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[HEADING=1][/HEADING] [HEADING=1]Introduction[/HEADING] As part of our 3rd-year group project in the EE Department of Imperial College London and under the amazing guidance of @Lee_Stott and @nitya , our team devised an end-to-end framework for developing and deploying GenAI retail copilots using state-of-the-art models from the Hugging Face AI platform and integrating them with a back-end architecture which leverages Microsoft Azure infrastructure. A key feature of this project is that Contoso Chat can be adapted easily to any retail setting simply by switching out the datasets and connecting large language models best suited for your application. To aid in op…

Hello howdie readers How many times, while dealing with alerting configured at scale, you had the need of stopping the alerts for few resources or even for only one? Creating alerts that work at scale, meaning alerts created with a wide scope (all virtual machine in a given subscription) gives you a hug advantage on alert management, but it also comes with some cons. For instance, you cannot disable the alert for a specific resource. Reason? The alert user interface does not include a feature or setting to disable an alert based on a specific resource (or resources); it only allows you to enable or disable it. So, given the need, how can you m…

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, generative AI (GenAI) has emerged as a game-changer for enterprises. However, building end-to-end GenAI applications that are robust, observable, and scalable can be challenging. This blog post will guide you through the process of creating enterprise-grade GenAI solutions using PromptFlow and LangChain, with a focus on observability, trackability, model monitoring, debugging, and autoscaling. The purpose of this blog to give you an idea that even if you use LangChain or OpenAI SDK or Llama Index you can still use PromptFlow and AI Studio for enterprise grade GenAI applications. [HEADING=1]Understanding Ent…

Hi everyone! Brandon Wilson here once again with this month’s “Check This Out!” (CTO!) guide. These posts are only intended to be your guide, to lead you to some content of interest, and are just a way we are trying to help our readers a bit more, whether that is learning, troubleshooting, or just finding new content sources! We will give you a bit of a taste of the blog content itself, provide you a way to get to the source content directly, and help to introduce you to some other blogs you may not be aware of that you might find helpful. From all of us on the Core Infrastructure and Security Tech Community blog team, thanks for your continued reading and support! …

The process of integrating Azure HPC into Azure has raised many questions about why we do things differently from the general-purpose fleet. It turns out, though, that we don’t work so differently after all, once you change your perspective and start thinking of the whole cluster as a single supercomputer. [HEADING=1]Why can’t we split this cluster in two?[/HEADING] Replacing a big cluster with two smaller ones is kind of like replacing a big server with two smaller ones. To our customers, us having a bigger cluster isn’t just more inventory; it’s a faster supercomputer. The bigger we go, the harder it is to place them into datacenters, but also the more custome…

[HEADING=1]0. Overview[/HEADING] This blog shows a step-by-step guide to getting OneDrive Sync Health information using Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint. This includes detailed instructions on how to extract OneDrive device sync information and use that to run analytics for your tenant. If you follow these steps, you will have a Power BI dashboard like the one shown below, which includes total devices per OneDrive version, number of devices by Backup Folder enabled and total devices by date last updated. You can also use the many other properties available in the OneDrive Sync Health dataset. To get there, you can split the process …

Azure AI Content Safety APIs Azure AI Content Safety is a new service that helps detect hateful, violence, sexual, and self-harm content in images and text, and assign severity scores, allowing businesses to limit and prioritize what content moderators need to review. Unlike most solutions used today, Azure AI Content Safety can handle nuance and context, reducing the number of false positives and easing the load on human content moderator teams. Prompt Shields (preview) Identify and block direct and indirect prompt injection attacks before they impact your model, scans text for the risk of a User input attack on a Large Language Model. Quickstart G…

Explore the capabilities and considerations for Small Language Models (SLMs). Whether you’re using out-of-the-box SLMs or customizing/fine-tuning them with your own data, we’ll cover practical considerations and best practices. Enhance your language processing capabilities with SLMs! Watch on Data Exposed Resources: Azure SQL Devs’ Corner View/share our latest episodes on Microsoft Learn and ! Continue reading...

