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Azure Feeds Weekly: 15 Aug 2026 to 22 Aug 2026
Another week, Azure threw in routing and region GA updates.
Gateway: GA support for summarised advertised prefixes to shrink BGP tables and reduce churn
Lakebase: GA expansion into four more regions for localised deployments
Workshop tool: evidence-first AI pipeline example for auditable sticky-note to deliverable flow
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⭐ Top picks this week
Editor's picks, AI-assisted, advisory ordering of this week's items.
[Launched] Generally Available: Summarized advertised gateway prefixes for route advertisement
Generally Available (GA): you can now configure an Azure gateway to advertise summarized (aggregated) prefixes to your on-premises networks instead of every individual virtual network prefix; update gateway advertisement settings to reduce BGP table size and route churn.
Evidence to Decision: building an AI-envisioning workshop tool on Azure
Implement an evidence-first, governed, auditable AI workshop pipeline on Azure to convert sticky notes into approved delivery artefacts, with every step recorded for governance and traceability.
[Launched] Generally Available: Azure Databricks Lakebase in four additional regions
Generally Available: Azure Databricks Lakebase is now available in four additional regions,North Central US, France Central, Germany West Central, and East Asia,so you can deploy Lakebase workloads in those regions.
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| Title |
Summary |
Date |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: Summarized advertised gateway prefixes for route advertisement
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Generally Available (GA): you can now configure an Azure gateway to advertise summarized (aggregated) prefixes to your on-premises networks instead of every individual virtual network prefix; update gateway advertisement settings to reduce BGP table size and route churn. |
2026-08-21 |
ℹ️ Update
Announcing: Azure Copilot introduces direct access to agents
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Starting August 2026, Azure Copilot will let you directly select and engage specific Copilot agents to move from questions to action; review which agent fits each task and update any Copilot integration points or user guidance accordingly. |
2026-08-21 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: Azure Databricks Lakebase in four additional regions
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Generally Available: Azure Databricks Lakebase is now available in four additional regions,North Central US, France Central, Germany West Central, and East Asia,so you can deploy Lakebase workloads in those regions. |
2026-08-20 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: Azure SQL updates for mid-August 2026
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Generally Available: Azure SQL (mid-August 2026) now lets you customise keyboard shortcuts for Quick Queries, the Results Grid, and the Query Editor directly within Visual Studio Code, so update your VS Code keybindings to match your workflow. |
2026-08-20 |
🔍 Preview
[In preview] Public Preview: SQL Formatter in MSSQL extension
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Public Preview: the MSSQL extension adds SQL Formatter so you can format SQL scripts in-editor with more customizable formatting options to match your coding style, enable the preview to configure and apply formatting rules locally. |
2026-08-20 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: Azure SQL Database provisioning in MSSQL extension
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Generally Available: Azure SQL Database provisioning in the MSSQL VS Code extension lets you create and connect to fully managed databases from the editor at no cost, and includes ready-to-use ARM, Bicep, and Terraform templates. |
2026-08-20 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: vCore Customization: Disable Multithreading and Configurable Constrained Cores
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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General Availability: VM vCore Customisation for Azure Virtual Machines now lets you disable Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT/HT) and configure constrained cores, so update or create VMs to apply these vCore customisation options. |
2026-08-20 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: BYON (Bring Your Own NIC) in Azure Site Recovery
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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GA: Azure Site Recovery now supports BYON (Bring Your Own NIC) for Azure-to-Azure test-failover and failover, so pre-provision and attach target-region NICs to preserve existing network configurations and reserved IPs and update your failover runbooks accordingly. |
2026-08-20 |
ℹ️ Update
Retirement: Azure VMware Solution License-included service will be retired August 30, 2027
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Retirement: The Azure VMware Solution license-included offering will be retired on 30 August 2027 due to Broadcom requiring customers to bring their own portable VMware Cloud Foundation licence, so plan to obtain BYO licences or migrate workloads before that date. |
2026-08-19 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: Managed Instance on Azure App Service
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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GA: Managed Instance on Azure App Service is now generally available, allowing you to migrate on-premises or VM-hosted web applications to Azure App Service with minimal configuration and no code changes, so evaluate it for lift-and-shift migrations. |
2026-08-19 |
🔍 Preview
[In preview] Public Preview: Ipv6 support in Azure Firewall
