Microsoft Support & Discussions

[HEADING=1]Fine-Tune and Integrate Custom Phi-3 Models with Prompt Flow in Azure AI Studio[/HEADING] Spoiler (Highlight to read) This blog series have several versions, each covering different aspects and techniques. Check out the following resource: - Fine-Tune and Integrate Custom Phi-3 Models with Prompt Flow: Step-by-Step Guide : Detailed instructions for fine-tuning and integrating custom Phi-3 models with Prompt flow using a code-first approach. - Code-first approach: End-to-end (E2E) sample on Phi-3CookBook : An end-to-end (E2E) sample on Phi-3CookBook, developed based on the "Fine-Tune and Integrate Custom Phi-3 Models with Prompt Flow: Step-…

TOC What is it How to use it References What is it Azure Web Apps or Azure Function Apps frequently communicate with Application Insights to log various levels of data, which can later be reviewed and filtered in the Log Analytics Workspace. Taking Python as an example, the official documentation mentions that the OpenCensus package will no longer be supported after 2024-09-30. The article suggests OpenTelemetry as the latest alternative. In response to the growing cybersecurity awareness among many companies, many users have disabled the 'Local Authentication' feature in Application Insights to enhance security. Th…

Overview. The broadening of conventional data engineering pipelines and applications to include document extraction and preprocessing for unstructured PDFs, audio, and video files is becoming more prevalent. This shift is propelled by the increasing demand for advanced generative AI applications in businesses, adhering to the RAG (Retrievable Augmented Generation) model. In this post, I will discuss a proof of concept that utilizes Azure AI Document Intelligence to augment these functionalities. In a prior solution, I examined the capability of Azure AI Search to automatically vectorize data through its integrated vectorization feature. This feature ma…

On August 28th, 2024, Hardware Dev Center APIs will change the type of blob urls that are returned in various API calls from service sas urls to user delegated sas urls. Partners using HDC Hardware dashboard API to automate driver submission process may be affected. The specific area affected is the upload and downloads through the download links in the submission response. All other aspects of the submission process that can be accessed through the API are not affected. Partners are recommended to update to latest version of the libraries they use to upload and download from Azure Blobs during the driver submission process. Partners using C# are encouraged to move…

OneDrive is the home of your files, and files are how we get our work done. It goes beyond storing and protecting files. It also powers sharing, collaboration and file security, and it’s used by people and organizations big and small around the world. This article contains four in-depth videos about OneDrive – now on demand and embedded below. You’ll discover what we have planned for Copilot in OneDrive, how we’re evolving collaboration for your files across Microsoft 365, and upleveling your approach to content management – including migrating content from a variety of competing cloud services into Microsoft 365. Plus, we embedded four recent, related podcast epi…

We are thrilled to announce the Public Preview of Inbound SMTP DANE with DNSSEC, a new capability of Exchange Online that enhances the security of email communications by supporting two security standards: DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) for SMTP and Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). The Public Preview for Inbound SMTP DANE with DNSSEC is currently rolling out. Instructions for implementing it in your tenant are at How SMTP DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) secures email communications. SMTP DANE and DNSSEC SMTP DANE uses a TLS Authentication (TLSA) DNS record to verify the identity of a destination mail server and…

[HEADING=1]Solving the ask – Automatic Capacity Reservations[/HEADING] Historically, the setting to use a Capacity Reservations Groups must be defined while the virtual machine is being deployed or changed while the machine is deallocated. While this is still the requirement, the drafted Azure Policy (at the bottom of this document) automates the additional setting to be specified even if it wasn’t specified on the VM Creation process. For example, some solutions, such as Citrix DaaS hosted on Azure, use automation such as recreation of VMs to handle update management or scalability demands. The update process doesn’t have the ability to add this setting without…

We're thrilled to announce a community stand-up – a live-stream event for users of Azure API Management and API Center, hosted on YouTube. Join us for an engaging session where we'll delve into the latest industry trends, product updates, and best practices. [HEADING=1]Event Details[/HEADING] Date: Thursday, 25 July 2024 Time: 8 AM PST / 11 AM EST Format: Live stream on YouTube [HEADING=1]What to Expect[/HEADING] Insights into the API industry: Our product team will share their perspectives on the criticality of API security and securing APIs with an in-depth defense. Azure API Management and API Center updates: Discover the latest features in ou…

