Logic Apps Aviators Newsletter - October 2026
In this issue: Ace Aviator of the Month News from our product group News from our community Ace Aviator of the Month October 2026's Ace Aviator: Hicham Boutaleb & Azure Solution Architect @ 5-Nines Consulting What's your role and title? What are your responsibilities? I work as an Enterprise Integration Architect, helping organizations design, implement, and modernize integration platforms using Microsoft technologies. My responsibilities include defining architecture, leading technical delivery, supporting development teams, ensuring best practices around security and governance, and helping customers get the most value from Azure services such as Logic Apps, API Management, Service Bus, and Azure Functions. Can you give us some insights into your day-to-day activities and what a typical day in your role looks like? No two days are exactly the same, which is one of the things I enjoy most about my role. A typical day usually involves a mix of: - Designing integration and automation solutions. - Reviewing architectures and code with project teams. - Supporting customers in solving complex technical challenges. - Running workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions. - Evaluating new Azure capabilities and how they can benefit ongoing projects. - Collaborating with business stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions. I also dedicate time to continuous learning because the cloud ecosystem evolves incredibly fast, and staying up to date is essential. What motivates and inspires you to be an active member of the Aviators/Microsoft community? The community is one of the best accelerators of professional growth. What motivates me most is the opportunity to learn from others while also giving back through sharing experiences, lessons learned, and practical solutions. I believe that technology is not just about tools—it's about people. The Microsoft community creates an environment where professionals can collaborate, innovate, and help each other succeed. Seeing someone solve a problem using knowledge I've shared is incredibly rewarding. 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? I would tell my younger self: Don't focus only on technology, focus on problem-solving and communication. Technical skills are important, but the ability to understand business challenges, communicate clearly, and work effectively with others often has an even greater impact on your career. I would also encourage people to: - Stay curious and never stop learning. - Build real projects rather than only collecting certifications. - Don't be afraid of failure—every mistake is an opportunity to learn. - Invest in your professional network early. The technology will change throughout your career, but adaptability and curiosity will always remain valuable. What has helped you grow professionally? Several factors have contributed to my growth: - Working on diverse and challenging projects. - Learning from experienced mentors and colleagues. - Being willing to step outside my comfort zone. - Participating in technical communities and events. - Maintaining a mindset of continuous improvement. Some of my biggest learning moments came from difficult projects where I had to solve problems I had never encountered before. Those experiences often teach more than success alone. If you had a magic wand that could create a feature in Logic Apps, what would it be and why? If I had a magic wand, I'd add an AI-powered end-to-end message tracking feature in Logic Apps that automatically follows a message across all workflows and Azure services it traverses. It would provide a single, intelligent view of the entire journey, making troubleshooting and root-cause analysis much faster and easier. News from our product group Your Certificate Renewed. Your Gateway Didn't Notice. Learn how certificate renewal can create outages when Azure Application Gateway does not detect an updated certificate in Azure Key Vault. The article explains certificate refresh behavior and practical steps for ensuring renewed certificates propagate reliably to dependent gateway infrastructure. How to Validate That Your BizTalk SB-Messaging Adapter Is Really Using AMQP Prepare BizTalk Server integrations for the retirement of the legacy Service Bus Messaging Protocol by confirming that the SB-Messaging adapter uses AMQP. This guide covers the required BizTalk Server 2020 hotfix and shows how to verify active AMQP-over-TLS connections on port 5671 across every relevant host and messaging configuration. Migrate Data Ingestion from Data Collector to Log Ingestion - Part 2 Continue migrating from the deprecated Data Collector API to the Azure Monitor Log Ingestion API by handling its smaller payload limit. The article demonstrates how to calculate and split large datasets into appropriately sized chunks in Azure Logic Apps so ingestion requests remain below the 1 MB limit. Bring Azure Logic Apps connectors into your .NET applications with the Azure Connectors SDK Explore the preview Azure Connectors SDK for calling Azure Logic Apps connectors directly from .NET applications without hosting a workflow. Strongly typed asynchronous clients, Azure Identity integration, and support for managed identities make it easier to connect application code to Microsoft and third-party services. Agentic Refactoring of Legacy Integration Workloads to Azure Logic Apps Standard See how agentic AI can accelerate the refactoring of legacy integration workloads into Azure Logic Apps Standard. This Microsoft Azure Developers video explores an AI-assisted modernization approach for analyzing existing solutions and moving them toward cloud-native workflows. Connect Azure Functions to SharePoint using Managed Connectors Learn how Azure Functions can connect to SharePoint using managed connectors. This Microsoft Azure Developers video demonstrates how connector capabilities simplify authentication and integration between function code and SharePoint. Connect SaaS & Enterprise Systems with Azure Functions This Microsoft Azure Developers video showcases how Azure Functions can use managed connectors for scalable, event-driven automation. It demonstrates integration with services such as SharePoint and Teams, highlighting how triggers and actions can reduce the need for manual polling and simplify authentication handling. The session walks through building practical workflows that connect SaaS and enterprise systems using Azure Functions. News from our community Logic Apps Community Day — 3 December 2026 Post by Ahmed Bayoumy Logic Apps Community Day returns on 3 December 2026 as a free, online event streamed live on YouTube. The program focuses on Logic Apps, the wider Azure integration stack, and AI patterns built on integration platforms. Organizers describe eight community speaking slots, combining longer sessions with lightning talks, and invite practitioners to submit examples, client cases, comparisons, or AI features. The event is intended for a worldwide audience and includes discussions, a published agenda, and opportunities for community members to share practical experience. Azure Logic Apps: Workflow Automation, Enterprise Integration, Connectors, B2B, Security, Networking, Monitoring, DevSecOps, Governance, and AI-Enable Post by Sanjeeve Kumar Gajadi This extensive guide presents Azure Logic Apps as an enterprise orchestration and integration layer rather than only a visual automation tool. It discusses Consumption and Standard hosting, triggers, actions, connectors, API Management, Service Bus, Event Grid, SAP, B2B protocols, managed identities, private networking, monitoring, reliability, DevOps, governance, and cost management. The article also considers AI-enabled orchestration and human approval patterns. Its central guidance is to design workflows around business processes, resilience, security, observability, and operational ownership while moving complex computation to suitable application services. Azure Logic Apps Handbook: 50 Expert Tips and Best Practices Post by Sandro Pereira Sandro Pereira introduces a free handbook containing 50 expert tips and best