Azure & .NET Digest #9: API Center Integration with Amazon API Gateway, Azure SDK Release
Victor Karabedyants
MSDP in Software Engineering, CTO, MBA, Cloud Manager at Sitecore | AI Engineer | Azure Solutions Architect | Azure Administrator | Azure Security Engineer | Azure Developer | Azure Data Engineer and Devops| CKA
Hello everyone! Welcome to the Azure Weekly Update. There are several updates across many areas. Let's dive in!
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1. Azure Landing Zones & Terraform
to Azure Landing Zones :
● proven Azure modules for deployment , providing better workload support with preconfigured resources and parameters.
● Bicep support for Azure Verified Modules is planned for later this year.
● This update replaces the old CAF Enterprise Scale module for Terraform.
2. Azure Confidential Ledger ISO Certification
Azure Confidential Ledger is now ISO 27001 certified, a globally recognized standard for managing and protecting information assets.
● Built on blockchain for data storage, protected from unauthorized access.
● Provides encryption during storage, transmission, and use. This certification provides additional assurance of secure information management.
3. Integrating API Center with Amazon API Gateway
Azure API Center now integrates with Amazon API Gateway.
● Centralized accounting and synchronization for APIs, whether they are Azure-based or external.
● Previously supported Azure API Gateway; now adds Amazon API Gateway for a complete unified view of your APIs.
4. Entra Identity Score – new recommendations
Azure Entra Identity Score helps you improve your identity posture over time. New recommendations include:
● Enable MFA for administrator roles.
● Block legacy authentication.
● Don't extend password expiration unnecessarily.
● Protect users with sign-in risk and user risk controls.
● Password hash synchronization is recommended.
● Make sure there is more than one global administrator.
● Enable self-reset password.
These actions guide organizations to better protect personally identifiable information.
5. Azure OpenAI Services
New features are available in the East US 2 and Sweden Central regions:
● GPT-4 in real time : improved audio interaction capabilities.
● Audio features : new voices, cue caching, and preview for audio creation, analysis, and interaction.
6. Compute Update
Azure Reservations - Updated rates for M Series . Azure Reservations allow users to lock in discounts for a specific SKU in a specific region for one or three years. When reserving virtual machines, you can choose between instance size flexibility or capacity priority:
● Instance Size Flexibility applies discounts to different sizes within a SKU.
● Each size has a coefficient based on CPU and memory.
As of December 6, the M Series odds have been updated. Users should check their reservations and make any necessary adjustments.
Azure Red Hat OpenShift is now available in Spain Central . The joint product of Microsoft and Red Hat, Azure Red Hat OpenShift, is now available in Spain Central.
New features of Azure Dev Test Labs
Hibernation Support (Preview) . Similar to hibernation on a PC, this feature shuts down a VM, saving memory and device state to disk. This means users stop paying for compute resources but continue to pay for storage. Very useful for labs with long startup times.
● Gen 2 Virtual Machine Support: Unlike Gen 1 (BIOS-based), Gen 2 VMs use UEFI, which provides:
○ Virtual TPM
○ Secure Boot
○ Intel SGX (on compatible SKUs)
Improved VM Performance Diagnostics (Preview)
● Available through the VM Overview Monitoring Tab or the VM Insights Blade in Azure Monitor.
● Allows data collection on demand or continuous monitoring (every 5 seconds).
● Stores diagnostic data in a storage account.
● Provides new reports for performance analysis.
7. Networking Update
App Gateway - Extended support for custom error pages . Azure App Gateway (Layer 7 load balancer) now supports custom error pages for additional status codes:
● Previously supported: 403 (Forbidden), 502 (Bad Gateway).
● Now also supported: 400, 405, 408, 500, 503, 504.
● Custom pages can be applied globally or to specific listeners.
8. Storage Update
New Azure Data Box Appliances (Preview) . Azure Data Box provides offline data migration between on-premises and Azure. Two new appliances are available:
● 120TB NVMe-based Data Box
● 525TB NVMe-based Data Box
Main features:
● High-speed data transfer.
● SMB Direct support with RDMA.
● Up to 7GB/s copy speed via 100GbE.
● Next day delivery in most regions.
● BitLocker encryption for data protection.
● Future support for hardware encryption.
● High reliability and resistance to transportation.
9. Database Update
● Deadline: end of March 2025.
● TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will be deprecated.
● Ensure that clients connecting to Azure HDInsight support TLS 1.2+.
SQL Hyperscale - Database Shrink Support
● SQL Hyperscale separates compute and storage for high performance.
● New feature: ability to compress database to free up unused space.
● Uses the standard DBCC SHRINKDATABASE and DBCC SHRINKFILE commands.
10. Other Updates
● Support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 will end in March 2025.
● Any interactions with Azure Resource Manager (Portal, CLI, PowerShell, REST, etc.) must use TLS 1.2+.
● Available in the “Mooncake” region.
● Supports FIPS 140-2 Level 3 hardware security modules to meet security requirements.
● DeepSeek R1 is now available in Azure AI Foundry.
● Part of Azure's broad ecosystem of AI models.
● Available via serverless endpoint (pay-per-use without the need to manage infrastructure).
● Replaces old Azure AD PowerShell modules.
● Built on Microsoft Graph, but maintains backward compatibility with Azure AD PowerShell.
● Provides an intuitive experience for managing users, groups, applications, and service principals.
11. .NET Update
Azure SDK Releases . In January 2025, the Azure SDK team announced the release of several new client libraries that improve the development experience for .NET developers. Specifically, seven stable packages were released, including updates for resource management across Azure services such as Compute and Network. In addition, two beta packages were introduced for Cosmos DB and Language Text services.
Conclusion
That's all the Azure updates for this week! I hope this information was helpful. See you in the next release!
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