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Public preview: IPv6 support in Azure Firewall is available in public preview, enabling configuration of Azure Firewall and Firewall Policy in dual-stack mode with native IPv6 network-rule filtering and DNS Proxy support, so start testing dual-stack deployments and update network |
2026-08-19 |
🔍 Preview
[In preview] Public Preview: Zone redundancy for Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-gen General Purpose
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Public preview: Azure SQL Managed Instance Next-gen General Purpose supports zone redundancy: enable zone-redundant instances to automatically distribute compute and data across availability zones for improved resilience and business continuity. |
2026-08-18 |
🚀 Generally Available
[Launched] Generally Available: Dragon Copilot Physician Apps and Agents on Microsoft Marketplace
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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GA: Dragon Copilot Physician Apps and Agents are now discoverable, evaluable, and purchasable through Microsoft Marketplace in the United States; US customers should use Marketplace to procure these apps and agents. |
2026-08-18 |
🔍 Preview
[In preview] Public Preview: Azure Linux on WSL
Microsoft Azure Release Communications (website)
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Public Preview: Azure Linux on WSL is now available,install it on developer workstations to run Azure Linux under WSL so your team can validate production-aligned configurations, reproduce issues more reliably, and cut debugging time. |
2026-08-18 |
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Azure Architecture Center
(9)
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| Title |
Summary |
Date |
OPC UA reference solution
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Use the OPC UA reference solution to connect shop-floor OPC UA telemetry to Azure analytics services, following the Architecture Center's standards-based patterns for industrial IoT integration. |
2026-08-20 |
Connect Azure Data Explorer to the reference solution
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Reference guidance shows how to ingest OPC UA PubSub industrial IoT data into Azure Data Explorer using Event Hubs for ingestion and KQL for analysis, follow the steps to wire OPC UA telemetry into your ADX pipelines. |
2026-08-20 |
Connect Power BI to the OPC UA reference solution
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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New guidance shows how to connect Power BI to the reference solution to visualise ingested data, follow the steps to author reports and dashboards against your solution datasets. |
2026-08-19 |
Connect Azure Databricks to the reference solution
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Ingest OPC UA PubSub industrial IoT data into Azure Databricks using the guide's Delta Lake and Structured Streaming patterns to enable real-time analysis. |
2026-08-19 |
Connect Microsoft Fabric to the OPC UA reference solution
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Ingest OPC UA PubSub IoT data into Microsoft Fabric using the guide's KQL database patterns to analyse industrial telemetry. |
2026-08-19 |
Multilayered protection for Azure virtual machine access
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Apply the Architecture Center's multilayered VM access recommendations: combine Entra ID and Azure security services to implement defence in depth, least privilege, and zero trust controls for Azure virtual machine access. |
2026-08-19 |
CDN guidance
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Follow the Architecture Center's CDN guidance to configure Azure Content Delivery Network for high-bandwidth content hosted in Azure, and apply its recommendations for origin placement, caching, and delivery optimisation. |
2026-08-19 |
Improper instantiation antipattern
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Identify code that repeatedly instantiates objects meant to be created once, and refactor so instances are created once and reused to reduce unnecessary resource and performance overhead. |
2026-08-18 |
Best practices for monitoring and diagnostics
Azure Architecture Center (website)
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Follow the 'Best Practices for Monitoring and Diagnostics' Architecture Center guidance to instrument distributed applications with tracing, health checks and resource monitoring for better operational visibility. |
2026-08-18 |
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Microsoft Blogs
(11)
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| Title |
Summary |
Date |
Outgrowing SQL Server Express? Upgrade to Azure SQL Database Free Tier in 3 Steps
Azure SQL Devs' Corner (website)
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Migrate outgrown SQL Server Express instances (prototypes, internal tools, web backends) to Azure SQL Database Free Tier using the blog's 3-step upgrade guide to stop managing backups, OS patching, and local hardware limits yourself. |
2026-08-20 |
Microsoft named a Leader in the Frost Radar™: Cloud Workload Protection Platforms, 2026
Microsoft Security Blog (website)
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud was named a visionary leader in the Frost Radar: Cloud Workload Protection Platforms, 2026; this is an industry recognition rather than a product change, so there are no immediate configuration or migration actions required. |
2026-08-20 |
MSSQL Extension for VS Code: SQL Formatter, Azure SQL Database Provisioning, and More
Azure SQL Devs' Corner (website)
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MSSQL extension for VS Code v1.45 introduces Public Preview of a SQL Formatter and announces General Availability of Azure SQL Database Provisioning and Shortcuts Configuration, so install or update to v1.45 to use the formatter and provisioning/shortcut features. |