practices for Azure Logic Apps. The guide is aimed at architects, developers, integration specialists, DevOps engineers, and leaders working with cloud automation. Its coverage includes Logic Apps capabilities, practical use cases, workflow optimization, security, common pitfalls, and implementation strategies. The accompanying article explains that the handbook is intended to help readers design reliable, scalable, and maintainable workflows, and provides access to the downloadable resource through the linked publication. Build and Debug Logic Apps Standard Locally in VS Code Post by Stephen W. Thomas Stephen W. Thomas demonstrates how to build and debug Azure Logic Apps Standard workflows locally in Visual Studio Code without deploying resources to Azure. The walkthrough covers installing the extension, creating a stateful workflow with built-in operations, using local storage emulation, and sending a request from Postman. It also shows how to pause workflow execution at a breakpoint and inspect the results. The accompanying guide helps developers reproduce the setup and explore a practical local development loop while avoiding Azure charges during development and debugging. Azure API Management Premium v2 Workspaces and Dedicated Workspace Gateways in a Private Network Post by Şahin Özdemir Şahin Özdemir shares lessons from configuring Azure API Management Premium v2 workspaces and dedicated workspace gateways in a fully private network. The article covers Premium v2 virtual network integration, workspace isolation for multiple teams, internal-only workspace gateways, required Bicep resources and associations, and network security group rules. It also calls out deployment pitfalls and the less obvious Microsoft.ApiManagement/gateways/configConnections resource used to associate workspaces with gateways. The first part keeps API Management externally accessible while placing workspaces and their gateways inside the private network. Getting Started with Logic Apps Standard (in 2026) Video by Stephen W. Thomas Stephen W. Thomas shows how to set up Azure Logic Apps Standard locally in Visual Studio Code in under five minutes with no Azure charges. The updated installation brings in the Azure Functions runtime, Azure tooling, C# support, and storage emulators. The video creates a local workspace using built-in connectors, starts the workflow with F5, copies its callable URL, and sends a request from Postman. It also demonstrates breakpoints, debugger variables, action inputs, and stepping into custom in-process C# code for a complete local development experience.
Migrate Data Ingestion from Data Collector to Log Ingestion - Part 2
In Part1, we discussed how to use HTTP action to migrate from the deprecated Data Collector API to Log Ingestion API. However, since the deprecated Data Collector API was allowing message payload up to 30MB, some migration scenarios encountered issues; since the new Log Ingestion API has only 1MB payload limit. This applies to both HTTP action, and the preview (Log Ingestion connector) Azure Monitor service limits - Azure Monitor | Microsoft Learn When sending payload larger than 1MB, the HTTP action would fail with the error: In order to overcome this, we can chunk the array payload, before calling the Ingestion API. We need to chunk the array payload, so each produced chunk is around 800KB To do this, you can divide the size of your full payload, by the number of records it has, and this would give an average record size. Then divide 800,000 bytes with the average record size, and this will give you the chunk size. For example, if your payload size is 1,200,259 bytes, and the number of records is 2500, then the average record size is: 1,200,259 / 2,500 =~ 480 bytes To find the chunk size, we divide 800,000 bytes by 480 bytes 800,000 / 480 =~ 1666 records. So if we send around 1600 records, this should be less than 1MB. To chunk your array payload, we can use the chunk expression inside a compose action. You can use the expression below for chunking inside the compose action: After the compose action, add for-each action, and use the output of the compose action as an input: Inside the for-each, use the normal HTTP to send the logs, and in the body, choose the for-each current itemLogic 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.
Introducing APIOps CLI
APIOps CLI helps teams extract, version, review, preview, and publish Azure API Management configuration through source-controlled DevOps workflows. Today, we're excited to announce APIOps CLI, a new command-line experience designed to help organizations manage Azure API Management (APIM) using modern configuration-as-code and GitOps practices. As APIs become increasingly central to digital transformation, organizations need a reliable way to manage API definitions, policies, products, diagnostics, and gateway configuration across multiple environments. APIOps CLI provides a streamlined, developer-friendly approach to extract, version, review, and publish API Management configuration through familiar DevOps workflows. Why APIOps CLI? Traditional API management processes often rely on manual configuration changes, environment-specific customizations, and limited visibility into what changed and why. As API estates grow, these approaches become difficult to scale, audit, and govern. APIOps CLI addresses these challenges by enabling teams to manage API Management configuration as source-controlled artifacts. Every change can be reviewed through pull requests, tracked through Git history, and promoted consistently across development, test, and production environments. The result is improved governance, greater reliability, better collaboration between API developers and platform operators, and a simpler path toward enterprise-scale API operations. What APIOps CLI Enables APIOps CLI provides capabilities that help organizations adopt a true APIOps model: Extract API Management configuration into local artifact files Store and version configuration in Git repositories Review changes through standard pull request workflows Publish approved artifacts back into API Management environments Promote configuration consistently across environments Scaffold GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps pipelines Support automated CI/CD deployment patterns Enable auditable, repeatable API configuration management By treating API Management configuration as code, organizations gain the same operational excellence practices that software development teams have relied on for years. A Modern GitOps Workflow for APIs The APIOps CLI workflow follows a simple yet powerful pattern: Extract configuration from an existing API Management instance. Store the generated artifacts in source control. Review and approve changes through pull requests. Run automated validation and deployment pipelines. Publish approved configuration back to target API Management environments. This approach creates a clear separation between authoring, review, approval, and deployment while maintaining a complete audit trail of API platform changes. For organizations already practicing GitOps, APIOps CLI integrates naturally into existing development workflows and governance processes. Built for Real-World Enterprise Scenarios APIOps CLI is designed to support customers operating at enterprise scale. Common use cases include: Migrating away from manual API Management administration Standardizing deployments across multiple environments Establishing controlled promotion paths from development to production Implementing governance and compliance requirements Supporting platform engineering and API platform teams Managing large inventories of APIs, products, policies, and configurations Enabling self-service API development with centralized governance Whether you're operating a single API Management instance or managing a large multi-team API platform, APIOps CLI provides a foundation for consistent and repeatable operations. Integrated with Your Existing Toolchain APIOps CLI works alongside the tools teams already use: GitHub Azure DevOps Azure Pipelines GitHub Actions Azure CLI Existing Git repositories and