Secure Unique Default Hostnames: GA on App Service Web Apps and Public Preview on Functions
Back in May 2024, we announced the Public Preview of Secure Unique Default Hostnames on Web Apps. We are excited to announce that this feature is now in General Availability on Web Apps and is now in Public Preview for Functions! This feature works similarly for both Web Apps and Functions, so you can refer to the Public Preview announcement for more in-depth information regarding this feature. Secure unique default hostname feature is a long-term solution to protect your resources from dangling DNS entries and subdomain takeover. If you have this feature enabled for your App Service resources, then no one outside of your organization would be able to recreate resources with the same default hostname. This means that malicious actors can no longer take advantage of your dangling DNS entries and takeover your subdomains. We highly encourage everyone to enable secure unique default hostnames on their net-new App Service deployments. Addressing pre-existing resources without secure unique default hostnames enabled Since this feature can only be enabled upon resource creation, if you’d like to use this feature for your pre-existing resources, you can: Clone a pre-existing app to a new app with secure unique default hostname enabled Screenshot of cloning pre-existing app to an app that's about to be created with secure unique default hostname enabled. Use a backup of a pre-existing app to restore to a new app with secure unique default hostname enabled Screenshot of using a backup of a pre-existing app to restore to an app that's about to be created with secure unique default hostname enabled. Looking ahead We highly encourage everyone to enable secure unique default hostnames on all net-new App Service deployments. This is the time to integrate and to adopt this feature to your testing and production environments so that you can build more secure App Service resources to prevent dangling DNS entries and avoid subdomain takeover. Keep an eye out for future announcements where we will launch secure unique default hostnames in Public Preview for Logic Apps (Standard)!
What's New in Azure App Service at Ignite 2024
Learn about the GA of sidecar extensibility on Linux and see team members demonstrating the latest tools for AI assisted web application migration and modernization as well as the latest updates to Java JBoss EAP on Azure App Service. Team members will also demonstrate integrating the Phi-3 small language model with a web application via the new sidecar extensibility using existing App Service hardware! Also new for this year’s Ignite, many topics that attendees see in App Service related sessions are also available for hands-on learning across multiple hands-on labs (HoLs). Don’t just watch team members demonstrating concepts on-stage, drop by one of the many HoL sessions and test drive the functionality yourself! Azure App Service team members will also be in attendance at the Expert Meetup area on the third floor in the Hub – drop by and chat if you are attending in-person! Additional demos, presentations and hands-on labs covering App Service are listed at the end of this blog post for easy reference. Sidecar Extensibility GA for Azure App Service on Linux Sidecar extensibility for Azure App Service on Linux is now GA! Linux applications deployed from source-code as well as applications deployed using custom containers can take advantage of sidecar extensibility. Sidecars enable developers to attach additional capabilities like third-party application monitoring providers, in-memory caches, or even local SLM (small language model) support to their applications without having to bake that functionality directly into their applications. Developers can configure up to four sidecar containers per application, with each sidecar being associated with its own container registry and (optional) startup command. Examples of configuring an OpenTelemetry collector sidecar are available in the documentation for both container-based applications and source-code based applications. There are also several recent blog posts demonstrating additional sidecar scenarios. One example walks through using a Redis cache sidecar as an in-memory cache to accelerate data retrieval in a web application (sample code here). Another example demonstrates adding a sidecar containing the Phi-3 SLM to a custom container web application (sample code here). Once the web app is running with the SLM sidecar, Phi-3 processes text prompts directly on the web server without the need to call remote LLMs or host models on scarce GPU hardware. Similar examples for source deployed applications are available in the Ignite 2024 hands on lab demonstrating sidecars. Exercise three walks through attaching an OTel sidecar to a source-code based application, and exercise four shows how to attach a Phi-3 sidecar to a source-code based application. Looking ahead to the future, App Service will be adding “curated sidecars” to the platform to make it easier for developers to integrate common sidecar scenarios. Development is already underway to include options for popular third-party application monitoring providers, Redis cache support, as well as a curated sidecar encapsulating the Phi-3 SLM example mentioned earlier. Stay tuned for these enhancements in the future! If you are attending Microsoft Ignite 2024 in person, drop by the theater session “Modernize your apps with AI without completely rewriting your code” (session code: THR 614) which demonstrates using sidecar extensibility to add Open Telemetry monitoring as well as Phi-3 SLM support to applications on App Service for Linux! .NET 9 GA, JBoss EAP and More Language Updates! With the recent GA of .NET 9 last week developers can deploy applications running .NET 9 GA on both Windows and Linux variants of App Service! Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions all support building and deploying .NET 9 applications onto App Service. Start a new project using .NET 9 or upgrade your existing .NET applications in-place and take advantage of .NET 9! For JBoss EAP on App Service for Linux, customers will soon be able to bring their existing JBoss licenses with them when moving JBoss EAP workloads onto App Service for Linux. This change will make it easier and more cost effective than ever for JBoss EAP customers to migrate existing workloads to App Service, including JBoss versions 7.3, 7.4 and 8.0! As a quick reminder, last month App Service also announced reduced pricing for JBoss EAP licenses (for net-new workloads) as well as expanded hardware support (both memory-optimized and Free tier are now supported for JBoss EAP applications). App Service is planning to release both Node 22 and Python 3.13 onto App Service for Linux with expected availability in December! Python 3.13 is the latest stable Python release which means developers will be able to leverage this version with confidence given long term support runs into 2029. Node 22 is the latest active LTS release of Node and is a great version for developers to adopt with its long-term support lasting into 2026. A special note for Linux Python developers, App Service now supports “auto-instrumentation” in public preview for Python versions 3.8 through 3.12. This makes it trivial for source-code based Python applications to enable Application Insights monitoring for their applications by simply turning the feature “on” in the Azure Portal. If you ever thought to yourself that it can be a hassle setting up application monitoring and hence find yourself procrastinating, this is the monitoring feature for you! Looking ahead just a few short weeks until December, App Service also plans to release PHP 8.4 for developers on App Service for Linux. This will enable PHP developers to leverage the latest fully supported PHP release with an expected support cycle stretching into 2028. For WordPress customers Azure App Service has added support for managed identities when connecting to MySQL database as well as storage accounts. The platform has also transitioned WordPress from Alpine Linux to Debian, aligning with App Service for Linux to offer a more secure platform. Looking ahead, App Service is excited to introduce some new features by the end of the year, including an App Service plugin for WordPress! This plugin will enable users to manage WordPress integration with Azure Communication Services email, set up Single Sign-On using Microsoft Entra ID, and diagnose performance bottlenecks. Stay tuned for upcoming WordPress announcements! End-to-End TLS & Min TLS Cipher Suite are now GA End-to-end TLS encryption for public multi-tenant App Service is now GA! When E2E TLS is configured, traffic between the App Service frontends and individual workers is secured using a platform supplied TLS certificate. This additional level of security is available for both Windows and Linux sites using Standard SKU and above as well as Isolatedv2 SKUs. You can enable this feature easily in the Azure Portal by going to your resource, clicking the “Configuration” blade and turning the feature “On” as shown below: Configuration of the minimum TLS cipher suite for a web application is also GA! With this feature developers can choose from a pre-determined list of cipher suites. When a minimum cipher suite is selected, the App Service frontends will reject any incoming requests that use a cipher suite weaker than the selected minimum cipher suite. This feature is supported for both Windows and Linux applications using Basic SKU and higher as well as Isolatedv2 SKUs. You configure a minimum TLS cipher suite in the Azure Portal by going to the “Configuration” blade for a website and selecting “Change” for the Minimum Inbound TLS Cipher Suite setting. In the resulting blade (shown below) you can select the minimum cipher suite for your application: To learn more about these and other TLS features on App Service, please refer to the App Service TLS overview. AI-Powered Conversational Diagnostics Building on the Conversational Diagnostics AI-powered tool and the guided decision making path introduced in Diagnostic Workflows, the team has created a new AI-driven natural language-based diagnostics solution for App Service on Linux. The new solution brings together previous