Logic Apps Aviators Newsletter - September 2026
In this issue: Ace Aviator of the Month News from our product group News from our community Ace Aviator of the Month September 2026's Ace Aviator: Parth Talaviya What's your role and title? What are your responsibilities? AI-Powered Azure/.NET Solution Architect I work as an Azure/.NET Solution Architect, combining technical leadership with building a Microsoft-focused boutique company. My work mainly revolves around application modernization and migration, cloud architecture, integrations, and team leadership. I also stay hands-on with development, architecture reviews, production troubleshooting, and mentoring developers. Can you give us some insights into your day-to-day activities and what a typical day in your role looks like? My day usually starts with thinking about how we can add more value to our clients' businesses. It includes reviewing project priorities, solving technical challenges, discussing architecture, supporting developers, and collaborating with stakeholders. I mainly work across .NET, Azure, APIs, integrations, DevOps, and AI automation, so every day brings something new to learn and solve. What motivates and inspires you to be an active member of the Aviators/Microsoft community? What really motivates me is how active and supportive the Microsoft community is. People are genuinely willing to help each other, share experiences, and solve problems together. Being able to use my own experience to help someone overcome a challenge genuinely makes my day, while learning from others keeps me motivated to continuously improve. 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? You don’t have to do everything alone. In technology, especially when you are stuck on a very specific problem, it can sometimes feel that way. Asking questions, learning from the community, and collaborating with others can make a huge difference. I would also say: embrace AI early, but use it wisely. Don’t use AI only to generate code. Use it to understand concepts, challenge your thinking, explore better approaches, review your work, and become a better problem-solver. What has helped you grow professionally? Continuous learning and solving real-world challenges have helped me grow the most. Working on legacy modernization, cloud architecture, large-scale data systems, automation, and AI has taught me to think beyond writing code and understand the broader business impact. Being part of a strong technical community has also helped significantly. Whenever you are stuck, there is often someone who has faced a similar challenge and is willing to share their experience. If you had a magic wand that could create a feature in Logic Apps, what would it be and why? I would create an AI-powered Copilot troubleshooting and self-healing assistant for Logic Apps. It could analyze failed workflows, understand the execution context, identify the likely root cause, suggest a fix, and provide safe recovery options. For complex integrations, this could save significant troubleshooting time and allow developers to focus more on building solutions rather than spending hours finding where something went wrong. News from our product group Use connectors with Managed Identity in the Logic Apps Standard extension Managed Identity is Azure's built-in way to authenticate to Microsoft Entra-protected resources without storing credentials, secrets, or connection strings. Deployed Logic Apps have supported it for some time, and this post explains connector support in the Logic Apps Standard extension. Introducing dependency telemetry in Application Insights for Azure API Management policies Running API platforms at scale requires both handling load and understanding where inefficiencies occur. This post introduces dependency telemetry in Application Insights for Azure API Management policies to help teams identify performance bottlenecks. Power Azure SRE Agent with the tools it needs Azure SRE Agent is an AI-powered service designed to reduce operational toil. Teams can use it to investigate incidents, identify probable causes, and automate health-related operational work using connected tools. Give your Copilot agents real tools, without hand-wiring MCP GitHub Copilot coding agents can work independently on branches, but some tasks require access to external systems. This post shows how to equip agents with real tools without manually wiring Model Context Protocol integrations. Zonal redundancy in API management Standard v2 APIs power modern mobile experiences, microservices, AI-driven applications, and business-critical integrations. This post explains zonal redundancy in Azure API Management Standard v2 for improving resilience as customers modernize their API platforms. BizTalk Server 2020 End-of-Sale Announcement Microsoft announces that BizTalk Server 2020 and Host Integration Server 2020 sales are expected to end on March 31, 2027. Existing licensed deployments can continue to be used, while mainstream support for BizTalk Server 2020 is scheduled through April 12, 2028. An optional paid extended-mainstream support offering is planned for eligible customers through April 10, 2030, with final terms to be published later. The post recommends beginning migration planning now, evaluating Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid, inventorying dependencies, and using the Logic Apps Migration Agent to assess and convert supported workloads. Logic App Storage Inspector Logic App Storage Inspector is a read-only Kudu site extension for examining storage used by an Azure Logic App Standard application. It supports searching workflow action