Azure Update 31st July 2026
John Savill rounds up a week of Azure platform updates, spanning AKS, networking, API Management, monitoring, data services, and regional expansion, plus a few notable AI model availability items and security-related changes like Azure Enclave and Key Vault symmetric keys.
Overview
A weekly Azure update covering a set of service announcements and feature changes across compute, networking, management tooling, monitoring/data, AI model availability, security, and commercial policy.
Updates covered (by chapter)
AKS and Kubernetes
- AKS prepared image specification
- Fleet Manager: max allowed failures
- App routing with Gateway API
Automation and management tooling
- Azure Automation: PowerShell 7.6
API Management
- Azure API Management (APIM): AI Gateway
Networking
- Azure Firewall: HTTP header insertion
- NAT Gateway: NAT64
Storage
- Azure NetApp Files (ANF): SMB opportunistic locking
Monitoring and data platform
- Azure Monitor: log mirroring to Microsoft Fabric
- Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server: availability in a new region
AI model availability
- Claude Opus 5 available
- Kimi K3 via Fireworks AI
- GPT-transcribe and GPT-live-transcribe
Regions and infrastructure
- New India region
Security and cryptography
- Azure Enclave
- Azure Key Vault: symmetric keys
Commercial / billing
- Azure Reservation exchange policy change
Links mentioned
- Recommended Learning Path for Azure: https://learn.onboardtoazure.com
- Certification Content Repository: https://github.com/johnthebrit/CertificationMaterials
- Weekly Azure Update playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nEv7jSfOVmQGRp9wAoAM0Ks
- Azure Master Class playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nGccbp8VSpAozu3w9xSQJoY
- DevOps Master Class playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nFr8RzQ4GIxUEznpNR53ERq
- PowerShell Master Class playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nFq_hR7FcMYg32xsSAObuq8
- Certification Cram Videos playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nHz2qfLvPsAz9CnnXofhmcA
- Mentoring Content playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVtbbG169nGHxNkSWB0PjzZHwZ0BkXZZ
- FAQ: https://savilltech.com/faq
- Subtitles auto-translate demo: https://youtu.be/v5b53-PgEmI