branching strategies The tool can generate CI/CD scaffolding to accelerate adoption, helping teams move from manual operations to automated deployments with less effort. Open Source and Community Driven APIOps CLI is available as an open-source project under the Azure GitHub organization. The repository includes source code, architecture guidance, command documentation, CI/CD examples, walkthroughs, troubleshooting guidance, and reference material. By making the project open and community-driven, we are enabling customers, partners, and contributors to participate directly in the evolution of Azure API Management DevOps practices. Getting Started Getting started is straightforward: Install the APIOps CLI package. Authenticate with Azure. Extract an existing API Management instance into local artifacts. Commit those artifacts to a Git repository. Review and approve changes through pull requests. Publish approved changes back to Azure API Management. We recommend beginning with a non-production environment to establish your workflow, validate governance processes, and familiarize teams with the configuration-as-code model. Looking Ahead APIs have become a strategic asset for every organization. As API estates continue to expand, successful teams will increasingly adopt automation, governance, and GitOps practices to maintain speed without sacrificing control. APIOps CLI is an important step in that journey. It provides a modern foundation for managing Azure API Management configurations with the same rigor, automation, and reliability that organizations expect from modern software delivery practices. We invite you to explore APIOps CLI, try it in your environment, share feedback, and join us in shaping the future of API operations on Azure. Resources APIOps CLI GitHub repository: https://github.com/Azure/apiops-cli/tree/main Microsoft Learn: Manage API Management configuration with APIOps CLIBuild governed asynchronous APIs with Azure API Management and Azure Service Bus
Many applications use Azure Service Bus to decouple services, handle traffic spikes, and process workloads asynchronously. However, securely exposing messaging capabilities to applications, partners, and internal teams can require custom middleware or messaging-specific client implementations. Today, we’re announcing the general availability of native Azure Service Bus integration in Azure API Management. With the send-service-bus-message policy, developers can publish messages directly from an Azure API Management gateway to an Azure Service Bus queue or topic. This provides a secure and governed HTTP interface for Service Bus workloads—without requiring teams to build and operate a separate adapter service. Connect APIs directly to Azure Service Bus Azure API Management can act as the governed entry point for applications that submit work to Azure Service Bus. A client sends a standard HTTP request to API Management. The gateway can authenticate and authorize the caller, validate or transform the request, and apply policies such as rate limits and quotas before publishing the message to a Service Bus queue or topic. Once the message is accepted, API Management can immediately respond to the caller while downstream services process the message asynchronously. Alternatively, message publication can be added to an existing API flow while the request continues to its primary backend. This integration brings together API governance in Azure API Management and reliable asynchronous messaging in Azure Service Bus—without adding another intermediary service. Greater control over Service Bus messages As part of general availability, we’re introducing additional controls for building production messaging workflows. 1. Control how messages are processed Developers can configure the following Service Bus message properties directly in the policy: Message IDs to correlate messages and support duplicate-detection or idempotent processing patterns. Session IDs to group related messages for ordered or stateful processing. Time-to-live to prevent messages from being processed after they are no longer relevant. These values can be generated dynamically using API Management policy expressions, allowing them to reflect request IDs, customer identifiers, transactions, or other application context. 2. Capture the send result The response-variable-name attribute captures information about the Service Bus send operation in an API Management context variable. Subsequent policies can use the result to add correlation information to an API response, emit telemetry, record an operational event, or apply conditional logic when a message cannot be sent. 3. Choose how failures affect the API Different messaging scenarios require different failure behavior. When publishing the message is the primary purpose of an API, a send failure can stop policy execution and invoke the API Management error-handling path. When publishing is secondary—such as sending an audit event or initiating optional downstream processing—the ignore-error option can allow the primary API request to continue. Information about the send operation remains available through the response variable for logging or subsequent policy logic. 4. Secure access with managed identity API Management authenticates to Azure Service Bus using a Microsoft Entra managed identity. Customers can use the system-assigned identity of the API Management service or specify a user-assigned managed identity. The selected identity is granted the Azure Service Bus Data Sender role for the appropriate namespace, queue, or topic. This removes the need to store Service Bus connection strings or shared access keys in API policies and makes it easier to apply least-privilege access using Azure role-based access control. Send a message with an API Management policy The following example sends the incoming request body to an orders queue. It assigns a message ID and expiration time, captures the result of the send operation, and treats successful publication as a required part of the API request. <send-service-bus-message queue-name="orders" namespace="contoso-messaging.servicebus.windows.net" message-id="@(context.RequestId.ToString())" time-to-live="00:10:00" response-variable-name="serviceBusResult" ignore-error="false"> <payload> @(context.Request.Body.As<string>(preserveContent: true)) </payload> </send-service-bus-message> A session ID can also be added when related messages need to be grouped for ordered or stateful processing. For a fully asynchronous API, the policy can be followed by return-response so that API Management acknowledges the request immediately after sending the message. For an existing API, the request can continue to its configured backend after the message is published. Common integration scenarios Create asynchronous APIs: Accept an order, document, or processing request through an HTTP API, publish it to a queue, and return immediately while downstream services complete the work. Govern partner integrations: Provide partners with a managed API contract instead of exposing the underlying Service Bus namespace. API Management can authenticate callers, validate requests, and apply quotas before publishing messages. Publish business events: Publish events to a Service Bus topic so multiple subscriptions and downstream services can process them independently. Handle bursts of incoming traffic: Use Service Bus to buffer messages when incoming API traffic temporarily exceeds the rate at which downstream services can process requests. Add events to existing API operations: Publish audit, notification, analytics, or workflow events while allowing the primary API request to continue to its configured backend. Preserve workflow affinity: Use Service Bus sessions to group related messages for ordered or stateful processing based on a customer, transaction, order, or workflow identifier. Get started To send messages from Azure API Management to Azure Service Bus: Create or select an Azure Service Bus queue or topic. Enable a system-assigned or user-assigned managed identity on the API Management service. Assign the identity the Azure Service Bus Data Sender role. Add the send-service-bus-message policy to an API operation. Configure the message payload, processing properties, output variable, and failure behavior. With native Azure Service Bus integration, Azure API Management provides a secure and governed way to connect HTTP APIs with asynchronous messaging workloads—without requiring additional middleware. Learn more Send Service Bus message policy reference Send messages to Azure Service Bus from Azure API Management Azure API Management June 2026 release notes Azure Service Bus documentationBizTalk Server 2020 End-of-Sale Announcement