and trigger history by workflow, date, or text, with results exportable as CSV or JSON. Users can browse and compare workflow-definition versions, review table and queue information, and monitor health indicators and refresh status. The extension isolates access to the current Logic App site, uses asynchronous paged operations for large storage accounts, and can be installed from Kudu Site Extensions. News from our community Azure Logic Apps Automation – A Practical Infrastructure Lab with Agentic Remediation Post by João Paulo Costa João Paulo Costa tests Azure Logic Apps Automation through an after-hours virtual-machine remediation lab. The workflow uses an agent to inspect VM metadata, tags, and runtime state, then apply guardrails before deciding whether to deallocate the resource, leave it unchanged, or request review. The article contrasts agentic decision-making with deterministic workflows, documents tool and connector choices, and examines preview limitations such as runtime-state retrieval and managed-identity support. It also emphasizes constrained permissions, explicit policies, verification after actions, and negative testing for production, exemptions, missing ownership, and disabled remediation. Agentic Integration: Non-Deterministic Experience, Solid Core Post by Massimo Crippa Massimo Crippa examines whether agentic capabilities make enterprise integration non-deterministic. He separates an agent’s variable decision-making from the predictable integration layer that executes selected capabilities. The article highlights durable messaging, reliable contracts, idempotency, transactional boundaries, retries, compensation, governance, and observability as continuing requirements. It presents tools as the boundary between reasoning and execution: agents determine what should happen, while integration platforms control how operations are performed safely. Azure Logic Apps is positioned as both a deterministic integration foundation and a platform that can expose governed capabilities to emerging agentic experiences. Build AI Agents in Azure Logic Apps (Conversational + Autonomous) Video by Rafsan Huseynov Rafsan Huseynov presents a video on building conversational and autonomous AI agents with Azure Logic Apps. The session describes Logic Apps as more than a background integration layer, covering orchestration, managed identities, agent loops, and the use of workflows as MCP tools. Demonstrations explore connections with Document Intelligence, Blob Storage, Microsoft Foundry, and Copilot Studio workflows, alongside conversational and autonomous agent patterns. The video also introduces a separate low-code automation experience with scoped permissions, while noting that the demonstrations use synthetic data and that the experience remains in preview. BizTalk to Logic Apps migration (three things, everyone gets wrong) Post by Brajesh Sinha Brajesh Sinha explains why simple counts of BizTalk orchestrations and maps produce unreliable Logic Apps migration estimates. One orchestration can fan out into several Azure resources, supposedly simple maps may hide substantial transformation complexity, and operational requirements are often omitted from statements of work. The article highlights the architecture, mapping, and production-readiness effort that teams frequently underestimate. It encourages migration planners to assess actual behavior and dependencies rather than relying on inventory totals, helping create more realistic timelines, scope, and delivery expectations. Hybrid Logic Apps on RKE2: a self-managed cluster with MetalLB Post by Sonny Gillissen Sonny Gillissen demonstrates how to run Azure Logic Apps Hybrid on a self-managed RKE2 Kubernetes cluster. Because RKE2 does not include a native load balancer, the walkthrough uses MetalLB to assign the ingress IP required by the deployment. It covers creating the cluster, configuring networking, connecting the environment to Azure Arc, and handling the platform-specific details needed for Logic Apps. The article provides a practical alternative for teams evaluating hybrid integration workloads outside managed Kubernetes services, extending earlier guidance for OpenShift environments. An Introduction to Logic Apps Standard SDK Video by Marcel Medina Marcel Medina shares a Coding Night ANZ recording introducing the Logic Apps Standard SDK. The session shows how the SDK brings a modern, code-first .NET development experience to Azure Logic Apps while retaining the platform’s connectors, triggers, monitoring, and managed runtime. It is aimed at developers who want familiar tooling and stronger source-driven workflow development without giving up managed integration capabilities. The post also thanks the community for its questions and participation and provides the complete session recording for anyone who missed the live event. Managed Identity in Logic Apps Standard: A Zero Trust Read Post by Steef-Jan Wiggers Steef-Jan Wiggers examines new Managed Identity support for connectors in the Logic Apps Standard local development experience. Developers can now use a consistent authentication model from development through production instead of swapping connection strings before deployment, removing a common source of unmanaged secrets. The article frames this improvement through Zero Trust while stressing that authentication alone does not replace disciplined RBAC. A working azd sample demonstrates the setup and highlights a critical application setting whose absence causes the otherwise correctly configured connection, access policy, and role assignment to fail.Depreciation of Custom Controls in favor of External MFA
