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Microsoft Viva Topics applies next-generation AI to empower people with knowledge and expertise in the apps they use every day. Viva Topics automatically organizes content and expertise into related topics like projects, products, processes, and customers. Topic cards deliver knowledge just-in-time across Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Office. And topic pages—created and updated by AI—enable experts to cultivate and share knowledge with simplicity. This month, we’re excited about the updated Adoption guide and the new Pilot guide for Microsoft Viva Topics to enable Viva Topics across your organization. Updated Adoption Guide Rolling out new tools across …

Azure Form Recognizer is a cloud-based Azure Applied AI Service that provides machine-learning models to extract key-value pairs, text, and tables from documents. It is designed to enhance data-driven strategies and enrich document search capabilities, all without requiring excessive manual intervention or extensive data science expertise. Furthermore, Azure Form Recognizer's Layout and General Document models are capable of extracting documents’ hierarchical structure information. This feature allows users to easily organize, manage, further process and retrieve important insights from their large volumes of data. As detailed in the product documentation, Azure F…

1. Introduction: We are excited to share with you the latest benchmarks for Barracuda Virtual Reactor on Azure's latest & greatest GPU virtual machines; V100 (NDv2 V100, SKU name "Standard_ND40rs_v2") and A100 (NDv4 A100, SKU name "Standard_ND96ars_v4") The current study is second to the original study that was published back in Jan. 2022 using a relatively small generic model. This generic model is referred to as (Model-1) in the current article. The case used in the current study is Encina's production model which is a non-circulating fluidized bed reactor. It is referred to as (Model-2) in the current article. Encina's model used in the study is the largest …

Data security is paramount in today's digital world. With an increasing number of cyber threats, organizations are always on the lookout for robust solutions to enhance their security posture. In this blog, we delve into a critical feature provided by Azure Data Factory – Outbound Rules – that allows users to control and restrict outbound traffic to specific Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN). Understanding Outbound Allow listing in Azure Data Factory Outbound allow listing of FQDN is a network security practice that allows organizations to control outbound traffic from their networks to specific, approved domain names. Outbound rules in Azure Data Factory ap…

Before we start, please not that if you want to see a table of contents for all the sections of this blog and their various Purview topics, you can locate the in the following link: Microsoft Purview- Paint By Numbers Series (Part 0) - Overview - Microsoft Tech Community Disclaimer This document is not meant to replace any official documentation, including those found at docs.microsoft.com. Those documents are continually updated and maintained by Microsoft Corporation. If there is a discrepancy between this document and what you find in the Compliance User Interface (UI) or inside of a reference in docs.microsoft.com, you should always defer to that …

Create a customized and locked down experience for your shared devices using multi-app kiosk mode, now available in Windows 11 with the May 24, 2023 Windows Configuration Update. Create streamlined experiences Multi-app kiosk mode allows an IT admin to pre-select the apps and functionality available to a user to create a tailored and immersive device experience. Ideal for shared devices, multi-app kiosk mode can create different configurations for different users, ensuring they have access to only what is needed to use the device as intended. The locked down configurations present users with the Windows desktop with which they are already familiar, while limiting …

A new build of the MSIX Packaging Tool (v1.2023.319.0) is now available to those in the MSIX Packaging Tool Insider Program. This release is aimed at improving the conversion experience for IT pros. We have also launched tooling enhancements in Visual Studio to create MSIX Images in preview. Now, let’s take a detailed run through of these new enhancements! Accelerators: the easy button for converting apps We’ve been listening to your feedback to ease the conversion of legacy apps to MSIX. To address this, we’re thrilled to introduce accelerators. An accelerator is a file that enables an efficient way to convert legacy applications into the MSIX format. The MSIX Pa…

The Viva Insights team recently published a new article on Microsoft Learn: Error messages in Viva Insights | Microsoft Learn. If you're seeing a message related to one of these issues, check out our new document: Page access License assignment Data upload Organization insights As always, if this article doesn't have the answers you're looking for, our support team is happy to help. Continue reading...

