdgeHTML 17, the Upgrade-Insecure-Requests request header allows browsers to request a secure browsing experience. This header tells the server that the browser supports upgrading any insecure requests and the user should be redirected to a secure version of the site if available.

And lots more!

There’s too much EdgeHTML 17 for one blog post—you can see the full list of everything that’s new, including the full list of new APIs exposed in the DOM, over at the Microsoft Edge Dev Guide for EdgeHTML 17.

Get started testing EdgeHTML 17 today

You can get the April 2018 Update in a couple different ways. If you have automatic updates enabled, the update will be delivered to you when it’s ready for your device, starting today. Developers and advanced users who would like to get the update today can visit this blog post to learn how.

You can get started testing EdgeHTML 17 today on any device using free virtual machines from Microsoft Edge Dev. We’ve also partnered with BrowserStack to offer unlimited remote manual and automated testing in Microsoft Edge—BrowserStack will be adding EdgeHTML 17 in the coming weeks.

As with every release, we want to build our web platform in the open. We’ve updated our open platform roadmap at status.microsoftedge.com to reflect EdgeHTML 17, and encourage you to review and provide feedback on the features that matter to you.

You can reach our team directly via @MSEdgeDev on Twitter, or via the Feedback Hub app on Windows. We look forward to hearing what you think!

Kyle Pflug, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Edge
— Libby McCormick, Dev Writer, Microsoft Edge

The post What’s new in Microsoft Edge in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update appeared first on Microsoft Edge Dev Blog.

Start developing on Windows 10 April 2018 Update today

$
0
0

We’re excited to announce that the Windows 10 April 2018 Update (build 17134.1) and SDK is now available. You may also know this as Windows 10, version 1803.

A few new features and APIs sure to become your favorites

Every major Windows 10 update always includes a wide range of APIs. These will surely be among your favorites.

  1. Windows Machine Learning (WinML): WinML allows you to run ML ONNX models on any Windows 10 device on the April 2018 Update or greater. By just dragging your model into VS, loading the model, then executing it based on inputs, you can add machine learning into your application. If your model isn’t already in the ONNX format, there are converts for most formats.
  2. Timeline, User Activities, and Adaptive Cards: User Activities and Timeline are amazing new ways for users to re-engage with your application and maintain context. To do your graphical representation, use Adaptive Cards, an open source card exchange format. Be sure your application has a URI schema, so you can enable deep linking. User Activities and Adaptive Cards will also become important APIs in Sets, which we’ll discuss more at Microsoft Build 2018.
  3. New UX controls: Tree view, pull to refresh, and content links are just a few of the new controls added. These new controls can add new functionality and richness to your application.
  4. Multi-instance for UWP applications: In the April 2018 update, you can create multi-instance applications. On top of launching new processes, it allows for customization in cases where you want to select whether a new instance of your app is launched or an instance that is already running is activated.

Update your dev environment in two simple steps

  1. Update your system to Windows 10 April 2018 Update.
  2. Get Visual Studio 2017 with the updated tooling and Windows 10 SDK.

How to update your device to Windows 10 April 2018 Update

There are multiple ways you can update, but the easiest way is to go to Windows Update in your settings and click “check for updates.” It’s that simple. You can also use the Update Assistant or the media creation tool also.

Acquire the Windows 10 SDK and Visual Studio 2017

Now that your system is on Windows 10 April 2018 Update, install Visual Studio and the new SDK.

• If you are currently running Visual Studio 15.6:

  1. Download install the SDK from here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=870807
  2. Install

• When Visual Studio 2017 15.7 is released:

  1. Run the installer or go to https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/ and download it.
  2. Select “Universal Windows Platform development” under Workloads.
  3. Verify Windows 10 SDK (10.0.17134) is checked
  4. Click “Install.”

More useful tips

Do you want tools for C++ desktop or game development for UWP? Be sure one of these two are selected:

  • C++ Universal Windows Platform tools in the UWP Workload section
    • Desktop development with C++ Workload and the Windows SDK 10 (10.0.17134)
  • If you want the Universal Windows Platform tools:
    • Select the Universal Windows Platform tools workload.

Once your systems are updated and recompiled and your app is tested, submit your app to Dev Center.

Your take on the Update

Tell us what crazy things you’ve been working on with the new Update by tweeting @WindowsDev or @ClintRutkas.

The post Start developing on Windows 10 April 2018 Update today appeared first on Windows Developer Blog.

Microsoft R Open 3.4.4 now available

$
0
0

An update to Microsoft R Open (MRO) is now available for download on Windows, Mac and Linux. This release upgrades the R language engine to version 3.4.4, which addresses some minor issues with timezone detection and some edge cases in some statistics functions. As a maintenance release, it's backwards-compatible with scripts and packages from the prior release of MRO.

MRO 3.4.4 points to a fixed CRAN snapshot taken on April 1 2018, and you can see some highlights of new packages released since the prior version of MRO on the Spotlights page. As always, you can use the built-in checkpoint package to access packages from an earlier date (for reproducibility) or a later date (to access new and updated packages).

Looking ahead, the next update based on R 3.5.0 has started the build and test process. Microsoft R Open 3.5.0 is scheduled for release on May 31.

We hope you find Microsoft R Open useful, and if you have any comments or questions please visit the Microsoft R Open forum. You can follow the development of Microsoft R Open at the MRO Github repository. To download Microsoft R Open, simply follow the link below.

