Azure Workspace

 WORKSPACES :

Create a workspace

There are multiple ways to create a workspace:

• Use Azure Machine Learning studio to quickly create a workspace with default settings.
• Use the Azure portal for a point-and-click interface with more options.
• Use the Azure Machine Learning SDK for Python to create a workspace on the fly from Python scripts or Jupyter notebooks.
• Use an Azure Resource Manager template or the Azure Machine Learning CLI when you need to automate or customize the creation with corporate security standards.
• If you work in Visual Studio Code, use the VS Code extension.

If you’re currently using Azure Log Analytics to monitor your environments for availability and performance, we’re rolling out new enhancements and changes for Log Analytics that you should be aware of. Including the new and improved query language, so that you can take appropriate action, if necessary. To take advantage of these enhancements, you’ll need to upgrade your workspaces. The upgrade is currently available in these regions: WCUS, EUS, SEAU, SEA, WEU, EJP, SUK, CID and CCAN.

The upgrade process converts all saved searches, alerts, and views to the new query language. ​About 50 percent of all Azure Log Analytics workspaces have been upgraded by now, and thousands of customers are enjoying the simple yet powerful query language.

Upgrading your workspace

This upgrade introduces an improved search experience, powered by a highly scalable platform. The new experience includes an interactive and expressive query language, machine learning constructs and a portal for advanced analytics, offering a multiline query editor, full schema view and rich visualizations to help you get deeper insights from your data. Learn more about the new query language.

To take advantage of the following language benefits and more, you’ll need to upgrade your Log Analytics workspace:

• Simple yet powerful. Easier to understand and similar to SQL with constructs like a natural language.
• Full piping language. Extensive piping capabilities where any output can be piped to another command to create complex queries that were possible previously.
• Search-time field extractions. Calculated fields at runtime lets you use complex calculations for extended fields and then use them for additional commands including joins and aggregations.
• Advanced joins. Ability to join tables on multiple fields, using inner and outer joins, and join on extended fields.
• Date/time functions. Advanced date/time functions that gives you greater flexibility.
• Smart Analytics. Advanced algorithms to evaluate patterns in datasets and compare different sets of data.
• See more information in “Why the new language?”.

Experience changes after you upgrade

Some experiences work differently after the workspace upgrade. We made an effort to make these changes clear to let you make the necessary actions, if needed. You can find more details on these in known issues and FAQs page.

• My dashboard is being deprecated, in favor of View Designer and Azure Dashboards – Existing tiles become read-only. ​
• Power BI integration is replaced with a new process. Any existing schedules will be disabled. ​
• ARM templates can be used to create and configure Log Analytics workspaces. The versions of the upgraded API and examples of tasks you can perform are available here.
• ​Alert actions using webhooks and runbooks will need to be updated to conform to a different response format. You can see sample payload in Alert actions article.
• Deprecation of Log Search API and PowerShell Cmdlet (December 31, 2017). Any use of Log Search API and Get-AzureRmOperationalInsightsSearchResults Cmdlet should be migrated to Azure Log Analytics REST API and Invoke-LogAnalyticsQuery PowerShell Cmdlet using the new query language.

Upgrade rollout schedule

The new Log Analytics language change and deprecation of the old language, requires that all workspaces are upgraded. We are rolling out the upgrade to workspaces that were not upgraded yet according to this schedule:

• New workspace creation (week of October 16, 2017). New workspaces are created with the new Log Analytics language. You cannot create legacy workspaces using the legacy language.
• Automatic workspace upgrade (start on the week of October 30, 2017). We will start rolling out automatic workspace upgrades, all workspaces that haven’t been upgraded will be automatically upgraded to the new Log Analytics language. This process will be gradual per region and carried out in this order:

Azure maintenance configuration

 MAINTENANCE CONFIGURATION :

Creating a Maintenance Configurations lets you decide when to apply platform updates to various Azure resources. This topic covers the Azure PowerShell options for Dedicated Hosts and Isolated VMs. For more about benefits of using Maintenance Configurations, its limitations, and other management options, see Managing platform updates with Maintenance Configurations.

If you are looking for information about Maintenance Configurations for scale sets, see Maintenance Control for Virtual Machine Scale Sets.

Maintenance Configurations gives you the ability to control and manage updates for many Azure virtual machine resources since Azure frequently updates its infrastructure to improve reliability, performance, security or launch new features. Most updates are transparent to users, but some sensitive workloads, like gaming, media streaming, and financial transactions, can't tolerate even few seconds of a VM freezing or disconnecting for maintenance. Maintenance Configurations is integrated with Azure Resource Graph (ARG) for low latency and high scale customer experience.

Create a Maintenance Configuration

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. Search for Maintenance Configurations.

   

3. Click Create.

   

4. In the Basics tab, choose a subscription and resource group, provide a name for the configuration, choose a region, and select one of the scopes we offer which you wish to apply updates for. Click Add a schedule to add or modify the schedule for your configuration.