Executive Summary: BizTalk Server 2020 is the final release of BizTalk Server, and Microsoft expects sales of BizTalk Server 2020 and Host Integration Server 2020 to end March 31, 2027. Mainstream support for BizTalk Server 2020 continues through April 12, 2028, after which the product remains subject to Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy. Microsoft also plans to offer eligible customers an optional, paid extended-mainstream support offering through April 10, 2030. Customers should begin planning their migration to Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid now, based on their deployment requirements. Closing a chapter Microsoft currently expects sales of BizTalk Server 2020 and Host Integration Server 2020 to end on March 31, 2027. Customers with existing valid licenses may continue to deploy and use the software in accordance with their licensing terms. Mainstream support for BizTalk Server 2020 continues through April 12, 2028. The end-of-sale date does not require customers to stop running licensed deployments, but customers should begin migration and licensing planning now because the extended-mainstream support offering described below remains subject to final eligibility, coverage, pricing, and purchasing terms. Microsoft plans to offer eligible BizTalk Server 2020 customers a paid, time-limited extended-mainstream support option from April 13, 2028, through April 10, 2030. The offering is intended to provide additional migration time, will have narrower coverage than the original mainstream-support phase, and will not add new product features. Eligibility, availability, supported components, servicing commitments, purchasing terms, and the official offering name will be published before enrollment opens. If you need to buy BizTalk Server 2020, or Host Integration Server 2020, you can do it until March 31, 2027. Recommended action Begin migrating your BizTalk Server workloads now, selecting Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid according to your organization’s hosting, networking, latency, data-residency, and operational requirements. Treat additional support coverage as contingency time rather than the default destination. Starting early gives teams time to inventory dependencies, redesign excluded capabilities, validate migrated solutions, and make commercial decisions before mainstream support ends. The Logic Apps Migration Agent can accelerate assessment and planning, convert supported artifacts, and assist with validation and deployment of refactored solutions on Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid. Extended-mainstream support scope Paid extended-mainstream support is planned as an optional, temporary bridge for eligible customers completing their migration. It is separate from the Extended Support phase available under Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy and is expected to provide a different, narrower scope than the original mainstream-support phase. Microsoft expects the paid offering to run from April 13, 2028, through April 10, 2030. Certain BizTalk Server capabilities are expected to be excluded from the paid offering; the following list identifies the currently expected exclusions. Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) — The framework and tooling for capturing, tracking, and presenting near real-time business milestones, KPIs, and operational data from running BizTalk processes. Servicing, fixes, and updates for BAM components will not be provided under extended support. Enterprise Service Bus Toolkit (ESB Toolkit) — The libraries, itinerary services, and patterns that extend BizTalk with dynamic, itinerary-based routing, transformation, and centralized exception handling for service-oriented solutions. The ESB Toolkit will not receive servicing or support under extended support. Industry accelerators (SWIFT, HL7, and RosettaNet) — The domain-specific accelerators that provide schemas, pipelines, and validation for financial (SWIFT), healthcare (HL7), and supply-chain (RosettaNet) messaging standards. These accelerators will not receive servicing, schema updates, or support under extended support. Legacy enterprise adapters — The adapters that connect BizTalk to line-of-business and enterprise applications such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, TIBCO, and JD Edwards. These adapters will not receive servicing or support under extended support. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tooling and integrations — The BizTalk-specific tooling and integrations used for source control, automated build, deployment, and testing of BizTalk applications. These BizTalk-specific ALM components will not receive servicing or support under extended support. BizTalk Server images in Azure Marketplace — Microsoft currently expects to deprecate the BizTalk Server virtual-machine offer in Azure Marketplace. This affects the future availability of the Marketplace deployment image; it does not, by itself, make an otherwise eligible existing BizTalk Server 2020 deployment ineligible for paid extended-mainstream support. Microsoft will publish the effective date and guidance for existing virtual machines, new or replacement deployments, scaling, disaster recovery, customer-managed images, licensing, billing, patching, and support. New Visual Studio version support — Compatibility with Visual Studio versions newer than Visual Studio 2022 will not be added under extended support. Customers should review the Visual Studio 2022 lifecycle and support offering separately, because its coverage terms are independent of BizTalk Server extended support. Customers that depend on an excluded capability should prioritize the affected workloads in their migration plan. Use the Logic Apps Migration Agent to assess dependencies, inform target-architecture decisions, convert supported artifacts, and validate the migrated solution. Excluded BizTalk capabilities may require architectural redesign or manual implementation outside the agent. Customers are not required to purchase paid extended-mainstream support. Customers that do not enroll remain subject to Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy and the applicable BizTalk Server 2020 lifecycle dates. The availability of technical support, non-security updates, security updates, and other services during the standard Extended Support phase depends on the policy requirements and the customer’s applicable support arrangement. The paid extended-mainstream support offering described here is an optional, separate offering for eligible customers that require additional coverage while completing their migration. After the end-of-sale date, customers that already hold valid BizTalk Server 2020 licenses may continue to deploy and use the software in accordance with the applicable licensing terms. Eligibility Paid extended mainstream support will be available to eligible customers with properly licensed BizTalk Server 2020 deployments. The final eligibility requirements will be provided in the published offering terms. Eligible products and versions: Paid extended-mainstream support is expected to be available for eligible deployments of BizTalk Server 2020 Enterprise, Standard, or Branch editions. Customers using Host Integration Server 2020 may also purchase the BizTalk Server paid extended-mainstream support offering to receive the applicable extended mainstream-support coverage for their HIS 2020 deployments, including customers that acquired BizTalk Server licences primarily to obtain HIS usage rights. BizTalk