Weekly Azure Roundup: Fabric governance, AKS routing, new VMs

by TechHub

Azure’s recent changes introduce enhancements in data engineering, platform automation, developer tooling, high-availability infrastructure, cloud hardware, and troubleshooting resources.

Microsoft Fabric Platform: Advancements Across Data, Security, and Integration

The latest Fabric feature summary brings new data engineering and governance updates. AI-based semantic model summaries make OneLake Catalog navigation easier, while new organizational structures and configuration features improve overall governance. GitHub integration now supports explicit data residency and branch-based commits. A preview of the Fabric Python SDK streamlines programmatic workspace management. Security improvements include new role APIs, item-level controls, and immutable logs for compliance. The Lakehouse engine now supports Spark session sharing for better concurrency, while VS Code notebooks gain multi-workspace sync and secure connections. Materialized Lake Views now support create/replace, and Data Warehouse automation gets improved stats, result caching, and more flexible statements. Real-Time Intelligence adds in-VNet streaming, MQTT v3, weather APIs, and Copilot-powered KQL. Data Factory introduces incremental copy and hybrid data connectors. These changes enhance developer workflows, automation, security, and compliance—supporting both low-code and code-first teams.

Microsoft Fabric Community, Certification, and Identity Governance

The Fabric Influencers Spotlight (Jan) provides best practices and sample workflows, such as building surrogate keys for Data Warehouses, Power BI modeling techniques, write-back patterns, and integration guides. Applied ML concepts, security models for OneLake, and streaming operations round out the guides. Updates also highlight new certifications and architecture resources. Workspace identity quotas are now easier to manage. Admins can raise the default cap and adjust limits via the portal or REST API, making large deployments and governance more streamlined.

Azure Kubernetes and Traffic Management: Automation, Migration, and Multi-Region Patterns

A new AKS multi-region architecture proof-of-concept demonstrates integrating External DNS with Azure Traffic Manager. Service annotations in AKS allow DNS endpoint profiles to be managed automatically. This supports blue-green, weighted, or failover routing—improving automation for global cloud workloads. Migration guides for deprecated AKS Ingress NGINX controllers are now available. Moving to Gateway API and Application Gateway for Containers is recommended as support for NGINX ends in March 2026. The steps emphasize manifest inventory, YAML conversion, and phased rollout for compliance.

Azure Developer Tooling and SDK Updates

The Azure Developer CLI (azd) January 2026 release enhances configuration and performance processes. New improvements include streamlined config commands, multi-tenant authentication, credential checks, and container build fallback scenarios. Infrastructure tools like Bicep and Terraform are now auto-detected, and file-based caching increases speed for deployment workflows. Deprecated login commands and App Service integrations have been removed. A growing catalog of community templates and SDKs in .NET, Go, Java, and Python support more scenarios, including experimental AI Foundry and new model support in Azure AI Search.

Azure Cloud Infrastructure and AI Hardware

Azure has released Da/Ea/Fasv7-series VMs with AMD’s 5th Gen EPYC “Turin” CPUs, offering up to 35% more CPU performance, 4.5 GHz burst speeds, and up to 160 vCPUs per VM. These updates add more compute, storage, and networking power with improved security features and integrated HSM. Documentation and region info are available for planning adoption. A technical deep dive provides insight into Microsoft’s approach to building AI infrastructure from silicon through datacenter design, with a focus on reliability and future-readiness.

Updates in Azure High Availability, Security, Monitoring, and Developer Operations

Azure NetApp Files now has Elastic ZRS for replicating storage volumes synchronously across Availability Zones. This helps SAP, Kubernetes, and compliance workloads achieve higher availability with shared QoS and automated deployments. The Azure Local LENS Workbook offers large-scale operational insight for fleet management (AKS, Azure Local). This update supports compliance planning and smoother fleet operations. API Management gets new capabilities for customizing Retry-After headers, so developers can offer better try-again advice in API responses. This builds on recent support for troubleshooting and robust operation.

Developer Troubleshooting and Migration Resources

Recent fixes and guides address issues such as persistent crashes for ServerDiscoveryService.exe in Azure Migrate (Windows Server 2022, .NET 8) and test discovery problems in Logic Apps’ VS Code test framework (from MSTest versioning). Practical troubleshooting steps are provided to help teams maintain smooth devops workflows.

Other Azure News

Azure App Testing now requires a minimum of 10 users per engine and 10 minutes per load test. Review test configurations for cost efficiency. A step-by-step tutorial walks through deploying MoltBot, an AI assistant, to Azure Container Apps. It covers secure devops, troubleshooting, and log setup—all foundational for secure cloud-based AI deployment. Data Exposed previews SQL Server 2025 features like REST API endpoints, vector support, and new AI tools for search and analytics. A video-based Azure training course shares introductory tips, resource optimization practices, labs, certification prep, and Copilot chat setup.