Today we had a new case where our client encountered the following error message when synchronizing tables using DataSync "The row of size 42530KB from table 'dbo.XYZ' cannot fit within the specified batch size of 24576KB". Following, I would like to share a possible workaround for it, moving the data to blob storage and reducing the size of the database and backups. This error reports that you are reaching the limit of 24 MB of Data Sync posted here: What is SQL Data Sync for Azure? - Azure SQL Database | Microsoft Learn about the Data Row size on a table. It is important to note that the 24 MB limit includes the total size of all columns within a row, including b…

Security teams work endlessly to reduce risk and remediate threats. Oftentimes the countless hours required to manage the large volumes of vulnerabilities and incidents running across their console at any given moment, makes building and sharing progress reports strenuous and in many cases, an afterthought that keeps getting pushed out in time. Service providers and SOC teams need a solution that helps streamline security progress reporting so stakeholders can stay informed without redirecting security teams from focusing on what matters most. To help Defenders around the world streamline the value of their services while offering clarity to stakeholders on the rec…

In November of 2022, we launched the zero downtime migration tool in public preview and received a lot of feedback and interest from our users. We truly appreciate your participation and input very much. We’re happy to announce the migration capability is now generally available with improvements in reliability and stability. We’re also happy to announce the general availability of both Managed Identity for Azure Front Door retrieval of your own certificate from Azure Key Vault and upgrade your tier from standard to premium with this release. To migrate from classic to standard/premium, you need to enable Managed Identity as a required step if you’re using your own…

This is the second post in a series discussing changes between SSMS 18.12.1 and SSMS 19, and new functionality in SSMS 19.1. You can view the first post covering Microsoft.Data.Sqlclient and MSAL here. It turns out some of you do read the SSMS release notes (we appreciate it!) and were quick to ask questions about a few items in the “What’s new” section. This post will provide more details about selected changes. Removal of the SQL Vulnerability Assessment in SSMS 19.1 Since SQL Server 2012, the SQL Vulnerability Assessment in SSMS has provided a way to scan and report on possible security misconfigurations on your SQL Server databases in a disconnected man…

Transform your organization with the power of campaigns in Viva Engage. Campaigns that include employees can be a highly effective way to build a sense of belonging and purpose within an organization. Your organization may already have existing campaigns that are tied to your mission, values, or culture. Increase the impact and elevate your campaigns by using campaigns in Viva Engage as a way to involve everyone. Now, your workforce can follow campaigns, creating a powerful network effect that allows people to contribute to the campaign and witness the impact of their peers. Leaders can step into the spotlight to promote or endorse campaigns and share their point of …

Over the past few years of performing Azure security research, I have seen many new attack primitives & techniques discovered that an adversary could abuse within Azure & Azure Active Directory (AAD). When explaining a technique to a client, the challenge wasn’t explaining how something could be abused, the challenge was explaining how to detect it. Last year, I released the Azure Threat Research Matrix (ATRM), which highlighted the potential techniques an adversary could abuse within Azure & AzureAD. The immediate thought would be to give clients an idea of what potential abuse scenarios exist when they decide to use a certain resource or feature. However, it…

Your learning goes beyond Microsoft Build. Join After Parties at a local time with your local community. Here are some of our Community-led After Parties held on from June 12 to June 19 (as of June 12, 2023). Check it out and join your favorite Parties! MVP/RD/User Group-led Microsoft Build 2023 After Party Date (Local Time) Title Language(s) Format(s) June 12, 2023 Microsoft Build After Party - 気ままに勉強会 Power Platform Meetup 3 Japanese-Japan Virtual June 12, 2023 Microsoft Build After Party - Future Workers Club Korean-Korea Virtual June 12, 2023 Microsoft Build After Party…

By: Chris Kunze – Senior Product Manager | Microsoft Intune Least-Privilege Administrative Models are security best practices where users only have the access, they need to perform a given task. This helps prevent unauthorized or accidental changes, data breaches, and compliance violations. With Microsoft Intune, there are a couple of ways you can achieve least-privilege admin access. Create a just-in-time (JIT) policy with Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM) for the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) built-in “Intune Administrator” role and assign it an administrator account. Create a granular permission control with Intune Role Based Access Cont…

Create a customized and locked down experience for your shared devices using multi-app kiosk mode, now available in Windows 11 with the May 24, 2023 Windows Configuration Update. Create streamlined experiences Multi-app kiosk mode allows an IT admin to pre-select the apps and functionality available to a user to create a tailored and immersive device experience. Ideal for shared devices, multi-app kiosk mode can create different configurations for different users, ensuring they have access to only what is needed to use the device as intended. The locked down configurations present users with the Windows desktop with which they are already familiar, while limiting …