Microsoft partners like FabSoft, Just Software, and Volo deliver transact-capable offers, which allow you to purchase directly from Azure Marketplace. Learn about these offers below: [attachment=56828:name] DeskConnect: Deliver Documents to Azure OpenAI: Automatically capture and redistribute all transactional documents involving user-level interaction and input with DeskConnect so you can eliminate costly disruptions from customers, vendors, and staff. This powerful solution from FabSoft transforms a tedious manual process into an automated knowledge base. [attachment=56829:name] EasyScep: One-click PKI for Intune Endpoint Certificates: If you need …

In addition to helping you in deploying applications and identifying resources in your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster, Microsoft Copilot in Azure can help you with insights into best practices for configuration and management. Microsoft Copilot in Azure can: Look at the AKS documentation and identify best practices for configuration and management of your cluster. While it can’t directly apply these to the cluster, you can get insights on what the settings are, get more information on each recommendation, and ask Copilot to help you implement them. Examples of these include restricting access to the Cluster API to certain known IP addresses, chan…

On August 28th, 2024, Hardware Dev Center APIs will change the type of blob urls that are returned in various API calls from service sas urls to user delegated sas urls. Partners using HDC Hardware dashboard API to automate driver submission process may be affected. The specific area affected is the upload and downloads through the download links in the submission response. All other aspects of the submission process that can be accessed through the API are not affected. Partners are recommended to update to latest version of the libraries they use to upload and download from Azure Blobs during the driver submission process. Partners using C# are encouraged to move…

Let us continue our troubleshooting by checking threads in this part. [HEADING=2]Step 4.1. Troubleshoot latency in Log Reader agent’s reader thread[/HEADING] Firstly, define the level of reader thread latency by running below query in Publisher server. sp_replcounters GO The above shows reader thread replicating on average 115 transactions per second and more than 7.5mln transactions are waiting to be replicated to the distribution database. On average, transactions are waiting 134880secs to be replicated, which is high latency. Run below in publisher server and find session id of Log Reader’ reader thread: SELECT SessionId = s.session_id, App …

[HEADING=1]High level transactional replication architecture[/HEADING] The initial stage of transactional replication is initializing the subscriber. Although this can be done via backup, the typical approach generating a snapshot by the Snapshot Agent and storing it in the snapshot folder. It’s C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\<INST>\MSSQL\ReplData by default and configurable. Then, the Distribution Agent transfers the snapshot to the subscriber. Afterwards, incremental changes in the published database are tracked and replicated to subscriber database. This replication process is done in three phases: Transactions are marked "for replication" in the…

The field of Generative AI (GenAI) is rapidly evolving, with Large Language Models (LLMs) playing a central role. Building responsive and efficient applications using these models is crucial. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications, which combine retrieval and generation techniques, have emerged as a powerful solution for generating high-quality responses. However, a key challenge arises in handling repeat queries efficiently while maintaining contextually accurate and diverse responses. This blog post explores a solution that addresses this challenge. We propose a multi-layered approach that utilizes a semantic cache layer and phi-3, a Small Language Model (SLM…

[HEADING=1]Introduction[/HEADING] As cloud environments grow more complex and threats increase, organizations need robust tools to monitor, analyze, and respond to security issues effectively. Microsoft Defender for Cloud (MDC) offers robust security management, but to unlock its full potential, organizations need powerful visualization and analysis tools. While Azure Workbooks provide valuable visualizations for MDC data, integrating Microsoft Power BI offers an enhanced approach to data analysis and visualization. Power BI's advanced features, such as customizable dashboards, interactive elements, and seamless integration with various data sources, make it ideal f…

On August 28th, 2024, Hardware Dev Center APIs will change the type of blob urls that are returned in various API calls from service sas urls to user delegated sas urls. Partners using HDC Hardware dashboard API to automate driver submission process may be affected. The specific area affected is the upload and downloads through the download links in the submission response. All other aspects of the submission process that can be accessed through the API are not affected. Partners are recommended to update to latest version of the libraries they use to upload and download from Azure Blobs during the driver submission process. Partners using C# are encouraged to move…

For 64 years, a stack of letters lay unread in my grandfather’s trunk. These letters, written by relatives of my great-grandfather who immigrated from Poland in 1906, represent the last remnants of Polish language in my family. Over a decade ago, I promised my mother I would have them translated, but life got in the way. Recently, inspired by the success I've seen using OCR, digitization, and translation with various customer documents, I decided to tackle this personal project myself using the Microsoft AI services I am familiar with. Iterating through Process and Technology I gathered the letters, took images of each page with my phone, and uploaded them to …