functionality to create an experience that comprehends user intent, selects the appropriate Diagnostic Workflow, and keeps users engaged by providing real-time updates and actionable insights through chat. Conversational Diagnostics also provides the grounding data that the generative AI back-end uses to produce recommendations thus empowering users to check the conclusions. The integration of Conversational Diagnostics and Diagnostic Workflows marks a significant advancement in the platform’s diagnostic capabilities. Stay tuned for more updates and experience the transformative power of Generative AI-driven diagnostics firsthand! App Service Migration and Modernization The team just recently introduced new architectural guidance around evolving and modernizing web applications with the Modern Web Application pattern for .NET and Java! This guidance builds on the Reliable Web App pattern for .NET and Java as well as the Azure Migrate application and code assessment tool. With the newly released Modern Web Application guidance, there is a well-documented path for migrating web applications from on-premises/VM deployments using the application and code assessment tool, iterating and evolving web applications with best practices using guidance from the Reliable Web App pattern, and subsequently going deeper on modernization and re-factoring following guidance from the Modern Web Application pattern. Best of all customers can choose to “enter” this journey at any point and progress as far down the modernization path as needed based on their unique business and technical requirements! As a quick recap on the code assessment tool, it is a guided experience inside of Visual Studio with GitHub Copilot providing actionable guidance and feedback on recommended changes needed to migrate applications to a variety of Azure services including Azure App Service. Combined with AI-powered Conversational Diagnostics (mentioned earlier), developers now have AI-guided journeys supporting them from migration all the way through deployment and runtime operation on App Service! Networking and ASE Updates As of November 1, 2024, we are excited to announce that App Service multi-plan subnet join is generally available across all public Azure regions! Multi-plan subnet join eases network management by reducing subnet sprawl, enabling developers to connect multiple app service plans to a single subnet. There is no limit to the number of app service plans that connect to a single subnet. However, developers should keep in mind the number of available IPs since tasks such as changing the SKU for an app service plan will temporarily double the number of IP addresses used in a connected subnet. For more information as well as examples on using multi-plan subnet join see the documentation! App Service also recently announced GA of memory optimized options for Isolatedv2 on App Service Environment v3. The new memory-optimized options range from two virtual cores with 16 GB RAM in I1mv2 (compared to two virtual cores, 8 GB RAM in I1v2) all the way up to 32 virtual cores with 256 GB RAM in I5mv2. The new plans are available in most regions. Check back regularly to see if your preferred region is supported. For more details on the technical specifications of these plans, as well as information on the complete range of tiers and plans for Microsoft Azure App Service, visit our pricing page. Using services such as Application Gateway and Azure Front Door with App Service as entry points for client traffic is a common scenario that many of our customers implement. However, when using these services together, there are integration challenges around the default cookie domain for HTTP cookies, including the ARRAffinity cookie used for session affinity. App Service collaborated with the Application Gateway team to introduce a simple solution that addresses the session affinity problem. App Service introduced a new session affinity proxy configuration setting in October which tells App Service to always set the hostname for outbound cookies based on the upstream hostname seen by Application Gateway or Azure Front Door. This simplifies integration with a single-click experience for App Service developers who front-end their websites using one of Azure’s reverse proxies, and it solves the challenge of round-tripping the ArrAffinity cookie when upstream proxies are involved. Looking ahead to early 2025, App Service will shortly be expanding support for IPv6 to include both inbound and outbound connections (currently only inbound connections are supported). The current public preview includes dual-stack support for both IPv4 and IPv6, allowing for a smooth transition and compatibility with existing systems. Read more about the latest status of the IPv6 public preview on App Service here ! Lastly, the new application naming and hostname convention that was rolled out a few months earlier for App Service is now GA for App Service. The platform has also extended this new naming convention to Azure Functions where it is now available in public preview for newly created functions. To learn more about the new naming convention and the protection