Server 2016, HIS 2016, and earlier versions will not be eligible. Azure Marketplace deployments: Existing BizTalk Server 2020 deployments created from eligible Azure Marketplace images are expected to qualify for paid extended-mainstream support, subject to the final offering terms. Customers must meet the applicable licensing, Software Assurance, supported-configuration, and complete-deployment coverage requirements. Microsoft will clarify how eligibility, licensed-core quantities, pricing, and purchasing apply when BizTalk Server software charges are included in the Azure Marketplace virtual-machine rate rather than acquired through a separate BizTalk Server licence agreement. Valid licenses: Customers are expected to maintain sufficient BizTalk Server licenses for each covered deployment in accordance with the applicable licensing model, including relevant core minimums, licensing of physical or virtual environments, and license-reassignment rules. Final extended-support licensing requirements will be stated in the published offering terms. Software Assurance: Active Software Assurance will be required at enrollment and throughout the applicable coverage period. Complete deployment coverage: Extended mainstream support must be purchased for all licensed cores in each enrolled deployment. Partial coverage of an enrolled production environment will not be permitted. Supported configuration: Covered environments must remain on a supported BizTalk Server 2020 configuration and meet published requirements for cumulative updates, operating systems, databases, and dependent components. Annual validation: Eligibility and licensed-core quantities will be confirmed for each coverage year. Customers must remain eligible to purchase Year 2 coverage. As part of the eligibility review, Microsoft may request licensing records, deployment inventories, configuration details, and migration-plan information. Complete requirements and enrollment instructions will be published before the offering becomes available. Purchasing details Paid extended mainstream support will be offered as annual coverage based on the licensed cores in each enrolled BizTalk Server 2020 deployment. Microsoft will publish final pricing, availability, enrollment dates, purchasing channels, and transaction terms before sales begin. Purchasing paid extended-mainstream support is optional and is not required for BizTalk Server 2020 to follow the Fixed Lifecycle Policy. Host Integration Server 2020: Eligible HIS 2020 customers will purchase coverage through the BizTalk Server paid extended-mainstream support offering. Customers that do not require HIS IBM Systems Network Architecture (SNA) capabilities should also evaluate Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid as a modernization alternative before purchasing additional support coverage. Azure Logic Apps Standard does not support SNA; customers that depend on HIS 2020 SNA capabilities must transition to Host Integration Server 2028. Coverage periods: Year 1 is expected to begin the next day mainstream support ends, on April 13, 2028, and continue through April 13, 2029. Year 2 is expected to run from April 14, 2029, through April 10, 2030. The final offering terms will confirm whether the boundary dates are inclusive and will specify the exact enrollment and coverage periods. Purchase sequence: Microsoft expects customers to purchase Year 1 coverage by April 11, 2028, to remain eligible to purchase Year 2 coverage. The final enrollment deadline and Year 2 eligibility conditions will be specified in the published offering terms. Price: Microsoft expects annual extended-mainstream support pricing to be 100% of the applicable BizTalk Server license cost under the customer's licensing agreement. Extended mainstream support is expected to be offered as an annual add-on for eligible BizTalk Server licenses. Final pricing and costs may vary by licensing agreement, geography, currency, available discounts, and the published offering terms. How to purchase: Customers will purchase coverage through an authorized Microsoft commercial licensing channel with support from their Microsoft account team or licensing partner. Separate support services: The annual extended-mainstream support fee is expected to cover only the servicing and support rights defined in the final offering terms. It will not include unlimited incident support, advisory services, migration delivery, solution implementation, or other professional services; customers may need a separate support plan or services agreement for those needs. Annual purchase: Coverage will not renew automatically. Customers must place a separate order and complete an eligibility review for each year. Support beyond April 10, 2030, is not planned. Contact your Microsoft account team or licensing partner to review eligible deployments, confirm licensed-core quantities, and obtain a quote when the offering becomes available. Discounts and incentives Microsoft plans to offer a targeted incentive for eligible existing BizTalk Server customers that are actively migrating to Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid. The incentive is designed to reduce near-term migration costs and support a faster move to the selected Logic Apps deployment model. It will not be automatic or broadly available; eligibility, approval, and final commercial terms must be confirmed by the customer’s Microsoft account team. Timing and important conditions Who can qualify: The incentive is intended exclusively for existing BizTalk Server 2020 customers approaching the announced BizTalk Server lifecycle milestones and actively migrating workloads to Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid. Redemption period: The incentive is expected to become available on August 31, 2026, and remain available through April 12, 2028, subject to publication of the program terms, eligibility approval, continued availability, and any applicable funding limits. Discount duration: The approved discount is expected to apply during the customer’s first qualifying Enterprise Agreement term after approval. The published program terms will define the eligible agreement types, qualifying start date, covered Azure services, discount duration, and treatment of renewals or agreement changes. Qualification: The incentive is subject to eligibility review and approval. Recommended action Ask your Microsoft account team or licensing partner to assess your migration scope, confirm which eligible migration path applies, and request consideration for the incentive. Migration support Contact your Microsoft account team to determine whether your organization is eligible for migration assistance delivered by the Azure Logic Apps product group or through another available migration-factory program. Program names, eligibility criteria, engagement scope, and availability will be confirmed through your account team. Migration options for Host Integration Server workloads Customers using Host Integration Server 2020 for application, data, messaging, or terminal integration—and who do not depend on HIS SNA capabilities—should evaluate Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid as a modernization target. Azure Logic Apps provides mainframe and midrange integration capabilities for scenarios involving IBM CICS, IMS, IBM i programs, DB2, IBM MQ, host files, and 3270 applications. Customers should assess each workload against the available connectors, supported protocols, networking, security, and operational requirements. Azure Logic Apps Standard does not support SNA. Customers running HIS 2020 workloads that depend on SNA capabilities must plan to transition to Host Integration Server 2028. Key dates March 31, 2027: Sales of BizTalk Server 2020 and Host Integration Server 2020 are expected to end. April 12, 2028: Mainstream support for BizTalk Server 2020 ends. April 13, 2028: BizTalk Server 2020 enters the Extended Support phase under Microsoft’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy, subject to the applicable policy requirements and lifecycle dates. April 13, 2028–April 10, 2030: Planned paid extended-mainstream support