    Important

   Certain virtual machine types and schedules will require a specific kind of scope. Check out maintenance configuration scopes to find the right one for your virtual machine.

   

5. In the Schedule tab, declare a scheduled window when Azure will apply the updates on your resources. Set a start date, maintenance window, and recurrence if your resource requires it. Once you create a scheduled window you no longer have to apply the updates manually. Click Next.

    Important

   Maintenance window duration must be 2 hours or longer.

   

6. In the Machines tab, assign resources now or skip this step and assign resources later after maintenance configuration deployment. Click Next.

7. Add tags and values. Click Next.

   

8. Review the summary. Click Create.

9. After the deployment is complete, click Go to resource.

Assign the configuration

On the details page of the maintenance configuration, click Machines and then click Add Machine.

Select the resources that you want the maintenance configuration assigned to and click Ok. The VM needs to be running to assign the configuration. An error occurs if you try to assign a configuration to a VM that is stopped.

Check configuration

You can verify that the configuration was applied correctly or check to see any maintenance configuration that is currently assigned to a machine by going to the Maintenance Configurations and checking under the Machines tab. You should see any machine you have assigned the configuration in this tab.

Check for pending updates

You can check if there are any updates pending for a maintenance configuration. In Maintenance Configurations, on the details for the configuration, click Machines and check Maintenance status.

Delete a maintenance configuration

To delete a configuration, open the configuration details and click Delete.

Azure Application group

 APPLICATION GROUPS :

Create a RemoteApp group

If you've already created a host pool and session host VMs using the Azure portal or PowerShell, you can add application groups from the Azure portal with the following process:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

   Search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop.

2. You can add an application group directly or you can add it from an existing host pool. Choose an option below:

   • Select Application groups in the menu on the left side of the page, then select + Add.

   • Select Host pools in the menu on the left side of the screen, select the name of the host pool, select Application groups from the menu on the left side, then select + Add. In this case, the host pool will already be selected on the Basics tab.

3. On the Basics tab, select the Subscription and Resource group you want to create the app group for. You can also choose to create a new resource group instead of selecting an existing one.

4. Select the Host pool that will be associated with the application group from the drop-down menu.

    

   

5. Select RemoteApp under Application group type, then enter a name for your RemoteApp.

   

6. Select Next: Assignments > tab.

7. To assign individual users or user groups to the app group, select +Add Azure AD users or user groups.

8. Select the users you want to have access to the apps. You can select single or multiple users and user groups.

   

9. Select Select.

10. Select Next: Applications >, then select +Add applications.

11. To add an application from the start menu:

    • Under Application source, select Start menu from the drop-down menu. Next, under Application, choose the application from the drop-down menu.

    

    • In Display name, enter the name for the application that will be shown to the user on their client.

    • Leave the other options as-is and select Save.

12. To add an application from a specific file path:

    • Under Application source, select File path from the drop-down menu.

    • In Application path, enter the path to the application on the session host registered with the associated host pool.

    • Enter the application's details in the Application name, Display name, Icon path, and Icon index fields.

    • Select Save.

    

13. Repeat this process for every application you want to add to the application group.

14. Next, select Next: Workspace >.

15. If you want to register the app group to a workspace, select Yes for Register application group. If you'd rather register the app group at a later time, select No.

16. If you select Yes, you can select an existing workspace to register your app group to.

     Note

    You can only register the app group to workspaces created in the same location as the host pool. Also. if you've previously registered another app group from the same host pool as your new app group to a workspace, it will be selected and you can't edit it. All app groups from a host pool must be registered to the same workspace.

    

17. Optionally, if you want to create tags to make your workspace easy to organize, select Next: Tags > and enter your tag names.

18. When you're done, select Review + create.

19. Wait a bit for the validation process to complete. When it's done, select Create to deploy your app group.

The deployment process will do the following things for you:

• Create the RemoteApp app group.
• Add your selected apps to the app group.
• Publish the app group published to users and user groups you selected.
• Register the app group, if you chose to do so.
• Create a link to an Azure Resource Manager template based on your configuration that you can download and save for later.

 Important

You can only create 500 application groups for each Azure Active Directory tenant. We added this limit because of service limitations for retrieving feeds for our users. This limit doesn't apply to app groups created in Azure Virtual Desktop (classic).

Edit or remove an app

To edit or remove an app from an app group:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

   
   

2. Search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop.

3. You can either add an application group directly or from an existing host pool by choosing one of the following options:

   • To add a new application group directly, select Application groups in the menu on the left side of the page, then select the app group you want to edit.
   • To edit an app group in an existing host pool, select Host pools in the menu on the left side of the screen, select the name of the host pool, then select Application groups in the menu that appears on the left side of the screen, and then select the app group you want to edit.

4. Select Applications in the menu on the left side of the page.

5. If you want to remove an application, select the check box next to the application, then select Remove from the menu on the top of the page.