MRAN: Download Microsoft R Open

New Calendar, Mail, and mobile Outlook features help you get things done

$
0
0

You have emails to respond to, things to take care of, and places to be! New Outlook features—across Windows, Mac, web, and mobile—help you manage your time and keep what matters most front and center. Also, new features—coming soon in Outlook for iOS and Android—will connect you to the people, apps, and technology that power your productivity and help protect you and your business.

Here’s a look at what’s new and coming soon:

New in Outlook Calendar

Bill pay reminders—We are adding bill payments to the events we automatically help you track. Just like travel reservations and package delivery information presented in Outlook with a summary card at the top of your email today, we added support for bill payments. Outlook will identify bills you receive in email, show you a summary at the top, and automatically add a calendar event on the due date. You will also receive an email reminder two days before the due date so you can always pay your bills on time. Available for Outlook.com. Learn what other events and providers we support.

A tablet showcases bill pay reminders in Outlook.

Suggested event locations and meeting rooms—Adding a meeting or event location just got easier and faster in Outlook. Even before you start typing, Outlook offers suggestions for your meeting location, including recently used (and available) conference rooms and other common locations such as “my office.” Once you start to type in the location field, Outlook suggests options based on Bing and then autocompletes your meeting location with the necessary information. For public locations, the rich location feature in Outlook adds the full address to your Outlook calendar event. Outlook for iOS will then use your current location, your destination address, and traffic updates to send you a notification to let you know when it is time to leave for your next event, to make sure you get there on time. Available in Outlook for Windows.

We also added this location and context aware approach to further personalize the suggested locations when creating a calendar event on your mobile device. Suggestions are based on machine learning models that take into consideration your location, the list of attendees, the proposed meeting time of day, and other elements of your meeting. If you need a conference room, Outlook shows your organization’s room availability, so you can pick the best option for your meeting with just a tap. Reserving a meeting room from your mobile device will continue to get easier and faster as it learns your preferences. Available in Outlook for iOS.

Meeting RSVP tracking and forwarding—Keeping track of events you’ve organized or plan to attend is key to time management. But managing who is attending can be even more effective for everyone. Outlook now allows you to see the tracked responses and RSVPs for your meetings—even the ones you didn’t organize. With this insight, invited attendees can better manage their time and decide if they should attend based on the plans of others. For example, knowing who’s going can save you some time if you decide the meeting can be addressed by other teammates who are planning to attend.

A tablet showcases meeting RSVP tracking and forwarding in Outlook

Additionally, if you are planning a meeting that requires a tight control of the attendee list, Outlook gives you the option to allow or prevent the forwarding of your calendar invitation. Under Response Options, select New Meeting and then check or uncheck Allow Forwarding. Available in Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.

A tablet displays Response Options for a meeting request in Outlook.

A tablet displays a meeting invitation in Outlook.

Outlook has also adjusted the tracking of RSVPs for meetings with large attendee lists or big meetings. If you use a distribution list to reach over 500 recipients, Outlook now tracks the responses for everyone individually. Now you can update the details for big meetings at any time if changes are required, outside the Office 365 email and calendar recipient maximum of 500. Available across Outlook.

Multiple time zones—Outlook reduces the complexity of managing events across times zones. You can now define the start and end times of appointments and meetings across different time zones. Set up a travel event with your departure in one time zone and arrival time in the local time zone of your destination. Plus, on the main calendar grid, you can now show multiple time zones in Outlook. In Windows, you can add up to three time zones under File > Options > Calendar Time Zones. In Mac, add one additional time zone under Outlook > Preferences > Calendar Time Zones. For Outlook on the web, click the Time Zone drop-down arrow in your Calendar meeting invite to add an additional time zone. Now, at a glance, you can simply understand what’s happening and when around the globe with Outlook.

An open laptop showcases Time Zone Options in the Outlook Calendar.

New in Outlook Mail

Show organization directory details—In case you missed it, Outlook now adds the details of your organization directory to your Outlook contact information. We recently announced this new feature under Show Organization, so you can quickly learn who’s who in your company. If your company data is connected to Azure Active Directory, you can see who your contact reports to, their chain of command in your company, and even other colleagues they work with most. Knowing more about who might help you take care of business is right there in Outlook. You can simply tap search in your Outlook mobile app once to quickly identify your key contact, open their contact card, and view their organizational information. Available in Outlook for iOS.

An animated screenshot showcases the organization directory details in Outlook for iOS.

Proxy support—Some organizations have adopted the use of proxies to block direct access to the internet from mobile devices. Now Outlook supports companies that use SOCKS proxies for added protection between their company data and the internet. Available in Outlook for iOS and Android.

Bcc warning—On occasion, you may be blind copied on an email message and you’d like to respond. Just in case you didn’t notice the subtle addressing, Outlook protects you if you reply to that message by alerting you that you were blind copied—you might choose not to reply to everyone on the recipient list but only reply to the sender, with all due respect. Available in Outlook for Windows.

Coming soon to Outlook for iOS and Android

Sync draft folders—We’re adding the ability to draft a message in Outlook on one device and finish it on another. Start a message on your mobile device and finish it when you’re back at your desk—or the other way around! Outlook helps you get things done when the time is right for you. Coming to Outlook for iOS May 2018. Available in Outlook for Windows, Mac, and Android.

Office Lens technology in Outlook for Android—When you need to capture and share details in the form of an image, such as a whiteboard, photo, or document, we’ve added a new photo icon to Outlook integrated with Office Lens technology. Simply start a new message in Outlook and touch the new photo icon to capture a whiteboard, document, or photo and get a trimmed and enhanced image instantly embedded in your email message. Outlook integrates the apps and services you need to be productive, so you can quickly and easily share what you need, when you need it, with fewer taps and apps! Coming to Outlook for Android May 2018.