Authored by: Michael Piskorski, Laura Grob, Wilson Souza, Armen Kaleshian, David Pless, Anna Hoffman Setting the Stage We recently worked with a customer that migrated their Windows and SQL Servers to Azure that wanted to use Azure Backup for a consistent enterprise backup experience. The SQL Servers had multiple databases of varying sizes, some that were multi-terabyte. A single Azure Backup vault was deployed using a policy that was distributed to all the SQL Servers. During the migration process, the customer observed issues with the quality of the backups and poor virtual machine performance while the backups were running. We worked through the issues by r…

By: Julia Idaewor – Product Manager II | Microsoft Intune As we update and simplify creating and managing configuration settings in Microsoft Intune, we’re also migrating policies and settings to the unified settings platform. This platform is the foundation of the settings catalog, which provides quick access to policy and settings. Additionally, it provides consistency across naming, tooltips, available values, and standardizes the “not configured” value for policy settings regardless of where you interact with the policy. We previously migrated endpoint security policies and baselines to the unified settings platform. Starting on July 15 or soon after, we…

Do you need to continue using Windows Management Instrumentation Command (WMIC) line? Though this feature is currently being deprecated, there is a temporary solution to help your organization while you finish migrating to PowerShell or a similar tool. This solution is brought to you by Features on Demand (FoDs). WMIC has been available as a FoD for Windows 11 since 2022. It will be disabled by default later this year, but it will remain available for those who need it. In preparation for this next deprecation stage, let’s review the steps you’ll need to take to use this optional feature a bit longer. [HEADING=1]Symptoms of a missing WMIC FoD[/HEADING] If WMIC.ex…

Back in November 2023, the least privileges deployment model was introduced as a public preview. After thorough testing, we are excited to announce that the least privileges deployment mode for SQL Server enabled by Azure Arc will be become automatically available in the coming months if your Azure Extension for SQL Server is on the June, 2024 release (1.1.2717.190) or later. Starting in the August release, if there are any new Azure Arc-enabled SQL Servers which are automatically onboarded, they it will come with least privileges enabled as the default. This blog covers the details about the least privilege mode and describes details of the configuration changes to the S…

Now that you have been approved for the Nonprofit Granted Offerings, you may be eager to know what your next steps should be. It is a common question we hear: 'What's next?' If you have successfully completed the eligibility process and received approval for our granted offerings, this blog is tailored just for you. Let us delve into how M365 serves as the gateway to the Microsoft ecosystem. M365 goes beyond being a suite of productivity tools—it represents the gateway to a comprehensive ecosystem of interconnected solutions and endless opportunities. By embracing M365, organizations gain access to essential tools such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Teams. More impor…

[HEADING=1]Overview[/HEADING] Last month, I was thrilled by the announcement from the Logic App product group regarding the integration of Logic App with Semantic Kernel (SK), detailed in their latest blog post "Connect Logic Apps’ 1,400 connectors to Semantic Kernel". Having supported many of our customers with Logic App across diverse projects, I am convinced of its capability to seamlessly connect with various external systems, thereby accelerating feature development and enhancing time-to-market. Recently, my exploration of Semantic Kernel has also impressed me, particularly its robust integration with .NET applications and the flexibility to incorporate plugins…

Spoiler (Highlight to read) Windows Server 2025 is the most secure and performant release yet! Download the evaluation now! Looking to migrate from VMware to Windows Server 2025? Contact your Microsoft account team! Windows Server 2025 is the most secure and performant release yet! Download the evaluation now! Looking to migrate from VMware to Windows Server 2025? Contact your Microsoft account team! The 2024 Windows Server Summit was held in March and brought three days of demos, technical sessions, and Q&A, led by Microsoft engineers, guest experts from Intel®, and our MVP community. For more videos from this year’s Windows Server Summit, please find t…

Introduction: In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, securing cloud environments is more critical than ever. Azure Firewall emerges as a pivotal defense mechanism, offering stateful, cloud-native, and intelligent network firewall security services. It's designed to protect Azure Virtual Network resources and maintain the integrity of cloud workloads. With its high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability, Azure Firewall ensures robust protection against a myriad of cyber threats. However, the true strength of Azure Firewall lies not only in its protective capabilities but also in its governability. The configuration of Azure Firewall is a vital aspect t…

Have you ever wanted a single place to go to learn all about Microsoft Copilot? Imagine having a website where you can find articles, videos, and hands-on labs that are relevant to you, no matter what technology you work with. The Copilot Learning Hub is designed to be your go-to source for everything related to Microsoft Copilot. In this article, we will look at this hub, what it can do for you, and how it can help you learn and master Microsoft Copilot. [HEADING=1]New Free Training Course on Microsoft Learn - Official Collection: Step 1: Understand Copilot[/HEADING] There's nothing more satisfying than learning something new, and Microsoft k…