2026-08-20 |
Aspire 13.5: Fresh pixels and better workflows
Aspire Blog (website)
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Update to Aspire 13.5 to get a refreshed dashboard and aspire.dev UI, expanded Interaction Service, cross-scope Azure references, Kubernetes persistent volumes support, and live terminals in AppHost; review PV config and cross-scope reference settings before upgrading. |
2026-08-19 |
Azure Cosmos DB in the Agentic Era: Data Tools for Developers and AI Agents
Azure Cosmos DB Blog (website)
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If you integrate AI agents with Azure Cosmos DB, add explicit setup, supervision, validation, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints to your data tooling, tests, and CI/CD because the blog highlights agents still need oversight rather than full delegation. |
2026-08-19 |
The Two Hybrid Searches in Microsoft SQL
Azure SQL Devs' Corner (website)
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Microsoft SQL's hybrid search dynamically chooses between exact kNN and approximate ANN vector search per query based on cost and selectivity, so expect the planner to pick different execution paths and monitor performance and accuracy and adjust indexes or query patterns if need |
2026-08-19 |
Hunting MacSync Stealer infrastructure through behavioral pivots
Microsoft Security Blog (website)
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Shift detection and threat hunting away from ephemeral domains to durable behavioural pivots: build queries and alerts that track MacSync Stealer's consistent behaviours to uncover rotated domains and related infrastructure. |
2026-08-19 |
Azure DNS introduces Traffic Manager linked records (Public Preview)
Azure Networking Blog (website)
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Public preview: Azure DNS now supports Traffic Manager linked records, so you can directly associate Azure Public DNS record sets with Traffic Manager profiles (no CNAME to trafficmanager.net) and use DNS-based load balancing without exposing the trafficmanager.net domain. |
2026-08-19 |
Apple Silicon and Xcode 27 images available in pay-as-you-go (preview)
Azure DevOps Blog (website)
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Public preview: arm64 macOS (Apple Silicon) agents with Xcode 27 images are now available in Azure Pipelines via the pay-as-you-go GitHub-hosted Agents pool; switch relevant pipelines to the pay-as-you-go macOS/arm64 agents to run native Apple Silicon builds and tests. |
2026-08-18 |
From single call to agents: five new Claude capabilities now available in Microsoft Foundry
Microsoft Foundry Blog (website)
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If you host Claude models in Microsoft Foundry on Azure, enable the new structured outputs, web search, web fetch, MCP connector, and tool search features and update integrations, connector credentials, and access permissions to turn a model endpoint into a production agent. |
2026-08-18 |
Microsoft named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Cloud-Native Application Platforms
Microsoft Azure Blog (website)
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Include Azure Application Platform in your shortlist when evaluating cloud-native application platforms: Microsoft was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Native Application Platforms. |
2026-08-18 |
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Microsoft Tech Community
(52)
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↑ Top
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| Title |
Summary |
Date |
Browser automation with Pydantic-AI + Playwright
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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To add safe browser automation to LLM agents, combine Pydantic AI's Playwright capability with Microsoft Foundry models to programmatically open, navigate, and extract webpage content. |
2026-08-21 |
Give your Copilot agents real tools, without hand-wiring MCP
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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When Copilot agents need external services (SharePoint, Salesforce, Outlook), follow the post's method to provide real tools without manually wiring a Model Context Protocol server. |
2026-08-21 |
You Belong Here: Three MVPs on Imposter Syndrome
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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If imposter syndrome affects your work, pause, seek perspective from peers or mentors, and reconnect with the concrete contributions you bring to projects. |
2026-08-21 |
Simplify AKS observability with Azure Native New Relic Service
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Use the Azure Native New Relic Service to onboard and manage New Relic for AKS from within Azure, creating or linking accounts and centralising monitoring across clusters. |
2026-08-21 |
A cleaner, simpler Engage: what's changing now and next
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Viva Engage navigation and layout are being refreshed now on the web and in the Teams Engage app; expect cleaner, more consistent community pages as the initial phase rolls out. |
2026-08-21 |
How to Set Up Copilot Skills in PowerPoint (and Build Your Own)
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Configure Copilot Skills in PowerPoint to capture and reuse your editing preferences across decks, or follow the guide to build custom skills that automate recurring slide tasks. |
2026-08-21 |
Notes from the field: testing EWSAllowedAppIDs safely
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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With Exchange Web Services entering its final retirement phase, run the post's controlled positive-and-negative tests of EWSAllowedAppIDs now to validate behaviour and avoid the described naming trap. |