An animated screeshot showcases Office Lens technology in Outlook for Android.

Quick reply—We’re making it easier to respond quickly and more meaningfully in Outlook. By keeping your message content in view, and a new reply box at the bottom of your screen, Outlook helps you keep the conversation going with a modern, chat-like experience. Coming to Outlook for Android May 2018 and later this summer to Outlook for Mac. Available in Outlook for iOS.

Favorite people—We recently announced the ability to identify groups and email folders in Outlook, and soon we will add the ability to tag your favorite people. Keeping your key contacts front and center in your mobile search experience, as well as on top of your message folders, helps you quickly identify the right people to help you get more done. You will also be able to identify favorite people from Outlook on your mobile device, just as you can today from the web, and these favorite people tags will remain consistent, so you can find them on the web or on the go. Coming to Outlook for iOS and Android June 2018.

Office 365 Groups for OneNote and meeting events in Outlook—Staying on top of what’s going on with your Office 365 Groups is made even easier with the ability to view your group events in Outlook, as well as access the group’s OneNote Notebook. You will be able to track events in the group’s contact card and simply launch OneNote from Outlook to access the notes your group compiled in its OneNote. Coming to Outlook for iOS June 2018.

Block external content—Images embedded in emails may contain content that alerts the sender that you’ve opened their email. Tracking which emails are opened can be important to digital marketers. But if you don’t want this to be tracked, Outlook now helps to protect you and your inbox and block this external content. Coming to Outlook for Android May 2018.

Single Office 365 account in Outlook—Respecting the data security and compliance policies of our largest and highly regulated customers is a key pillar to the Office 365 value. Some companies have a requirement to capture all communications information within their corporate environment. For company managed mobile devices, Outlook will help customers mitigate the risk of users copying information from their company’s Office 365 account to a personal account on a mobile device, or accidentally sending company information from personal accounts. Companies will soon be able to enforce corporate policies on their managed mobile devices to allow a single account in Outlook. Coming to Outlook for iOS and Android June 2018.

Please be sure to watch the Office 365 roadmap for more information about our plans to roll these features out across additional Outlook experiences. And send us your ideas and suggestions on our UserVoice channelwe read all your feedback.

The post New Calendar, Mail, and mobile Outlook features help you get things done appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

New to Microsoft 365 in April—tools for the modern workplace

$
0
0

This month, we’re kicking off a new approach and moving from our monthly “What’s new in Office 365” blog to “What’s new in Microsoft 365.” We’re also consolidating updates from across Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security on the new Microsoft 365 site.

Here’s a look at what we brought to Microsoft 365 in April.

New capabilities to unlock employee creativity

Ink analysis in Microsoft PowerPoint—We enhanced shape and text recognition in PowerPoint to give users more freedom to create content in a natural way. Now Microsoft 365 subscribers can convert any handwritten words on their slides into text and draw new shapes like hearts and clouds. You can also sketch out an entire slide and then convert all your drawings at the same time, instead of addressing each shape individually, making it easier to convert ideas to professional looking slides in a matter of moments.

A screenshot displays how you can convert hand-drawn words and shapes into text and objects in PowerPoint.

Easily convert hand-drawn words and shapes into text and objects in PowerPoint.

New ink gestures in Microsoft WordNew ink gestures for editing in Word allow you to add handwritten text to a document and interact with existing content using a pen. Now Microsoft 365 subscribers can quickly split paragraphs into multiple lines, insert words into existing sentences, and join separated words, all using natural pen-based gestures. These top requested features make it easier to naturally edit documents and quickly implement changes and suggestions.

A screenshot displays how you can quickly insert words in sentences by drawing a "caret."

Quickly insert words in sentences by drawing a “caret.”

AI enhancements in Word for Mac—We brought popular AI capabilities to Word for Mac to help you work more confidently and produce superior documents. Now Mac users can translate sections of text or entire documents from over 60 languages, including 11 that use neural machine translation to understand sentence context and produce more accurate results. Subscribers can also use Resume Assistant to craft compelling resumes with personalized insights powered by LinkedIn.

Mobile editing available for more subscribers in the next few months—We’re expanding the availability of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote for iOS and Android to Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 F1, and Office 365 E1 subscribers. Once available, all Microsoft 365 subscribers will be able to install full versions of the mobile apps to create, edit, and, share documents on the go.

Office 2019 Preview now availableWe also announced the preview of Office 2019 for commercial customers. This is the first in a wave of preview announcements for the Office 2019 release, starting with apps for Windows, and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, Project, and Visio. Over the next few months, Office 2019 for Mac, plus the servers like Exchange 2019, SharePoint 2019, Project Server 2019, and Skype for Business 2019, will also launch previews.

New capabilities for the universal toolkit for teamwork

New features in Outlook for iOS—This month we introduced a range of new capabilities to Outlook. Now you can continue drafting emails in Outlook for iOS that were initially started on other devices. Draft Sync for iOS makes it easy to pick up where you left off simply by navigating to the conversation in your inbox. We’re also working to help employees connect across their company with a new Organization view on iOS that shows a complete picture of the selected user’s position in the company, including their manager, direct reports, and coworkers. Outlook also uses AI to understand work habits and communication patterns and surface other relevant contacts—outside of organization structure—to help you find the right people and resources faster.

A mobile phone displays the Organization feature in Outlook.

