Logic Apps Aviators Newsletter - July 25
In this issue: Ace Aviator of the Month News from our product group News from our community Ace Aviator of the Month July’s Ace Aviator: Şahin Özdemir What's your role and title? What are your responsibilities? I currently work for Rubicon Cloud Advisor, a Dutch company specialized in digital transformations, cloud adoption and AI implementation. At Rubicon I fulfil the role of Application and Integration architect, while also being a Professional Scrum Trainer at Scrum.org. Even though this sounds like two completely different roles, in practice both go closely hand in hand. I firmly believe that good architecture, a strong development process, and application of best practices are key pillars for delivering high-quality solutions to my clients. Therefore, both roles come in handy in my day-to-day job (combined with my strong background in software development).\ I work closely with companies and their teams in making their journey to Azure - especially Azure Integration Services - successful. Most of the time this journey starts with a business need or challenge, and I work with my clients to get a deeper understanding of their needs. This results in further analysis, capturing requirements, defining architecture, solution design, setting the stage for development (ALM) and being involved in quality assurance. At the same time, I think it’s important to stay relevant from a technical perspective. That’s why I also like being involved with implementing the solution. This way, I hear the technical struggles teams face and I can help them to find the right solution. Can you give us some insights into your day-to-day activities and what a typical day in your role looks like? Not a single day is the same, although there are some recurring activities. Specific parts of my day (or sprint) are dedicated to Scrum-related activities - whether it's participating in the daily scrum, having sprint reviews with stakeholders, planning the next sprint, or refining the backlog with the team or just aligning with the PO or stakeholders. I’m frequently involved in cross-organizational meetings focused on projects at scale. I contribute from the perspective of architecture, technical expertise, and integration strategy. In my role as a solution architect, I'm engaged in designing and implementing a critical integration platform for my client. This platform connects and exchanges data between many internal departments and external vendors - an effort that requires frequent alignment and collaboration. I’m always looking for opportunities to expand our Hybrid Integration Platform itself. Exploring how Azure resources may add value to our platform and working closely with the team to realize such improvements to the platform’s capabilities is something I enjoy. Outside of the regular meetings, I often focus on designing new integrations. Having working sessions with stakeholders to understand what they want. Based on these discussions, I assess the technical and architectural aspects of the solution. Every integration that lands on the platform is measured against both architectural and development principles and guidelines. I contribute to reviewing the solutions that have been developed. Ensuring that each integration is high-quality, consistent, easy to understand, and maintainable. I support the platform team with, and whenever possible. And if time permits, I develop parts of the solution myself – I see this as a great way to stay relevant from a technological perspective. All the spare time I have, I spend on writing technical articles that may help others. What motivates and inspires you to be an active member of the Aviators/Microsoft community? Because I enjoy helping others. Every day I work with a team of smart professionals on integration solutions and custom code within the Azure platform. Along the way, we regularly encounter challenges, limitations, or issues. In those moments, it's incredibly helpful to find solutions online or to have a community that can think along with you. Over the past few years, there have been many occasions where I just couldn’t find a solution online for a technical problem with Logic Apps. In these cases, we either came up with a creative solution ourselves or received support from Microsoft. When the integration community faces a similar challenge, it’s pretty much wasteful to tackle the same hurdles again. By documenting an approach or solution, others may be saving their invaluable time looking for a solution. Looking back, what advice do you wish you had been given earlier that you'd now share with those looking to get into STEM/technology? It is ok that you don’t know everything. Just start doing, experiment, stay curious, challenge yourself, don’t be afraid to ask questions, fail, learn and keep going! What has helped you grow professionally? I have spent a fair amount of my career at a big consulting firm. I started off as a software engineer all the way up to senior manager and architect. A long journey like that gives great and well-dosed opportunities and learning experiences to focus on your technical (in-depth) skillset first, continued by working on you soft skills like consulting, guiding and leading teams, solutioning and architecture. If I had not followed this path at that company, I would not be the person I am now professionally. Be ok with the fact that growth doesn’t happen overnight -no