2026-08-21 |
Build a SAFE Agent on Microsoft Foundry
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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When building agents on Microsoft Foundry, implement ACS controls to enforce Scope, Anchored Decisions, Flow Integrity, and Escalation, and validate those controls during runtime. |
2026-08-21 |
New in Microsoft Marketplace: Offers published July 20-21, 2026
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Microsoft Marketplace added 447 offers on July 20-21, 2026; review the new AI apps and agents (for example, Forthcode's AI Agent for Ground Staff) in the Marketplace to find options for your workloads. |
2026-08-21 |
From Detection to Action: Extending Azure Monitor Issues with Action Groups
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Connect Azure Monitor issues to Action Groups and Logic Apps to automatically notify stakeholders, create tickets, or start remediation workflows when the Copilot Observability Agent creates an issue. |
2026-08-20 |
Voice Live and Observability for Production Agent Systems Part 5/5
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Integrate Azure AI Voice Live into agent systems to provide spoken status updates, and add tracing, evaluation, and monitoring (observability) for agents as demonstrated in the FibreOps repo and Microsoft Build BRK241 examples. |
2026-08-20 |
Who Ordered All These Tokens? Giving AI Spend a Name in FOCUS
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Adopt a named cost-allocation pattern (FOCUS) to separate AI spend for Copilot versus your in-house agents so you can perform showback, chargeback, and measure unit economics per agent or per million tokens. |
2026-08-20 |
Expanding Open Model Choice in Microsoft Foundry with New DeepSeek and NVIDIA Nemotron Models
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Microsoft Foundry has added the DeepSeek and NVIDIA Nemotron open models to its catalogue, so developers should check your Foundry model catalogue and governance controls before evaluating or deploying these models. |
2026-08-20 |
Process Monitor v4.1, ZoomIt 12.3 for macOS, RDCMan v3.21, and ZoomIt v12.21
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Update your tooling: install Process Monitor v4.1 to capture IPC events for named pipes and mailslots, upgrade ZoomIt 12.3 for macOS to get DemoMirror, move to RDCMan v3.21 to regain Remote Desktop Gateway support, and apply ZoomIt v12.21 updates. |
2026-08-20 |
Choosing the Right Agent in Microsoft Foundry
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Choose a Prompt Agent when you want orchestration logic to live in prompts, or choose a Hosted Agent when you want orchestration to run in hosted code, and design tool access, data access, and context management accordingly in Microsoft Foundry Agent Service. |
2026-08-20 |
August update: What’s new for partners in AI Business Solutions
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Partner update: the August AI Business Solutions bulletin includes Microsoft 365 Copilot promotions and expanded nonprofit access to Microsoft Intune Remote Help via CSP partners, so partners should review the incentives, skilling, and go-to-market materials linked in the announc |
2026-08-20 |
Understanding the new 100 GB mailbox entitlement for Microsoft 365 Business suites
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Entitlement increase (SKU addition): Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium now include an extra 50 GB of primary mailbox storage (raising eligible users from 50 GB to up to 100 GB); Exchange Online admins should verify user eligibility, update mail |
2026-08-20 |
Task Manager features for visibility into AI workloads
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Windows Task Manager on supported newer devices now shows per-process NPU and GPU neural-engine activity on the Processes tab and overall AI accelerator utilisation on the Performance tab, so update to the latest Windows build and use Task Manager when troubleshooting AI workload |
2026-08-20 |
Announcing General Availability of Disable Multithreading and Configurable Constrained Cores
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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GA: Disable Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT/HT Off) and Configurable Constrained Cores are now available so you can configure supported VMs to run one thread per physical core for lower latency, and set custom vCPU counts to optimise performance and cut software licensing costs. |
2026-08-20 |
Building a Fully Automated Azure Landing Zone Deployment Using Azure DevOps and Terraform
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Follow the provided pattern to automate an Azure Landing Zone: put IaC in Git, run Azure DevOps pipelines to validate, plan, and apply Terraform, and include Management Groups, subscriptions, networking, identity, security baselines, governance, and monitoring in the pipeline. |
2026-08-19 |
Understanding GitHub Billing and management: from licenses to fair AI credit controls
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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GitHub Copilot billing governance requires administrators to configure Copilot seat assignment, map usage to cost centres, and set AI credit usage caps to control who gets seats and how included credits are consumed and attributed. |
2026-08-19 |
🌍 Seven Months of #CommunityLuv with MGCI
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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This is a seven-month community activity recap of MGCI events and meetups across multiple cities and contains no technical changes for practitioners to act on. |
2026-08-19 |
Azure Copilot Introduces Direct Access to Agents