Deprecation of Custom controls Custom controls are being deprecated in favor of External MFA. Existing configurations keep working during the transition, but you should begin migration planning now. Custom controls retire September 30, 2026, and reach end of life in May 2027. When will you see this change? Custom controls will be retired on September 30, 2026, and the service will reach end of life in May 2027. Who will be affected by this change? This update affects organizations currently using Custom controls to integrate third-party MFA providers with Conditional Access. How will this affect your organization? Organizations relying on Custom controls will need to transition to External MFA to maintain support and continue using third-party MFA solutions within Microsoft Entra ID. Moving to External MFA also enables more consistent Conditional Access enforcement and improved integration with Microsoft Entra security capabilities. What do you need to do to prepare? Organizations should: Review existing Custom controls integrations Evaluate External MFA migration requirements Test Conditional Access policies and user experiences before migration Begin migration planning ahead of the retirement date Read more in the External MFA General Availability announcement and migration guidance.Move to Modern SQL Server Licensing with Confidence
Why eligible customers should move to pay-as-you-go licensing (PAYG) For eligible SQL Server workloads, PAYG should be the preferred licensing approach when moving away from licenses and Software Assurance. It aligns billing with measured usage, adapts as the estate changes, and reduces the operational burden of managing fixed license quantities. The transition requires deliberate resource-configuration updates, but the result is a more flexible and manageable licensing model. Align cost with measured usage: Adopt consumption-based billing for eligible SQL Server resources instead of maintaining fixed license allocations. Scale without repeated license true-ups: Let billing adjust as workloads are added, removed, migrated, resized, or used intermittently. Manage licensing through Azure: Use Azure-based controls to review resource-level licensing and improve visibility across the estate. Reduce license administration: Spend less time tracking fixed quantities and aligning individual resources with license inventory. Optimize committed consumption: After establishing stable PAYG usage, evaluate applicable Azure savings plans or reservations to help reduce costs. Guidance for transitioning your resource settings Once your organization decides to adopt PAYG for eligible SQL Server workloads, update the license configuration on each resource so billing reflects that decision. A commercial or licensing change alone does not update resource-level settings. Plan this configuration work as part of the transition rather than treating it as a follow-up. Starting early gives teams time to validate security, networking, Azure Arc connectivity, billing, and operational processes before switching the broader estate. Automate the transition to pay-as-you-go SQL licensing at scale Choose the transition approach that fits your estate PowerShell for a controlled bulk change Use PowerShell when you need a targeted transition across a defined tenant, subscription, resource group, or resource scope. Discover and review resources before making changes. Test the transition with a limited scope. Update eligible resources in bulk when the organization is ready. Validate the resulting license configuration and billing signals. Azure Policy for ongoing governance Use Azure Policy to transition existing SQL resources to PAYG and continuously enforce the desired licensing configuration. Azure Policy helps identify configuration drift, maintain compliance, and automatically remediate non-compliant resources at scale. Define the approved license configuration for eligible resources. Assign policy at the appropriate subscription or resource group scope. Monitor compliance through centralized Azure views. Remediate resources that drift from the approved configuration. Recommended path to PAYG Commit to the PAYG target. Confirm which eligible workloads will move and identify the teams responsible for licensing, Azure, security, networking, and SQL operations. Prepare the estate. For SQL Server running outside of Azure, connect to Azure Arc. Inventory eligible SQL resources and confirm that Azure Arc connectivity and required organizational approvals are in place. Prove the transition. Test resource updates and billing behavior in a limited resource group or subscription. Move at scale. Use PowerShell for a controlled bulk transition, then apply Azure Policy for ongoing governance where appropriate. Verify and operate. Review the resulting configuration, monitor compliance, and reassess as the SQL estate grows or changes. Evaluate commitment-based savings. After establishing a stable PAYG usage pattern, assess whether an applicable Azure savings plan or reservation could reduce costs. Review eligibility, coverage, and commitment terms with your Microsoft representative. Learn more Automate the transition to pay-as-you-go SQL licensing at scale Manage licensing and billing of SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc Pricing guidance for SQL Server on Azure VMs Azure SQL Database pricing Eligibility, billing treatment, prerequisites, and available licensing options vary by resource and licensing arrangement. Review the applicable Microsoft terms and product guidance, and consult your Microsoft representative or licensing specialist as needed.
