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General Availability of SQL FCI and AG Features SQL Server Enabled by Azure Arc

AbdullahMSFT — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 17:00:00 PDT

We have good news. Two business continuity features for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc are now generally available:

View Failover Cluster Instance
Manage Availability Group

With Azure Arc, these features help you manage high availability and disaster recovery for SQL Server workloads across on-premises, hybrid and multi- cloud environment. You can now manage them all from the comfort and convenience of the Azure portal.

View Failover Cluster Instance lets you see your failover cluster instances. You can find out things like:
- Which nodes are active or passive
- What is the network name
- What databases they have
- This capability mirrors the convenience of managing standalone instances of SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc.
- To learn more, read Viewing Always On Failover Cluster Instances in Azure Arc.
Manage Availability Group lets you check and control your availability groups. You can do things like:
- See what availability groups you have
- See their status and health
- Failover to another node, if needed
- To learn more, read Inventory and Status of Always On Availability Groups.

We want to hear your feedback about these features. Thank you for choosing Azure Arc-enabled SQL Server for your on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud solutions.

Simple Cybersecurity Steps Every Nonprofit Can Take Using Microsoft 365

KenelleMoore — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 14:15:07 PDT

As a nonprofit organization, it is common to think you are less likely to be targeted by cyber-attacks compared to larger, profit-driven enterprises. However, this misconception can leave you particularly vulnerable. Your organization frequently handles sensitive data, including donor information, financial records, and personal details of beneficiaries, making you an attractive target for cybercriminals. Additionally, you may operate with limited IT resources and cybersecurity knowledge, further increasing your risk.

Adversaries do not discriminate based on an organization's size or purpose. In fact, your perceived weaker security measures can make you more appealing to attackers. Whether it's a data breach, a phishing scam, or a ransomware attack, the consequences can be devastating, leading to loss of donor trust, financial damage, and a tarnished reputation.

Thus, implementing robust cybersecurity measures is not just a technical necessity but a critical component of your operational integrity. Protecting your digital assets ensures that you can continue your important work without interruption and maintains the trust and confidence of those who support and rely on your services.

Your granted Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses offer a suite of cybersecurity tools that can help protect your organization from cyber threats, even if you're not tech-savvy. This blog post will guide you through simple steps every nonprofit can implement to enhance their cybersecurity using Microsoft 365.

Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

One of the easiest and most effective ways to secure your accounts is by enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to their accounts, which can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

Here is detailed Microsoft documentation on how to Set up multifactor authentication for users - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn.

Use Secure Passwords

While it may seem basic, using strong, unique passwords is crucial for cybersecurity. Encourage your team to create passwords that include a mix of upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters. Microsoft 365 can enforce password policies that require users to meet these criteria. To set up a password policy:

Navigate to the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Click on Settings > Security & privacy.
Select Password policy and adjust the settings to ensure strong passwords are used across your organization.

Here is detailed information on Password policy recommendations - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn.

Regularly Update Software

Keeping your software up to date is a simple but powerful defense against cyber threats. Updates often include patches for security vulnerabilities that, if left unaddressed, could be exploited by hackers. Microsoft 365 makes it easy to keep your software up to date:

An Admin can ensure that automatic updates are turned on in the Microsoft 365 admin center Configure update settings for Microsoft 365 Apps - Deploy Office | Microsoft Learn OR
Regularly check for updates in each Microsoft 365 application by going to File >
Account > Update Options > Update Now.

Educate Your Team

Awareness and education are your best defenses against cyber threats. Conduct regular training sessions to keep your team informed about the latest cybersecurity practices and threats. Utilize resources like Microsoft 365's Learning Pathways, the Security Skilling Hub, or Microsoft Security Virtual Training Days here Secure and Protect Nonprofit Data | Microsoft Nonprofits

Utilize Microsoft 365's Built-in Security Features

Microsoft 365 comes with a variety of built-in security features that can help protect your data. Some key features include:

Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection: Protects your emails against new, sophisticated attacks in real time.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Helps prevent sensitive information from accidentally being shared outside your organization.
Azure Information Protection: Allows you to classify and protect documents and emails by applying labels.

