Migrate AWS FSx to Azure Files with Azure Storage Mover
Moving file workloads between clouds used to mean a painful mix of scripts, third-party tools, and manual downtime. Microsoft just made part of that easier with a new public preview that migrates files from AWS FSx for Windows File Server straight into Azure Files. If you run SMB-based Windows file workloads on AWS and want […]
Explicit Proxy in Azure Firewall Goes GA: An Alternative to Route-Based Inspection
Azure Firewall’s explicit proxy mode reached general availability this month. For anyone who has fought with user-defined routes to steer outbound traffic through a firewall, this is a meaningful change. Instead of relying on transparent, route-based interception, you can now point applications and browsers directly at the firewall as a proxy. Explicit proxy versus the […]
SharePoint Connector for Azure Databricks Reaches GA: Enterprise Content Meets the Lakehouse
Microsoft made the SharePoint connector for Azure Databricks generally available this week. For teams that live in both worlds, OneDrive and SharePoint holding the documents, Databricks running the analytics, this removes a whole layer of glue code. The connector, built on Lakeflow Connect, lets you pull SharePoint sites, lists, and files straight into the lakehouse. […]
Azure Private Link now works over IPv6
Azure Private Link has started supporting IPv6, in public preview. The update lets you reach Azure PaaS services like Azure Storage and Azure SQL Database over IPv6-based connectivity, using IPv6 private endpoints from clients inside an Azure virtual network. For anyone running an IPv6 or dual-stack estate, this closes a long standing gap in the […]
Azure Virtual Network routing appliance hits general availability
Azure has made its Virtual Network routing appliance generally available for production workloads. The move gives teams a managed alternative to the usual stack of VM-based network virtual appliances (NVAs) that have anchored hub-and-spoke designs for years. It also marks August 4, 2026 as the date the service stopped being a preview experiment and became […]
Azure Databricks Lakebase Branching Gets GitHub Copilot Agent Mode
Azure Databricks has quietly closed a gap that every data engineer hits at some point: how do you safely test change against a production database without risking the real thing? The answer, now in public preview, is Lakebase branching with GitHub Copilot agent mode. It lets developers spin up an isolated copy-on-write branch of a […]
Microsoft Azure Launches India South Central Region
Microsoft opened a new Azure datacenter region in Hyderabad, Telangana, making it the company’s fourth cloud region in India. The India South Central region went live on July 28, 2026, and it brings Azure services closer to customers in the southern part of the country. The new region sits on a campus in Hyderabad with […]
Azure SQL Regex-Based Dynamic Data Masking Now in Preview
Azure SQL Database’s Dynamic Data Masking just got a significant upgrade: regex-based pattern matching. Instead of relying on a handful of built-in masking functions (default, email, random), you can now define custom regex patterns to match and mask sensitive data – emails, phone numbers, social security numbers, credit card fragments, or any pattern you can […]
Route-Maps for Azure Route Server Now in Public Preview
Microsoft has launched the public preview of Route-Maps for Azure Route Server, giving network engineers fine-grained control over BGP routing in hybrid cloud environments. Route maps let you manipulate how routes are advertised and received across VPN and ExpressRoute connections, moving beyond the static route tables that made complex topologies painful to manage. What route […]
PowerShell 7.6 Runbooks and Runtime Environment Reach GA in Azure Automation
Azure Automation catches up with the latest PowerShell Azure Automation now supports PowerShell 7.6 runbooks in general availability, alongside a new Runtime environment feature that simplifies how execution environments are configured and managed. The update brings Azure Automation in line with the current PowerShell release cycle, which Microsoft has been steadily accelerating. PowerShell 7.6 ships […]
MCP Toolkit for Azure DocumentDB Now in Public Preview
AI agents get database access through Model Context Protocol Microsoft has released a public preview of the MCP toolkit for Azure DocumentDB, giving AI agents direct access to DocumentDB databases through the Model Context Protocol. The announcement came out of the Azure Update pipeline, with deeper details from the Ignite 2025 sessions where the broader […]
Prepared Image Specification on AKS tackles the cold-start node problem
What is Prepared Image Specification? If you run AI training jobs, GPU inference, or large Windows workloads on AKS, you have probably noticed the startup lag. A new node joins the cluster, and then it spends minutes pulling container images before it can actually run anything. For autoscaling events, those minutes add up. Azure’s Prepared […]