Exchange SE 15.2.2562.46: MRSProxy returns HTTP 401 after successful NTLM authentication
Hello, Anonymization note: The domain names contoso.com and contoso.local, the server name EXCH-SE-01, and the account name CONTOSO\MigrationAccount used in this post are anonymized placeholders. They do not represent the actual production domain, server, or account names. The Exchange versions, configuration values, HTTP status codes, diagnostic results, and sequence of events are unchanged. We are experiencing an issue with remote mailbox moves from Exchange Server Subscription Edition to Exchange Online. The Exchange Online migration endpoint and the following command both fail: Test-MigrationServerAvailability -ExchangeRemoteMove -RemoteServer "mail.contoso.com" -Credentials $cred The error returned by Exchange Online is: The connection to the server 'mail.contoso.com' could not be completed. The call to: https://mail.contoso.com/EWS/mrsproxy.svc failed with: The HTTP request is unauthorized with client authentication scheme 'Negotiate'. The authentication header received from the server was: 'Negotiate, NTLM'. The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized. Environment Exchange version: Exchange Server Subscription Edition RTM Installed update: August 2026 Security Update KB5121573 Binary version: 15.2.2562.46 Topology: Single Exchange server Mailbox role Classic Full Hybrid Operating system: Windows Server 2022 Exchange Online migration type: Remote Move / onboarding The environment does not have separate frontend and backend Exchange servers. Both the Client Access frontend and mailbox backend services are hosted on the same Exchange server. All checked MRS binaries have the same version: Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxReplicationService.dll Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxReplicationService.Common.dll Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxReplicationService.ProxyClient.dll Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxReplicationService.ProxyService.dll MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe File version: 15.2.2562.46 MRSProxy configuration Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory | Format-List Identity, MRSProxyEnabled, BasicAuthentication, WindowsAuthentication, WSSecurityAuthentication, OAuthAuthentication, ExternalUrl Current configuration: MRSProxyEnabled : True BasicAuthentication : False WindowsAuthentication : True WSSecurityAuthentication : True OAuthAuthentication : True ExternalUrl : https://mail.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx Extended Protection settings have been validated by the latest Exchange Health Checker: Default Web Site/EWS: Extended Protection = Allow SSL flags = Ssl, Ssl128 Authentication = Windows, Negotiate, NTLM Exchange Back End/EWS: Extended Protection = Require SSL flags = Ssl, Ssl128 Authentication = Windows, Negotiate, NTLM Anonymous authentication = enabled Exchange Health Checker reports: Exchange SE RTM Aug26SU Build Number: 15.2.2562.46 MRS Proxy Enabled: True Extended Protection configured correctly for EWS Default Web Site: Started Exchange Back End: Started MSExchangeServicesAppPool: Started Local MRS health All local MRS health checks pass: Get-MailboxServer | Test-MRSHealth | Format-Table Check,Passed,Message -Wrap Results: ServiceCheck : Passed RPCPingCheck : Passed MRSProxyPingCheck : Passed QueueScanCheck : Passed Migration accounts The test was performed with two different on-premises accounts. Both accounts return the same HTTP 401 result. The primary migration account: Enabled : True LockedOut : False PasswordExpired : False The account is also a direct member of: Organization Management One of the accounts used for testing also has domain administrative permissions, so the symptom does not appear to be caused by missing Exchange RBAC permissions. Changing the password and updating the credentials stored in the migration endpoint did not change the result. Failed Request Tracing results Failed Request Tracing was enabled temporarily for Default Web Site. The MRSProxy request is processed in three stages. Stage 1: anonymous request The initial anonymous request to: /EWS/mrsproxy.svc returns HTTP 401, which appears to be the expected authentication challenge. Stage 2: NTLM negotiation The next request shows: WindowsAuthenticationModule AUTH_SSPI_CONTINUE_NEEDED HTTP 401.1 0x8009030e This