Calendar enhancements in Outlook for Windows—We introduced the option for meeting organizers to prevent forwarding calendar invitations to recipients that weren’t on the original invite list—helping to protect user privacy and preserve the original scope of the meeting. As an attendee, you can also view the RSVP status of others, even if you didn’t organize the meeting, to make informed decisions about how to prioritize your time.

Intelligent security for the modern workplace

Advanced security features in Microsoft 365 Business—We also announced the addition of advanced security features in Microsoft 365 Business to further protect small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) from cyberthreats and safeguard sensitive information from unintentional data leaks. Advanced Threat Protection is now included to protect users against phishing and malware, and prevent devices from falling victim to ransomware and viruses. We also introduced capabilities like data loss prevention and information protection to prevent unintentional data leaks and help small business safeguard sensitive information like social security and credit card numbers. We also extended some of these advanced protection capabilities to Office 365 Home and Office 365 Personal subscribers.

An open laptop displays advanced security features in Microsoft 365 Business.

Enhancing enterprise security—At the RSA Conference 2018 in San Francisco, we announced several new technologies and programs that build on our unique intelligence capabilities to make it easier for enterprises to secure their assets from the cloud to the edge. These new features help organizations simulate phishing attacks, automate threat detection and response, quickly assess their security posture, and more. Visit the Microsoft Secure blog to learn more.

Making IT simpler with a modern workplace

Capabilities to simplify IT managementWe announced a range of new capabilities coming to Microsoft 365 to help organizations minimize total cost of ownership while enhancing user experience. These new capabilities include improvements to cloud-based device management, solutions like Kiosk Browser in Windows 10 that enable delivery of services to Firstline Workers and customers, and a single integrated admin experience across Microsoft 365. These updates help reduce the number of components administrators are required to manage, reducing risk, improving user experience, and enhancing IT control.

A tablet displays the Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center.

Microsoft 365 Security & Compliance Center.

Centralized Deployment of Outlook add-insCentralized Deployment for Outlook add-ins is now available in preview to commercial customers. With Centralized Deployment, administrators can quickly and easily deploy add-ins for Word, Excel, PowerPoint—and now Outlook—to individual users, groups, or an organization, right from the Office 365 admin center.

Tools for organizational compliance—We unveiled new resources and tools to help organizations meet compliance obligations like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). New capabilities across the Microsoft Cloud help you effectively demonstrate that your organization has taken appropriate steps to protect the privacy rights of individuals, with tools for data subject requests (DSR) and audit-ready, privileged access management.

Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365We announced the general availability of Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365, a new feature that helps multinational organizations address their global data-residency requirements. Multi-Geo enables a single Office 365 tenant to span across multiple datacenter geographies, giving customers the ability to store their Exchange Online and OneDrive data in a particular region, determined on a per-user basis.

Other updates

  • Today, we announced updates to our Microsoft 365 roadmap that include new features and capabilities for Microsoft Teams, including the rollout of unified presence and a new modern admin portal.
  • Annotate photos using the new inking tool in Office Lens on Android and iOS.
  • Microsoft Forms, a simple app for creating surveys, quizzes, and polls, is now generally available to all Office 365 commercial customers.
  • Word, Excel, and PowerPoint users on Mac can now chat with other people in a document without leaving the app.

Availability

Microsoft 365 is a complete, intelligent solution that includes Office 365 apps and services with Enterprise Mobility + Security and Windows 10 Pro. Explore Microsoft 365 products: Office 365 | Windows 10 | Enterprise Mobility + Security. Learn more about what’s new for Office 365 subscribers this month at: Office on Windows desktops | Office for Mac | Office Mobile for Windows | Office for iPhone and iPad | Office on Android. Commercial customers on both Monthly Channel and Semi-Annual Channel can also get early access to a fully supported build through Targeted Release (Clients, Services). This site explains more about when you can expect to receive the features announced today.

  • Ink analysis in PowerPoint—Rolling out to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 customers enrolled in Office Insiders over the next month.
  • New ink gestures in Word—Rolling out to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 customers enrolled in Office Insiders over the next month.
  • AI enhancements in Word for Mac—Rolling out to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 customers enrolled in Office Insiders over the next month.
  • Mobile editing for Office 365 Business Essentials, F1 and E1—All the Office mobile apps can be downloaded from iOS App Store or Google Play. All functionality is available now for Outlook for iOS and Android. Editing will be available in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote apps for iOS and Android over the next few months.
  • Office 2019 PreviewView availability
  • New capabilities in Outlook for iOSView availability
  • Calendar enhancements in Outlook for WindowsView availability
  • Advanced security features in Microsoft 365 BusinessView availability
  • Enhancing Enterprise SecurityView availability
  • Capabilities to simplify IT managementView availability
  • Centralized Deployment of Outlook add-insView availability
  • Tools for Organizational ComplianceView availability
  • Multi-Geo CapabilitiesView availability

The post New to Microsoft 365 in April—tools for the modern workplace appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Announcing the .NET Framework 4.7.2

$
0
0

Today, we are happy to announce the release of the .NET Framework 4.7.2. It’s included in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. .NET Framework 4.7.2 is also available on Windows 7+ and Windows Server 2008 R2+.  