shortcuts, no magic pills. It's like a good red wine that needs time to mature. So do many challenging projects, become all-round and then choose a specialization, ask for constructive feedback, fail many times and take your time to reflect and learn. And don’t forget to have a strong work ethic and ongoing curiosity to learn new things. In the end I found that - from a technological perspective-, quality attributes (the “-illities”), enterprise application integration and scrum made my heart skip a beat. So my advice is to always pursue what brings you joy! If you had a magic wand that could create a feature in Logic Apps, what would it be and why? Overall, I must say that I’m happy with the current state of Logic Apps. Nevertheless, if I had a magic wand: I would like to see that the service plans for Logic App standard would be in line with Function Apps. The plans for Function apps have way better tiers from both memory, cores and pricing perspective. And being able to scale out and in based on specific metrics is more flexible than Logic App Standard currently offers. Having more CPU/memory available in the plans would also improve the overall performance of Logic Apps in general, even though performance optimizations of many actions would also be more than welcome. What I currently really miss in the HTTP connector (and possibly others) is the ability to have better control over the request timeouts. Even though the setting is there, it is capped to 4 minutes max. In practice, we need to deliver data to external APIs that work synchronously and take more time to complete. Giving better control on these timeouts would make the usability of workflows even better! Even though some nice additions to the initialization of variables have been made recently, I would like to see the ability to initialize variables at any point in the workflow. E.g. the foreach loop can be executed in parallel, and therefore the current global variables are not thread-safe, which leads to unexpected behavior. News from our product group Logic Apps Live June 2025 Missed Logic Apps Live in June? You can watch it here. We focused on the Logic Apps big announcements from Integrate 2025. There are a lot of great things to check! Feedback Opportunity: SRE Agent + Logic Apps Discover the new Applications feature in Azure API Management, enabling OAuth-based access to APIs and products. Streamline secure API access with built-in OAuth 2.0 application-based authorization. Configure SQL Storage for Standard Logic Apps Azure Logic Apps traditionally rely on Azure Storage to manage workflow states and runtime data. However, with the introduction of SQL as a storage provider (currently in preview), developers now have a compelling alternative that offers greater control, flexibility, and integration with existing SQL infrastructure. This post explores the benefits, configuration steps, and considerations for using SQL storage with Standard Logic Apps. Announcing General Availability: Azure Logic Apps Standard Automated Test Framework We’re excited to announce the General Availability (GA) of the Azure Logic Apps Standard Automated Test Framework—a major step forward in enabling developers to build, test, and maintain enterprise-grade workflows with confidence and agility. Announcing General Availability: Azure Logic Apps Standard Custom Code with .NET 8 We’re excited to announce the General Availability (GA) of Custom Code support in Azure Logic Apps Standard with .NET 8. This release marks a significant step forward in enabling developers to build more powerful, flexible, and maintainable integration workflows using familiar .NET tools and practices. With this capability, developers can now embed custom .NET 8 code directly within their Logic Apps Standard workflows. This unlocks advanced logic scenarios, promotes code reuse, and allows seamless integration with existing .NET libraries and services—making it easier than ever to build enterprise-grade solutions on Azure. Business Process Tracking Reaches General Availability Business Process Tracking provides key insights to business stakeholders from your Logic Apps (Standard) implementation in an efficient and timely manner. Today, we are pleased to announce the General Availability of this capability, allowing customers to leverage in their production workloads. Announcement: General Availability of Logic Apps Hybrid Deployment Model We’re excited to announce the Public Preview of two major integrations that bring the power of Azure Logic Apps to AI Agents in Foundry – Logic Apps as Tools and AI Agent Service Connector. Learn more on our announcement post! Announcing Public Preview: Organizational Templates in Azure Logic Apps We’re excited to announce the Public Preview of Organizational Templates in Azure Logic Apps— empowering teams to author, share, and reuse automation patterns across their organization. With this release, we’re also rolling out a brand-new UI experience to easily create templates directly from your workflows—no manual packaging required! OpenTelemetry in Azure Logic Apps (Standard and Hybrid) OpenTelemetry provides a unified, vendor-agnostic framework for collecting telemetry data—logs, metrics, and traces—across different services and infrastructure layers. It simplifies monitoring and makes it easier to integrate with a variety of observability backends such as Azure Monitor, Grafana Tempo, Jaeger, and others. For Logic