Browse Azure News (149)

Mark Downie introduces the Visual Studio July update, centered on a new Agent (Preview) in Copilot Chat built on the GitHub Copilot SDK. The post also covers built-in .NET and Azure skills, org-level Copilot custom instructions, attaching Git branches as chat context, and improved MSVC toolset discovery for reproducible C++ builds.

Shireesh Thota summarizes what customers say they value most in Microsoft’s database portfolio, and ties that feedback to recent and upcoming investments across SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Azure Cosmos DB—especially around reliability, scalability, and AI-ready capabilities like vector search and RAG.

arindamc explains how to build a real-time “row-to-intelligent-action” pipeline in Microsoft Fabric that captures shopping-cart signals via CDC, reshapes them into analytics-ready rows, and enriches each micro-batch with AI in a Spark Structured Streaming notebook to drive timely actions.

sbaynes announces two new Microsoft in-house model variants—MAI-Image-2.5-Pro and MAI-Voice-2-Flash—now in public preview, and explains where they’re already running in production across Microsoft products and Azure, including pricing, performance claims, and developer entry points via Azure AI Foundry.

Steve Sweetman explains how AT&T built and scaled its telecom-focused OTel 2.0 models using Microsoft Foundry Managed Compute, combining open models from Hugging Face with AMD and NVIDIA GPU capacity to process around one trillion tokens while optimizing for cost, performance, and deployment speed.

HARMEETGILL announces the general availability of OneLake resource instance rules in Microsoft Fabric, explaining how workspace admins can allow secure service-to-service access from specific Azure resource instances (like Databricks or Azure SQL) without relying on broad IP allowlists or private networking everywhere.

Linda Li and Maria Naggaga explain how Azure AI Foundry Toolboxes let agents call MCP tools using the signed-in user’s identity, without embedding OAuth/token plumbing in agent code. The post covers per-user token isolation, consent handling, and governance features like RAI guardrails and gateway fronting.

Wes Steyn announces the release of the Microsoft Agent Framework Harness, a batteries-included runtime that turns a chat model into a production-ready agent with planning, tool-calling, memory, approvals, web search, and OpenTelemetry built in for both .NET and Python.

sbaynes announces an expanded Microsoft–Mistral partnership that brings Mistral Medium 3.5 and OCR 4 into Microsoft AI Foundry and Copilot Studio, with deployment options spanning Azure cloud, Azure Local, and fully disconnected environments aimed at regulated industries that need stronger control over data and operations.

sbaynes announces new Azure AI and HPC infrastructure options built with AMD hardware, including upcoming HDv2 and HXv2 CPU VM families and the ND MI455X v7 VM for production-scale AI inference workloads.

Elliot Volkman shares Microsoft Security’s Black Hat USA 2026 agenda, focused on how attackers abuse “trust paths” across software supply chains, identities, cloud services, and AI systems. The post highlights sessions on npm supply chain campaigns, Azure Automation research, GitHub-focused detection ideas, and hands-on skilling with Defender and Sentinel.

Pablo Lopes announces a free, open-source course that guides developers through modernizing a legacy ASP.NET app to .NET 10 using the GitHub Copilot modernization agent, including assessment and planning artifacts, an execution workflow, and a final deployment to Azure App Service.

Lily Ma explains why synchronous MCP tool calls break down for long-running work, and shows a practical Azure Functions + Durable Functions pattern you can use today while the MCP Tasks extension rolls out across clients and SDKs.

mk_sunitha explains a secure pattern for calling Microsoft Fabric REST APIs from User Data Functions (UDFs), using a service principal plus Azure Key Vault to keep secrets out of application code while still enabling governed automation like triggering Fabric pipelines and managing workspaces.

Giles Odigwe announces the production release of Agent Skills for Python in Microsoft Agent Framework, explaining how to package reusable domain expertise (instructions, resources, and scripts) that agents can load on demand, with governance features like approvals, filtering, caching, and controlled script execution.

goupadhy announces a preview of autoscaling for Microsoft Fabric Virtual Network (VNet) Data Gateway, explaining how gateway node counts scale in and out based on workload signals to balance performance, reliability, and cost, plus where admins configure limits and review diagnostics logs.

Simona Liao, Wendy Breiding, and Yun Jung Choi introduce Visual Studio 18.8’s built-in Agent Skills, a set of reusable Copilot capabilities for common .NET and Azure tasks. The post explains where to find and enable skills, why they’re off by default, and highlights starter skills for API work, performance reviews, Azure deployments, and Kusto queries.

arindamc shows how to build a “row-to-intelligent-action” pipeline in Microsoft Fabric: capture Azure SQL changes via CDC into Fabric Eventstreams, reshape them with DeltaFlow, enrich each micro-batch in Spark Structured Streaming using AI Functions for PySpark, and publish Business Events for real-time routing and dashboards.

James Rempt explains how Azure Dev/Test pricing (included with eligible Visual Studio subscriptions) can reduce the cost of running non-production Azure environments, making it easier to provision production-like resources for testing, validation, and CI/CD workflows without letting cloud spend slow down iteration.