A new build of the MSIX Packaging Tool (v1.2023.319.0) is now available to those in the MSIX Packaging Tool Insider Program. This release is aimed at improving the conversion experience for IT pros. We have also launched tooling enhancements in Visual Studio to create MSIX Images in preview. Now, let’s take a detailed run through of these new enhancements! Accelerators: the easy button for converting apps We’ve been listening to your feedback to ease the conversion of legacy apps to MSIX. To address this, we’re thrilled to introduce accelerators. An accelerator is a file that enables an efficient way to convert legacy applications into the MSIX format. The MSIX Pa…

In this post, we are going to explore a couple new capabilities brought to the Data Mapper in the form of Regular Expression functions. We can use these new functions to help with data validation and conformity. For those of you who are new to regular expressions, A regular expression is "a sequence of characters that specifies a match pattern in text. Usually, such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for find or find and replace operations on strings, or for input validation." - Wikipedia In terms of how are Regular Expressions relevant to the Data Mapper, we can leverage them in the following ways: Validating data Transform data in the in…

Our latest Work Trend Index surveyed almost 700 workers across all sectors in Ireland, answers some key questions that leaders should be asking themselves right now – about employee expectations, productivity pressure points, effectiveness of hybrid working policies, and how leaders are showing up during a time of sustained change. This research presents insights in the following areas: - A time of massive workplace change - Innovation changing the workplace - Engaging employees in a hybrid world Find out more about how workers are feeling across Ireland and download the Work Trend Index HERE Continue reading...

We are happy to share that SAP has released support for SQL Server 2022 for some SAP NetWeaver based systems. SQL Server 2022 contains many new features and improvements that can benefit SAP systems running on the SQL Server platform. Some of the new features are: High Availability - faster Distributed Availability Groups Distributed Availability Groups are now using multiple TCP network connections for a better throughput and bandwidth utilization. Azure Active Directory integration You can now use Azure Active Directory authentication to connect to your SQL Server New TDS 8.0 protocol with TLS 1.3 With the new TDS (Tabular Data Stream) protocol all the st…

Introduction In an era where cloud computing and virtualization are increasingly taking center stage, Microsoft's Azure is a dominant force. One of the vital components in Azure is the Disk Export and Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Download functionality. While it offers a wealth of conveniences, it also opens up potential vulnerabilities in terms of data security and regulatory compliance. In addition, the process of exporting and downloading can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, sometimes resulting in performance degradation. This blog post is dedicated to exploring ways of avoiding these risks associated with Disk Export and VHD Download in Azure. Through understan…

Microsoft, Elisa ja Sulava tuovat yhdessä korkeakoulujen kanssa tekoälyosaamisen jokaisen suomalaisen ulottuville. Nyt jokaisella on mahdollisuus valjastaa tekoäly keventämään rutiineja, tukemaan oppimista ja vapauttamaan aikaa luovuudelle ja inhimillisille kohtaamisille. Practical AI -kurssi on maksuton ja kaikille avoin kurssi, jonka avulla oppii käyttämään ja hyödyntämään tekoälyä itselleen sopivissa tilanteissa. Korkeakoulutasoisella, mutta kenelle tahansa helposti omaksuttavalla kurssilla tutustuu generatiivisen tekoälyn käyttömahdollisuuksiin sekä voi kokeilla ja oppia turvallisen ja eettisen käytön periaatteita. Kurssilla opetellaan myös promptausta…

Issue Incorrect memory grants on certain queries can lead to extremely high CPU spikes in an Azure SQL MI. This is usually expected in high workload production Azure SQL MI systems that have high rate of query execution. The spike in CPU utilization also partially results from the SQL plan cache not getting utilized properly. All of this leads to poor performance from regularly running queries there by leading to poor overall system performance. Error Execution Timeout Expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding. Workaround/Fix The sudden spike in CPU utilization in this case was caused by…

This week I had a service request where our customer didn't have a connection retry logic implemented in their application code in the event of a connection failure to Azure SQL. I would like to share an example about how to implement it. First the C# code using ODBC API: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Diagnostics; namespace DotNetExample { class ClsODBCAPI { // Import the ODBC API functions using P/Invoke [DllImport("odbc32.dll")] private static extern short SQLAllocHandle…