also appears to be the normal intermediate NTLM challenge. Stage 3: authenticated request The final request shows: Authentication type : Negotiate NTLMUsed : true AUTH_SUCCEEDED : true RemoteUserName : DOMAIN\MigrationAccount AuthUserName : DOMAIN\MigrationAccount The Exchange frontend also calculates the expected backend server. However, after authentication succeeds, the request ends with: ModuleName : ManagedPipelineHandler Notification : EXECUTE_REQUEST_HANDLER HttpStatus : 401 HttpSubStatus : 0 ErrorCode : 0 Therefore, Windows Authentication appears to complete successfully. The final HTTP 401 is returned later, while the Exchange/WCF MRSProxy handler is executing. No corresponding failed domain logon events are recorded in the Windows Security log. No new ASP.NET event stating: MRS proxy service is disabled is generated for the current requests. Additional checks already completed We have already verified the following: MRSProxyEnabled=True Test-MRSHealth passes Two migration accounts tested Migration account is in Organization Management Basic Authentication enabled temporarily for testing Windows Authentication enabled Negotiate and NTLM providers present Frontend Extended Protection set to Allow Backend Extended Protection set to Require Frontend TLS certificate valid Backend port 444 certificate valid MSExchangeServicesAppPool running Mailbox Replication Service running EWS physical paths valid WCF *.svc handler mapping present MRS binaries present and version-consistent Exchange server fully restarted IIS restarted MRSProxy disabled and enabled again Temporarily enabling Basic Authentication did not change the result. Using another migration account did not change the result. The dedicated Exchange hybrid application and Microsoft Graph hybrid flow are also configured and Test-OAuthConnectivity succeeds. We understand that this configuration is not used for MRS remote mailbox moves. August 2026 SU known issue We reviewed the Exchange Team announcement for the August 2026 Security Update. The article mentions that MRS migrations can fail if a backend mailbox server has the August 2026 SU while the frontend Exchange server proxying the connection is on an older build. This does not seem to match our topology because this is a single Exchange server and all MRS components are on version 15.2.2562.46. The error is also HTTP 401 rather than TooManyTransientFailureRetriesPermanentException. Questions Has anyone observed the following behavior after installing Exchange SE August 2026 SU, KB5121573? MRSProxyEnabled=True Test-MRSHealth passes NTLM authentication reaches AUTH_SUCCEEDED ManagedPipelineHandler returns final HTTP 401.0 Test-MigrationServerAvailability fails In particular: Is there a known issue in KB5121573 related to MRSProxy authorization after successful NTLM authentication? Does MRSProxy require any additional authorization configuration introduced by the August 2026 security changes? Is there a supported way to validate the MRSProxyAuthorizationManager decision? Are there additional diagnostic logs that show why the WCF MRSProxy handler returns HTTP 401 after AUTH_SUCCEEDED? Is reapplying KB5121573 the recommended repair action in this situation? Has anyone resolved the issue without recreating the EWS virtual directory or disabling Extended Protection? We have retained the following diagnostic evidence and can provide sanitized excerpts: Exchange Health Checker TXT/XML Test-MigrationServerAvailability output Test-MRSHealth output Frontend EWS Failed Request Tracing EWS HttpProxy logs EWS and backend IIS configuration MRS binary versions and hashes Any guidance or confirmation from the Exchange Team or administrators who encountered the same behavior would be appreciated. Thank you.Microsoft Entra Connect 2.x Version Retirement Reminder
Microsoft is retiring older versions of Microsoft Entra Connect Sync 2.x as part of its version lifecycle policy. Version 2.5.79.0 Retirement date: 23 October 2026 This version will retire 12 months after the release of version 2.5.190.0. Important to know Microsoft Entra Connect Sync 2.x versions retire 12 months after a newer version is released. This retirement policy has been in effect since 15 March 2023. For new installations: Always install the latest available version. For existing environments: Plan your upgrade to the latest version before your currently installed version reaches its retirement date.