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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General availability (GA): Azure Copilot now provides direct access to specialised Copilot agents so customers can pick the specific agent best suited to tasks like troubleshooting, deployment validation, or resource optimisation; check tenant permissions and role assignments to |
2026-08-19 |
Configure Delivery Optimization for Windows to save bandwidth and speed up deployments
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Configure Delivery Optimization via Intune to reduce bandwidth and speed deployments by enabling peer and local cache delivery; follow the article's scenarios and recommended Intune settings rather than leaving defaults or disabling it. |
2026-08-19 |
Clinical precision starts with more complete documentation
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Clinicians should improve clinical documentation by capturing severity, complexity, acuity, and related conditions more completely in the medical record to support clinical precision and downstream workflows. |
2026-08-19 |
Power Azure SRE Agent with the tools it needs
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Azure SRE Agent provides an AI-powered service teams can use to investigate incidents, automate health checks and compliance reviews, propose remediations with optional human approval, and ingest alerts, deployment history, and telemetry from multiple sources. |
2026-08-19 |
Learning, Community, and AI Adoption: This Month's Highlights
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Adoption.microsoft.com and the Customer Hub have new content and platform enhancements for Microsoft 365 Copilot Cowork, Copilot in SharePoint, Teams Rooms, and Communities in Teams, so review the updated learning resources and platform navigation to support your Copilot adoption |
2026-08-19 |
Partner Blog | Partner Center Technical Corner: August 2026 edition
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Partner Center August 2026 updates add AI-driven sales recommendations and designation progress guidance, plus improved customer and subscription management and visibility,review Partner Center to adopt these features and update partner workflows. |
2026-08-19 |
What’s new for small form factor infrastructure
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Public preview refreshed to version 2607 in the Azure portal: it adds support for multiple NICs and additional disks, Just-in-Time device access via the new Connect experience, and cloud-managed OS updates and recovery using an A/B image model,test 2607 now. |
2026-08-19 |
What's New in Microsoft EDU - Back to School 2026 webinar
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Webinar demonstrates new Microsoft Education features: Teach module in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Notebooks, Study and Learn agent, Learning Zone, Teams for EDU updates, and OneNote EDU,join the Back to School 2026 webinar for demos and deployment tips. |
2026-08-19 |
Episode 1: Onboarding Azure Arc at Scale | The Azure Arc Check-In
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Episode 1 of The Azure Arc Check-In shows how to onboard Azure Arc at scale, including strategies to deploy the Azure Connected Machine agent across 1,000 Windows and Linux servers,follow the episode and automation guidance at aka.ms/aaci-episode1. |
2026-08-19 |
Collecting Delivery Optimization logs the easy way
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Use the free diagnostics tool described to collect Delivery Optimization and Connected Cache logs for troubleshooting content peering, cache hits, and to prepare logs for Microsoft support. |
2026-08-19 |
[Now Generally Available] What-If for Azure Deployment Stacks
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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GA: What-if for Azure Deployment Stacks is now generally available in all regions, so run Stacks What-if to preview create, modify, and delete changes to stacks, deny-setting changes, and the resources a stack manages before you deploy. |
2026-08-19 |
Announcing General Availability of Managed Instance on Azure App Service
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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GA: Managed Instance on Azure App Service is now generally available with an enterprise SLA; plan production migrations to this managed hosting option and consult the GA guidance for sizing, configuration, and migration steps. |
2026-08-19 |
How Microsoft Orchestrates Executive Social at Scale
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Join the First Friday session on 3 Sep at 8am PT for a behind-the-scenes look at how Microsoft organises executive social at scale, covering coordination across leaders, teams, agencies, and AI tools. |
2026-08-19 |
New in Microsoft Marketplace: Offers published July 15-19, 2026
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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293 new offers went live in Microsoft Marketplace on July 15-19, 2026; review the list (for example, Acumens BCNAV Costing Toolbox) and evaluate new apps, AI agents, and solutions you can trial or buy. |
2026-08-19 |
Managing SQL Server on Linux Azure VMs with the SQL IaaS Agent Extension
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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If you run SQL Server on Linux VMs in Azure, install and register the SQL IaaS Agent extension so your instance appears in Azure management, lets you manage licensing and compliance, and lets you switch PAYG to Azure Hybrid Benefit. |
2026-08-18 |
Getting Started with Azure SQL Data Sync Using User-Assigned Managed Identity (UAMI)
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Azure SQL Data Sync now supports user-assigned managed identity (UAMI) authentication, so replace SQL authentication for hub and member databases with UAMI to remove password storage and simplify credential management. |
