Ryan Hill, a Software Engineer in the Azure CXP group, shares details of the new Microsoft Q&A website which serves as a one-stop for getting questions answered around Azure and other Microsoft technologies.

Media file: https://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode336.mp3

Resources:

Supported services in QnA: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/products/#supported-products

How to write quality question: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/articles/24951/how-to-write-a-quality-question.html

Job postings: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/search-results?keywords=%23MicrosoftATL

Other updates:

Azure Storage account failover is now generally available
Published date: June 17, 2020
Customer-initiated Storage account failover is now generally available, allowing you to determine when to initiate a failover instead of waiting for Microsoft to do so. When you perform a failover, the secondary replica of the Storage account becomes the new primary, and the DNS records for all Storage service endpoints—blob, file, queue, and table—are updated to point to this new primary. Once the failover is complete, clients will automatically begin reading from the Storage account and writing data to it in the new primary region, with no code changes.
Customer initiated failover is available for GRS, RA-GRS, GZRS, and RA-GZRS accounts. To learn more, read the documentation.

From <https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/azure-storage-account-failover-ga/>

Azure Container Registry: Securing container workflows
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-container-registry-securing-container-workflows/
Simplifying declarative deployments in Azure
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/simplifying-declarative-deployments-in-azure/

Evan and Sujit are fortunate to chat with Bryan Belmont, a GM in the Azure organization, to give us some insight into what goes into offering top-notch support in the cloud and how it differs from on-premises support. 

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode126.mp3

Other updates:

Free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/microsoft_press/2016/04/20/free-ebook-introducing-windows-server-2016-technical-preview/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-egress-fee-waiver-for-the-academic-community/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-support-for-php-7-0-in-azure-app-service-and-notice-of-php-5-4-retirement/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-data-lake-introduces-java-sdks-in-public-preview-for-big-data-processing-in-java-applications/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-blockchain-update-8/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-the-azure-iot-gateway-sdk-beta/

The guys chat with Russell Young, who has joined Microsoft as a Principal PFE specializing in supporting customers with Azure Development. Russell’s passion is helping customers with their cloud and mobile strategies, as well as planning, designing and architecting modern software solutions. He shares some of his experiences with Azure. 

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode113.mp3

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftservices/premier_support_developers.aspx

Big news from last week - Azure Stack is now available in Preview:

List of related links - http://aka.ms/azurestackakaguide

Help Forum - http://aka.ms/azurestackforum
Suggestions for Azure Stack - http://aka.ms/azurestackuservoice

We are fortunate to have Azure Senior PM, Bernardo Muñoz on the show to talk about a new facility called Azure Resource Health which makes diagnosing problems with VMs etc. so much easier.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode111.mp3

Blog about this service: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/reduce-troubleshooting-time-with-azure-resource-health/

Other updates and resources:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/the-state-of-the-union-with-microsoft-pulse-and-azure-event-hubs/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-batch-service-update-december-2015/

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/analyzing-your-azure-search-traffic/

Cale and Evan talk to Jason Johnson from the Azure Customer Response Team - they monitor the @AzureSupport Twitter alias in Azure Engineering and respond to customer questions.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode80.mp3  

http://twitter.com/AzureSupport

News:

Importing data to DocumentDb just got faster and easier

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/06/02/importing-data-to-documentdb-just-got-faster-and-easier/

Jelastic on Azure 

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/06/03/jelastic-on-azure-2/

Intermediate TLS certificates for Azure App Service Web Apps

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/06/01/intermediate-tls-certificates-for-azure-app-service-web-apps/