Microsoft Support & Discussions

In this blog post we are going to describe how to configure your Azure environment to take native backups of your Azure SQL Managed Instance to your blob storage in a secure fashion. If you are interested in other posts on how-to discover different aspects of SQL MI - please visit the SQL Managed Instance How-tos series, which serves as a placeholder for the series. Introduction Azure SQL Managed Instance is a feature-rich, platform-as-a-service SQL Server. It stands out from its sibling Azure SQL offerings in that it blends near-100% Transact-SQL compatibility with a powerful managed experience, online scaling, intelligence, Azure integration, and …

Using username/password credentials to access one application from another presents a huge security risk for many reasons. Today, we are announcing the preview of passwordless connections for Java applications to Azure database and eventing services, letting you finally shift away from using passwords. Security Challenges with Passwords Passwords should be used with caution, and developers must never place passwords in an unsecured location. Many Java applications connect to backend data, cache, messaging, and eventing services using usernames and passwords, or other sensitive credentials such as access tokens or connection strings. If exposed, the passwor…

Stay organized and track what matters most - on the go. We’re pleased to introduce Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for iOS – now available for testing using the TestFlight app. Get the app and join today (see install steps below) Steps to join and install: Tap the above app link, and join Install the TestFlight app first – sign in with your Microsoft account Join the “Microsoft Lists” beta (listed within the TestFlight app once you sign in) Accept, install, sign in with your Microsoft account (within the Lists app), and enjoy Microsoft Lists at the tap of your fingertips – a fully functional information tracker while on the go …

We continue to expand the Azure Marketplace ecosystem. For this volume, 90 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below: Get it now in our marketplace [attachment=23028:name] Aerospike, Secured and Supported by Hossted: This offer from Hossted provides Aerospike, a multi-model, NoSQL, real-time data platform for multi-cloud, large-scale JSON and SQL use cases. The repackaged open-source product features easy deployment and comes with support from Hossted. [attachment=23029:name] Airbyte, Secured and Supported by Hossted: This offer from Hossted provides Airbyte, an open-source data integratio…

Client Access Rules (CARs) help to control access to the Exchange Online organization. Now with new features, like Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE) that allows Azure Active Directory applications to subscribe to critical events, that can then be evaluated and enforced in near real time; you can have better control while also adding resiliency to your organization. Today, we are announcing the retirement of CARs in Exchange Online, to be fully deprecated by September 2023. We will send Message Center posts to tenants using client access rules to start the planning process to migrate their rules. The CARs deprecation timeline is planned as follows: How doe…

Welcome to the September 2022 update. We are excited to announce the release of Check Performance for Excel web users to help speed up your workbooks and modern comments for Windows users to allow for a more streamlined commenting experience across products. For Insiders using Mac, you can now shape your data using the Power Query Editor and manage your storage accounts for 1st and 3rd party profiles. Check out this Excel Features Flyer to find if a specific feature is in your version of Excel Excel for the web Check performance Sharing a section of Excel workbook Dynamic array support in charts Excel for Windows Modern comments Dynami…

Authors: @Balamurugan Balakreshnan @Swati Ghare @radu kopetz @Shruti Harish Background Constellation (Nasdaq: CEG) is the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy and a leading competitive retail supplier of power and energy products and services for homes and businesses across the United States. In March 2022 Constellation announced a sustainability partnership with Microsoft in which Microsoft will develop software to allow Constellation’s customers to match their energy use with local carbon-free energy sources, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Constellation Clearsight is a wholly owned subsidiary of Constellation that provides safer, more e…

Hi, We have been working on a ticket where customer was receiving errors when his Managed Instance was trying to send mails. He was implemented this functionality time ago, but suddenly had started to fail with error "No such host is known" Message The mail could not be sent to the recipients because of the mail server failure. (Sending Mail using Account 1 (2022-09-22T01:00:45). Exception Message: 1) Exception Information =================== Exception Type: Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.SqlIMail.MailFramework.Exceptions.BaseMailFrameworkException Message: Could not connect to mail server. (No such host is known) Data: System.Collections…

We have been working recently on a case where Azure portal was not able to show Backup "Retention Policies" and it was showing all the time "Loading" message. The source of this behaviour is that he was created some databases using non supported characters. When you try to create a new database (*) using Azure Portal using non supported characters, you will see an error indicating characters that you cannot use on the database name. But if you use SSMS tool, it doesn't include these characters cheeking and it will not avoid you to use these non-supported characters on the database name. After renaming these databases…

Come meet some of the team responsible for the Exchange Admin Center, Exchange PowerShell, and Manageability for Exchange Online. Continue reading...