it provides against subdomain takeover take a look at the introductory blog post about the unique default hostname feature. Upcoming Availability Zone Improvements New Availability Zone features are currently rolling out that will make zone redundant App Service deployments more cost efficient and simpler to manage in early 2025! The platform will be changing the minimum requirement for enabling Availability Zones to two instances instead of three, while still maintaining a 99.99% SLA. Many existing app service plans with two or more instances will also automatically become capable of supporting Availability Zones without requiring additional setup. Additionally, the zone redundant setting will be mutable throughout the life of an app service plan. This upcoming improvement will allow customers on Premium V2, Premium V3, or Isolated V2 plans, to toggle zone redundancy on or off as needed. Customers will also gain enhanced visibility into Availability Zone information, including physical zone placement and counts. As a sneak peek into the future, the screenshot below shows what the new experience will look like in the Azure Portal: Stay tuned for Availability Zone updates coming to App Service in early 2025! Next Steps Developers can learn more about Azure App Service at Getting Started with Azure App Service. Stay up to date on new features and innovations on Azure App Service via Azure Updates as well as the Azure App Service (@AzAppService) X feed. There is always a steady stream of great deep-dive technical articles about App Service as well as the breadth of developer focused Azure services over on the Apps on Azure blog. Azure App Service (virtually!) attended the recently completed November .Net Conf 2024. App Service functionality was featured showing a .NET 9.0 app using Azure Sql’s recently released native vector data type support that enables developers to perform hybrid text searches on Azure Sql data using vectors generated via Azure OpenAI embeddings! And lastly take a look at Azure App Service Community Standups hosted on the Microsoft Azure Developers YouTube channel. The Azure App Service Community Standup series regularly features walkthroughs of new and upcoming features from folks that work directly on the product! Ignite 2024 Session Reference (Note: some sessions/labs have more than one timeslot spanning multiple days). (Note: all times below are listed in Chicago time - Central Standard Time). Modernize your apps with AI without completely rewriting your code Modernize your apps with AI without completely rewriting your code [Note: this session includes a demonstration of the Phi-3 sidecar scenario] Wednesday, November 20 th 1:00 PM - 1:30 PM Central Standard Time Theater Session – In-Person Only (THR614) McCormick Place West Building – Level 3, Hub, Theater C Unlock AI: Assess your app and data estate for AI-powered innovation Unlock AI: Assess your app and data estate for AI-powered innovation Wednesday, November 20 th 1:15 PM – 2:00 PM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 1, Room W183c Breakout and Recorded Session (BRK137) Modernize and scale enterprise Java applications on Azure Modernize and scale enterprise Java applications on Azure Thursday, November 21 st 8:30 AM - 9:15 AM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 1, Room W183c Breakout and Recorded Session (BRK147) Assess apps with Azure Migrate and replatform to Azure App Service Assess apps with Azure Migrate and replatform to Azure App Service Tuesday, November 19 th 1:15 PM - 2:30 PM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 4, Room W475 Hands on Lab – In-Person Only (LAB408) Integrate GenAI capabilities into your .NET apps with minimal code changes Integrate GenAI capabilities into your .NET apps with minimal code changes [Note: Lab participants will be able to try out the Phi-3 sidecar scenario in this lab.] Wednesday, November 20 th 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 4, Room W475 Hands on Lab – In-Person Only (LAB411) Assess apps with Azure Migrate and replatform to Azure App Service Assess apps with Azure Migrate and replatform to Azure App Service Wednesday, November 20 th 6:30 PM - 7:45 PM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 4, Room W470b Hands on Lab – In-Person Only (LAB408-R1) Integrate GenAI capabilities into your .NET apps with minimal code changes Integrate GenAI capabilities into your .NET apps with minimal code changes [Note: Lab participants will be able to try out the Phi-3 sidecar scenario in this lab.] Thursday, November 21 st 10:15 AM - 11:30 AM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 1, Room W180 Hands on Lab – In-Person Only (LAB411-R1) Assess apps with Azure Migrate and replatform to Azure App Service Assess apps with Azure Migrate and replatform to Azure App Service Friday, November 22 nd 9:00 AM – 10:15 AM Central Time McCormick Place West Building – Level 4, Room W474 Hands on Lab – In-Person Only (LAB408-R2)Introducing Serverless GPUs on Azure Container Apps