Additional Resources

By taking these simple steps, nonprofits can significantly enhance their cybersecurity posture with Microsoft 365. Remember, the goal is to make it as difficult as possible for potential cyber threats to penetrate your organization's defenses. With these practices in place, you can help secure your nonprofit's data and resources, ensuring that you continue to operate effectively and safely.

Windows Server 2025 Storage Performance with Diskspd

Dan Cuomo — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:59:34 PDT

Spoiler

Windows Server 2025 is the most secure and performant release yet! Download the evaluation now!

Looking to migrate from VMware to Windows Server 2025? Contact your Microsoft account team!

Windows Server 2025 is the most secure and performant release yet! Download the evaluation now! Looking to migrate from VMware to Windows Server 2025? Contact your Microsoft account team!

Windows Server 2025 Storage Performance with Diskspd

Hi Folks - Dan Cuomo here to talk about some improvements in Diskspd storage measurement and the improvements you'll see in Windows Server 2025 storage performance.

If you manage on-premises servers, you know one of the final tests you run before going to production is a performance test. You want to ensure that when you migrate virtual machines to that host, or you install SQL server on that machine, that you’re going to get the expected IOPS, the expected latency, or whatever other metrics you deem important for your business’ workloads.

So, after all the group policies have been applied, firewall rules are set, agents are installed and configured (or anything else you do in your deployment playbook), you download Diskspd, NTTTCP, and other performance testing tools you use to test this server compared to your baseline (if you don’t do this, you should be!).

Having this performance baseline allows you to answer questions like, “Is this cluster ready for production” or “Is my VM performing as expected on this hardware?” Without a solid performance baseline, you simply cannot answer these questions with confidence. In Azure, we operate some of the most performance demanding workloads in the world, so it is equally important for Microsoft to understand the storage performance of our servers. To do this, teams across Microsoft use Diskspd, our in-house developed and publicly available storage measurement tool. We continually improve Diskspd’s measurement capability so both you and our internal Microsoft teams can be confident and informed as you’re running your Windows Server workloads.

In this article, we’ll discuss two significant improvements (known as Batched Completions and Look-a-sides) in Diskspd measurement and what you need to know as a result. But before we begin, let’s put your mind at ease. Nothing is getting worse!

To that end, you may be wondering about the genesis of these improvements. Diskspd is being updated to handle modern workloads and hardware like NVMe. Our storage stack in Windows Server 2025 was also updated to leverage advances in NVMe storage (you can hear more about the storage performance improvements in Windows Server 2025 here and here)! During our testing of these capabilities, we improved our methods of latency measurement and found that we were now hitting the disk device limits when using Windows Server 2025!

The changes outlined in this article are available in Diskspd 2.2 and later. Download now!

New: Batched Completions

First, some background. When Diskspd starts, you specify the -o parameter which indicates the number of outstanding I/O requests to keep “in-flight.” If you specify -o 1 for example, Diskspd would issue one I/O, wait for its completion, then reissue another I/O. The higher the number of outstanding I/O’s, the more taxing in terms of performance requirements on the physical hardware.

Let’s use an analogy to understand how Diskspd measurement accuracy is improved with batched completions.

It’s that time of the day again – time to check the mailbox. You walk to the mailbox and find that there are 16 letters ready for you to pick up before you return to your home. Unless you’re counting steps for fitness-tracking, you’ll grab all the mail in the mailbox at one time before returning. How inefficient would it be to retrieve only one piece of mail from the mailbox, return to your home, read it, then go and get the next piece of mail from the mailbox again?! But that’s how Diskspd historically worked without batched completions.

Previously Diskspd would issue the requested number of I/Os (T0), then receive and record one I/O at a time (T1), then reissue that I/O (T2) before receiving and recording the other completed I/O (T3) even though it completed at the same time. This is the equivalent of taking one letter out of the mailbox, walking back to the house, reading and writing a response to the letter, then walking back to the mailbox, and picking up the next letter <repeat until all letters (I/Os) are read from the mailbox>. Historically, this wasn't a big problem because disks simply weren't fast enough for this issue to be observed anyway.

The processing of completed I/Os one at a time caused Diskspd to report higher storage latency than you could actually achieve on your system. Simply put, as disks have become faster, Diskspd needed a new way to track, record, and reissue completed I/Os.