period for eligible BizTalk Server 2020 customers, subject to the final published offering terms. September 30, 2027: Host Integration Server 2028 is planned for release as a standalone product. Release timing is subject to change. July 7, 2030: Extended Support for Host Integration Server 2020 is currently scheduled to end. This date is separate from the planned BizTalk Server 2020 paid extended mainstream support period, which is expected to end April 10, 2030. Start your modernization journey with the Logic Apps Migration Agent. Use the agent to inventory and assess your BizTalk applications, prioritize integrations, build a phased migration plan, convert supported artifacts and workflows, and support validation, testing, and deployment to Azure Logic Apps Standard or Azure Logic Apps Hybrid. Excluded or unsupported BizTalk capabilities may require architectural redesign or manual implementation outside the agent. The agent’s AI-assisted, human-in-the-loop approach can accelerate modernization while your teams retain control of architecture and implementation decisions. Contact your Microsoft account team to discuss migration-assistance eligibility and commercial options. Learn more: BizTalk Server product lifecycle update | Bringing all your integration workloads to Logic Apps Standard | Fixed Lifecycle Policy – Extended SupportZonal redundancy in API management Standard v2
APIs are the backbone of modern applications, powering everything from mobile experiences and microservices to AI-driven applications and business-critical integrations. As customers continue to modernize their platforms on Azure, they increasingly expect their API infrastructure to remain available even in the face of datacenter-level disruptions. With zone redundancy in Standard v2, Azure API Management now enables customers to increase resilience against Availability Zone failures while continuing to benefit from the simplicity, performance, and cost efficiency of the v2 platform. Why Zone Redundancy Matters Azure Availability Zones are physically separate locations within an Azure region, each with independent power, cooling, and networking infrastructure. By distributing API Management resources across multiple zones, organizations can reduce the impact of a single datacenter failure and improve service continuity for their APIs. Until now, customers who required built-in zone-level resiliency often needed to evaluate higher-end deployment options. With this enhancement, Standard v2 customers can now deploy API gateways across Availability Zones and benefit from improved reliability while maintaining the streamlined operational model of the v2 platform. What’s New Zone Redundancy for Standard v2 extends the platform's resiliency by distributing service capacity across multiple Availability Zones within a supported Azure region. Key benefits include: Higher Availability: API traffic continues to flow even if a single Availability Zone experiences an outage. Built-in Resiliency: Redundancy is provided at the platform layer, reducing the need for customers to design and manage complex intra-region failover solutions. Production-Ready Reliability: Customers can confidently run critical API workloads on Standard v2 with stronger availability guarantees. Operational Simplicity: The service automatically manages capacity distribution, health monitoring, and recovery behavior across zones. Cost-Effective Resilience: Customers gain zone-level protection without requiring an enterprise-tier deployment model. Built on the Modern v2 Platform The v2 platform was designed from the ground up to provide a faster, more reliable, and more scalable API Management experience. Standard v2 already delivers capabilities such as rapid deployment, simplified networking, workspace support, and flexible scaling. Zone Redundancy further strengthens the platform by expanding its reliability story for production workloads. This announcement builds on our broader investment in making Azure API Management more accessible to a wider range of organizations, from digital-native startups to large enterprises modernizing their application estates. Ideal Scenarios Zone Redundancy in Standard v2 is particularly valuable for customers who: Run business-critical APIs that must remain available during datacenter incidents. Consolidate multiple application workloads behind a single API gateway. Expose APIs consumed by mobile, partner, and customer-facing applications. Support AI applications and agent-based architectures that depend on highly available API endpoints. For organizations adopting modern cloud and AI native architectures, this capability helps ensure that API infrastructure remains aligned with broader application resiliency strategies. A Foundation for Reliable AI and API Platforms As AI-powered applications continue to proliferate, APIs increasingly become the critical connection layer between models, agents, business systems, and data platforms. Downtime at the API layer can have a direct impact on application availability, customer experience, and business operations. By bringing zone redundancy to Standard v2, we are making it easier for organizations to build highly resilient API platforms that can serve as the foundation for next-generation AI and digital transformation initiatives. Getting Started Zone Redundancy for Standard v2 can be enabled in supported Azure regions, allowing customers to deploy API Management with built-in protection against Availability Zone failures. We recommend reviewing your application's overall resiliency architecture, including backend redundancy, traffic management, and disaster recovery requirements, to maximize the benefits of zone-resilient API infrastructure. Enable Zone Redundancy in the Azure Portal Getting started with Zone Redundancy in Azure API Management Standard v2 is straightforward and can be configured during service creation. Create a New Standard v2 Instance with Zone Redundancy Sign in to the Azure portal. Select Create a Resource and search for Azure API Management. Choose Standard v2 as the service tier. Select a region that supports Availability Zones. In the Availability Zones section, enable Zone Redundancy. Review and create the service. After deployment, Azure API Management automatically distributes service capacity across multiple Availability Zones within the selected region, helping maintain API availability during a zone-level outage. Looking Ahead This release represents another step in our ongoing investment in the Azure API Management v2 platform. We remain committed to delivering the reliability, scalability, security, and developer experiences that organizations expect from a modern API management service. We are excited to see what our customers build with a more resilient Standard v2 platform and look forward to your feedback as you continue modernizing and scaling your API ecosystems on Azure. Learn more by visiting the Azure API Management documentation and exploring the latest reliability guidance for API Management deployments.Power Azure SRE Agent with the tools it needs