We're excited to announce the public preview of Azure Container Apps Serverless GPUs accelerated by NVIDIA. This feature provides customers with NVIDIA A100 GPUs and NVIDIA T4 GPUs in a serverless environment, enabling effortless scaling and flexibility for real-time custom model inferencing and other machine learning tasks. Serverless GPUs accelerate the speed of your AI development team by allowing you to focus on your core AI code and less on managing infrastructure when using NVIDIA accelerated computing. They provide an excellent middle layer option between Azure AI Model Catalog's serverless APIs and hosting models on managed compute. It provides full data governance as your data never leaves the boundaries of your container while still providing a managed, serverless platform from which to build your applications. Serverless GPUs are designed to meet the growing demands of modern applications by providing powerful NVIDIA accelerated computing resources without the need for dedicated infrastructure management. "Azure Container Apps' serverless GPU offering is a leap forward for AI workloads. Serverless NVIDIA GPUs are well suited for a wide array of AI workloads from real-time inferencing scenarios with custom models to fine-tuning. NVIDIA is also working with Microsoft to bring NVIDIA NIM microservices to Azure Container Apps to optimize AI inference performance.” - Dave Salvator, Director, Accelerated Computing Products, NVIDIA Key benefits of serverless GPUs Scale-to zero GPUs: Support for serverless scaling of NVIDIA A100 and T4 GPUs. Per-second billing: Pay only for the GPU compute you use. Built-in data governance: Your data never leaves the container boundary. Flexible compute options: Choose between NVIDIA A100 and T4 GPUs. Middle-layer for AI development: Bring your own model on a managed, serverless compute platform. Scenarios Whether you choose to use NVIDIA A100 or T4 GPUs will depend on the types of apps you're creating. The following are a couple example scenarios. For each scenario with serverless GPUs, you pay only for the compute you use with per-second billing, and your apps will automatically scale in and out from zero to meet the demand. NVIDIA T4 Real-time and batch inferencing: Using custom open-source models with fast startup times, automatic scaling, and a per-second billing model, serverless GPUs are ideal for dynamic applications that don't already have a serverless API in the model catalog. NVIDIA A100 Compute intensive machine learning scenarios: Significantly speed up applications that implement fine-tuned custom generative AI models, deep learning, or neural networks. High performance computing (HPC) and data analytics: Applications that require complex calculations or simulations, such as scientific computing and financial modeling as well as accelerated data processing and analysis among massive datasets. Get started with serverless GPUs Serverless GPUs are now available for workload profile environments in West US 3, Australia East, and Sweden Central regions with more regions to come. You will need to have quota enabled on your subscription in order to use serverless GPUs. By default, all Microsoft Enterprise Agreement customers will have one quota. If additional quota is needed, please request it here. Note: In order to achieve the best performance with serverless GPUs, use an Azure Container Registry (ACR) with artifact streaming enabled for your image tag. Follow steps here to enable artifact streaming on your ACR. From the portal, you can select to enable GPUs for your Consumption app in the container tab when creating your Container App or your Container App Job. You can also add a new consumption GPU workload profile to your existing Container App environment through the workload profiles UX in portal or through the CLI commands for managing workload profiles. Deploy a sample Stable Diffusion app To try out serverless GPUs, you can use the stable diffusion image which is provided as a quickstart during the container app create experience: In the container tab select the Use quickstart image box. In the quickstart image dropdown, select GPU hello world container. If you wish to pull the GPU container image into your own ACR to enable artifact streaming for improved performance, or if you wish to manually enter the image, you can find the image at mcr.microsoft.com/k8se/gpu-quickstart:latest. For full steps on using your own image with serverless GPUs, see the tutorial on using serverless GPUs in Azure Container Apps. Learn more about serverless GPUs With serverless GPUs, Azure Container Apps now simplifies the development of your AI applications by providing scale-to-zero compute, pay-as you go pricing, reduced infrastructure management, and more. To learn more, visit: Using serverless GPUs in Azure Container Apps (preview) | Microsoft Learn Tutorial: Generate images using serverless GPUs in Azure Container Apps (preview) | Microsoft LearnUnlock New AI and Cloud Potential with .NET 9 & Azure: Faster, Smarter, and Built for the Future
