· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: AKS, Azure, Network Policy Manager, NPM, Windows nodes, retirement, end of support, 2026-09-30, migration, networking
Microsoft will retire Azure Network Policy Manager (NPM) for Windows nodes on AKS on September 30, 2026. Customers must move to alternative networking solutions to keep receiving support, security updates, and deployment compatibility.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: Azure Firewall, Firewall Policy, IP Groups, Networking, Limits, Generally Available, Azure Update
Azure Firewall Policy now generally available supports up to 600 IP Groups per policy (previously 200), allowing administrators to simplify and better organize firewall rules by using more IP Groups instead of long IP lists.
Azure NetApp Files short-term clones are now generally available. They create temporary thin clones from existing volume snapshots to provide space-efficient, instant read/write access without making full data copies, reducing capacity usage and speeding workflows.
Azure will retire legacy authentication for Azure Monitor - Container Insights on September 30, 2026; customers should migrate to Managed Identity authentication.
Microsoft announced general availability of the AI toolchain operator add-on (KAITO) for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). KAITO streamlines deployment of AI inference and fine-tuning workflows using popular open-source frameworks, with vLLM set as the default inference engine to simplify management and scaling of model serving.
Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server now generally supports PostgreSQL minor versions 17.6, 16.10, 15.14, 14.19, 13.22 and 18 Beta 3; minor-version upgrades are applied automatically during monthly planned maintenance.
Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance will be retired on September 30, 2026; customers will no longer be able to access the service after that date. Microsoft recommends transitioning to Operations Manager on-premises to continue monitoring on-premises workloads and consulting the retirement documentation for details.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) now provides a generally available Azure CLI command to automatically migrate clusters using Availability Sets and the basic load balancer to the new Virtual Machines node pool and perform the required upgrade. Availability Sets and the basic load balancer are deprecated on September 30, 2025.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: Azure Static Web Apps, database connections, deprecation, retirement, public preview, migration, action required
Azure Static Web Apps’ database connections feature (currently in public preview) will be deprecated effective November 30, 2025 due to changes in underlying infrastructure. Customers should refactor deployments using this feature to avoid deployment issues.
Azure NetApp Files now generally supports cross-tenant customer-managed keys (CMK) for volume encryption, letting customers use and control their own encryption keys across different Azure tenancies to increase control and flexibility.
Azure VPN Gateway will retire support for the SSTP protocol on March 31, 2027. Microsoft cites limited scalability and suboptimal performance and advises customers to migrate to IKEv2 or OpenVPN, which offer significantly improved capabilities (including support for up to 10,000 connections).
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: Azure, Azure NetApp Files, ANF, LDAP, FreeIPA, OpenLDAP, Red Hat Directory Server, NFS, TLS, public preview
Azure NetApp Files is in public preview for integration with FreeIPA, OpenLDAP, and Red Hat Directory Server, providing secure LDAP over TLS connectivity for NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 volumes so enterprises can use these directory services for identity management.
Microsoft announced the retirement of all General purpose v1 (GPv1) storage accounts — including legacy blob storage accounts — as part of efforts to streamline the Azure Storage portfolio and improve performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: Azure, Traffic Manager, Health Checks, Health Probes, Generally Available, Resiliency, Scalability, Infrastructure, Update
Azure Traffic Manager’s new health check infrastructure is now generally available. The update improves the service’s resiliency and scalability, and Microsoft is migrating customers to the new probing infrastructure as the rollout progresses.
Azure Machine Learning’s built-in data labeling capability will be retired on September 30, 2026. Customers can continue to use the service until that date but should plan to transition to third‑party data labeling providers before the retirement.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: MSSQL, Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Fabric, Public Preview, Microsoft Entra ID, Connectivity, SQL
The MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code is available in public preview with built-in connectivity to Microsoft Fabric SQL databases. A new Fabric option in the Connection Dialog lets developers sign in with Microsoft Entra ID and access Fabric resources directly from VS Code, bringing Fabric SQL into the development workflow.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-10
· tags: Azure, AKS, Azure Kubernetes Service, Network Policy, NPM, Cilium, Migration, End of support, Linux nodes, Retirement
Azure will retire Azure Network Policy Manager (NPM) on Linux nodes in AKS on September 30, 2028. Customers must migrate AKS clusters using NPM to Cilium Network Policy before that date to avoid disruptions.