Diskspd with Batched Completions

Now, with batched completions, Diskspd will receive all completed I/Os (letters in the mailbox) and record them as soon as they complete (T1). This reflects the actual time that I/Os completed and prevents Diskspd from inflating the storage latency.

To continue the mailbox example, now we walk to the mailbox once, pick up all the mail and return back inside the house. We still respond to the mail (reissue I/Os) one at a time.

New: Look-a-sides

Now let’s imagine you’re moving into a new home and have several new household items being delivered to the house. To simplify your move-in-day, you order some pizza for dinner as well.

The doorbell rings so you open your door and see the delivery truck with household items and the pizza delivery in front of your house. You take the box with all the household items, ignoring the pizza which is now sitting on your front porch getting cold, and begin to unbox everything in it. Once the box has been unpacked, you reopen your front door and pick up the pizza. For those of you that really enjoy cold pizza, this analogy might not seem like a big problem!

Diskspd recently implemented functionality called “look-a-sides” intended to address a scenario similar to the analogy above.

To understand the challenge, imagine there are 16 I/Os issued (T0) and 2 of those I/Os complete shortly after. Next, Diskspd receives I/O 1 and 2 (T1 using batched completions). While Diskspd is receiving the first set of completed I/Os, more I/Os (3 and 4) complete.

But Diskspd doesn’t record I/Os 3 and 4 as having completed yet. Instead, it continues its goal of reissuing I/Os 1 and 2. This delay in receiving and recording completed I/Os inflates the latency time measured by Diskspd unnecessarily. The more I/Os kept in-flight (the larger value for -o parameter) the more prominent this issue will become.

Diskspd with Look-a-sides

Now, with look-a-sides, Diskspd will receive I/Os 1 and 2 (T1) and begin to reissue IO 1 (T2). At the earliest possible opportunity, Diskspd will look at the completion queue to see if there are more I/Os that it can receive, and record as completed (T3).

Note: If there are no I/Os to receive, Diskspd simply moves on. In either event Diskspd continues reissuing any I/Os it has received (T4).

Recommendation #1: Re-baseline your storage performance

Since these changes can be so dramatic, you should re-baseline your storage performance using the latest version of Diskspd. Here are comparisons we ran using some representative hardware.

The numbers reinforce two things. First, the latency reduction is fairly dramatic regardless of the drive you use. The example on the right includes enterprise grade hardware. Next, you can see that the more IO’s Diskspd is told to keep in flight (Queue Depth) the more dramatic the measurement improvement.

Recommendation #2: Test IOPS and Latency Separately

There is a chance that when Diskspd performs a look-a-side it will find no additional competed I/Os. This is sort of a "Schrödinger's cat" situation because Diskspd cannot know there are no I/O’s waiting without looking in the completion queue (look-a-side) which uses a small amount of CPU resources.

Each time Diskspd performs a latency test the extra CPU used to perform the look-a-side effects the overall amount of I/O that can be pushed and lowers the reported amount of IOPS on the system. In a simple test using single thread, random 4K reads on a consumer disk, we found that IOPS reduced nearly 6% (59.5K IOPS to 56.1K IOPS) when testing latency with look-a-sides.

So, you might be asking yourself, “can I turn look-a-sides off if I just want to test IOPS?” The good news is that look-a-sides are only enabled once you specify the latency parameter (-L) with Diskspd. Therefore we recommend you perform two separate performance tests: one for IOPS (without -L) and one for latency (with -L). When using -L, your IOPS measurements will be a bit lower than the maximum achievable on the system.

Here are some example Diskspd commands for Latency and IOPS testing:

IOPS Testing
Diskspd.exe -t8 -o8 -b4k -r -w0 -Suw

Note: This is only an example. You may need to try various values for -o to find the maximum.

Latency Testing
Diskspd.exe -t1 -o1 -b4k -r -w0 -Suw -L

Note: With the fixes here, you could also try small increases like -o2 or -o4

Summary

To keep pace with the advances in disk speeds and the improvements in Windows Server 2025, we’ve made investments in our storage performance benchmark tool to get you an accurate measure of latency. These improvements were so drastic that we recommend that you run separate performance tests for latency and IOPS and re-baseline the server performance in your environment. Remember to download the latest version of Diskspd along with Windows Server 2025 evaluation.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback below as we continue to improve these tools.

