Azure Update - 5th September 2025

Key Concepts

• Entra ID (Enterprise Authentication)
• Zero Trust (Security Model)
• App Service Premium V4 (Compute)
• Confidential Compute (DCE v5, ECE v5, DCE v6, ECE v6)
• Logic Apps Standard (Automated Test Framework, .NET 8 Custom Code Support, Business Process Tracking, Hybrid Deployment Model, Enhanced Data Mapper, Organizational Templates, Confluent CFKA Connector)
• API Management v2 (Metrics, Autoscaling, Workspaces, Workspace Gateways, MCP Support)
• Gen 1 to Gen 2 VM Upgrade (Trusted Launch, UEFI, Secure Boot)
• Azure Front Door (Global Load Balancing, CDN Replacement)
• Azure Virtual Network Manager (Multiple Address Spaces per Subnet)
• Azure Ultra Disk (Price Reductions)
• Azure Managed MySQL Flexible Server (Near Zero Downtime Maintenance)
• Azure OpenAI (GPT-4o Real-time API Audio Models)
• Playwright Workspaces in Azure App Testing (End-to-End Testing)
• Microsoft BASIC (Open Source)

Entra ID and Zero Trust

• Entra ID: A 10-minute video provides an overview of Entra ID, emphasizing its importance for enterprise authentication, especially in the context of agents and data management.
• Zero Trust Workshop: A free workshop offers an actionable plan based on key pillars of zero trust (least privilege, assume breach) to help organizations implement this security model effectively.

Compute Updates

• App Service Premium V4: These offerings are now generally available (GA).
  • They are based on the latest AMD processors and NVMe local storage for improved performance and lower latency.
  • Available in general-purpose and memory-optimized (M-series) SKUs. Memory optimized SKUs provide a greater amount of memory to cores ratio.
  • Range from 1 vCPU and 4 GB of memory to 32 vCPUs and 256 GB of memory.
  • Support availability zones.
  • Offer a 25% better price-to-performance ratio compared to Premium V3, making migration attractive.
• Confidential Compute (DCE v5 and ECE v5): These are being retired on September 12, 2025. Users should migrate to the new V6 versions (DCE v6 and ECE v6) that offer whole VM encryption capabilities.

Logic Apps Standard Updates

• Automated Test Framework (GA):
  • Allows developers to build, test, and maintain workflow definitions within VS Code.
  • Supports mock actions to isolate workflows from production systems during testing.
  • Example: Mocking inline code or function calls to avoid impacting production systems.
• .NET 8 Custom Code Support: Enables embedding .NET 8 code directly within workflows for advanced logic scenarios, custom business logic, data validation, and calculations.
• Business Process Tracking: Tracks key data properties throughout the workflow and emits them to an Azure Data Explorer instance for analysis and visualization. Helps monitor and understand workflow execution.
• Hybrid Deployment Model (GA): Allows controlling where integration workloads execute, including customer-managed infrastructure, on-premises environments, private clouds, or other clouds. Useful for regulatory requirements, data privacy, or latency considerations.
• Enhanced Data Mapper (GA - V2 Experience): An improved data mapping experience within the VS Code Logic Apps extension. Supports Mac OS and includes updated documentation.
• Organizational Templates (Preview): Enables organizations to share and reuse custom automation patterns across the tenant or specific subscriptions, in addition to built-in templates.
• Confluent CFKA Connector (Preview): Facilitates sending and receiving messages between Logic Apps and Confluent CFKA, supporting both triggers (receiving messages) and actions (publishing messages).

API Management v2 Updates

• Metrics and Autoscaling (GA):
  • The Basic, Standard, and Premium v2 tiers now include gateway metrics (CPU usage, memory usage).
  • These metrics can be used to define autoscaling rules to dynamically adjust the number of gateway instances based on workload, optimizing costs.
• Workspaces and Workspace Gateways (GA):
  • Workspaces allow different teams to manage their own APIs, products, and subscriptions with a degree of autonomy.
  • Gateways can be associated with specific workspaces, ensuring that only the workspace's APIs are exposed through those gateway instances.
  • Helps control noisy neighbor issues and ensures desired performance for specific API sets.
• MCP (Model Context Protocol) Support: Extends support for MCP, enabling integration of MCP-compliant services (Azure Logic Apps, Functions, LangChain, custom runtimes) under API Management for governance, security, monitoring, and discovery. MCP provides a standard way for AI apps to interact with knowledge tools and prompt examples.

Virtual Machines and Networking

• Gen 1 to Gen 2 VM Upgrade (GA): Allows upgrading Gen 1 Azure VMs to Gen 2 with Trusted Launch enabled.
  • Gen 2 uses UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) instead of BIOS, enabling features like virtual TPM and secure boot.
  • Secure boot provides attestation from hardware to the OS, protecting against boot kits and rootkits.
  • Requires the VM to support Trusted Launch and the OS to support secure boot.
  • Utilities are available to convert Windows and Linux volume configurations from BIOS to UEFI.
  • Involves some downtime during the upgrade process.
• Azure Front Door in China Regions: Azure Front Door (global load balancing, caching, TCP splitting, anycast IP addresses) is now available in Azure China regions (operated by 21Vianet).
• Azure CDN Retirement: Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) is being retired. Users should migrate to Azure Front Door. Automatic migration will occur by November 15th for compatible configurations used in the last 3 months. Manual migration is recommended.
• Azure Virtual Network Manager: At a subnet level, multiple address spaces can now be configured to a single subnet without emptying it first. This allows for dynamic expansion of subnets as needed.

Storage and Database

• Azure Ultra Disk Price Reductions: Price reductions for capacity, IOPS, and throughput in UK South, Central US, and West US 2 regions. Ultra Disk allows independent tuning of capacity, IOPS, and throughput.
• Azure Managed MySQL Flexible Server: Near-zero downtime for planned maintenance is now GA, provided high availability is enabled. This uses an Azure Standard Load Balancer instead of DNS updates, minimizing application downtime during maintenance.

Miscellaneous Updates

• Azure OpenAI GPT-4o Real-time API Audio Models (GA): Improved speech-to-speech capabilities for conversational interactions, including better tracking of tone, pacing, escalation, language switching, new voices, higher audio quality, image integration, custom code calling, and turn-taking capabilities.
• Playwright Workspaces in Azure App Testing (GA): Enables running end-to-end tests across multiple browsers and devices in parallel for functional testing. Combined with Azure Load Testing for both functional and performance testing.
• Microsoft BASIC Open Source: The 50-year-old source code for the 6502 BASIC programming language has been open-sourced on GitHub.

Conclusion

This week's Azure updates cover a wide range of services, with a strong focus on Logic Apps, API Management, and compute. Key highlights include the general availability of App Service Premium V4, the automated test framework for Logic Apps, and near-zero downtime maintenance for Azure Managed MySQL. The updates also emphasize security with the Gen 1 to Gen 2 VM upgrade and the importance of migrating from Azure CDN to Azure Front Door. The open-sourcing of Microsoft BASIC is a notable event, marking a significant moment in computing history.