☁️ Azure Weekly #586 - 1st November 2026
Welcome to Azure Weekly Issue 586. The main event this week was the GitHub Universe Conference. The sessions are available to catch up on. The notable posts are:
- GitHub Universe 2026: Evolving every layer of the stack by Jay Parikh - GitHub Universe 2026 unveiled a new agentic software delivery system that integrates AI assistants to boost velocity, intelligence, and quality while keeping developers in control of the workflow.
- Octoverse: Commits, pushes, reach new highs in 2026 as developers build with agents by GitHub Staff - GitHub recorded 17.9 billion code pushes in 2026, surpassing the combined totals of 2024 and 2025 due to AI-driven productivity gains in sectors such as healthcare and agriculture.
Other highlights include:
- GPT-6.1 Terra now generally available in Microsoft Foundry: build agents that see and act by Naomi Moneypenny - GPT-6.1 Terra in Microsoft Foundry boosts AI agents' visual reasoning and computer interaction, speeding up chart, app, and document processing for tasks such as form completion and video editing.
- Introducing the Microsoft Copilot harness in Foundry Agent Service by Jeff Hollan, Viswa Balaji, Anthony Chu - The new Microsoft Copilot harness in Foundry Agent Service provides a managed execution system that lets developers focus on building agent expertise and capabilities while handling model coordination, tool integration, and context management.
- The New Unified Copilot in Fabric and Project Osmos: From AI Assistance to Agentic Data Engineering by James Serra - The unified Copilot in Fabric integrates AI assistance across all data lifecycle stages, enabling seamless transitions from planning to execution with tools like the emerging Fabric data engineering agent, Project Osmos, which autonomously handles bounded data-engineering tasks.
- Inside a malicious Claude Code-branded extension and its persistent SSH backdoor by Microsoft Security Research - The Claude Code extension injected JavaScript to collect host info, add a controlled SSH key, enable local SSH services, create reverse tunnels for persistence, and attempt reporting despite failures.
Finally, Always-on assistants that are asleep most of the day by Geert Baeke - Dottie uses Azure Container Apps Sandboxes to create free, idle microVMs for personal assistants to maintain state and tools efficiently.
As always, please send any articles to us on Bluesky or email, and see you again next Sunday 🚀
🤖 AI
- Evaluating AI-Generated Protein Binders with Microsoft’s BioEmu2 Model by Colby T. Ford, Ph.D.
- From fine-tuning to shared serving: Multi-LoRA deployment on Foundry Managed Compute by Gulsimo Osimi
- Global enterprise multi-agent systems in production: Design and security (Part 1) by dhangerkapil
- GPT-6.1 Terra now generally available in Microsoft Foundry: build agents that see and act by Naomi Moneypenny
- Qwen3.8-27B on a Lenovo laptop: run it on RTX Spark, watch it in Azure Monitor by Wuyi Weng
- Remember, Retrieve, Revalidate-or Forget? Architecting Memory for Production AI Agents by Shruti Kakade
- MAI-Image-2.6 and MAI-Image-2.6-Flash are now generally available in Microsoft Foundry by Alexander Hughes
- Microsoft Foundry Adds Grounding and Confidence Guidance for Document AI by David Ramel
- Global enterprise multi-agent systems in production: Release and operations (Part 2) by dhangerkapil
- Autopilots: agents with their own mailbox, Teams account and boss by Geert Baeke
- Microsoft Adds 25 Languages to Azure AI Speech Transcription by David Ramel
- Microsoft Foundry Browser Automation Reaches General Availability by David Ramel
- Microsoft Copilot harness in Foundry by Michael Collier
- Introducing the Microsoft Copilot harness in Foundry Agent Service by Jeff Hollan, Viswa Balaji, Anthony Chu
- Architecting Governed Memory State for Production AI Agents with Microsoft Foundry by Abhishek Kumar
- Microsoft Foundry for Azure Admins: Create a Resource and Project by Pantelis Apostolidis
- Microsoft Copilot harness across Foundry and Copilot Studio by Vesa Nopanen
- Bring Your Own Telephony to Voice Agents via SIP by Archer Zhao
- Mistral Large 4 in Microsoft Foundry: Build sovereign AI within a consistent platform experience by Trupti Parkar
- Programmed Training: You write the loop, Foundry runs the GPUs by Corey Hill
- Hypercharging Work IQ with Decision APIs by Hieun Hu
- AI on Azure 101: Training, fine-tuning, inference, and where everything lives by Ricardo Martins
- AI on Azure: models as a service by Ricardo Martins
- What’s New in Microsoft Copilot | October 2026 by Daniel Vargas
- AI on Azure: platforms for apps and agents by Ricardo Martins
- AI on Azure: managed ML by Ricardo Martins