In late September 2025 Azure SQL announced a Public Preview feature that adds immutability to long-term retention (LTR) backups to protect backups from ransomware and tampering.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Compute Gallery, Soft Delete, Public Preview, VM images, Recovery, 7-day retention
Azure Compute Gallery now has a Public Preview of a Soft Delete feature that lets you recover accidentally deleted images within a 7-day retention period.
Microsoft will end support for Service Connector (preview) on Azure Container Apps on March 30, 2026. After that date the preview Service Connector will no longer be supported on Azure Container Apps; consult the original update for details and next steps.
Microsoft announces the retirement of the Spark native connector effective October 1, 2025, citing low usage, high maintenance costs, and potential security vulnerabilities; source text is truncated before completing the stated goal.
Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is generally available with enhanced integration into Azure Monitor Metrics, enabling subscription-level visualization of new ARM metrics for deeper visibility and more granular monitoring of Resource Manager operations.
Microsoft will retire the AV36 node type for Azure VMware Solution on June 30, 2028. Current AV36 Reserved Instance (RI) terms are not affected, and customers are advised to review their RI expiration timelines.
Microsoft announced the planned retirement of the Entity Linking feature in Azure AI Language and recommends considering replacement solutions; Named Entity Recognition (NER) in Azure AI Language is suggested as an alternative for entity identification. The provided article content is truncated and lacks full details.
Microsoft is retiring the Azure Functions Linux Consumption hosting plan on September 30, 2028 and recommends migrating affected functions to the Flex Consumption plan, which provides faster scaling, advanced networking, cold start mitigation, and concurrency control.
Azure recommends upgrading from BlobFuse v1 to BlobFuse v2 because future enhancements and innovations for Azure Blob Storage file system access will be focused exclusively on BlobFuse v2 and support for BlobFuse v1 will be discontinued.
Azure App Service on Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes will be retired beginning September 30, 2025. After that date customers will no longer be able to install the extension; Microsoft requests customers migrate to other solutions to continue hosting application workloads.
Azure NetApp Files Flexible service level is now generally available. It lets you independently configure storage capacity and throughput so you can right-size performance and cost, avoiding overprovisioning by using customizable throughput settings separate from capacity.
The Insights blade in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has been renamed to Monitor and moved from the Monitoring section to the top-level navigation; monitoring data and features remain unchanged.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Database for MySQL, Flexible Server, backups, on-demand backup, delete backup, generally available, August 2025
Azure DB for MySQL - Flexible Server now supports deleting on-demand backups. As of the August 2025 release this capability is generally available, complementing the existing ability to manually trigger on-demand backups and the system automated backups.
Azure Migrate is available in public preview to discover and assess PostgreSQL resources across VMware, Hyper‑V, physical servers, and other cloud environments. The service provides a centralized hub to help plan the next steps for migrating or modernizing PostgreSQL workloads.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure Disk Encryption, Encryption at Host, CVM OS disk encryption, retirement, deprecation, migration, Azure, disk encryption, cloud security
Azure Disk Encryption will be retired on September 15, 2028; customers are advised to transition to Encryption at Host (or other supported OS-disk encryption solutions such as CVM OS disk encryption) before that date.
Azure Site Recovery (ASR) now generally available for Virtual Machines using Premium SSD v2 disks, enabling seamless disaster recovery across Azure regions and from on-premises to Azure to help maintain business continuity.
Microsoft will retire specific NVv3-series Azure virtual machines (Standard_NV12s_v3, Standard_NV12hs_v3, Standard_NV24s_v3, Standard_NV24ms_v3, Standard_NV32ms_v3, Standard_NV48s_v3) on September 30, 2026. Customers must plan and migrate affected workloads before that date to avoid disruption.
Microsoft announced general availability of GitHub Copilot app modernization capabilities for Java and .NET. The offering is designed to reduce redundant, complex work involved in modernizing applications so developers can focus on innovation, while helping ensure apps remain secure, scalable, and up to date.