You can download the .NET Framework 4.7.2

The .NET Framework 4.7.2 includes improvements in several areas:

  • [ASP.NET] Support for SameSite cookie in ASP.NET
  • [ASP.NET] Support for ASP.NET Dependency Injection
  • [ClickOnce] Per-monitor support for WPF and HDPI-aware VSTO apps deployed via ClickOnce
  • [SQL] Always Encrypted enhancements in SQL Connectivity
  • [Networking & BCL] Enhanced .NET Framework support for .NET Standard 2.0
  • [BCL] Cryptography improvements
  • [WPF] Diagnostic enhancements

For building applications targeting .NET Framework 4.7.2 download the Developer PackYou can see the complete list of improvements in the .NET Framework 4.7.2 release notes. .NET Framework 4.7.2 will be available on Windows Update in the near future. Docker images are also available for this release at Docker Hub.

Supported Windows Versions

The .NET Framework 4.7.2 is supported on the following Windows versions:

  • Windows 10 April 2018 Update (included in-box)
  • Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
  • Windows 10 Creators Update
  • Windows 10 Anniversary Update
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 7 SP1

The .NET Framework 4.7.2 is supported on the following Windows Server versions:

  • Windows Server, version 1709
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

 

ASP.NET – Dependency Injection in WebForms

Dependency injection (DI) is a technique whereby one object supplies the dependencies of another object. It decouples the objects so that no client code has to be changed simply because an object it depends on needs to be changed to a different one. MVC Framework already supports dependency injection, but it has been very difficult to use this technique in ASP.NET Web Forms application. This new feature will make it much easier to use dependency injection in ASP.NET Web Forms application. This feature enables the following:

 

  • Support setter-based, interface-based and constructor-based injection in web application project in Handler, Module, Page, User control and Custom control.
  • Support setter-based and interface-based injection in web site project in Handler, Module, Page, User controls and Custom controls.
  • Extensebility to support different dependency injection frameworks.
Here’s a simple example of how you can use this feature. 
Step 1 – Implement IServiceProvider. You can implement your own DI logic in it or plug in another DI framework, e.g. Unity, Ninject. The following example demonstrates injecting an ILog object through the constructor.
Step 2 – Set WebObjectActivator in Global.asax.
Step 3 – Use Dependency Injection in your Webform page.

ASP.NET – SameSite Cookie

SameSite prevents the browser from sending this cookie along with cross-site requests.  In .NET Framework 4.7.2, a new property SameSite has been added in HttpCookie type and ASP.NET will add a SameSite attribute into the set-cookie header if HttpCookie.SameSite is set to SameSiteMode.Strict or SameSiteMode.Lax. The support for SameSite cookie is two-fold in this case: 

You can set SameSite for a HttpCookie object as follows.

You can configure HttpCookie SameSite at application level through web.config as follows.

You can add SameSite for FormsAuthentication and SessionState cookies through web.config.

ClickOnce – Per-monitor support for WPF and HDPI-aware ClickOnce deployed apps

Earlier WPF developers were unable to deploy applications that specify HDPI settings other than the default System Aware via ClickOnce. When an end user tried to launch this type of application via ClickOnce they were unable to run it because of a failure in parsing the ClickOnce manifest. Now, with .NET Framework 4.7.2, WPF developers can choose ClickOnce deployments when they are using their application manifest to specify new DPI Awareness modes. With this feature, users on Windows 10 Spring Creators Update or later will be able to specify latest HDPI settings such as PerMonV2 and launch these applications without any problems.
This enables application developers to take advantage of the new HDPI capabilities and can now continue to deploy via ClickOnce:

ClickOnce – Enable SHA256 timestamping of Deployment Manifests

This feature adds support for using RFC3161 timestamp servers (SHA256 based) in timestamping ClickOnce manifests built with Mage.exeThis enables developers to add industry standard timestamping to their ClickOnce manifests. Developer can now specify RFC3161 timestamp server using the existing Mage argument –TimestampUri per the following example:

SQL – Azure AD Universal and Multi-factor Authentication Support

Growing compliance and security demand requires many customers to use Multi-Factor authentication (MFA).  In addition, current best practices directs developers from not including any user password directly in the connection string. We have extended SqlClient Connection String by introducing a new Azure AD Interactive authentication keyword to support MFA. This also enables support of Azure AD Authentication.

This feature introduces a new value for the existing “Authentication” keyword, specifying a new authentication method called “Active Directory Interactive”. The new interactive method supports native and federated Azure AD users as well as Azure AD guest users.  When this method is being used, the MFA authentication imposed by Azure AD is supported for SQL DB. In addition, a user password is requested as part of an interactive dialog enabling us to adhere to security best practices.

Originally SQL connectivity in .NET Framework supported only ActiveDirectoryPassword and ActiveDirectoryIntegrated. Both of these are part of the non-interactive ADAL protocol which do not support MFA. With the new ActiveDirectoryInteractive keyword, the SQL connectivity supports MFA as well as existing authentication methods (password and integrated authentication) allowing users to enter user password interactively without the need to persist passwords in the SQL connection string.

This feature can be configured with tools like SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), as illustrated below. In the latest Visual Studio 15.7 preview, a new authentication option called “Active Directory Interactive Authentication” can be used to support MFA authentication to SQL database.

The following sample shows how to instantiate the communication provider that is required to register it to a specific authentication method. It also shows creating connections to SQL database using the different authentication methods, of which two are existing ones: ActiveDirectoryPassword, ActiveDirectoryIntegrated and the latest ActiveDirectoryInteractive.

BCL – Cryptographic Improvements

New overloads to RSA.Create and DSA.Create 

This simplifies the pattern of creating an RSA or DSA object and calling ImportParameters. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ simplification is illustrated below.
When generating a new RSA or DSA key with a specific keysize the new size overloads can be utilized.