This session will delve into the mystery of using the Microsoft Graph APIs to manage Exchange Online with PowerShell. Continue reading...

In a world that is plagued with zero-day vulnerabilities, and the potential of a data breach is constantly lurking around, properly securing your systems should be a top priority. Exchange is no different. In this session, Michael will explore the different elements that contribute to a secure Exchange environment, ranging from base OS hardening, Exchange Server permissions, patching strategies, how and what to properly monitor, and the sense and non-sense of anti-virus and EDR on an Exchange Server. If you're still running one or more servers on-premises, even if you've already migrated to Exchange Online, this session is for you! Continue reading...

Meet some of the Outlook Calendar team. Continue reading...

Learn about how one of the world's largest SaaS products is delivered with high availability and low latency via globally distributed network infrastructure and discover ways to ensure your on-premises network is configured optimally to ensure world-class end-user experience. Continue reading...

Taking a deep look at the comprehensive email security capabilities Microsoft Defender for Office 365 provides on top of Exchange Online. We'll take a look at a broad set of capabilities from protection and detection to hunting, investigation and response workflows that help your organization achieve better email security posture and incident response readiness. Continue reading...

Come meet some of the team responsible for deprecating Basic Auth in Exchange Online. Continue reading...

This is a roundtable session for a discussion between some of the Exchange Server engineering team and customers. We'll talk about our future plans for Exchange Server and solicit ideas from you for additional features and investments in Exchange Server. Is there something you'd like to see us add or change? Come to this session and let us know! Continue reading...

In this talk we will look at how you can secure your end users authentication to Exchange Server using Modern Authentication. Given the changes in the business and personal landscape over the past two years you almost certainly have lots of users working remotely or even still working remotely and you might have enabled that quite quickly. We will look at how you can easily turn on a secure authentication service for your on-premises Exchange Servers using Azure AD or, if you have no cloud technology at all in use, how you can do it completely on-premises. We will look at tips and tricks from doing this in large organizations and how you can safely role this out with a mi…

This is a roundtable session with members of the Exchange Admin Center and Exchange Manageability Infra team. We'll talk about what we have done in the last 6-12 months, and we would like to get your feedback on this work and work we have planned in the future. Continue reading...

In this session, I will walk you through the challenges of upgrading your existing scripts to use modern authentication and provide guidance on how you can analyze your scripts and make the necessary changes to upgrade them for the modern age. Continue reading...

Outlook Actionable Messages is a simple and powerful declarative layout format with adaptive cards that offer a lot of flexibility and allow for visually rich cards. Adaptive cards and the fluid framework create a new experience in Outlook and Outlook on the web. In this session you will learn about the different options and capabilities of adaptive cards and how they can enhance your daily routines to speed up business processes. You will also see that the same experience is true for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Viva. Continue reading...

Exchange Online security should start with securing your tenant using Privileged Identity Management (PIM). Follow the least privilege principle and don't have your administrative accounts granted persistent high permissions. In this session, we'll discuss how a large company implemented PIM for all Exchange admins and how to create custom roles to allow specific Exchange admins to grant admin consent for a subset of OAuth 2.0 permission scopes. Continue reading...

This session provides insights, capabilities, and architectural understanding when using Microsoft Teams in combination with Exchange Server mailboxes. Continue reading...

Many organizations developed custom apps and solutions using Microsoft’s popular Exchange Web Services (EWS) for accessing data as emails, calendar items, contacts and more. EWS is based on SOAP and provides a Managed API interface for developing .NET client applications against Exchange. Today, EWS is superseded by Microsoft Graph. Graph is the new unified REST-endpoint for accessing Microsoft 365 services and the key to the modern Microsoft 365 services. If you have existing solutions based on EWS, now's the time to learn how to use Modern Authentication and how to replace EWS with the new cloud endpoints, and how to use all the new functionalities and benefits. We demo…