[HEADING=1]AVM Module Summary[/HEADING] The AVM team are excited that our community have been busy building AVM Modules. As of June 17th, the AVM Footprint currently looks like: Language Published In development Bicep 214 49 Terraform 44 24 [HEADING=2] [/HEADING] [HEADING=2]Bicep Resource Modules Published in June:[/HEADING] Full list of Bicep Resource Modules is available here: AVM Bicep Resource Index avm/res/portal/dashboard avm/res/kusto/cluster avm/res/hybrid-compute/machine avm/res/alerts-management/action-rule [HEADING=2]Bicep Pattern Modules Published in June:[/HEADING] Full l…

I'm excited to share that you can apply more rules to your open text questions in Microsoft Forms, enhancing the accuracy and quality of the data collected! Now you can create rules that help you validate the format of answers like emails and URLs. You can also require specific text in the answer and provide minimum or maximum length requirements. Let’s dive in and see how we can better use this in our daily work. You can also try setting restrictions yourself with this template. Imagine you are creating a customer satisfaction survey. You add the following restrictions to your open text question to ensure the responses are meaningful and actionable: Input m…

In this blog post, we’ll cover 3 announcements about the upcoming SharePoint Files dataset public availability and pricing. If you’re not familiar with the SharePoint Files dataset (also known as SharePointFiles_v1 or BasicDataSet_v0.SharePointFiles_v1) or the Microsoft Graph Data Connect (MGDC) for SharePoint, start by reading this: Links about Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint. 1) SharePoint Files dataset public availability – August 20th, 2024 The SharePoint Files dataset will be available publicly starting on August 20th, 2024. Any tenant signed up for the Microsoft Graph Data Connect (MGDC) for SharePoint will be able to access it following t…

By Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and Corporate Vice President, Global Partner Solutions This week, we are celebrating the kickoff of our new fiscal year at Microsoft with MCAPS Start for Partners. Our inaugural digital event is designed to include partners in the Microsoft go-to-market strategy early in the fiscal year and foster collaboration to drive collective success. We invite you to keep learning with links to the keynote and breakout sessions from this year’s event and to join us for an “ask me anything” (AMA) session later this month. Driving growth together: Our keynote event included Judson Althoff, Executive Vice President and Chie…

We’re excited to share what’s new with SharePoint Premium content services this summer! In this round of updates, we’re sharing details on the general availability of autofill columns and the sensitive information prebuilt model, along with Graph API documentation to process models. [HEADING=1] Autofill columns in SharePoint libraries[/HEADING] It’s here – the new SharePoint autofill columns feature for document libraries is now 100% generally available, and it’s a game changer for managing your files and metadata. Autofill columns use AI to extract, summarize, generate, or evaluate content from the files you upload to a SharePoint library. You just need t…

At the Microsoft Security Response Center, we are committed to continuously improving the security and performance of our services to meet the evolving needs of our customers. We are excited to announce the rollout of the latest version of our Common Vulnerability Reporting (CVRF) API. This update brings improvements in both security and performance, without requiring any changes to your existing invocation methods. Continue reading...

We released OneNote Copilot in November 2023, and initially this feature could only read and analyze typed text. But now Copilot is able to analyze both typed text and handwritten (inked) notes in OneNote, both via the ribbon and from the canvas!  How it works To access OneNote Copilot via the ribbon: Open OneNote and navigate to a section of handwritten ink. Select the Copilot icon on the ribbon to open the Copilot pane. Ask Copilot a question about your handwritten ink notes. To access OneNote Copilot via the canvas:  Select a group of ink strokes with touch, pen, or mouse. Click on the Copilot icon to open the dropdown …

Exciting new things have come to Windows Autopilot. If you’re not already familiar with this technology, Autopilot describes a group of technologies used to preconfigure new devices for productive use. To further simplify this process, Windows Autopilot device preparation became generally available in June. Time to learn: 112 minutes [HEADING=2][attachment=56521:name]READ[/HEADING] Overview of Windows Autopilot device preparation Start here for a quick overview of what to expect from the Autopilot device preparation experience. (3 mins) Autopilot device preparation + Intune + Windows 11 [HEADING=2][attachment=56522:name]READ[/HEADING] Co…