Azure Application Gateway now generally supports Server-sent events (SSE), enabling real-time server-to-client data streaming over a persistent HTTP connection for seamless client updates.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure Front Door, signed request, public preview, access control, content delivery
Microsoft announced the public preview of Azure Front Door ‘signed request’, a new capability to strengthen access control for content delivery by allowing organizations to restrict access to content such as media streams and files.
Azure Backup now offers generally available vaulted backups for Azure Files premium shares, providing vault-based protection to help ensure business continuity and compliance.
Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager (Public Preview) adds a new auto-upgrade channel that lets you set a target Kubernetes minor version. Clusters on that target minor will receive only patch updates (no minor upgrades) until the minor reaches end-of-life.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Monitor, Container Insights, AKS, High Scale, Logging, Monitoring, General Availability
Azure announced general availability of High scale mode for Container Insights, Azure Monitor’s log-collection solution for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). The new mode is designed to provide higher log collection throughput for customers with large or high-throughput clusters.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Managed Service for Prometheus, Grafana, Public Preview, Observability, Azure Portal, Monitoring
Azure announces a public preview where Azure Managed Service for Prometheus now includes native Grafana dashboards accessible within the Azure portal at no additional cost, aiming to simplify observability and reduce administrative overhead.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Data Box, Data Box Next Gen, Generally Available, Regions, Data Transfer, Cloud Migration
Azure Data Box Next Gen is now generally available in India, Qatar, South Africa, and Korea; the 120 TB and 525 TB Data Box SKUs are GA in the US, UK, Europe, and US Gov.
Broadcom changed VMware licensing: beginning October 16, 2025, new Azure VMware Solution (AVS) subscriptions will require customers to bring their own portable VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscriptions. Existing AVS customers can continue operating under current arrangements.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, DCa v6, ECa v6, Confidential VMs, AMD, General Availability, UAE North, Korea Central, West Central US, South Africa North, Switzerland North, UK South
Microsoft announced general availability of DCa/ECa v6 AMD-based confidential virtual machines in several regions, built on 4th generation AMD hardware.
Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager (public preview) now lets you add approval gates to update runs. Gates can be placed before and after update groups and stages to give operators manual control over the progression of an update run.
Azure announced General Availability of Distributed Tracing V2 for Durable Functions, a robust tracing model that lets developers correlate operations across orchestrations, activities, and durable entities to improve debugging and observability.
Azure Functions now supports .NET 10 in Public Preview. To use it, change the Functions project’s target framework and update Microsoft.Azure.Functions.Worker.Sdk to version 2.0.5 or later. The announcement also indicates .NET 10 projects can be deployed to app (source content truncated).
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Network Security Hub, Azure Firewall, Web Application Firewall, DDoS Protection, General Availability, Microsoft Azure
Azure has made the expanded and rebranded Azure Firewall Manager generally available as the Network Security Hub — a centralized management experience that consolidates Azure Firewall, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and DDoS Protection to simplify policy, visibility, and protection across deployments.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Databricks, Azure, Public Preview, Data Engineering, Analytics, AI, Governance, Collaboration
Databricks One is available in Azure Databricks as a public preview offering a unified, simplified platform that combines data engineering, analytics, and AI development into a single, governed environment with integrated collaboration and enterprise governance.
Azure Database for PostgreSQL — Flexible Server now generally available with Confidential Computing support, using hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs) to protect data while it is being processed.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, data-transfer, at-cost, pricing, Generally Available, Europe, CSP, internet
Azure has made at-cost data transfer generally available in Europe, allowing customers and CSP partners to pay only the underlying cost for internet data transfers between Azure and external endpoints.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: AKS, AKS on VMware, AKS on Azure Local, retirement, deprecation, migration, 2026-03-16
Azure Kubernetes Service on VMware (preview) will be retired on March 16, 2026; customers should transition to Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Local by that date.
Azure File Sync is now generally available in the Poland Central and Spain Central regions. The service lets you tier data from on-premises Windows Servers to Azure Files for hybrid scenarios and simplified migrations while retaining on-premises file server performance, flexibility, and compatibility.