Apps—especially when deployed in hybrid or on-premises scenarios—OpenTelemetry is a powerful addition that elevates diagnostic capabilities beyond the default Application Insights telemetry. Logic App Standard - When High Memory / CPU usage strikes and what to do Monitoring your applications is essential, as it ensures that you know what's happening and you are not caught by surprise when something happens. One possible event is the performance of your application starting to decrease and processing becomes slower than usual. This may happen due to various reasons, and in this blog post, we will be discussing the High Memory and CPU usage and why it affects your Logic App. We will also observe some possibilities that we've seen that have been deemed as the root cause for some customers. Introducing Agent in a Day Agent in a Day represents a fantastic opportunity for customers to participate in hackathon-style contests where attendees learn how to build agents and then can apply them to their unique business use cases. For Partners, Agent in a Day represents a great way to engage your customers by building agents with them and uncovering new use cases. Introducing Confluent Kafka Connector (Public Preview) We are pleased to announce the introduction of the Confluent Kafka Connector in Logic Apps (Standard) which allows you to both send and receive messages between Logic Apps and Confluent Kafka. Confluent Kafka is a distributed streaming platform for building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications. It is used across many industries including financial services, Omnichannel retail, autonomous cars, fraud detection services, microservices and IoT deployments. Our current connector offering supports both triggers (receive) and sending (publish) within Logic Apps. News from our community Logic App Standard: Throw exceptions like a pro! Post by Şahin Özdemir Learn how to throw exceptions in Logic App Standard using a simple Compose action—no code needed, just clever workflow design. Azure Logic Apps: are you handling large blobs? Keep memory usage under control. Post by Stefano Demiliani Struggling with large blob files in Logic Apps? Learn how to keep memory usage under control and avoid out-of-memory errors with smart workflow design and a few performance-boosting tricks De SOAPing Services SOAP to REST using Azure API Management Video by Stephen W Thomas Struggling with legacy SOAP integrations from BizTalk to Azure? Check out this video on simplifying SOAP-to-REST conversions using Azure API Management and learn how easily you can manage SOAP envelopes and streamline your Logic Apps integrations! Integrating Entra ID and AI Agent workflows in Azure Logic Apps Post by Brian Veldman Discover how to build AI-powered workflows in Azure Logic Apps that interact with Entra ID, automate tasks, and adapt dynamically using agentic tools and OpenAI models. Advanced KQL Queries for Logic Apps in Application Insights: A Practical Guide Post by Dieter Gobeyn Boost Logic App performance with advanced KQL queries in Application Insights—spot bottlenecks, analyze slow actions, and optimize workflows without upgrading your hosting plan. How to Build an AI Agent with Azure Logic Apps Post by Cameron McKay Learn how to build your first AI Agent in Azure Logic Apps using Agent Loop—connect to OpenAI, design smart prompts, and automate tasks like weather reporting with low-code workflows. You Can Now Initialize All Your Variables In One Single Action Post by Luis Rigueira You can now initialize multiple variables in Logic Apps with a single action—making your workflows cleaner, faster, and easier to manage. It is a Friday Fact, brought to you by Luis Rigueira! Integration Insights Podcast: The Future of Integration Video by Sagar Sharma and Jochen Toelen In this two-part episode of the Integration Insights podcast, Sagar, Joechen and Kent dive into how integration is evolving in a cloud-first world. From BizTalk migrations to hybrid deployments with Azure Arc, they share practical insights and best practices to future-proof your integration strategy. A must-listen! You can watch part 2 here. Event Grid vs Service Bus vs Event Hubs vs Storage Queues: Choosing the Right Messaging Backbone in Azure Post by Prashant Singh Confused by Azure’s messaging options? This guide breaks down Event Grid, Service Bus, Event Hubs, and Storage Queues—helping you choose the right tool for real-time events, telemetry, enterprise workflows, or lightweight tasks. IntelliSense in Logic Apps Just Got Smarter – Matching Brackets in the Expression Editor! Post by Sandro Pereira Logic Apps just got a lot friendlier—bracket matching in the expression editor now highlights pairs as you type, making it easier to write and debug complex expressions.A Friday Fact from Sandro Pereira. How to Build Resilient Integrations for Mission-Critical Systems Post by Lilan Sameera Learn how to build resilient integrations for mission-critical systems using Logic Apps, Service Bus, and Event Hub—ensuring reliable data delivery, smart retries, and clean outputs even under pressure.Get Ready for Azure Integration Services at Microsoft Ignite 2024