What is the Azure SRE Agent Azure SRE Agent is an AI-powered service designed to reduce operational toil. Teams can use it to: Investigate incidents and identify probable causes. Automate health checks, compliance reviews, and other scheduled work. Answer questions such as “What changed before this service became degraded?” Propose remediations while allowing teams to require human approval. An effective investigation rarely depends on one source of information. An alert might originate in Azure Monitor, while deployment history lives in source control, telemetry stored in another observability platform, and incident records in a service-management tool. Without access to those systems, you must retrieve and transfer the information manually, adding context switching and slowing diagnosis. MCP servers can give SRE Agent tools to query telemetry, inspect deployments, retrieve database records, look up incidents, etc. SRE Agent provides native connection for some servers such as GitHub, Datadog, New Relic, and Splunk. Connector Namespace makes it easier to host additional remote MCP servers you want the agent to use. Removing remote MCP server hosting burden Connecting SRE Agent to an existing remote endpoint is straightforward. Hosting that endpoint yourself is not. You must deploy the server, provide secure HTTPS infrastructure, configure authentication, manage downstream credentials, scale the runtime, monitor its health, recover failed instances, and maintain it over time. These responsibilities are necessary, but the value is in the server’s tools not in operating another service. Azure Connector Namespace is a fully managed service for hosting connectors and MCP servers. You select the server you need and let the namespace handles the operational and maintenance tasks. The offering is currently in preview. See documentation for supported regions and other preview considerations. You’ll find a wide variety of servers in the Connector Namespace’s catalog. Some examples of useful servers for the SRE agent include: Database servers such as Azure SQL and Azure Cosmos DB Source control and CI/CD servers like GitLab Incident management servers like Jira and PagerDuty A note on what's currently in development: We're building “bring-your-own” server support, allowing you to supply your own server image while the namespace handles hosting and operations. Please keep an eye out for the blog post about this! Deploy server and connect it to SRE Agent The following example deploys the SQL MCP server in Connector Namespace and connects it to Azure SRE Agent. 1. Server deployment Prerequisite: Install the Azure Developer CLI (azd). Clone the sql-server-samples repo: git clone https://github.com/microsoft/sql-server-samples.git Navigate to the azure-sql-mcp sample cd sql-server-samples/samples/applications/azure-sql-mcp From the azure-sql-mcp folder, run the following to log into your Azure subscription and then deploy the server and related resources: azd auth login azd up The last command will prompt for the following before deployment: Prompt Suggested value Explanation Enter a unique environment name mcp-dev This name added as prefix to Azure resources created Select an Azure Subscription Pick your subscription Resources will deploy under this subscription Enter value for connectorNamespaceIdentityType UserAssigned User assigned identity is recommended as it’s not tied to resource lifecycle Enter value for deployerLoginName Enter your Azure subscription login email To give your identity access to the MCP server Enter value for the location Pick a supported region Supported regions: West Central US, Central US, East Asia, North Europe Once deployment finishes, copy the MCP endpoint for use later. It looks similar to: https://<app-name>.<region>.logic.azure.com/api/connectorGateways/123abc456defg7890/mcpServerConfigs/sql-mcp/mcp (Optional) Test deployed server in Visual Studio Code GitHub Copilot: Open command palette > search MCP: Add server > pick HTTP > enter MCP endpoint and server name > pick Local Workspace. Inside .vscode/mcp.json, click Start above server name, then allow authentication with Microsoft in the popup and log into Azure subscription account. 2. Configure MCP connector in SRE Agent Connector Namespace does not create the connection in SRE Agent. Add the server endpoint through SRE Agent’s existing MCP connection experience. Open the Azure SRE Agent portal On the left menu, go to Builder > Connectors, and select + Add connector Under Choose a connector, select the MCP tab, choose MCP server, and select Next Configure the connector: Field Value Name A descriptive name for the server Connection type Streamable-HTTP URI The hosted server endpoint from Connector Namespace Authentication method Managed identity (Selecting managed identity automatically creates an identity for the connector.) Azure AD token scope https://apihub.azure.com/.default Select Next. Before testing the connection, grant the managed identity access to the MCP server. 3. Authorize the managed identity Open the Azure portal, search for the managed identity by name. In the identity’s Overview page, click JSON View (top right) and copy the tenantId and principalId. The principal ID is also called the object ID. Open Connector Namespace portal and search for the deployed namespace. Inside the namespace, navigate to the MCP Connectors tab on the left, then select the SQL MCP server. Inside the MCP server, click Access Policies, then select Add Access Policy. Enter the tenant ID and principal ID, then select Create. 4. Test and finish the connection Return to Azure SRE Agent portal and select Test connection. After the test succeeds, select the server tools the agent should use. Select Add connector. Establishing the connection can take a minute. Select Refresh at the top of the connectors page until its status changes to Connected. The agent can now use the selected server tools in chat threads. The azd deployment from previous created and seeded a SQL database with sample blog post data, so you can ask something like: What are the top blog posts? For more details, see MCP connectors and tools in Azure SRE Agent. Focus on the server, not its infrastructure MCP servers can give Azure SRE Agent access to the additional systems it needs to investigate incidents and perform operational work effectively. However, operating every remote server yourself introduces infrastructure, security, and maintenance responsibilities that distract from that goal. Connector Namespace removes much of that friction. Your primary question becomes “Which MCP server do I want to host?” rather than “How will I deploy, secure, scale, monitor, and maintain it?” Once deployed, the hosted endpoint can be added to Azure SRE Agent through its existing MCP connection experience. That gives teams a straightforward path to extending the agent with more operational tools, without turning MCP server hosting into another platform they must build and run. Try Connector Namespace with Azure SRE Agent and share your feedback! Resources Azure SRE Agent Overview Set up an MCP connector in Azure SRE Agent Connector Namespace Overview Hosted MCP servers in Connector NamespaceIntroducing dependency telemetry in Application Insights for Azure API Management policies
Running A(P)I platforms at-scale is not a walk in the park – As traffic flows through the system, it needs handle the load and provide insights on where the inefficiencies are. Finding the needle in a haystack Azure API Management provides a broad set of observability capabilities across its managed and self-hosted gateway offerings, although availability varies by gateway type: Azure Application Insights integration leveraging requests, traces from policies, custom metrics from policies & dependency tracking to integrate with your apps APM Request tracing with API Inspector Built-in analytics for (business) reporting (docs) Azure Monitor logs & metrics for our managed gateway or OpenTelemetry metrics for our self-hosted gateway Logging to Azure Event Hubs in your desired format through policies These capabilities are valuable, but the teams operating API platforms do not always define the APIs or author their policies. As a result, operators may lack visibility into the downstream work performed during each request: A single inbound request does not always map to a single backend request; policies can cause it to fan out into multiple downstream calls. Rate limiting happens, so calls downstream can retry and infuse latency All of these can infuse latency to the end-to-end experience for their customers and can only be diagnosed with detailed insights – They are looking for the needle in a haystack. In recent months, support cases have shown that customers can struggle to identify the source of latency when relying on Application Insights telemetry alone. Here are some examples showing high incoming latency but it’s difficult to understand the cause. Example #1: Example #2: Example #3: Introducing external dependency calls in Application Insights for policies We want to empower our customers by shifting our internal insights left to help customers be more efficient/self-diagnose API platforms at scale. I’m excited to