6. If you want to edit the details of an application, select the application name. This will open up the editing menu.

7. When you're done making changes, select Save.

Azure Spring Apps

 Spring Apps :

Microsoft Azure Spring Apps is a fully managed service that brings modern microservices patterns to Spring Boot and Steeltoe .NET core applications.

These resourcea are recommended for partners looking to expand their service offering. They can expect to learn how to develop and deliver Java or Steeltoe .NET core applications quickly, and understand how to build, deploy, and monitor Spring Cloud Apps on Azure for their customers.

These resources have a specific prerequisite: an understanding of the Spring and Spring Boot frameworks.

Building, Running, and Monitoring Microservices with Azure Spring Apps¶

• Provision an Azure Spring Apps Service, and Build and Deploy Apps
• Developing, Deploying, and Configuring Apps in Azure Spring Apps
• Scaling, networking, and securing apps with Azure Spring Apps Automating, Troubleshooting, and Migrating Apps to Azure Spring Apps

Accelerateing Azure Spring Apps Adoption¶

Provisioning Azure Spring App¶

• Provision using Azure Bicep
• Provision using ARM Template
• Provision using Azure CLI
• Provision using Terraform

Spring App Resources¶

• Azure Spring Apps Reference Architecture
• Azure Roadmap
• Azure Spring Apps FAQs
• Azure Spring Apps Troubleshooting Guide
• Spring Cloud Services for VMWare Tanzu Documentation
• Steeltoe
• Spring
• Spring Framework
• Spring on Azure

Azure Compete Scenarios¶

• AWS to Azure Services Comparison
• GCP to Azure Services Comparison

Fundamentals¶

• Introduction to Azure Spring Apps
• Quickstart: Deploy your first application to Azure Spring Apps (Self-Paced)
• Learning Path: Azure Fundamentals (Self-Paced) (10 Hours)
• Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (In-person Instructor Led)
• Video: Build and Deliver Apps with Spring Apps (Self-Paced)
• Azure Spring Apps FAQs (Self-Paced

¶

Azure Hosts

 HOSTS :

Azure Dedicated Host is a service that provides physical servers - able to host one or more virtual machines - dedicated to one Azure subscription. Dedicated hosts are the same physical servers used in our data centers, provided as a resource. You can provision dedicated hosts within a region, availability zone, and fault domain. Then, you can place VMs directly into your provisioned hosts, in whatever configuration best meets your needs.

Benefits

Reserving the entire host provides the following benefits:

• Hardware isolation at the physical server level. No other VMs will be placed on your hosts. Dedicated hosts are deployed in the same data centers and share the same network and underlying storage infrastructure as other, non-isolated hosts.
• Control over maintenance events initiated by the Azure platform. While the majority of maintenance events have little to no impact on your virtual machines, there are some sensitive workloads where each second of pause can have an impact. With dedicated hosts, you can opt in to a maintenance window to reduce the impact to your service.
• With the Azure hybrid benefit, you can bring your own licenses for Windows and SQL to Azure. Using the hybrid benefits provides you with additional benefits. For more information, see Azure Hybrid Benefit.

Groups, hosts, and VMs

A host group is a resource that represents a collection of dedicated hosts. You create a host group in a region and an availability zone, and add hosts to it.

A host is a resource, mapped to a physical server in an Azure data center. The physical server is allocated when the host is created. A host is created within a host group. A host has a SKU describing which VM sizes can be created. Each host can host multiple VMs, of different sizes, as long as they are from the same size series.

Azure Proximity placement groups

 

Proximity placement groups :

While Availability zones allow resources to be placed in the same group of physical data centers, this still could mean they’re in different data centres perhaps many kilometers apart…

Proximity Placement Groups assure that resources are placed in the same data centre…

By using PPGs absolute physical distance which is one of the main factors impacting network latency between VMs can be reduced.

PPGs can benefit all multi-tiered apps but are ideal in very latency sensitive applications such as those used in banking, trading etc. When combined with accelerated networking sub-millisecond latency times between VMs can be achieved.

The data centre associated with a PPG is allocated when the first VM is added to the group. All subsequent VMs added to the PPG will get added to the same data centre as the first VM. A subsequent request for a different virtual machine SKU may fail since it’s not available in the data centre already selected. For this reason Microsoft recommends adding the most exotic SKU to your PPG first.

Creating Proximity Placement Groups in Azure Portal

Adding Azure Proximity Placement Groups in the Azure portal is easy. Search for ‘proximity placement groups’, visit the default listing page and click new.

All that’s needed is resource group, region and name. Obviously your region must be the same as where your virtual machines are located.

You can create PPGs via ARM templates, the CLI and PowerShell too.

Note that you need to create the Proximity Placement Group first using one of the above approaches before you can place a new or existing VM into it, there is no ability to create a new PPG inline (as you might with resource groups).

When creating a new VM, the PPG section is found near the end of the page on the Advanced tab.

When editing an existing VM the PPG section is found in Settings -> Configuration. Note the virtual machine needs to be stopped/deallocated to amend its PPG config.