Azure HBv5-series VMs are now available in Public Preview in the Azure South Central US region and are optimized for memory-bandwidth-intensive HPC workloads such as computational fluid dynamics, automotive and aerospace simulations, and weather modeling.
Azure announced general availability of ‘AKS Automatic’, a managed AKS capability that automates routine cluster operations (provisioning, scaling, upgrades, patching and security) to reduce operational complexity and let teams focus on delivering applications.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Container Storage, ACStor, v2.0.0, GA, NVMe, Performance, AKS, Open source, No service fees
Azure Container Storage (ACStor) v2.0.0 is now generally available, offering up to 7× higher IOPS and 4× lower latency on local NVMe compared to v1.3.1. The release positions ACStor as the fastest storage option for Azure Kubernetes Service, is open source, and carries no service fees.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure Databricks, retirement, April 2026, October 2026, migration
Microsoft announced the retirement of the Azure Databricks Standard tier. Creation of new Standard-tier workspaces will be blocked after April 1, 2026, and the Standard tier will be retired by October 1, 2026.
Microsoft will retire support for hsmPlatform 1 keys in Azure Key Vault on September 15, 2028. Customers are advised to transition their keys to supported alternatives to maintain security and functionality.
Azure Application Gateway V2 now generally available: customers can enable dedicated connections from the gateway to backend servers instead of using the default connection reuse behavior.
Azure Application Gateway V2 is generally available with customer-controlled backend TLS validations, allowing customers to manage how TLS validations are applied to backend HTTPS connections.
Azure announced the general availability of the Azure SQL hub in the Azure portal — a new centralized experience that brings together everything related to Azure SQL. The hub is designed to simplify choosing the right Azure SQL service and support both new and experienced users.
Azure App Service is now generally available with Bring Your Own License (BYOL) support for JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP), letting enterprise customers deploy Java workloads using their existing JBoss licenses for greater flexibility and cost efficiency.
Azure announced general availability of same-region replica clusters for Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB (vCore), allowing you to create a continuously synchronized read-only replica in the same region as the primary cluster to improve read scale and resiliency.
Microsoft announced the general availability of Extended Support for Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server, beginning in spring 2026, to help customers manage upgrade timelines for MySQL versions that have reached end of life.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure Databricks, Automatic identity management, Microsoft Entra, User provisioning, Deprovisioning, General availability, Identity lifecycle, Azure
Azure Databricks automatic identity management is now generally available, enabling automated user provisioning and deprovisioning through native integration with Microsoft Entra to streamline identity lifecycle operations.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Database for MySQL, MySQL 8.4, Flexible Server, General Availability, Release
Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server version 8.4 is now generally available, allowing creation of new production MySQL 8.4 servers with the latest features and performance improvements.
Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB (vCore) now generally supports encrypting data at rest with customer-managed keys (CMK) in addition to the existing service-managed keys, giving customers an additional layer of control and security.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Database for MySQL, MySQL, Flexible Server, Self-Heal, Self-healing, Public Preview, Database
Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server now offers a Self-Heal feature in Public Preview that provides self-healing tools to proactively resolve common server issues (for example, unresponsive servers) without needing to open a support case.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Files, Microsoft.FileShares, File shares, Public preview, Resource provider, Management model
Azure Files is in public preview for a file share–centric management model (Microsoft.FileShares) that makes file shares top-level resources to simplify creating and managing file shares in Azure.
Azure announced general availability of the new D192 size in the Dsv6 and Ddsv6 virtual machine families. The VMs are powered by the 5th Generation Intel Xeon Platinum 8573C (Emerald Rapids) processor. The announcement notes that Dsv6-series VMs use Azure managed disks.
Azure is offering a private preview of AMD-based VM families (Dasv7/Dalsv7 general purpose, Easv7 memory-optimized, and Fasv7/Falsv7/Famsv7 compute-optimized) with options for local disk or diskless configurations, available in select regions.
Azure announced general availability of Multitenant Managed Logging in Container Insights, letting customers with shared AKS clusters segregate container logs by team so teams can independently manage and access their logs.