2026-08-18 |
Azure SQL Data Sync Fails with "Cannot Insert NULL": Understanding the Root Cause
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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When Azure SQL Data Sync reports SQL Error 515 (cannot insert NULL), investigate Data Sync tracking metadata and tracking-table inconsistencies rather than assuming source data quality, since metadata mismatches often cause the fault. |
2026-08-18 |
Community Says “Hitzefrei”: 38 MVPs Turn Summer into a Season of Learning
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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The "Hitzefrei" community campaign gathers 38 Microsoft MVPs for a summer series of learning events via the MVPTreff platform; join if you want community-led sessions on Microsoft 365 and Copilot topics. |
2026-08-18 |
Distributing Agents to Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot Part 4/5
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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To distribute agents to end users, publish them to Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot using the guidance in part 4 of the agent platform series and the FibreOps examples to reach people in their existing workflows. |
2026-08-18 |
Beyond Deployment: What It Really Takes to Run GitHub Actions Runners on AKS
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Running GitHub Actions runners on AKS with Actions Runner Controller needs more than a working demo: plan and implement production-grade security, observability, supportability, and multi-team isolation before scaling. |
2026-08-18 |
Why Cloud Browsers Are Becoming Enterprise Infrastructure for AI Agents and Automation
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Treat cloud browsers as first-class enterprise infrastructure for AI agents and browser automation, and design for scalable, managed execution, orchestration, and operational controls instead of ad hoc browser scripts. |
2026-08-18 |
Active Directory Domain Services modules on Microsoft Learn
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Microsoft Learn now offers a curated sequence of Active Directory Domain Services modules from introductory to advanced (with AD CS modules coming), so use these modules to train or upskill teams on AD DS concepts and tasks. |
2026-08-18 |
The OpenVMM Project
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Evaluate OpenVMM for cross-platform virtual machine management: Microsoft published an open-source VMM project (description indicates it is written in Rus) that implements hypervisor, VMM, and host OS roles, so review it if you need an alternative VMM to test. |
2026-08-18 |
Public Preview: Zone-Redundant Next-Gen General Purpose for Azure SQL Managed Instance
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Public preview: Next-Generation General Purpose for Azure SQL Managed Instance now supports zone redundancy, so enable Availability Zone protection in the preview to meet zone-level HA and compliance requirements and test your failover, backups, and SLA behaviour. |
2026-08-18 |
Keep Azure Monitor issues and ServiceNow ITOM incidents in sync
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Configure the new Azure Monitor integration to automatically create a corresponding incident in ServiceNow ITOM when an Azure Monitor issue is created, so issue and ITOM records stay in sync and you avoid manual context copying. |
2026-08-16 |
Closing the SQL Data Sync Monitoring Gap: Building Proactive Alerts with Azure Logic Apps
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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SQL Data Sync does not expose synchronization health as an Azure Monitor metric, so create proactive alerts using Azure Logic Apps to detect sync issues and trigger notifications or remediation workflows. |
2026-08-15 |
Accelerate connectors development using AI agent in Microsoft Sentinel
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Public preview: the Microsoft Sentinel connector builder agent is available as a VS Code extension that provides AI-assisted, low-code workflows to build codeless Sentinel connectors,install the extension to speed connector development and testing. |
2026-08-15 |
Building Microsoft Sentinel Connectors in Minutes with the Sentinel Connector Builder Agent
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Preview: install the Microsoft Sentinel Connector Builder Agent VS Code extension to generate Codeless Connector Framework (CCF) pull connector artifacts via a guided, conversational workflow with low-code and AI-assisted prompts, reducing manual ingestion and config work. |
2026-08-15 |
Empower Real-Time Security with Microsoft Sentinel’s CCF Push Feature
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Public preview: Sentinel's Codeless Connector Framework (CCF) Push feature is now available to deliver security data immediately to Microsoft Sentinel,evaluate CCF Push for real-time ingestion and update your connector/ingestion designs accordingly. |
2026-08-15 |
Advancing print readiness across the Windows on Arm ecosystem
Microsoft Tech Community (website)
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Microsoft is advancing print readiness across the Windows on Arm ecosystem; if you plan Arm64 Windows deployments, validate printing and driver compatibility on target devices and test your print workflows before roll-out. |
2026-08-15 |
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Azure Community
(34)
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| Title |
Summary |
Date |
We should not become a subcognitive species
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