- AI on Azure: when you own the infrastructure by Ricardo Martins
- SharePoint Is Becoming the Knowledge Platform for Copilot by Jeremiah Smith
- SharePoint Agents are changing what customers need to know for preparation by Jeremiah Smith
- Turn enterprise knowledge into a personalized voice and avatar agent in minutes with Voice Agent by Yufang Qin
🔎 Analytics
- Scale reservoir uncertainty analysis with agile reservoir modeling by Sverre Brandsberg Dahl
- Master Prompting for Data Analysis: Practical Patterns by Oscar Garcia Ozkary
- The New Unified Copilot in Fabric and Project Osmos: From AI Assistance to Agentic Data Engineering by James Serra
🖥️ Compute
- Generally Available: Large OS Disk Encryption for Azure Confidential VM migrations by The Azure Updates Team
- SAP on Azure Product Announcements Summary – SAP TechEd 2026 by Hiren Shah
- Upgrade Azure CycleCloud Slurm Node OS Images Without Recreating the VM Scale Set by Vinil Vadakkepurakkal
🚢 Containers
- Announcing: Migrate Azure Container Apps logging destination from Log Analytics to Azure Monitor by The Azure Updates Team
- Always-on assistants that are asleep most of the day by Geert Baeke
- Migrate from Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler to Karpenter by Adam Bertram
- Why Our Gateway Pods Failed 60 Days After a Deploy, and How We Fixed It by Chaminda Chandrasekara
- AKS Pod Scheduling Demystified by Joji Varghese
- GitOps on AKS with the Managed Flux Extension: Setting Up the Foundation by Kasun Rajapakse
🗄️ Databases
- Public Preview: Support database-level managed identity (including FIC) in Create Database Scoped Credential T-SQL by The Azure Updates Team
- MiniMax m3 and SQL Server by Daniel Calbimonte
- Azure Cosmos DB Emulator Walkthrough Connects Local Tests to GitHub Actions by David Ramel
- When More vCores Aren’t the Fix: Diagnosing Azure SQL CPU and Compilation Storms by Mohamed Baioumy
- The Pipeline Is Slow, or Is SQL Waiting? Diagnosing Synapse-to-Azure SQL Regressions by Mohamed Baioumy
- Seconds of Downtime, Hours of Confusion: Handling Transient Azure SQL Disconnects by Mohamed Baioumy
- When Change Tracking Cleanup Falls Behind: A Safe Playbook for Azure SQL by Mohamed Baioumy
- Azure SQL Scaling Stuck? Investigating CDC and Transaction Log Pressure by Mohamed Baioumy
- SQL Server Performance Office Hours Episode 92 by Erik Darling
- Database watcher for Azure SQL is retiring: simplify your monitoring with Database Hub by Lance Wright
- Bringing Azure Applications Closer to Oracle AI Database@Azure with Proximity Placement Groups by Venkat Ramakrishnan
- Sovereign controls for Oracle AI Database@Azure by Ram Kakani
- What’s new for Oracle AI Database@Azure at Oracle AI World 2026 by Kalyan Kaki
- PostgreSQL with Elizabeth Christensen by Richard Campbell, Elizabeth Christensen
- Why Microsoft contributes to Postgres: What I tell people by Claire Giordano
- Microsoft Pitches Azure SQL Diagnostics to PostgreSQL Developers by David Ramel
🛠️ Developer tools
- Generally Available: Azure MCP Server 3.0 by The Azure Updates Team
- Keep your investigation between sessions by Jason Chlus, Mads Kristensen
- How Microsoft Intune team upgraded a .NET service with GitHub Copilot modernization by Ramya Sharma
- Why would you optimize this code at all? by Daniel Marbach
- Visual Studio October Update – Compare Commits to Your Code, Resolve Conflicts in Bulk, Keep Coding by Mark Downie
- GitHub Copilot in VS Code at Universe 2026: What Actually Matters by Gregor Suttie
- Copilot Agent Mode vs. Cloud Agent: Automate Your DevOps Backlog by Adam Bertram
- AI-Assisted Authoring: How Copilot, Canvas Apps Authoring MCP, and Playwright MCP Worked Together by Ahmed Shaalan
- Deep Agents from zero: seven small examples by Geert Baeke
- Giving my AI coding agents a face with Agent Buddy by Dan Wahlin
- Upgrading Foundry Models and SDKs: Treat Compatibility as a Release Decision by Deepak Kaushik
- From Zero to Production: Build an AI Agent in C# with Microsoft Agent Framework by Bruno Capuano
🔩 DevOps
- Azure DevOps Server RC (26H2) Is Now Available by Gloridel Morales
- Why AI-Generated code still needs tests by Ali Hamza Ansari
- Octoverse: Commits, pushes, reach new highs in 2026 as developers build with agents by GitHub Staff
- GitHub Universe 2026: Evolving every layer of the stack by Jay Parikh
- The GitHub app in Microsoft Teams is now generally available! by Arnav Gupta
- I Turned Off CI for Pull Requests. Here's Why by Milan Jovanovic
🧬 Hybrid + multicloud
🎭 Identity
- Why identity needs network insight to make Zero Trust work by Mohammad Zmaili
- Microsoft offers free clean-up for inactive Agent IDs by Daniel Bradley
- AI agents are coming—are your identity controls prepared? by Melanie Maynes