Microsoft Playwright Testing (Preview) will be retired on March 8, 2026. Azure App Testing — introduced last August to unify Azure Load Testing and Microsoft Playwright Testing — is the consolidated testing service for running large-scale functional and performance tests.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, retirement, disks, Standard HDD, OS disks, migration, cloud
Microsoft Azure will retire OS disks on Standard HDD on 08 September 2028. The change is part of an effort to align disk offerings with current usage patterns and future investments in disk performance.
Microsoft announced public preview support for the ISO-aligned Graph Query Language (GQL) within KQL graph semantics, enabling GQL queries to run on Fabric Eventhouse and Azure Data Explorer to simplify working with graph data using an industry standard.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure Red Hat OpenShift, general availability, UAE Central, US Gov Texas, cloud regions
Azure Red Hat OpenShift is now generally available in UAE Central and US Gov Texas regions, expanding managed OpenShift services to the Middle East and southwestern US.
Azure NetApp Files migration assistant (with SnapMirror) is now generally available, enabling efficient, cost-effective migrations to Azure NetApp Files using ONTAP’s replication engine.
Azure CDN will be retired in China on December 1, 2025. Customers should migrate to Azure Front to avoid service disruption; Microsoft will provide support during the transition.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure Functions, Python 3.13, Public Preview, Runtime Version Control, Azure
Azure Functions now supports Python 3.13 in public preview, and introduces an opt-in runtime version control feature that lets you target specific Functions Python runtime versions when developing locally and deploying to Azure.
Microsoft announced the Public Preview of .NET 10 on Azure App Service for both Windows and Linux, enabling developers to run modern web workloads such as ASP.NET apps, Blazor, and Minimal APIs on the platform.
Azure announced general availability of multiple address prefixes for subnets in Azure Virtual Networks. Subnets previously allowed only a single address prefix, which constrained scale for some applications when address space was exhausted. The GA feature lets subnets hold more than one prefix, enabling larger address ranges and greater flexibility for scaling and IP management.
Azure announced general availability of the ability to upgrade existing Gen1 virtual machines to Gen2-Trusted Launch. The capability enables Trusted Launch on previously deployed Gen1 VMs to improve foundational VM security.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure Database for MySQL, Flexible Server, High Availability, Maintenance, General Availability, HA, Uptime
Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server with High Availability (HA) now offers near-zero-downtime maintenance and this capability is generally available. The feature is supported by a new HA architecture and applies to Flexible Server deployments with HA enabled.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure API Management, Workspaces, Workspace Gateways, Premium v2, General Availability, Preview
Azure announced general availability of workspaces and workspace gateways for the Premium v2 tier of Azure API Management, while the Premium v2 tier itself remains in preview. Workspaces enable organizations to manage and govern APIs.
Microsoft announced the general availability of the Logic Apps Hybrid Deployment Model, which lets customers run Logic Apps on customer-managed infrastructure to give more flexibility and control over where integration workloads execute.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, API Management, API Management v2, gateway metrics, autoscaling, Basic v2, Standard v2, Premium v2, GA, monitoring
Azure API Management v2 tiers (Basic v2, Standard v2, Premium v2) are now generally available with gateway-level metrics and native autoscaling, providing deeper gateway performance visibility and automatic scaling based on real-time usage.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Logic Apps, Visual Studio Code, Data Mapper, GA, Extension, Update
The redesigned Data Mapper user experience in the Azure Logic Apps (Standard) extension for Visual Studio Code is now generally available and becomes the default for creating and editing maps after its public preview.
Azure Logic Apps Standard now generally available: Custom Code support with .NET 8 lets developers embed and run .NET 8 code directly in workflows to enable advanced logic, code reuse, and tighter integration.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Logic Apps, Business Process Tracking, General Availability, Workflow monitoring
Azure announced general availability of Business Process Tracking for Logic Apps (Standard), enabling stakeholders to track key data properties across production workflows to gain timely business insights.
Microsoft announced the general availability of the Azure Logic Apps Standard Automated Test Framework, which enables developers and teams to build, test, and maintain enterprise-grade workflows by creating unit tests for workflow definitions.