.NET 9, now available to developers, marks a significant milestone in the evolution of the .NET platform, pushing the boundaries of performance, cloud-native development, and AI integration. This release, shaped by contributions from over 9,000 community members worldwide, introduces thousands of improvements that set the stage for the future of application development. With seamless integration with Azure and a focus on cloud-native development and AI capabilities, .NET 9 empowers developers to build scalable, intelligent applications with unprecedented ease. Expanding Azure PaaS Support for .NET 9 With the release of .NET 9, a comprehensive range of Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings now fully support the platform’s new capabilities, including the latest .NET SDK for any Azure developer. This extensive support allows developers to build, deploy, and scale .NET 9 applications with optimal performance and adaptability on Azure. Additionally, developers can access a wealth of architecture references and sample solutions to guide them in creating high-performance .NET 9 applications on Azure’s powerful cloud services: Azure App Service: Run, manage, and scale .NET 9 web applications efficiently. Check out this blog to learn more about what's new in Azure App Service. Azure Functions: Leverage serverless computing to build event-driven .NET 9 applications with improved runtime capabilities. Azure Container Apps: Deploy microservices and containerized .NET 9 workloads with integrated observability. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS): Run .NET 9 applications in a managed Kubernetes environment with expanded ARM64 support. Azure AI Services and Azure OpenAI Services: Integrate advanced AI and OpenAI capabilities directly into your .NET 9 applications. Azure API Management, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure SignalR Service: Ensure seamless integration and scaling for .NET 9 solutions. These services provide developers with a robust platform to build high-performance, scalable, and cloud-native applications while leveraging Azure’s optimized environment for .NET. Streamlined Cloud-Native Development with .NET Aspire .NET Aspire is a game-changer for cloud-native applications, enabling developers to build distributed, production-ready solutions efficiently. Available in preview with .NET 9, Aspire streamlines app development, with cloud efficiency and observability at its core. The latest updates in Aspire include secure defaults, Azure Functions support, and enhanced container management. Key capabilities include: Optimized Azure Integrations: Aspire works seamlessly with Azure, enabling fast deployments, automated scaling, and consistent management of cloud-native applications. Easier Deployments to Azure Container Apps: Designed for containerized environments, .NET Aspire integrates with Azure Container Apps (ACA) to simplify the deployment process. Using the Azure Developer CLI (azd), developers can quickly provision and deploy .NET Aspire projects to ACA, with built-in support for Redis caching, application logging, and scalability. Built-In Observability: A real-time dashboard provides insights into logs, distributed traces, and metrics, enabling local and production monitoring with Azure Monitor. With these capabilities, .NET Aspire allows developers to deploy microservices and containerized applications effortlessly on ACA, streamlining the path from development to production in a fully managed, serverless environment. Integrating AI into .NET: A Seamless Experience In our ongoing effort to empower developers, we’ve made integrating AI into .NET applications simpler than ever. Our strategic partnerships, including collaborations with OpenAI, LlamaIndex, and Qdrant, have enriched the AI ecosystem and strengthened .NET’s capabilities. This year alone, usage of Azure OpenAI services has surged to nearly a billion API calls per month, illustrating the growing impact of AI-powered .NET applications. Real-World AI Solutions with .NET: .NET has been pivotal in driving AI innovations. From internal teams like Microsoft Copilot creating AI experiences with .NET Aspire to tools like GitHub Copilot, developed with .NET to enhance productivity in Visual Studio and VS Code, the platform showcases AI at its best. KPMG Clara is a prime example, developed to enhance audit quality and efficiency for 95,000 auditors worldwide. By leveraging .NET and scaling securely on Azure, KPMG implemented robust AI features aligned with strict industry standards, underscoring .NET and Azure as the backbone for high-performing, scalable AI solutions. Performance Enhancements in .NET 9: Raising the Bar for Azure Workloads .NET 9 introduces substantial performance upgrades with over 7,500 merged pull requests focused on speed and efficiency, ensuring .NET 9 applications run optimally on Azure. These improvements contribute to reduced cloud costs and provide a high-performance experience across Windows, Linux, and macOS. To see how significant these performance gains can be for cloud services, take a look at what past .NET upgrades achieved for Microsoft’s high-scale internal services: Bing achieved a major reduction in startup times, enhanced efficiency, and decreased latency across its high-performance search workflows. Microsoft Teams improved efficiency by 50%, reduced latency by 30–45%, and achieved up to 100% gains in CPU