Rfc2898DeriveBytes accepts a hash algorithm name

New constructor overloads have been added to Rfc2898DeriveBytes that accepts a HashAlgorithmName to identify which HMAC algorithm should be used when deriving keys.  Developers are encouraged to generate new keys with a SHA-2-based HMAC as follows instead of using HMAC_SHA1. 


Support for EphemeralKeySet

PFX import can optionally load private keys directly from memory, bypassing the hard drive. The X509KeyStorageFlags enumeration has a new member, EphemeralKeySet. When this flag is specified in an X509Certificate2 constructor or X509Certificate2Collection.Import method, the private keys will be loaded as ephemeral keys. This avoids keys being visible on the disk.
  • Certificates loaded with this flag are not recommended to be added to an X509Store because the keys are not persisted to disk.
  • Keys loaded in this manner will almost always be loaded via Windows CNG, therefore callers must access the private key via the extension methods – for e.g., cert.GetRSAPrivateKey(). The PrivateKey property on X509Certificate2 will not function.
  • Since the legacy PrivateKey property will not work with certificates, developers are advised to perform rigorous testing before switching to EphemeralKeySet.

Programmatic creation of PKCS#10 certification signing requests and X.509 public key certificates

The .NET Framework now enables generation of certificate signing requests (CSRs), allowing certificate request generation to be staged into existing tooling.

The following example creates a CSR to be valid as a TLS Server Authentication certificate for www.adatum.com. Furthermore, adatum.com is signed with an existing RSA key using RSA-PSS with SHA-2-256.

 

The .NET Framework now enables workloads to generate self-signed certificates in a programmatic manner. This is frequently useful in test scenarios.

The following example creates a self-signed version of a TLS Server Authentication certificate for www.adatum.com, using an existing ECDSA key with an ECDSA-SHA-2-256 signature.

 

Other Features

  • The SignerInfo class for SignedCms exposes more information about the signature. SignerInfo.SignatureAlgorithm can be queried to determine the signature algorithm used by the signer. SignerInfo.GetSignature() can be called to get a copy of the cryptographic signature for this signer.
  • CryptoStream now has an additional constructor that allows Dispose to not close the wrapped stream. To continue with the current behavior, no changes are necessary. To leave the wrapped stream open after the CryptoStream is disposed, use `new CryptoStream(stream, transform, mode, leaveOpen: true)`.

BCL – ZLib decompression support to DeflateStream

This feature improves the throughput of decompressing ZIP archives by using native implementation of ZIP. This enables up-to 3x increase in the throughput of ZIP archives during decompression. There are minor differences between the existing and native implementation, hence this feature is enabled by default only for applications targeting .NET Framework 4.7.2.
Older applications can opt-into this behavior by using the following AppContext switch:

BCL – Additional Collection APIs

In .NET Framework 4.7.2 we have added a few APIs to the standard Collection types that will enable new functionality as follows.   
  • TryGetValue is added to SortedSet and HashSet to match the Try pattern used in other collection types.
  • The `Enumerable.To*` extension methods are added to SortedSet and HashSet.
  • New HashSet constructors allow HashSets to be constructed with a capacity, offering a performance benefit when you know ahead of time what the size of the HashSet will be.
The new Collection APIs are listed below.

WorkflowDesigner High Contrast Improvements

New WorkflowDesignerColors have been added to improve UI experiences in high contrast mode. The following properties are now added to Class System.Activities.Presentation.WorkflowDesignerColors.

Before and after experiences with these changes for various workflow features are illustrated below.

Feature Before After
Foreground colors of selected activities’s title change to black
Foreground colors of selected arguments/variables change to black
Foreground colors of selected context menu items change to black
Foreground colors of selected flowchart connectors change to turquoise
Foreground colors of selected buttons in properties window change to black

 

WPF – Finding ResourceDictionaries by Source

This feature enables a diagnostic assistant to locate the ResourceDictionaries that have been created from a given Source Uri. A diagnostic assistant such as Visual Studio’s “Edit-and-Continue” facility lets its user edit a ResourceDictionary, with the intent that the changes are applied to the running application. One step in achieving this is finding all the ResourceDictionaries that the running application has created from the dictionary that’s being edited. For example, an application can declare a ResourceDictionary whose content is copied from a given source URI:
A diagnostic assistant that edits the original markup in “MyRD.xaml” can use the new feature to locate the dictionary. The feature is implemented by a new method on the class `System.Windows.Diagnostics.ResourceDictionaryDiagnostics` as illustrated by the first line in the code below. The diagnostic assistant would call the new method using an absolute Uri that identifies the original markup as illustrated by the next line below.
The feature is for use by diagnostic assistants, not by production applications. The method returns an empty enumerable unless VisualDiagnostics are enabled and the ENABLE_XAML_DIAGNOSTICS_SOURCE_INFO environment variable is set.

WPF – Finding ResourceDictionary owners

This feature enables a diagnostic assistant to locate the owners of a given ResourceDictionaryWhenever a change is made to a ResourceDictionary, WPF automatically finds all DynamicResource references that might be affected by the change. A diagnostic assistant such as Visual Studio’s “Edit-and-Continue” facility may want extend this to handle StaticResource references.
The first step in this process is finding the owners of the dictionary – all the objects whose `Resources` property refers to the dictionary (either directly, or indirectly via the `ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries`property). The new methods support this step.
The feature is implemented by three new methods on the class `System.Windows.DiagnosticsResourceDictionaryDiagnostics`one for each of the base types that have a `Resources` property.
The feature is for use by diagnostic assistants and not by production applications. The methods return an empty enumerable unless VisualDiagnostics are enabled and the ENABLE_XAML_DIAGNOSTICS_SOURCE_INFO environment variable is set.