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Scott Hanselman says he and Mark Russinovich are developing a 'preceptorship' model to teach early-career engineers to think and urges engineers to attempt problems before using AI, so teams should add deliberate practice and mentorship into onboarding to avoid overreliance on AI |
2026-08-22 |
Azure Update 21st August 2026
John Savill's Technical Training (youtube)
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John Savill's channel is no longer able to read or answer viewer questions due to growth, so post questions to Reddit, the Microsoft Community Hub, or other forums, and note an Ask Me Anything is scheduled in just over a week. |
2026-08-22 |
Compile after Class Crossover Episode
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
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No Azure action required: Scott Hanselman guested on the student podcast "Compile after Class", this is a community episode rather than a product update or service change. |
2026-08-21 |
Compile after Class Crossover Episode
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
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No Azure service change: Scott Hanselman guested on the high-school podcast "Compile after Class" as a crossover episode; no action required unless you want to watch the community conversation at https://www.youtube.com/@shreemanickaraja |
2026-08-21 |
Foundry Toolbox with Arafat Tehsin
Nicholas Chang (youtube)
|
Watch the 'Foundry Toolbox with Arafat Tehsin' community video on Nicholas Chang's YouTube channel to view the session directly. |
2026-08-21 |
Fabric IQ with Navyasree Potluri
Nicholas Chang (youtube)
|
This is a community YouTube interview (Fabric IQ with Navyasree Potluri, posted by Nicholas Chang); no Azure GA, preview, retirement, pricing, SKU, region expansion, or breaking change is announced, so there is no immediate platform action required. |
2026-08-21 |
Waking up with amnesia every single time
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
|
Informational: no Azure service change, the Hanselman episode demonstrates an AI agent pattern where the agent reads a persistent soul.md file and tattoos learned facts, so if you build conversational agents persist identity and key facts to durable storage to avoid session amnes |
2026-08-21 |
Language Model Builder with Felix Rieseberg
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
|
Use the free LanguageModelBuilder site (languagemodelbuilder.com) to build a simple language model in a weekend and observe training from noise to coherent output so you can learn language model internals and training workflows hands-on. |
2026-08-20 |
Evidence to Decision: building an AI-envisioning workshop tool on Azure
Luke Murray (website)
|
Implement an evidence-first, governed, auditable AI workshop pipeline on Azure to convert sticky notes into approved delivery artefacts, with every step recorded for governance and traceability. |
2026-08-20 |
Language Model Builder with Felix Rieseberg
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
|
Build and inspect a simple language model in a weekend using the free LanguageModelBuilder site (https://languagemodelbuilder.com), following Felix Rieseberg's walkthrough to see how training progresses from noise to coherent text. |
2026-08-20 |
What The Entra Fudge?! Tenant Restrictions v1 Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
Graham Gold (website)
|
Tenant Restrictions v1 blocks unapproved Entra tenants but does not block Microsoft consumer accounts by default; to block consumer accounts too, inject the second header into the other authentication endpoint used by those logins. |
2026-08-20 |
Chernobyl messaged me on LinkedIn
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
|
No Azure product change: listen to the Hanselminutes episode where Maynard Holliday describes using professional networks to coordinate equipment recovery after the Zaporizhzhia damage; no Azure action required beyond general incident-response lessons. |
2026-08-20 |
FabricIQ Integration with Navyasree Potluri
Nicholas Chang (youtube)
|
Watch Nicholas Chang's community video featuring Navyasree Potluri to get FabricIQ integration details and the implementation steps you must apply in your environment. |
2026-08-20 |
Tech in Five - What is a Harness
John Savill's Technical Training (youtube)
|
Implement a harness when building LLM-powered apps: models have no native memory, so use a harness to provide external memory, organise prompts, and manage model interactions and state. |
2026-08-20 |
Getting started with Harness Engineering in GitHub Copilot
Will Velida (youtube)
|
Add repository-level harness files: AGENTS.md, an init script, feature_list.json, and a postToolUse hook, plus a one-line GitHub Copilot CLI prompt so the agent initialises the environment, follows repo rules, and runs tests after each edit (demo repo: github.com/willvelida/). |
2026-08-20 |
Your Azure Backups Don’t Have to Be Complicated!
Travis Roberts (website)
|
Review and simplify your Azure Backup strategy: map which workloads are currently protected to the Azure Backup capabilities described in the post and apply its resiliency guidance to reduce configuration complexity and coverage gaps. |
2026-08-19 |
AKS Hyperscale Control Plane Now in Preview
Richard Hooper (website)
|
Preview: AKS now offers a 'hyperscale' control plane tier you can specify at cluster creation via the aks-preview CLI extension (API name 'hyperscale'); update the extension and pick the new tier to get guaranteed control plane capacity. |
2026-08-19 |
What does a Dynamics 365 Contact Center actually cost? I built a calculator to find out
Peter Ruiter (website)
|
Use Peter Ruiter's Dynamics 365 Contact Center cost calculator to compare Customer Service Premium versus Enterprise plus the Contact Center add-on, model the impact of Copilot credits when you enable AI agents, and estimate two-year billing to choose the most cost-effective lice |
2026-08-19 |
Azure Change Analysis: Finally, a Straight Answer to 'What Changed?'