Dan "Latency Reducer" Cuomo

Azure Database for MySQL - May 2024 updates and latest feature roadmap

ShreyaAithal — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 11:04:22 PDT

We're pleased to share a summary of the Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server announcements from Microsoft Build 2024 and last month, as well as the latest roadmap of upcoming features!

June 2024 Live webinar

These updates and the latest roadmap are also covered in our Monthly Live Webinar on YouTube (Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel!), which streams the second Wednesday of every month, at 7:30 AM Pacific time. Below is a link to the session recording of the live webinar we delivered earlier this week:

May 2024 updates and announcements

Microsoft Copilot in Azure: Unlock the benefits of Azure Database for MySQL with your AI companion (Public Preview)

We’re excited to announce Microsoft Copilot in Azure extends capabilities to Azure Database for MySQL. Microsoft Copilot in Azure is an AI-powered tool that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) and the Azure control plane to help you get answers to your general questions and receive high quality recommendations to real-time problems. With this new integration with Azure Database for MySQL, you can converse with Microsoft Copilot in Azure to discover new features, determine when to enable new features to supplement your own scenarios, learn from summarized tutorials to enable features or build applications, and obtain tips and best practice recommendations to avoid issues.

Learn more: Announcement blog | Demo video

Build RAG applications with Azure OpenAI and MySQL with Azure AI Search

We're excited to announce that you can now create Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications using Azure OpenAI and Azure Database for MySQL with Azure AI Search.

You can combine the smart, human-like responses of Azure OpenAI with MySQL's powerful database management and Azure AI Search's advanced search capabilities, making it easier to build apps that deliver relevant info quickly and efficiently. If you’re running applications (content management systems (CMS), e-commerce applications, or gaming sites) with data hosted in Azure Database for MySQL, enhance your user experience by building generative AI search and chat applications using LLMs available in Azure OpenAI and vector storage and indexing provided by Azure AI Search. Unleash the power of your data hosted on MySQL with the simple and seamless AI integrations on Azure!

Learn more: Demo video and sample architecture | RAG in Azure AI Search documentation

Achieve 2x increase in throughput using Accelerated Logs in Business Critical service tier (General Availability)

We're excited to announce the General Availability of Accelerated Logs, a feature that significantly boosts performance for write heavy workloads, offering up to a 2x improvement in throughput, out of the box, with no additional cost or application changes required. By reducing latency and enhancing data access speeds, the Accelerated Logs feature ensures that your mission-critical applications run more efficiently and smoothly on the Business Critical service tier. Try out this new feature to experience the difference in your workload performance!

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog | Demo video

Expand storage up to 32TB (General Availability)

You can now expand storage up to 32TB for your workloads using the Business Critical service tier. With storage auto-grow up to 32TB and auto-scale IOPs up to 80K, you can now run your large, growing mission-critical workloads worry-free on Azure!

Learn more: Announcement blog | Demo video

On-demand backup and export (Public Preview)

With Public Preview of the on-demand backup and export feature, you can now easily export a physical backup of your MySQL flexible server to an Azure storage account (Azure blob storage) with just a few clicks on the Azure portal or with a single CLI command whenever you want. After exporting backups to blob storage, you can use them for multiple purposes, including data recovery, redundancy, and availability, auditing, compliance, or to avoid vendor lock in.

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog | Demo video

Azure Database for MySQL Import supports Percona XtraBackup for external migrations to Flexible Server (General Availability)

Azure MySQL Import enables you to migrate your MySQL on-premises or Virtual Machine (VM) workload seamlessly to Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server. It takes advantage of a user-provided physical backup file (taken using Percona XtraBackup) and restores the source server's physical data files to the target server offering a simple and fast migration path. Based on user inputs, the feature takes up the responsibility of provisioning your target flexible server, then restoring the user-provided physical backup of the source server stored in the Azure Blob storage account to the target Flexible Server instance.