WPF – Finding StaticResource references

This feature allows a diagnostic assistant to receive a notification whenever a StaticResource reference is resolved. A diagnostic assistant such as Visual Studio’s “Edit-and-Continue” facility may want to update all uses of a resource when it changes or replaces a value in a  ResourceDictionary. WPF does this automatically for DynamicResource references, but intentionally does not do so for StaticResource references. The diagnostic assistant is faced with the challenge of locating those uses. This feature helps meet the challenge.

The feature is implemented by a new event on the class `System.Windows.DiagnosticsResourceDictionaryDiagnostics`.
This event is raised whenever the runtime resolves a StaticResource reference. The event args describe the resolution, indicating the object and property that host the StaticResource reference, and the ResourceDictionary and key used for the resolution.
The feature is for use by diagnostic assistants, not by production applications. The event is not raised (and its `add` method is ignored) unless VisualDiagnostics are enabled and the ENABLE_XAML_DIAGNOSTICS_SOURCE_INFO environment variable is set.

Closing

Please try out these improvements in the .NET Framework and let us know what you thinkPlease share your feedback in the comments below or on GitHub.

What’s new in VSTS Sprint 133 Update

$
0
0
The Sprint 133 Update of Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) has rolled out to all accounts. In this Update we continue to expand on the languages and platforms we support build and release. Check out the demo video for an overview of the features and a look at YAML and the release definition templates. YAML... Read More

Python, Node.js, Go client libraries for Azure Event Hubs in public preview

$
0
0

Azure Event Hubs is expanding its ecosystem to support more languages. Azure Event Hubs is a highly scalable data-streaming platform processing millions of events per second. Event Hubs uses Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP 1.0) to enable interoperability and compatibility across platforms. Now, with the addition of new clients, you can easily get started with Event Hubs.

We are happy to have the new client libraries for Go, Python, and Node.js in public preview. Do your application logging or click stream analytics pipelines, live Dashboarding, or any telemetry processing with our rich ecosystem offering language of your choice.

Ingest and consume events/logs from your Python applications or stream with your Node.js applications or simply integrate with your Go applications. You now have a wide palette to choose from based on your needs.

The following updates will provide more insights into the public preview of the new client libraries.

  • Event Hubs for Go, this new package offers you easy-to-use Send and Receive functions which communicates with the Event Hubs service using the AMQP 1.0 protocol as implemented by the github.com/vcabbage/amqp. What more? It also offers the Event Processor Host to manage load balancing and lease management for the consumers. The readme helps you with getting started with the library.
  • Event Hubs for Node.js, this package offers the efficient ingestion and consumption functionality that connect to the service using the AMQP 1.0 protocol, as implemented by rhea. Follow the readme go get started with Event Hubs using the Node.js clients.
  • Event Hubs for Python,  unleash the easy-to-use send and receive features where in this client package talks to Event Hubs using AMQP 1.0 protocol as implemented by azure-amqp-c. Follow the examples and readme to get started with Event Hubs using the Python clients.

Try these new client libraries by following the link to the language of your choice from our Event Hubs GitHub repo.

While these client libraries are in preview, we want to improve. Give us your valuable feedback and post below any questions or comments you have. For questions or issues about specific client libraries, open GitHub issues for the respective libraries.

Happy event-ing!

The Azure Event Hubs Team.

Explore SaaS analytics with Azure SQL Database, SQL Data Warehouse, Data Factory, and Power BI

$
0
0

Continuing our series of tutorials on SaaS application patterns with SQL Database, we are delighted to announce an additional cross tenant analytics tutorial. This new tutorial shows how to extract and load tenant data into Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW) using Azure Data Factory (ADF) and then analyze it in Power BI.

 

adf_overview

In this tutorial, ADF is used to orchestrate data movement from tenant databases into a SQL Data Warehouse. Parameterized ADF V2 (preview) pipelines are defined to iterate across tenant databases, loading data from multiple databases in parallel. To accelerate loading, ADF stages extracted data in blob files and then uses PolyBase to load into SQL DW. Staging the data and enabling PolyBase are simple check-box operations in ADF.

The tutorial uses an Extract, Load and Transform (ELT) pattern – once data is loaded into staging tables in SQL DW, ADF invokes a stored procedure to upsert the data into star-schema tables, ready for query. Power BI is then used to visualize the data and extract insights that in the tutorial scenario can help the ISV improve their ticket selling application and business.

Get started

To get started check out the analytics tutorial which provides step-by-step instructions to perform cross-tenant analytics for the sample Wingtip Tickets SaaS application.

Global VNet Peering now generally available

$
0
0

Today, I am thrilled to announce the general availability of Global VNet Peering in all Azure public regions, empowering you to take the ease, simplicity, and isolation of VNet peering to the next level.

Azure’s Virtual Network (VNet) is a logical isolation of Azure which enables you to securely connect Azure resources to each other. VNet lets you create your own private space in Azure – your own network bubble, as I like to call it.

With Global VNet Peering available, you can enable connectivity across all Azure public regions without additional bandwidth restrictions and as always keeping all your traffic on the Microsoft Backbone. Global VNet Peering provides you with the flexibility to scale and control how workloads connect across geographical boundaries, unlocking and applying global scale to a plethora of scenarios such as data replication, database failover, and disaster recovery through private IP addresses. You can also share resources across different business unit VNets, the hub-and-spoke model, as we refer to it, through a global peering connection. As your organization grows across geographic boundaries, you can continue to share resources like firewalls or other virtual appliances via peering.