share the first release of external dependency telemetry in Application Insights for Azure API Management policies. It covers the following policies: authentication-managed-identity authentication-token azure-openai-semantic-cache-lookup cosmosdb-request-handler forward-request get-authorization-context http-data-source invoke-dapr-binding llm-content-safety llm-semantic-cache-lookup send-request send-one-way-request send-service-bus-message sql-data-source validate-jwt This telemetry helps customers see where request time is spent and can reduce the need to open a support ticket. The examples below show how it explains the scenarios introduced earlier: Example #1 was retrying calls to the backend with a wait in between: Example #2 performed JWT validation, which required retrieving OpenID Connect metadata. It then made an initial slow backend call before the backend call visible to the customer. Example #3 combined three downstream operations in one request: validating a JWT, sending a message to Azure Service Bus, and then forwarding the request to the backend. What’s next? Improving your application landscape telemetry in Application Insights is just the beginning! We’re continuing to expand the diagnostic information available to customers in two areas: Enhance Azure Monitor diagnostic logs with additional per-request details and outbound dependency information. Add dependency telemetry for more policies and scenarios. Together, these improvements will give platform builders deeper insight into their A(P)I platforms and make that information easier to integrate with existing monitoring solutions. We’re excited to deliver this richer Application Insights telemetry, get started by reading our Azure Application Insights integration guidance. Let us know in the comments how you use it and which scenarios you would like us to cover next. Thanks for reading, TomUse 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 a while, but the developer inner loop was a different story. You would wire up one authentication method to run and debug locally, then swap it for another before deploying to the cloud. The Logic Apps Standard extension for Visual Studio Code now lets you create connectors that use Managed Identity as an authentication parameter and run them while you build and debug locally. This works for both Azure managed connectors and service provider connectors. When you run locally, the extension authenticates as your signed-in developer identity using the Azure default credentials pattern. After you deploy, the same connection authenticates with the app’s managed identity. Why this matters for developers You gain two things. Stronger security. Managed Identity removes the requirement to keep API keys or connection strings around to reach your target systems. As the Azure Logic Apps managed-identity guidance puts it, a managed identity “removes the need to store and manage credentials, secrets, or access tokens.” Fewer secrets in your settings mean a smaller attack surface and less to rotate. One setup for local and cloud. Many teams keep one authentication configuration for local runs and redefine it for cloud deployment, and those differences often cause deployment errors. With the Azure default credentials pattern, your app authenticates with your local sign-in while you develop, then with a managed identity after you deploy. The transition needs no code changes. One connection definition covers both environments. Prerequisites Make sure you are on these versions or later: Logic Apps Standard VS Code extension 5.961.19+ Bundle 1.165.52+ Azure CLI 2.51+ Az PowerShell module You must be logged on Azure CLI (using az login) and Az Powershell module (using Connect-AzAccount). How to enable Add the following app setting to both ./local.settings.json and ./workflow-designtime/local.settings.json: { "IsEncrypted": false, "Values": { "WORKFLOWS_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD": "managedServiceIdentity" } } Then reload the Visual Studio Code window so that both the extension and the design-time engine pick up the new setting. Both files matter. The design-time engine reads its own settings file to power the designer, so skipping it is a common reason the change does not take effect. From Logic Apps extension version 5.981.1, you can choose enable Managed Identity as an authentication method by default, by checking the following extension setting: If you are not ready to use managed identity yet, you can change the WORKFLOWS_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD value to Raw. But notice that this flag enables managed identity for the whole application, so if you are planning to use this feature you need it set to managedServiceIdentity. You might want to keep the existing behavior in case your existing CI/CD pipeline requires the Raw authentication method in connections.json or parameters.json. Also notice that this is a local only setting - it is added to local.settings.json files, which are not captured by source control. How it works This uses the Azure default credentials pattern. When your workflow needs a token, the credential chain tries a series of sources in order and stops at the first one that can issue a token. Locally, that resolves to your developer identity, such as your Azure CLI az login session, your Visual Studio Code sign-in, or Azure PowerShell. After you deploy, it resolves to the app’s managed identity, which can be system-assigned or user-assigned. The configuration stays the same across both environments. Whichever identity you use, your local user while developing or the managed identity once deployed, it needs the right RBAC roles on the resources it accesses. If a connection returns an authorization error, check the role assignment on the target resource first. The WORKFLOWS_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD flag behaves differently for each connector family. The next two sections cover both. Deep dive: Azure managed connectors For managed connectors, the flag does two things. It removes the requirement for a local connection key to authorize your logic app to talk to the managed connector, its access control layer (ACL). The change is transparent: the designer shows that you now have access to the connector. You can confirm it by inspecting the connection’s access policies. It authenticates the connector to the end system using the managed identity, or your user context when you run locally. You pick Managed Identity as the authentication type when you create the connection. Creating an Azure Blob Storage (managed) connection with Authentication Type set to “Logic Apps Managed Identity.” One limitation applies today. The Managed Identity implementation for managed connectors does not generate dynamic values inside the designer. You can still configure the connector, but you supply custom values instead of picking from dynamically populated dropdowns. Deep dive: Service provider connectors Service provider connectors support dynamic parameters today. You create the connection, choose Managed Identity as the authentication type, and keep using the designer’s dynamic values as usual, such as entering the fully qualified namespace for a Service Bus connection. Creating a Service Bus (service-provider) connection with Managed Identity. The connector supports dynamic parameters such as the Fully Qualified Namespace. Try it and let us know If you build integrations on Logic Apps Standard, update to the latest extension, set WORKFLOWS_AUTHENTICATION_METHOD to managedServiceIdentity, and give your connectors a passwordless local inner loop. This small setting removes secrets from your configuration and keeps authentication consistent from your laptop to the cloud. Have feedback, or a scenario you would like to see supported, such as dynamic values for managed connectors? Share it with the Logic Apps Aviators community at aka.ms/aistechcommunity. Your input shapes the roadmap. Learn more Authenticate connections with managed identities in Azure Logic Apps Create Standard logic app workflows with Visual Studio Code DefaultAzureCredential overview (Azure Identity client library)