Azure Logic Apps now has a public preview of Organizational Templates, enabling teams to create, share, and reuse automation patterns inside their organization to standardize integrations at scale.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Azure API Management, Model Context Protocol, MCP, Public Preview, v2 SKUs, AI agents, API integration
Azure API Management is in public preview with expanded support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP), adding MCP support in v2 SKUs and the ability to expose existing MCP-compliant servers to simplify connecting APIs and AI agents.
Microsoft announced the public preview of the Confluent Kafka Connector for Azure Logic Apps (Standard), enabling Logic Apps to both send and receive messages with Confluent Kafka, a distributed streaming platform.
Microsoft is retiring the Confidential VM SKUs DCesv5, DCedsv5, ECesv5, and ECedsv5. These SKUs will be succeeded by the next-generation DCesv6 and ECesv6 sizes, which were recently announced in public preview.
Azure CDN in Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet (Azure China) will be retired on December 1, 2025. Customers using Azure CDN in China must migrate to alternative services such as Azure Front Door before that date. The service is built on local CDN providers’ POPs.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure App Testing, Playwright, General Availability, End-to-end testing, Parallelization, Browsers, Devices, Test automation
Azure App Testing’s Playwright Workspaces is now generally available, enabling highly parallel end-to-end testing across multiple browsers and devices to validate application functionality.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-09
· tags: Azure, Ultra Disk, price reduction, West US 2, storage, general availability, cloud costs
Azure has launched a generally available price reduction for Ultra Disks in the West US 2 region. Ultra Disks are Azure’s highest-performance block storage offering, providing consistent sub-millisecond latency and very high throughput/IOPS, and the price cut lowers storage costs for demanding enterprise workloads in that region.
Azure Ultra Disk is now generally available with a price reduction in the UK South region. Ultra Disk is Azure’s highest-performance block storage for virtual machines, offering consistent sub-millisecond latency and very high throughput and IOPS, making it suitable for demanding enterprise production workloads.
Azure has made a price reduction for Ultra Disks in the Central US region generally available. Ultra Disks provide extremely high performance and sub-millisecond latency for demanding VM workloads, and the price cut reduces costs for those workloads in that region.
Azure App Service has launched the Premium v4 tier, featuring faster processors, NVMe local storage, and memory-optimized options on the latest Azure hardware. This tier supports both Windows and Linux with sizes starting at 1 vCPU and 4GB RAM.
Azure SQL and SQL Server received updates in late August 2025, including the general availability of local SQL Server containers via the MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Entra ID, group login, public preview, user credentials
Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server now supports Entra ID group login using user credentials in public preview on new servers. This feature aims to simplify user management and enhance security.
Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) now supports schema migration for Azure SQL Database, allowing users to migrate missing schema objects along with data using a simple checkbox option.
Azure SQL Database introduced a replication lag metric in late August 2025, enabling real-time monitoring of the recovery point objective (RPO) for Geo-DR configurations.
Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB (vCore) now supports adding physical shards and rebalancing data as clusters scale, leveraging its elastic compute and storage capabilities.
Entra ID and RBAC support for several Azure Storage supplemental APIs, including GetAccountInfo and ACL management for containers, queues, and tables, is now generally available.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure, CNI Overlay, Application Gateway for Containers, AGIC, AKS, Networking, General Availability
Azure CNI Overlay for Application Gateway for Containers (AGIC) is now generally available. It allows AKS clusters to assign pod IPs from a separate CIDR, conserving VNet IP space and simplifying multi-cluster deployments.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure NetApp Files, short-term clones, public preview, data snapshots, storage optimization
Azure NetApp Files introduces short-term clones in public preview, allowing instant, space-efficient read/write access by creating temporary thin clones from volume snapshots without full data copies.
The Roslyn Analyzer for Durable Functions in the .NET isolated model is now available in public preview, providing real-time code analysis to enforce durable orchestration coding constraints.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Microsoft Azure, cloud region, Austria, digital transformation, AI, data security
Microsoft Azure is now generally available in a new cloud region in Austria, supporting secure data storage and processing for local companies and public administration.
