AzUpdate: Windows Virtual Desktop Update, new AKS features, Red Hat & Confidential Computing!
Published May 01 2020 12:04 AM 5,309 Views
Microsoft

With so much happening in the world it can challenging to keep up with everything.  In this update I wanted to highlight some things that have happened this week as well as highlighting some great content that was created this week.  Also, tune in for our live stream later today.

 

 

Secure Channel/Expired Machine Account Password Concerns – Revisited

 

When COVID-19 hit a lot of countries, people, organisations and IT departments had to think fast in order to help people stay safe and facilitate working from home where possible.  A lot of IT departments had to think fast, some even just told their employees to lift their machines and take them home.

 

A lot of people are now starting to think about what that means for “stale” device passwords for those devices that are running in people’s home without any kind of VPN or connectivity.

 

Michael Hildebrand and the team have put together this great article that covers off those scenarios, explains what to think about and how to fix any issues you might encounter.

 

DCsv2-series VM now generally available from Azure confidential computing

Protecting your data is something that every organization is keen to do and Azure Confidential Computing, offers the functionality of protecting your data while it is in use.  This month we’ve seen the introduction of the DCsv2-series VMs within the Azure Confidential Computing range.  This series of machine is backed with the latest generation of Intel XEON E-2288G Processor with SGX technology. 

 

Windows Virtual Desktop Spring Update enters Public Preview

On the 29th of March the Spring Update Release of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) entered Public Preview. This means anyone can go to the Azure Portal and deploy an WVD Workspace and test the new capability. This article discusses the new updates and capabilities in this new release, as well as changes and other items you need to consider when deploying Spring Update WVD deployments.

 

Unlimited SSO and new Azure AD features to simplify secure access management

Microsoft has extended the ability to use Azure AD single sign-on (SSO) for an unlimited number of cloud apps at no extra cost. Whether you need gallery apps or non-gallery apps, using OIDC, SAML or password SSO, they have removed the limit on the number of apps each user can be assigned for SSO access in Azure AD. This means any Microsoft customer using a subscription of a commercial online service such as Azure, Office 365, Dynamics and Power Platform can enable SSO for all their cloud apps, even with Azure AD Free. This complements their earlier announcement that multi-factor authentication (MFA) along with security defaults is free across all Azure AD pricing tiers, so every one of your apps can also be protected.

 

What should the discovery phase of a datacenter migration look like

I’ve been talking to customers and peers about datacenter migrations for a long time now, and regardless of the size of your organization or how you are moving to the Cloud everyone should start with a discovery stage.

 

Co-authored with Janet Moss, I’ve pulled together an article detailing what we think the discovery phase of your project should look like.  Take a read and let me know what your thoughts are, would love to hear from others on what they think should be part of the discovery phase.

 

Announcing the general availability of Windows Server containers and private clusters for Azure Kubernetes Service

 

This month has also seen the Azure Kubernetes Service(AKS) team announce that support for Windows Server container support is not generally available.  With the service now going generally available you can confidently move your production workloads and get the full benefits of AKS.

Private Clusters have also went generally available means you can run your managed Kubernetes environment inside your own private network, for those workloads that need the added security and compliance requirements.

 

Azure + Red Hat: Expanding hybrid management and data services for easier innovation anywhere

Microsoft and Red Hat have been working together for several years to support customers run their workloads both on prem and in the cloud.   This month we’ve seen an announcement that support for OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is rolling out to Azure Arc.  This will give customers who are running RHEL servers and OpenShift clusters across multiple platforms the ability to manage, secure and control them all from the Azure Portal. 

 

Azure Arc is still in public preview at the moment but it’s really exciting to see where the team are taking the product and I’m looking forward to future announcements.

 

Conclusion

I hope you all have a good weekend whatever you are up to, I’ve been researching and trying to figure out the right parts to order for a new PC (as my current one is 5 years old and starting to struggle), so I’m off to do more research and get some parts ordered. :grinning_face:

 

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‎Jul 02 2020 08:48 AM
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