After the pandemic beguns Microsoft switched the both big conference Microsoft Build and Microsoft Ignite to virtual only events. The Ignite was two times a year in 2020 and 2021. For 2022 it was long time not clear will it go back to an in-person event or still stay as a virtual event.

The Microsoft Ignite 2022 has start 2 hours ago as an hybrid event delivered from Seattle with 6 Spotlight events around the globe and delivered as before virtually. I’m a little disappointed because a lot of the content is pre-recorded and even great speakers like Donovan Brown don’t hold their sessions live in Seattle but are only shown there virtually as well.

In this article I will share the important announcements from my perspective from the Microsoft Ignite 2022. Most of you know me as an Azure Governance, (Hybrid) Infrastructure and Security guy, so please forgive me for focusing on these things.

New RBAC Roles Reservation administrator and reader roles

Microsoft adds two roles to the Azure RBAC model called “Reservation administrator” and “Reservation reader” for manage Reserved Instance without need for other permissions.

Azure Monitor agent support VM insights

Microsoft is shifting away from the current Log Analytics agent to the new Azure Monitor agent, which has more features and is fully compatible with Azure Arc. Microsoft now add support for VM insights to the new solution as public preview.

Update Management Center

Microsoft announced the new Update Management Center as public preview available in the Azure Portal. The old Update solutions has dependencys to Log Analytics and the Azure Monitor agent, this requirements are gone with new solution. The new Update Management center is fully compatible with Azure Arc and offer a unified view of your updates for Linux and Windows machines and can be enable via Azure policy.

Microsoft Dev Box

The Microsoft Dev Box is now available in public preview. The Dev Box brings a full, performant and preconfigured Developer workstations up based on Azure Virtual Desktop for Developers.

NSG support for private endpoints

For Private Endpoints Microsoft announced the GA of NSG support for this services.

Live resize for Premium SSD and Standard SSD Disk storage

Long awaited feature coming to live. The support for resize existing Premium SSD and Standard SSD on running Azure VMs is now GA.

Resizing of peered networks

Until now it was not possible to resize the adress space when the VNET is peered with another one. This limitation is gone and the Resizing of peered Network is now GA.

Azure Automanage

Azure Automanage is the next step to get a Managed Service provider for Azure VMs, that configures the best practices and recommended settions fully automated. Azure Automanage Best Practices is now GA for Azure VMs and Arc-enabled servers. This is really a great solution for managing VMs anywhere with a cental view and configuration. And the best is the service itself is free of charge.

Azure Premium SSD v2 is GA

Microsoft, as a surprise to me, announced the new Premium SSD v2 resource two months ago, which offers a consistent improvement in IOPs and throughput over v1. I wrote a blog article about the improvements and the limitations. One big limitations for me is that Premium SSD v2 is only supported as data disk and can not be used as OS Disk. So it can unfortunately not be used for AVD at the moment.

Azure Firewall Basic is in public preview

Previously, there were two Azure Firewall SKUs Standard and Premium and both cost around 1000Euro. SMBs and Branch offices have resorted to other alternative due to cost. Microsoft has now introduced Azure Firewall Basic as another low-cost SKU variant.

Smart tiering to vault-archive tier for Azure Backup is GA

Microsoft announce the possibility to configure archive tiers for the recovery service vault. This ensures that created recovery points automatically moved to the correct vault-tier.

Azure DNS Private resolver is GA

To resolve private DNS names in Azure mosthly it was setup DNS servers on Linux especially in medium and big installation, where Azure Firewall, routing and more is in place. To route all DNS requests over a central solution. Microsoft announced new the DNS private resolvers for this cases as a centrally PaaS option and to avoid manage VMs in Azure.

This ends up my highlights but I will take an eye on the announcement in the next two days and maybe extend the article.

A great place to find all announcement around the Microsoft Ignite is the Book of News.

Links

• Azure updates: GA of Reserveration adminstrator and reader roles in the Azure Portal
• Azure updates: Public Preview: Enable VM insights using Azure Monitor agent
• Microsoft Community Hub – Announcing preview: Enable Azure Monitor VM insights using Azure Monitor agent
• Microsoft Community Hub – Announcing Public Preview of Update management center
• Azure updates: Public preview: Microsoft Dev Box
• Azure updates: GA of NSG support for Private links
• Azure updates: Public preview: Live resize for Premium SSD and Standard SSD Disk storage
• Azure updates: GA: Resizing of peered virtual networks
• Microsoft Community Hub – Build skills that open doors—with Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft Community Hub: GA: Simplify management and operations with Azure Automanage Machine Best Practices
• Microsoft Community Hub – Azure Premium SSD v2 Disk Storage GA
• GA: Smart tiering to vault-archive tier for Azure Backup | Azure updates
• MS Learn – What is Azure DNS Private Resolver?
• Reimling – MS announced Premium SSD v2
• Reimling – MS announced Azure Firewall Basic
• Azure updates | Microsoft Azure
• MS Ignite – Book of News