We announced VNet peering at Microsoft Ignite 2017 bringing you the ability to connect two virtual networks within any Azure region through the Azure backbone network. Once peered, the two virtual networks appear as one for a coherent connectivity experience – an expansion of your network bubble, so to speak. While the VNets are still managed as separate resources, the virtual machines in the peered networks can communicate with each other directly through their private IP addresses – no gateways, no public IP addresses, no internet, no extra hops. The limitation back then, was that both VNets needed to be in the same region, and with this announcement, that limitation have been lifted.

Details

  • You can peer across VNets in any Azure public regions with non-overlapping address spaces.
  • You can globally peer across deployment models. Classic VNets can be peered to Resource Manager VNets.
  • You can globally peer across subscriptions.
  • When peering two virtual networks, a peering must be configured for each virtual network in the peering. You see one of the following types for peering status:
    • Initiated: When you create the peering to the second virtual network from the first virtual network, the peering status is Initiated.
    • Connected: When you create the peering from the second virtual network to the first virtual network, its peering status is Connected. If you view the peering status for the first virtual network, you see its status changed from Initiated to Connected. The peering is not successfully established until the peering status for both virtual network peerings is Connected.
  • Traffic across globally peered links is completely private and stays on the Microsoft Backbone.
  • Germany, China, and Azure Government regions are not currently supported.

For more information, check out our requirements section of our documentation.

Get started today

Setting up a Global VNet peering connection is as easy as two steps. Check the video below out to set up a Global VNet peering connection in the Azure portal.

And that’s it! Just two clicks. Azure automatically adds the routes for you making it easy to manage. See the snapshot of the Effective routes of a VM residing in a globally peered VNet.

Global VNet

Go global with Global VNet peering! Feel free to join the conversation on twitter @AnaviNahar!

For more information, please visit the Global VNet Peering website. 

Pricing | Create, change, delete a virtual network peering | VNet Peering Overview | Service Update

*This blog will not be updated. Please refer to documentation and service updates for the latest scoop!

Monitor Microsoft peering in ExpressRoute with Network Performance Monitor – public preview

$
0
0

We are excited to announce the public preview of Network Performance Monitor’s (NPM) new capability to monitor Microsoft peering in ExpressRoute. This complements NPM’s generally available capability to monitor ExpressRoute’s Azure Private peering. Throughout this post, I will walk you through some of the important use cases of the capability.

Get complete visibility into the ExpressRoute connection to the Microsoft services

It can become extremely difficult to identify the bottleneck when a performance degradation is experienced while accessing a Microsoft service over ExpressRoute. This is because an ExpressRoute connection comprises of various components. With this capability, you can now get the required end-to-end visibility through NPM’s interactive topology view. You can not only view all the constituent components – on-premises network, circuit provider edge, ExpressRoute circuit, Microsoft edge, but also the latency contributed by each hop to help you identify the troublesome segment.

The following snippet illustrates a topology view where the on-premises computer on the left is connected to the Microsoft service (outlook.office365.com) on the right, over primary and secondary ExpressRoute Microsoft peering connections. The service provider router at the customer edge and the Microsoft router at the Azure edge are also depicted. The on-premises hops (depicted by dashed lines) are initially compressed. From this map, you can view the latency contributed by each segment and identify the troublesome hop. You can also choose to expand the map to view all the on-premises hops and understand the latency contributed by them.

image

Monitor connectivity to Microsoft online services, over ExpressRoute

You can now monitor the end-to-end connectivity between your on-premises resources (branch offices, datacenters, and office sites) and Microsoft online services (Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure PaaS services) connected through an ExpressRoute. NPM proactively sends you alert notifications whenever the loss and latency of the connection shoots over the set threshold. You can catch transient issues by observing the performance trend charts, and drill-down deep into historical issues by viewing the past state of the system through the network state recorder.

Understand bandwidth utilization

The capability lets you view the bandwidth utilization trends for your Microsoft peering for both the primary and secondary circuits, and as a result, helps you in capacity planning.
 

image
You can also setup alerts to notify when the bandwidth for the peering crosses the threshold.
 

Diagnose connectivity issues

NPM helps you diagnose several circuit connectivity issues, such as when the circuit is down, traffic is not flowing through the circuit, one of the primary or secondary connections is down, performance degradation due to peak utilization, etc. Visit the Diagnostics section in the ExpressRoute monitoring documentation for more details.

Create custom queries and views

All data that is exposed graphically through NPM’s UI are also available natively in Log Analytics search. You can perform interactive analysis of data in the repository, correlate data from different sources, create custom alerts and views, and export the data to Excel, PowerBI, or a shareable link.

Get started

To get started, see the detailed instructions on how to setup ExpressRoute Monitor in NPM and learn more about the other capabilities in NPM.

Please send your feedback

There are a few different routes to give feedback:

  • UserVoice: Post new ideas for Network Performance Monitor on our UserVoice page.
  • Join our cohort: We’re always interested in having new customers join our cohorts to get early access to new features and help us improve NPM going forward. If you are interested in joining our cohorts, simply fill out this quick survey.

Announcing the DevOps Resource Center

$
0
0
One of the favorite parts of my job is curating a web site with the stories of how we work. Those experience reports and more of our guidance are now  consolidated at https://aka.ms/devops. In addition to our own stories, this center offers content to help your team learn DevOps practices, Git (including Git at scale),... Read More
Viewing all 10804 articles
Browse latest View live


<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>