[HEADING=1]Overview[/HEADING] Azure CycleCloud (CC) is an enterprise-friendly tool for orchestrating and managing High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments on Azure. With CycleCloud, users can provision infrastructure for HPC systems, deploy familiar HPC schedulers, deploy/mount filesystems and automatically scale the infrastructure to run jobs efficiently at any scale. Azure CycleCloud is targeted at HPC administrators and users who want to deploy an HPC environment with a specific scheduler in mind. One of the supported schedulers is SLURM, which stands for Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management. SLURM is an open source, scalable and fault-tolerant c…

[HEADING=2]Exasol, a Microsoft partner enabling clients to quickly turn their data into value[/HEADING] Exasol, an analytics database company with offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany, is redefining what it means to work with data. Its high-performance in-memory analytics database transforms how organizations work with data on-premises, in the cloud, or both, quickly turning it into value. Exasol’s core verticals include retail and e-commerce, banking and fintech, and healthcare and life sciences. Clients have worked with Exasol when pursuing digital modernization, cloud migration, performance enhancement strategies, and legal hardware repl…

Azure Virtual WAN is a networking service that combines networking, security, and routing features in one managed service. It is a hub-and-spoke architecture managed by Microsoft that integrates with other Azure services, such as VPN gateways and Azure Firewall, and partner solutions. It aims to simplify network management and configuration, and enhance performance and reliability, using Microsoft’s global network. To learn more about Virtual WAN’s features, see Azure Virtual WAN Overview | Microsoft Learn. For the complete list of supported partner solutions in Virtual WAN, see About NVAs in a Virtual WAN hub. This article details Virtual WAN configuration …

We’re excited to announce that we’ve started rolling out the ability for multiple authors to collaborate on SharePoint pages. Multiple authors will be able to edit the same page at the same time, without having to take turns. Authors can see real-time changes made by others as they happen in pages, sections, and web parts. After an author starts editing a page, they can see if other authors are also editing by viewing their avatar in the command bar. Changes made by authors are saved automatically every few seconds. If authors want to leave edit mode, they can select Save and close. Version history has also been improved to enhance support for collabo…

This is the Windows version of the blog article on converting Azure virtual machines from SCSI to NVMe. The Linux version can be found here. [HEADING=1]Introduction[/HEADING] In the ever-evolving world of cloud computing, maximizing performance and efficiency is crucial for businesses leveraging virtual machines (VMs) on platforms like Microsoft Azure, especially for high I/O workloads like SAP on Azure or database applications. One significant upgrade that can yield substantial performance improvements is converting your Azure VM from a SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) disk setup to NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) using Azure Boost. This blog post w…

Co-authored by Andy Jia, Principal Product Manager, and Misha Bansal, Technical Program Manager, Azure Compute We are thrilled to announce Preview of new Azure General Purpose and Memory Optimized Virtual Machines powered by the latest 5th Generation Intel® Xeon® processor. The new VMs come with three different memory-to-core ratios and offer options with and without local SSD across the VM families: the General Purpose Dlsv6, Dldsv6, Dsv6, and Ddsv6 series and the Memory Optimized Esv6 and Edsv6 series. These VMs deliver several important improvements as compared to the previous generation (Dlv5, Dv5, Ev5) for a broad range of applications and workloads thr…

[JUSTIFY]As we venture deeper into the digital era, APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) have become the cornerstone of modern software development and digital communication. APIs continue to be pivotal, acting as the conduits through which different systems, applications, and devices interact and exchange data. This growing reliance on APIs is reflected in the investment trends, with a significant 92% of global respondents indicating that investments in APIs will either remain steady or increase over the next year (2023 State of the API Report, Postman, 2023). Recognizing the critical role that APIs play in modern software architecture, Microsoft has been consistent…

Revolutionizing Document Processing for Your Business At Azure AI, we continuously strive to empower businesses with cutting-edge technology at the most competitive prices. We are thrilled to announce that as of June 1st, the pricing of our custom extraction models, a key capability of Azure AI Document Intelligence is significantly reduced. With a 40% price drop, we are making it easier and more affordable for you to leverage the full potential of AI-driven document processing. Custom Extraction With Azure AI Document Intelligence, you can use pre-built models or build your own custom models to analyze and extract key information and insights from your docu…