Gregor Suttie (website)
|
Use Azure Change Analysis to get a straight answer to 'what changed' when you investigate incidents, and integrate its findings into your runbooks and alerts to stop wasting time hunting configuration changes. |
2026-08-19 |
A first look at Azure Bicep's new documentation generator
Gijs Reijn (website)
|
Native README generation is coming to the Bicep CLI; when it lands, update your repo templates and CI pipelines to run the new documentation generator so module README files are auto-produced and kept in sync. |
2026-08-19 |
Cybersecurity Mittendrin - Folge 23 - NIST und die lokale KI (Kontext) = Cybersecurity-Roadmap!
Tom Wechsler (youtube)
|
Combine the NIST cybersecurity framework with local, context-aware AI to create a customised cybersecurity roadmap, and reuse the video's linked GitHub workshop materials and artefacts as a practical starting point. |
2026-08-19 |
Awards
Gregor Suttie (website)
|
Post titled "Awards" contains no technical details or actionable Azure changes, so there are no configuration, deployment, or migration steps required from practitioners. |
2026-08-19 |
Tony Stark has no superpower but his mind
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
|
Scott Hanselman's podcast episode profiles Maynard Holliday and the role of representation in engineering; this is community content and requires no Azure product changes or practitioner action. |
2026-08-19 |
AKS Shared Maintenance Windows (Preview): One Schedule Across Multiple Clusters
Richard Hooper (website)
|
AKS Shared Maintenance Windows is available in Preview: you can now define one planned-maintenance schedule to apply across multiple clusters, review the new AKS docs PR, test this in non-production, and update your cluster maintenance processes accordingly. |
2026-08-19 |
Azure Resiliency in the Portal: The Feature I Didn't Know I Needed Until I Used It
Gregor Suttie (website)
|
No actionable change is present in the provided item: Gregor Suttie's article highlights the Azure Portal "Resiliency" feature, so read the post to learn how to access and use it because the input contains no release, preview, retirement, pricing, region, or breaking-change detai |
2026-08-18 |
GitOps with Flux on my k3s cluster
Simon Foster (website)
|
Switch your k3s homelab to GitOps: put your desired cluster state (YAML or Helm manifests) in Git and install an in-cluster Flux controller to continuously reconcile the live cluster so you no longer rely on a single laptop for changes. |
2026-08-18 |
On Air in the Cloud
Gregor Suttie (website)
|
No actionable details are present in the feed item for 'On Air in the Cloud' by Gregor Suttie; consult the original post for any operational changes or guidance. |
2026-08-18 |
Azure Quick Review (azqr) v4.0.0: What You Need to Know
Carlos Mendible (website)
|
azqr v4.0.0 is released with new VM sizing, Service Health analysis, SQL Server lifecycle management, and region selection tools, and it contains breaking changes, so review and update any v3.x scripts and automation before replacing the binary. |
2026-08-18 |
70 to 80% of AI code is insecure by default
Scott Hanselman (youtube)
|
Treat AI-generated code as insecure by default: Varun Badhwar reports 70-80% of model-generated code has security issues, so require human code review, static analysis, dependency scanning (SCA), and unit tests before merging or deploying. |
2026-08-18 |
From Azure Policy to APIM: Implementing Azure AI Guardrails
Thomas Thornton (website)
|
Apply a two-layer AI guardrails model: use Azure Policy for network controls and approved-model enforcement, and implement API Management policies (APIM XML) to enforce token quotas, content-safety checks, and observability at runtime, using the post's sample policies and APIM XM |
2026-08-18 |
AI-103 Develop AI Apps and Agents on Azure Study Cram
John Savill's Technical Training (youtube)
|
Watch this AI-103 study cram video to prepare for the AI-103 exam: it covers Microsoft learning resources, core AI terms, responsible AI, Foundry resources and tools, model deployment and routing, Responses API and ChatCompletions, SDK comparisons, evaluations, and skills. |
2026-08-17 |
How to write a Microsoft DSC resource in Go in under 100 lines
Gijs Reijn (website)
|
Author Microsoft DSC resources in Go using the Resource Development Kit (RDK) in under 100 lines, following the article's example to produce a compact resource implementation you can adapt for your environments. |
2026-08-17 |
Microsoft Configuration Manager - Folge 23 - Windows Autopilot Hybrid Join
Tom Wechsler (youtube)
|
Implement Windows Autopilot Hybrid Join with Configuration Manager and Intune: use the video's step-by-step walkthrough and the linked GitHub workshop repo, Microsoft docs, and Windows 11 lab kit to configure Hybrid Azure AD Join for your devices. |
2026-08-17 |
500K Ask Me Anything YouTube Live Stream
John Savill's Technical Training (youtube)
|
No action required: this is a 60-minute community Ask Me Anything livestream recording by John Savill; watch the video for practical tips and Q&A and subscribe for future technical sessions. |
2026-08-17 |
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