Microsoft Ignite 2024 is just around the corner, and we’re excited to share how Azure Integration Services is taking center stage this year! Whether you're attending in person in Chicago or virtually from anywhere in the world, this is your chance to dive deep into the latest innovations in enterprise integration, AI-powered automation, API governance, and much more. Mark your calendars for these must-see sessions: Breakout sessions Modernize Enterprise Integration with Azure Integration Services Date: Thursday, November 21, 2024 Time: 12:30 PM - 1:15 PM Pacific Standard Time Session Code: BRK150 Speakers: Divya Swarnkar, Kent Weare In today’s rapidly evolving digital world, modernizing enterprise integration is critical to maintaining a competitive edge. This session will explore how Azure Integration Services can streamline and automate your processes, ensuring business continuity while driving transformation. We’ll cover how hybrid deployment models seamlessly connect on-premises systems with the cloud and demonstrate how to transition from legacy platforms like BizTalk to Azure Integration Services—all while preserving your existing investments. Now that you have a solid foundation, we’ll showcase how Azure Logic Apps can integrate AI into your workflows, reshape every business process, and reinvent customer experiences. If you’re looking to modernize your enterprise integration, unlock new opportunities, and stay ahead without disrupting your business operations, this session is for you. Effective API Governance in the Era of AI with Azure API Management Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2024 Time: 3:00 PM - 3:45 PM Pacific Standard Time Session Code: BRK143 Speakers: Mike Budzynski, Julia Kasper As APIs continue to drive innovation, effective governance becomes more important—especially when it comes to managing the complexity of AI-driven workloads. In this session, we’ll dive into how Azure API Management can help you implement a robust API governance model that ensures security, compliance, and scalability for AI and other critical APIs. Learn how to leverage Azure’s powerful tools like Azure API Management, Azure Policy, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud to accelerate API development, enhance reliability, and stay ahead of evolving security requirements—all without slowing down innovation. Demo GenAI Gateway Capabilities in Azure API Management Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2024 Time: 9:00 AM - 9:15 AM Pacific Standard Time Session Code: THR509 Speakers: Nima Kamoosi, Fernando Mejia GenAI apps are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with APIs. This quick but impactful demo will show you how GenAI gateway capabilities in Azure API Management can help overcome scalability, security, and monitoring challenges in GenAI app development. We’ll demonstrate how you can configure Azure API Management to authenticate and authorize LLM (Large Language Model) endpoints, enforce token consumption limits, monitor usage, and implement load balancing—all within the familiar environment of Azure. Don’t miss this opportunity to see how these capabilities can streamline your GenAI app development. In-Person Expert Meetup at Microsoft Hub Want to dive even deeper into the world of Azure Integration Services? Join us at the Expert Meetup stations in the Microsoft Hub at Ignite for in-person demos and to ask questions directly to the product experts and team members. This is a great opportunity to engage with the people behind the solutions and get tailored advice on your integration challenges. Don’t Miss Out! Microsoft Ignite 2024 offers a unique chance to gain firsthand insights into the latest trends and solutions shaping the future of enterprise integration and API management. Register today to secure your spot and take advantage of these exciting sessions, demos, and expert meetups.Azure Integration Services Quarterly Highlights and Insights 2024'Q2
Welcome to the second installment of our quarterly blog series featuring the latest updates and highlights from Azure Integration Services. Over the past few months, we've witnessed several exciting developments, from new product releases to insightful customer stories, all showcasing the continued innovation and impact of Azure Integration Services in driving digital transformation.Azure Innovation Forum: Unleash the Power of a Modern Integration Platform
In their drive to deliver innovative connected experiences, businesses have seen a sharp rise in the number of applications they manage. Effectively integrating these applications that stretch across on-premises and multi-cloud environments is a challenge. Achieving seamless integration is not only crucial for efficient operations, but it's also a key strategy to outpace competitors in the market. We are excited to announce, "Unleash the Power of a Modern Integration Platform", the latest in the Microsoft Azure Innovation Forum webinar series, scheduled for October 5, 2023, at 2:00 PM GMT. In this 90-minute, interactive session, you will hear from analysts, product leaders, and our customers on how Azure Integration Services accelerates innovation, boosts productivity, and promotes a competitive advantage. Reserve your place today.Azure Integration Services Quarterly Highlights and Insights 2024'Q1
Welcome to the first in a new series of quarterly blogs that will feature the latest and greatest from Azure Integration Services. With so many exciting new Azure products, Microsoft events, and updates from our partners and customers throughout the year, this series is your chance to revisit the highlights that continue to enable digital transformation with Azure Integration Services.