utilization for key services, resulting in faster user interactions. Microsoft Copilot and other AI-powered applications benefited from optimized runtime performance, enabling scalable, high-quality experiences for users. Upgrading to the latest .NET version offers similar benefits for cloud apps, optimizing both performance and cost-efficiency. For more information on updating your applications, check out the .NET Upgrade Assistant. For additional details on ASP.NET Core, .NET MAUI, NuGet, and more enhancements across the .NET platform, check out the full Announcing .NET 9 blog post. Conclusion: Your Path to the Future with .NET 9 and Azure .NET 9 isn’t just an upgrade—it’s a leap forward, combining cutting-edge AI integration, cloud-native development, and unparalleled performance. Paired with Azure’s scalability, these advancements provide a trusted, high-performance foundation for modern applications. Get started by downloading .NET 9 and exploring its features. Leverage .NET Aspire for streamlined cloud-native development, deploy scalable apps with Azure, and embrace new productivity enhancements to build for the future. For additional insights on ASP.NET, .NET MAUI, NuGet, and more, check out the full Announcing .NET 9 blog post. Explore the future of cloud-native and AI development with .NET 9 and Azure—your toolkit for creating the next generation of intelligent applications.
Connect Privately to Azure Front Door with Azure Container Apps
Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to deploy and run containerized applications with per-second billing and autoscaling without having to manage infrastructure. The service also provides support for a number of enhanced networking capabilities to address security and compliance needs such as network security groups (NSGs), Azure Firewall, and more. Today, Azure Container Apps is excited to announce public preview for another key networking capability, private endpoints for workload profile environments. This feature allows customers to connect to their Container Apps environment using a private IP address in their Azure Virtual Network, thereby eliminating exposure to the public internet and securing access to their applications. With the introduction of private endpoints for workload profile environments, you can now also establish a direct connection from Azure Front Door to your Container Apps environment via Private Link. By enabling Private Link for an Azure Container Apps origin, customers benefit from an extra layer of security that further isolates their traffic from the public internet. Currently, you can configure this connectivity through CLI (portal support coming soon). In this post, we will do a brief overview of private endpoints on Azure Container Apps and the process of privately connecting it to Azure Front Door. Getting started with private endpoints on Azure Container Apps Private endpoints can be enabled either during the creation of a new environment or within an existing one. For new environments, you simply navigate to the Networking tab, disable public network access, and enable private endpoints. To manage the creation of private endpoints in an existing environment, you can use the new Networking blade, which is also in public preview. Since private endpoints use a private IP address, the endpoint for a container app is inaccessible through the public internet. This can be confirmed by the lack of connectivity when opening the application URL. If you prefer using CLI, you can find further guidance in enabling private endpoints at Use a private endpoint with an Azure Container Apps environment (preview). Adding container apps as a private origin for Azure Front Door With private endpoints, you can securely connect them to Azure Front Door through Private Link as well. The current process involves CLI commands that guide you in enabling an origin for Private Link and approving the private endpoint connection. Once approved, Azure Front Door assigns a private IP address from a managed regional private network, and you can verify the connectivity between your container app and the Azure Front Door. For a detailed tutorial, please navigate to Create a private link to an Azure Container App with Azure Front Door (preview). Troubleshooting Have trouble testing the private endpoints? After creating a private endpoint for a container app, you can build and deploy a virtual machine to test the private connection. With no public inbound ports, this virtual machine would be associated with the virtual network defined during creation of the private endpoint. After creating the virtual machine, you can connect via Bastion and verify the private connectivity. You may find outlined instructions at Verify the private endpoint connection. Conclusion The public preview of private endpoints and private connectivity to Azure Front Door for workload profile environments is a long-awaited feature in Azure Container Apps. We encourage you to implement private endpoints for enhanced security and look forward to your feedback on this experience at our GitHub page. Additional Resources To learn more, please visit the following links to official documentation: Networking in Azure Container Apps environment - Private Endpoints Use a private endpoint with an Azure Container Apps environment Create a private link to an Azure Container App with Azure Front Door (preview) What is a private endpoint? What is Azure Private Link?Announcing Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) for Azure Functions
Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) is coming Azure Functions! This new functionality will be available in the "Diagnose and solve problems" section of the Azure Portal. Additionally, it will be available in Copilot in Azure, and GitHub Copilot with the help of azure. For more information about Conversational Diagnostics please check last year’s announcement: Conversational Diagnostics (Preview). Diagnose and solve problems and Conversational Diagnostics Copilot in Azure + Conversational Diagnostics for Azure Function Apps GitHub Copilot and Conversational Diagnostics for Azure Function Apps Availability and Future Developments Conversational Diagnostics for Azure Functions will be available as part of Ignite 2024. User feedback is highly encouraged to help us continuously improve this feature and enhance the overall user experience. Thank you!The Power of Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) and Diagnostic Workflows
We are thrilled to introduce our latest innovation: the integration of Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) with sophisticated Diagnostic Workflows. This powerful combination makes the diagnostic process both intuitive and efficient. For this announcement we will use an Azure Web App hosted on Linux. The Benefits of Diagnostic Workflows Introduced last year, Diagnostic Workflows empower users to tackle complex problems through an intuitive, tree-like interface. This design helps users navigate different paths to diagnose and solve issues effectively, reducing clutter and focusing on essential diagnostics. By providing clear explanations for each decision path, Diagnostic Workflows facilitate a deeper understanding of the diagnostic process, which is particularly beneficial for new users in ramping up quickly. Diagnostic Workflows are available from Azure Portal under Diagnose and solve problems. Conversational Diagnostics: A New Era Building on the introduction of Conversational Diagnostics (Preview) from last year, we have now combined it with Diagnostic Workflows to create an integrated, natural language-based solution. This system comprehends user intent, selects the appropriate Diagnostic Workflow, and keeps users engaged by providing real-time updates and actionable insights through chat. This transparency helps build user trust and guides them efficiently towards resolving their issues. Finally, Conversational Diagnostics provides the grounded data Generative AI used to produce solutions empowering users to check the conclusions. Exciting Developments Ahead The integration of Conversational Diagnostics and Diagnostic Workflows marks a significant advancement in diagnostic capabilities. We are excited to announce that this feature will be available as part of Ignite 2024, and we welcome your feedback to help us continue improving this experience. Stay tuned for more updates and get ready to experience the transformative power of Generative AI-driven diagnostics firsthand. Thank you!Announcing Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) for AKS at Ignite 2024
We are thrilled to announce that Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) is coming to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)! This new functionality will be available in the "Diagnose and solve problems" section of the Azure Portal, starting at Ignite 2024. Diagnose and Solve Problems with Conversational Diagnostics Conversational Diagnostics leverages natural language processing to help you troubleshoot and resolve issues with your AKS clusters more efficiently. By simply describing your problem in plain language, you can get targeted diagnostics and solutions, making it easier to maintain the health and performance of your AKS deployments. Availability and Future Developments Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) for AKS will be available as part of Ignite 2024. Shortly after, the AKS + Conversational Diagnostics (Public Preview) integration will expand to Copilot in Azure and GitHub Copilot via azure. With the integration of Conversational Diagnostics into Copilot in Azure, you can now access powerful diagnostic tools from anywhere in Azure Portal allowing you to quickly identify and resolve issues without leaving your workflow, enhancing productivity, and reducing downtime. The expansion of Conversational Diagnostics to GitHub Copilot means that developers can now benefit from advanced troubleshooting capabilities while writing code, providing near real-time diagnostics and suggestions to help catch and fix issues early in the development process. Stay tuned for more updates and detailed demonstrations at Ignite 2024. We look forward to seeing how Conversational Diagnostics will transform the way you manage and troubleshoot your AKS clusters. Thank you!
