This month, Azure portal updates include several new capabilities in Azure Data Explorer, management of Azure alerts in the mobile app, and termination of notifications for Azure virtual machine scale set instances.
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Here’s the list of updates to the Azure portal this month:
Analytics>Azure Data Explorer
- Manage language extensions in your cluster
- Deploy a cluster into your virtual network
- Adding an option to enable data purge operations on your cluster
Management>Monitoring
Compute>User Experience
Containers>User Experience
Compute>Shared Image Gallery
Intune
Let’s look at each of these updates in greater detail.
ANALYTICS>AZURE DATA EXPLORER
Manage language extensions in your Azure Data Explorer cluster (Preview)
The language extensions feature allows you to use language extension plugins to integrate other languages into your Azure Data Explorer KQL queries. When you run a user-defined-function (UDF) using a relevant script, the script gets tabular data as its input and is expected to produce tabular output. The plugin's runtime is hosted in a sandbox, an isolated and secure environment running on the cluster's nodes.
The following screenshot shows how to enable language extensions in an Azure Data Explorer cluster called “Kustodocs”, in the Configuration section:
More info is available here.
ANALYTICS>AZURE DATA EXPLORER
Deploy a cluster into your virtual network
A virtual network lets customers control their inbound and outbound traffic and can be defined at the moment a cluster is created. Azure Data Explorer supports defining a virtual network for the cluster to be deployed in.
More info is available here.
ANALYTICS>AZURE DATA EXPLORER
Adding an option to enable data purge operations on your cluster
Use data purge when you want to delete data from your device or service for data protection purposes or to support your obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To enable data purge on your cluster:
- In the Azure portal, go to your Azure Data Explorer cluster.
- In “Settings”, select “Configurations”.
- In the Configurations pane, select “On” to enable “Enable Purge”.
- Select “Save”
MANAGEMENT/MONITORING
Manage Azure alerts in the mobile app
We have added the ability to quickly and easily change Azure alert states from within the Azure mobile app. Now you can quickly change the state of an alert as soon as you receive it without having to go to your computer.
- Tap on the desired alert to see its details (either from the app's Home view or from the Notifications view)
- Under alert state, tap "Change"
- Select the alert state you want to update to, tap "Done"
COMPUTE>USER EXPERIENCE
Receive termination notifications for Azure virtual machine scale set instances
Scale set instances can opt in to receive instance termination notifications from the Azure portal. Users can set a delay timeout to the terminate operation. After receiving a terminate notification, the instance can be deleted at any time before the terminate timeout expires. Read more about termination notifications here.
CONTAINERS>USER EXPERIENCE
New functionality available for Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)
We've added a set of new features to the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) create in the Azure portal.
Multiple node pools and Windows support
We've added the ability to specify multiple node pools while creating an AKS cluster. You can now select multiple VM sizes and OS types (Linux and Windows) for your node pools, enabling customized clusters to support diverse container workloads right from the start.
Network settings
There are now two new options to the networking tab--private clusters and network policies. Private clusters use internal IP addresses to keep network traffic between the cluster API server and node pools on private networks only while network policies improve cluster security by allowing you to restrict access to certain pods with ingress and egress traffic rules. Both Calico Network Policies and Azure Network Policies are available.
System-assigned identity for cluster management
You can now optionally choose to use a system-assigned identity for cluster management instead of a service principal. This removes the burden of managing and updating a service principle, simplifying both the cluster create and cluster management.
Azure Container Registry integration
Connecting a container registry to a cluster is an important step in deploying an application, so we’ve made it easier to do so by adding the option to select or create an Azure Container Registry while creating an AKS cluster. With this option, a connection between the registry and the cluster will be created alongside the cluster, removing the manual steps required to link the two together.
COMPUTE>SHARED IMAGE GALLERY
Create VMSS from Shared Image Gallery
We have had support for creating a virtual machine (VM) from the Shared Image Gallery experience since we introduced Shared Image Gallery. Now, you can create a virtual machine scale set (VMSS) directly from the Shared Image Gallery experience. This new functionality will allow you to select the specific image version or an image definition to create a VMSS.
- Open your Shared Image Gallery
- Select an image definition from the grid in the Overview tab
- If you want to create a VMSS with the latest image version, you can click the Create VMSS button
b. If you want to create a VMSS with a specific image version, click the Image versions tab and select the version you want to create a VMSS from
3. Click the Create VMSS button
INTUNE
The Microsoft Intune team has been hard at work on updates as well. You can find the full list of updates to Intune on the What's new in Microsoft Intune page, including changes that affect your experience using Intune.
New videos on Azure portal “how to” video series
Have you checked out our Azure portal “how to” video series yet? The videos highlight specific aspects of the portal so you can be more efficient and productive while deploying your cloud workloads from the portal. The following new videos are available to help you make the most out of the Azure portal:
Keep checking our playlist on YouTube for new videos.
Next steps
The Azure portal has a large team of engineers that wants to hear from you, so please keep providing us your feedback in the comments section below or on Twitter @AzurePortal.
Don’t forget to sign in to the Azure portal and download the Azure mobile app today to see everything that’s new. See you next month!
