MS Build 2022 has started with a cracking 50+ announcements. I have highlighted a few of these announcements I am looking forward to using soon in this blog post.
Azure Container Apps
Azure Container Apps is now Generally Available. If you haven’t heard of Azure Container Apps, it is an app-centric service built upon the power of open source and CNCF projects. Azure Container Apps supports the following:
- Microservices
- Event driven processing
- Web Apps and public web API endpoints
- and more...
SQL Server 2022
SQL Server 2022 is now in Preview. SQL Server 2022 will integrate with Azure Synapse Link and Microsoft Purview. This will allow users to build upon their current data platform, increase adoption, and provide users with the ability to integrate easily.
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Database has the following feature in Preview:
- Updated input and output bindings in Azure Function
- Updated local development environment
- New JSON constructors
- ISJSON enhancements
Azure SQL Database ledger feature is now generally available, enabling tamper-evident capabilities using cryptographic verification.
Azure SQL will also include Synapse Link (Preview). Synapse Link provides users with the ease of integrating with Azure Synapse Analytics and utilising the resource in their pipelines.
Azure Synapse Analytics
Azure Synapse Analytics users will be able to utilise a feature called Microsoft Graph Data Connect to access their organisation data. This will provide users with business insights, identifying and improving their competitive edge.
NGINX for Azure
NGINX for Azure is now in Preview and will be a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. NGINX is a traffic management and monitoring software that is part of F5. NGINX can be deployed simply with a few clicks as a SaaS offering.
Microsoft Dev Box
Microsoft Dev Box was announced, a cloud service providing a virtual machine ready to code securely. Development teams can preconfigure their Dev Boxes, giving them the ability to spin up a Dev Box without worrying about the maintenance and installation of tools. IT will still be able to get their hands on with the management of these by utilising Intune and Microsoft Endpoint Manager.
GitHub OIDC
GitHub OIDC (OpenID Connect) with Azure AD (Active Directory) is now Generally Available. This allows GitHub organisations to stop using service principles to authenticate to Azure when running GitHub Actions. This will mean organisations will not need to manage secrets moving forward regarding GitHub and Azure.
What am I most looking forward to?
I want to get started with GitHub OIDC, knowing how this is managed and seeing if there is the ability to control which Repos can access certain subscriptions.
I am also interested in how the pre-configuration will work with Microsoft Dev Box. If this can be managed by Configuration as Code using HashiCorp Packer or Ansible, I can see this being a value addition to developers.