- New Conditional Access policy plans in Microsoft Entra by Zachary Cavanell
- Microsoft disables public contributions to Entra docs by Daniel Bradley
- Designing Least-Privilege Tool Access for AI Agents with Microsoft Foundry by Abhishek Kumar
🔌 Integration
- Hybrid Logic Apps - SQL as storage provider benchmarking by Praveen Srivastava
- Automate Vendor Onboarding with MS Forms and Power Automate by Adam Bertram
- Introducing the Logic Apps local CLI: develop Standard workflows from your terminal by Wagner Silveira
- Azure API Management v2: Restoring Predictable Outbound IP Addresses with NAT Gateway by João Paulo Calhau
- Our Logic App stopped processing messages and we dont know why by Mike Stephenson
- Automate SharePoint Document Archiving via Power Automate by Adam Bertram
🎓 Learning and Certifications
- How AI Sees and Hears for AI-901: Hear, Speak, See, and Create by Travis Roberts
- Introducing a credential based on real work—no test required by Cameron Percy
- Let’s talk speed and scale: Azure Managed Redis at Microsoft Ignite 2026 by Ibukun Martins
- Preparing for Your Next Certification Could Start with Your Visual Studio Subscription by James Rempt
- Serverless Compute Operations with Azure Functions by Mark Heath
- AB-400: Power Platform Developer - Study Guide by Susanth Sutheesh
- DP-420: Azure Cosmos DB AI Developer - Study Guide by Susanth Sutheesh
- AZ-401: Agentic DevOps Engineer - Study Guide by Susanth Sutheesh
- GH-700 Agentic AI Business Professional Study Guide by Susanth Sutheesh
- My New Course On Pluralsight Is LIVE: Integrating AI Agents in Enterprise Systems by Jamie Maguire
⚖️ Management and Governance
- Generally Available: Cost management and tagging for Claude models in Microsoft Foundry by The Azure Updates Team
- Showback, Chargeback, and Allocation: The FinOps Ladder Nobody Gets to Skip by Shannon Eldridge-Kuehn
- Bringing AI-Powered SRE to Your On-Premise Server Estate For Unifying Ops by Faizaan Merchant
🌐 Networking
- Generally Available: Network Watcher VNet flow logs filtering by The Azure Updates Team
- Generally Available: Azure Front Door profile and route level WAF policies by The Azure Updates Team
- Generally Available: HTTP DDoS Ruleset for Azure Front Door Premium WAF by The Azure Updates Team
- Hub and spoke limits are (almost) gone by Jose Moreno
- MANA out-of-tree (OOT) driver for Linux LTS kernels by Kashan K
- RateMyAzureFirewall: Grading Azure Firewalls from A to F by Gregor Suttie
🔐 Security
- Microsoft’s Record Patch Tuesday: 1,400+ Vulnerabilities, One Already Under Attack by Alex Burlachenko
- PHP2Shell and Azure DevOps: what to check by Josef Sin
- Bullet proof security-driven BFF architecture in Azure by Stephane Eyskens
- Growing our connector ecosystem with 500+ Microsoft Sentinel connectors by Ali Hoballah
- When Bigger PQC Keys and Signatures Break Software Assumptions by Michael Howard
- Cyber Security Awareness Month: Back to the Basics by Scott Parry
- Securing SAP ABAP-to-HANA Authentication with Azure Key Vault Managed HSM (Hardware Security Module) by ZachM
- Azure Cloud HSM Hardware Audit Logging: Verifiable audit trails for security and compliance by Salim Chawro
- Defending Linux in the age of AI-operated attacks by Tejas Kashyap
- Now generally available: Discover local AI agents with Microsoft Defender by Josh Bregman
- IDC MarketScape names Microsoft a Leader in the 2026 Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security for Enterprises Vendor Assessment by Rob Lefferts
- Securing AI in the Defense Industrial Base – Part 1 – The AI Risk Landscape by BrookeRobinson
- OneDrive Username Enumeration: What Security Teams Should Know by Tania Menice
- From help desk impersonation to AD CS abuse: Investigating ESC1 and ESC8 intrusion paths by Microsoft Security Research, Sagar Patil, Jesse Birch, Tal Tzhori
- Rotate Azure AI Service Keys with Zero Downtime by Adam Bertram
- What’s new in Microsoft Sentinel: October 2026 by Vivek Kokkengada
- Inside a malicious Claude Code-branded extension and its persistent SSH backdoor by Microsoft Security Research
📦 Storage
- Generally Available: Higher limit of Azure Blob Storage accounts per region per subscription by The Azure Updates Team
- Public Preview: Cross Tenant Restore with Azure Backup by The Azure Updates Team
- RateMyAzureBackups: Grading Every Azure Backup Vault From A to F by Gregor Suttie
🔗 Web
- From WordPress.com to a static site on Azure by Geert Baeke
- Plan Your Java Upgrade Ahead of Microsoft’s 2027 Support Milestones by Bruno Borges
- Adding a low-cost chat assistant to my blog by Geert Baeke
Article summaries in this newsletter are generated by AI and may contain errors.
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