Azure Migrate now supports migrating servers to disks with Zone-Redundant Storage (ZRS) redundancy. Users can select ZRS as the redundancy option during migration, enabling automatic provisioning of ZRS disks.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure, Application Gateway, MaxSurge, Rolling Upgrade, Zero Downtime
Azure Application Gateway now supports MaxSurge, allowing new instances to be provisioned during rolling upgrades without taking existing instances offline. This feature enables zero-capacity-impact upgrades to newer gateway versions.
Azure Log Analytics’ Search Job feature is now generally available and supports returning up to 100 million results. It enables asynchronous queries across all workspace data, including long-term retention, with results delivered in Analytics tables for further analysis.
Azure NetApp Files file access logs are now generally available, providing detailed visibility into file-level operations for SMB, NFSv4.1, and dual-protocol volumes. This feature helps organizations improve their security monitoring.
Azure Functions Flex Consumption plan now supports a 512 MB memory instance size option, in addition to 2048 MB and 4096 MB. This update helps optimize costs for apps with lower resource needs and supports scaling.
Azure Bastion now supports secure tunneling to private Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters, allowing direct access to the AKS API server from local machines using standard Kubernetes tools.
Azure NetApp Files’ Flexible service level now supports cool access, enabling customers to configure storage capacity and throughput independently for workloads with specific performance and sizing needs.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure, 21Vianet, deprecation, retirement
Microsoft is retiring Microsoft Defender for Cloud in the Azure operated by 21Vianet environment due to increasing infrastructure and operational complexity.
The Azure Blob Storage Archive access tier is now generally available in the Malaysia West region, enabling cost-effective storage of infrequently accessed data locally.
Azure Files has introduced the provisioned v2 billing model for its SSD (premium) tier, allowing separate provisioning of storage, IOPS, and throughput.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure Databricks, Power Platform, Power Apps, Connector, General Availability
The Azure Databricks connector for Microsoft Power Platform is now generally available, enabling seamless integration between Azure Databricks and Power Apps.
Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra now supports Cassandra 5.0 in public preview, enabling access to the latest features such as improved performance and new indexing capabilities without infrastructure management.
Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB (vCore) now supports encryption with customer-managed keys in public preview, adding to the existing service-managed key encryption.
Azure Automation will resume deploying revised Service and Subscription limits starting August 11, 2025, to ensure fair resource distribution and improve reliability and performance.
Azure Monitor now offers Tenant-Level Service Health Alerts in preview, allowing notifications for service health issues affecting the entire tenant rather than single subscriptions.
Azure App Service now generally supports inbound IPv6 for multi-tenant apps across all public regions on Basic, Standard, Premium SKUs, Functions Consumption, Functions Elastic Premium, and Logic Apps Standard.
Azure App Testing is now in public preview, allowing developers and QA teams to perform large-scale functional and performance tests across frameworks such as Playwright, JMeter, and Locust.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Upsert, Script activity, General Availability
Azure Data Factory and Azure Synapse Analytics now generally support the Upsert method and Script activity for Azure Database for PostgreSQL, enabling efficient and scalable data operations.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure Data Box, General Availability, Cloud Storage, Data Transfer, Regional Expansion
Azure Data Box Next Gen is now generally available in additional regions including Australia, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, Hong Kong, UAE, Switzerland, and Norway. Both the 120TB and 525TB Azure Data Box models are generally available in these regions.
· azure
· timeframe: 2025-08
· tags: Azure, Storage, Public Preview, Data Management, Cost Optimization, Security
Azure Storage Discovery is now in public preview, offering enterprise-wide visibility into Azure Storage data. It enables deep analysis of capacity and activity to optimize costs, enhance security, and improve operations.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is introducing an AI-powered CLI feature called “az aks agent” that integrates agentic reasoning into the Azure CLI for developers and operators.
Microsoft is retiring Azure unmanaged disks; the announced retirement date is 31 March 2026 (previously 30 September 2025). Azure Managed Disks, launched in 2017 and enhanced since, now provide feature parity and additional capabilities. Deprecation of unmanaged disks began earlier (announced in 2022), and customers are advised to migrate workloads to managed disks before the retirement date.