Azure news below from the latest Need to Know podcast, episode 160.
Announcing the new and improved Azure Log Analytics
The Azure Log Analytics service is rolling out an upgrade to existing customers – offering powerful search, smart analytics and even deeper insights. This upgrade provides an interactive query language and an advanced analytics portal, powered by a highly scalable data store resembling Azure Application Insights. This creates a consistent monitoring experience for IT operations and developers.
It is the biggest upgrade since its launch, this new and improved Azure Log Analytics brings you a simple yet very powerful query language with all the capabilities requested in the language feedback.
Over the last couple of months, we have been working closely with 60+ customers who had early access to the upgrade, and their feedback has been very positive regarding the enhanced experience and capabilities of the new language.
Using Azure Custom Script Extension to execute scripts on Azure VMs
Stefan Stranger has written a blog on using Azure Custom Script Extension to execute scripts on Azure VMs
With Azure Custom Script Extensions you can execute scripts on Azure virtual machines. This extension is useful for post deployment configuration, software installation, or any other configuration / management task. Scripts can be downloaded from Azure storage or GitHub, or provided to the Azure portal at extension run time.
There are multiple ways to execute a PowerShell script on a Windows Virtual machine in Azure.
- PowerShell Remoting
- Desired State Configuration script resource
- Custom Script Extension
Microsoft Services Sign-In experience
Microsoft has merged the Azure Active Directory (AD) and Microsoft Account (MSA) identity sign-in experiences.
Whether using an Azure AD or an Microsoft Account, you will get the same log-in process. Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela showed how this feature will look.
The two separate account services will get a consistent experience that looks and behaves the same. The company says this was necessary to avoid “jarring” switches between the services.
Marc Kean 