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog

Azure DMS: MySQL consistent snapshot without locks (Public Preview)

MySQL Consistent Snapshot is a new feature that allows users to take a Consistent Snapshot of a MySQL server without losing data integrity at source because of ongoing CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) operations. Transactional consistency is achieved without the need to set the source server to read-only mode through this feature. That is, with this feature, we don't take a read lock on the server. We instead read tables at different point in time, while keeping track of the different binlog positions of each table. This aids to reconcile the tables towards the end of the initial load by performing replication in catchup mode to get a consistent snapshot.

Learn more: Documentation | Announcement blog

Latest feature roadmap

Feature	Description	Release status	Coming soon! (Tentative*)
On-demand backup and export	This feature provides you with the ability to export at-moment physical backup of the server to an Azure storage account (Azure blob storage) using an Azure CLI command. After export, these backups can be used for data recovery, migration, data redundancy and availability, or auditing. Learn more.	Public Preview	General Availability in Q3 CY24
Flexible maintenance options	Building upon our existing system-managed and custom-managed maintenance windows, the following new flexible maintenance options aim to elevate user convenience and operational flexibility in server maintenance: Reschedule window: Tailor maintenance schedules to suit your business rhythm. On-demand maintenance: Instantly initiate maintenance activities using the Reschedule now option. Learn more.	Public Preview	General Availability in Q3 CY24
Near-zero downtime maintenance for HA servers	This feature is designed to substantially reduce maintenance downtime for HA-enabled servers, ensuring that in most cases, maintenance downtime is expected to be between 40 to 60 seconds. This capability is pivotal for businesses that demand high availability and minimal interruption in their database operations. Learn more.	Public Preview	General Availability in Q3 CY24
Virtual Canary	The Virtual Canary feature is an exciting solution for Azure MySQL users who prioritize staying at the forefront of technology by making sure that their servers always run the most current version. Servers opted in for virtual canary receive maintenance updates earlier in advance. You can also take advantage of the feature as an opportunity to perform an additional layer of update testing on your dev, test, or staging servers to help avoid workload-specific issues like application-level compatibility issues. The feature thus offers an efficient way to manage updates, align testing and production environments, and maintain operational stability with minimal disruption.	-	Public Preview in Q3 CY24
Long Term Retention of Backups	Previously with Azure Database for MySQL, you could retain automated backups and on-demand backups for up to 35 days. With Long Term Retention, you can now retain the backups up to 10 years, further accommodating your audit and compliance needs. Learn more.	Public Preview	General Availability in Q3 CY24
Error Logs (in Server Logs)	This feature allows you to maintain MySQL error log files under Server logs and download them for up to seven days. These error logs can help you efficiently identify and troubleshoot performance and reliability issues, and proactively detect and respond to unauthorized access attempts, failed login attempts, and other security-related events. Learn more.	Public Preview	General Availability in Q3 CY24
MySQL Discovery & Assessment in Azure Migrate	With this functionality, you can use Azure Migrate to discover MySQL servers in your environment, assess them by identifying their compatibility for moving to Azure Database for MySQL, and receive compute and storage SKU recommendations along with their costs. Learn more.	Private Preview	Public Preview in Q3 CY24

*The roadmap features and dates are tentative and subject to changes. Please stay tuned for continuous updates.

Conclusion

As we continue to work on new features and functionalities, your feedback is very critical for our improvement. If you wish to enroll in Private Preview for any of the above features, or if you have any suggestions for or queries about our service, email us at AskAzureDBforMySQL@service.microsoft.com.

To learn more about what's new with Flexible Server, see What's new in Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server. Stay tuned for more updates and announcements by following us on social media: YouTube | LinkedIn | X.

Join the Teams Insider Community

Miikka Oksanen — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 10:17:31 PDT

Using Teams with a personal account and interested in the latest updates and features? The Teams Insider program is an excellent option. You can join the Teams Insider program via the app settings or by using a direct link.

Additionally, if you wish to play a more active role in the development of the Teams app, consider joining the Teams Insider Community. Instructions on how to join can be found in a recent blog post.

As a member of the Teams Insider Community, you'll receive an invitation to the upcoming monthly call with the Teams product team, where you'll learn about the latest developments and future updates. For more details, refer to this blog post.

There are numerous opportunities to get involved and contribute to the development of the Teams app. Looking forward to connecting with everyone in the Teams Insider Community and during our next monthly call!

Miikka (Teams PM)