Tina Schuchman announces general availability updates in Microsoft Foundry, including OpenAI’s GPT‑5.6 model family, a new Asia-Pacific Data Zone, and production-ready hosted agents in Foundry Agent Service. The post also highlights governance features like tracing/evaluation, cost controls, and options for publishing agents to Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Tina Schuchman announces general availability of GPT-5.6 models and new production agent capabilities in Microsoft Foundry, including APAC Data Zone support, hosted agents, toolboxes, and observability features like tracing and evaluation to help teams move agentic apps from pilots to production.

Alicia Li summarizes the 2026 Q2 updates for Microsoft Fabric Eventstreams, covering new and updated connectors, the now-GA SQL operator, preview features like mirrored database change feed ingestion and business events publishing, plus AI Skills that generate and deploy eventstream topologies via Fabric REST APIs.

Wes Steyn shows how to scale a Microsoft Agent Framework “claw” using the Agent Harness: on-demand skills (including centrally managed Foundry skills via MCP), approval-gated shell access, CodeAct for sandboxed code execution, and concurrent background agents, with runnable samples in both .NET and Python.

arindamc walks through a Microsoft Fabric “row-to-action” pattern where database row changes are mirrored into OneLake, streamed through Fabric Eventstreams, aggregated with windowing, and routed to Activator and Eventhouse for real-time triggers and live KQL dashboards.

Jakub Oleksy’s June 2026 GitHub availability report summarizes six production incidents (including Copilot outages) and the reliability work behind GitHub’s ongoing Azure migration, with concrete mitigations like dependency pinning, stronger config validation, improved traffic blocking, and tighter production access controls.

Salim Chawro explains how Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative (SFI) is being enforced with a multi-agent AI system that continuously evaluates live cloud services, looking for cross-domain weaknesses across code, identity, network, and runtime configuration to drive faster, higher-quality hardening.

Rochak Mittal, Amit Ganguli, Surya Sripathi Raju and Molina Sharma explain how Azure’s resiliency approach has evolved beyond uptime into a lifecycle that covers infrastructure resiliency, data resiliency, and cyber recovery, with practical guidance for zone-first and multi-region designs in regulated and sovereign environments.

Evan Mattson announces the 1.0 release of Microsoft Agent Framework’s orchestration patterns across both Python and .NET, explaining what’s now stable (sequential, concurrent, group chat, handoff, and magentic) and why higher-level orchestration builders matter for multi-agent apps.

Allison announces that Kimi K2.7 Code is now available to GitHub Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers, including how admins can enable it and what to consider before turning on an open-weight model.

Salim Chawro announces the public preview of external key management for Azure Key Vault Managed HSM, aimed at organizations that must keep cryptographic key material physically outside Azure datacenters while still using Azure services that rely on customer-managed keys.

Sergey Menshykh announces the stable release of Agent Skills for .NET in Microsoft Agent Framework, describing an open format for packaging reusable domain expertise (instructions, resources, and scripts) that agents load on demand, plus the governance controls needed to run skills safely in production.

Nick Brady’s June 2026 digest covers the biggest Microsoft Foundry updates: Claude reaching general availability, new agent distribution into Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams, and major improvements across Toolboxes, Routines, Memory, observability, and Foundry Local deployments.

Microsoft Security Team summarizes five takeaways from Frost & Sullivan’s 2025 Frost Radar on CSPM, focusing on how posture management is shifting from periodic compliance checks to continuous, risk-based governance across CNAPP platforms, with implications for DevSecOps, SOC workflows, and multicloud environments.

Waldek Mastykarz shares results from 150 GitHub Copilot Chat agent runs comparing Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs 5, showing how a “cheaper” model can still cost more due to token spikes and variance, and how output quality can regress depending on the task and available documentation.

Justin Bettencourt summarizes the June 2026 Azure SDK releases, highlighting new generally available Python client libraries for Azure AI Transcription and Microsoft Planetary Computer Pro, plus initial beta releases for Java and Python management/client libraries, with links to full release notes across supported languages.

Mark Russinovich introduces Brain, Azure’s internal AIOps “reliability intelligence” layer that builds a digital twin of Azure health by combining telemetry, dependency graphs, and customer impact signals to drive faster detection, clearer scoping, and automated operational actions.

Allison announces general availability of Kimi K2.7 Code in GitHub Copilot, the first open-weight model offered in the Copilot model picker, including where it’s available, how it rolls out across plans, and what admins need to enable for Business and Enterprise.

Mark Russinovich introduces Azure Chaos Studio Workspaces (public preview) and explains how scenario-based chaos engineering helps teams prove real application resilience on Azure by simulating common outage patterns—like zone loss, DNS failure, database failover, and messaging disruption—then reviewing structured drill reports correlated with Azure Monitor signals.

xujx summarizes recent Microsoft Fabric Eventstream connector updates for Real-Time Intelligence, including GA private network support, GA Kafka and Azure Service Bus connectors, and GA custom CA/mTLS. The post also covers preview features like workspace identity for Event Hubs, richer IoT Hub metadata, Oracle CDC ingestion, and HTTP pagination.

sbaynes (Microsoft Incident Response) explains how agentic AI systems can be compromised when Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool metadata is poisoned, causing an agent to take unintended actions. The post maps a realistic finance workflow attack chain and gives concrete detection and mitigation steps using Microsoft security controls.