Microsoft Support & Discussions

Today we’re announcing the public preview for Native Windows Principals for SQL Managed Instance. This capability simplifies the migration to SQL Managed Instance and unblock the migration of legacy applications that are tied to windows logins. This feature plays a vital role for SQL Managed Instance link. Managed Instance link enables near real-time data replication between SQL Server and SQL Managed Instance, the read-only replica in the cloud prevents creation of Microsoft Entra principals. The Windows authentication metadata mode allows customers to use an existing Windows login to authenticate to the replica if a failover happens. with this feature, the…

Collaboration has long been a highly anticipated feature for many Microsoft account holders. We are thrilled to announce that you can now share your forms for collaboration using your Microsoft account, allowing you to easily work together with friends and family on forms related to your daily life, such as planning events, coordinating family activities, and organizing gatherings. To help you better use this feature, we’ll use party invitation as an example. Imagine you're planning a pool party at your place this summer and inviting friends to join for a fun gathering. Share a form to collaborate Preparing a party alone can be tiring, so you decide to coll…

Howdy, folks! Today I'm excited to share the latest enhancements for Microsoft Entra certificate-based authentication (CBA). CBA is a phishing-resistant, password less, and convenient way to authenticate users with X.509 certificates, such as PIV/CAC cards, without relying on on-premises federation infrastructure, such as Active Directory Federated Service (AD FS). CBA is particularly critical for federal government organizations that are already using PIV/CAC cards and are looking to comply with Executive Order 14028, which requires phishing-resistant authentication.  Today we're announcing the general availability of many improvements we introduced earlier this y…

Microsoft ISV Success for Business Applications offers platforms, resources, and support designed to help partners develop, publish, and market business apps. Learn more about this offer from BrightWork: [attachment=56042:name] BrightWork 365 PPM Solution for Microsoft 365: The BrightWork 365 project and portfolio management (PPM) solution uses the Microsoft Power Platform in your cloud to unify the best of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, delivering a single collaboration hub for project teams while giving senior executives increased visibility and insights. Continue reading...

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Monthly news July 2024 Edition [attachment=56026:name] This is our monthly "What's new" blog post, summarizing product updates and various new assets we released over the past month. In this edition, we are looking at all the goodness from June 2024. Legend: [attachment=56027:name] Product videos [attachment=56028:name] Webcasts (recordings) [attachment=56029:name] Docs on Microsoft [attachment=56030:name] Blogs on Microsoft [attachment=56031:name] GitHub [attachment=56032:name] External content [attachment=56033:name] Product improvements [attachment=56034:name] Announcements Mic…

A while ago the .NET and Windows containers team investigated how our customers were using certificates for HTTPS connections when using Windows containers to run web workloads on IIS, either on AKS or not. At the time, we learned that the management of SSL certificates on Windows containers specifically for IIS is very manual and doesn’t align well with modern practices you would expect when running on a containerized environment. We learned that most of our customers have scripts to load certificates into the Windows container environment, install the certificate, and have it configured as part of the IIS deployment alongside the application, its application pool…

[HEADING=1]Fine-Tune and Integrate Custom Phi-3 Models with Prompt Flow[/HEADING] Spoiler (Highlight to read) This blog series will have several versions, each covering different aspects and techniques. Check out the following resource: - End-to-end (E2E) sample on Phi-3CookBook This blog series will have several versions, each covering different aspects and techniques. Check out the following resource: - End-to-end (E2E) sample on Phi-3CookBook [HEADING=2]Introduction[/HEADING] Phi-3 is a family of small language models (SLMs) developed by Microsoft that delivers exceptional performance and cost-effectiveness. In this tutorial, you will learn how to fi…

Back in April I wrote a post on how to implement the Backend for Frontend (BFF) pattern with Azure Container Apps. At the time I said I would avoid bringing in .NET Aspire as it was in preview and earlier explorations pointed to it being somewhat buggy in those preliminary stages. About a month ago at Build .NET Aspire went GA so that raises the question anew - should I use Aspire? Let's revisit our sample app and take a closer look. .NET Aspire Revisit that post to read about the BFF concept and implementation details: Implementing a Blazor-based BFF in Azure Container Apps All the code can be found here: Container-Apps-BFF/src/BFF_Aspire at main…

Windows Autopilot makes it easy to deploy and configure new Windows devices. You don't need to install anything manually or follow complicated steps. You simply connect the device to the internet, sign in with your work account, and let Autopilot do the rest. But what if you have existing devices that are running an out of support version of Windows? You might want to upgrade them to Windows 11 and deploy them with Autopilot, so you can manage them from the cloud and apply the same settings and policies as your new devices. Or perhaps you have devices that need to be reimaged. That's where Autopilot for existing devices is helpful. It allows you to use Configuratio…

You can now use a personal account in the new Teams app on Windows 10 and Mac. Read more in the recent post on the Teams Insider Blog: Personal Teams accounts now available on Windows 10 and Mac - Teams Insider - Teams for Personal Continue reading...

[HEADING=1]Building with AI for Global Impact[/HEADING] On June 13, 2024, The Ambassador Projects Demo Day was held virtually on Teams. The event brought together rising developers from all over the world to collaborate and create innovative solutions to real-world problems. We would like to extend our sincerest thanks to the Gold leads Aayushi Singh, Konstantinos Sitistas, Megha Vishwakarma, Hadil BenAmor, Marjan Hussein for their hard work and dedication in putting together such an amazing event and leading this past cycle of the projects program. Without their tireless efforts, this event would not have been possible. In addition, we would like to thank …

By: Madison Holdaas, Sr. Product Manager | Microsoft Intune [HEADING=1]How identifying corporate devices has worked in Microsoft Intune[/HEADING] As an administrator, you want to make sure that only authorized and compliant devices can access your organization's resources and data. To do that, you need to identify which devices are corporate-owned and which are personal. However, this isn’t always easy, especially when you have a large and diverse fleet of devices running different operating systems and platforms. Today, Intune has a variety of methods to identify a device as “corporate” for Windows platform. If a device hasn’t enrolled using one of our t…

Congratulations to the winners and finalists for the 2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards! The Social Impact category highlights partners accelerating innovation and technology applications that are making a difference for individuals, customers, and communities around the world. We read so many strong entries of partners embracing the possibilities that AI is creating and taking the lead in applying this latest technology to solve societal challenges, creating more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable models of growth. Together with the team behind the Partner of the Year Awards Social Impact category, we're thrilled to honor winning partners for the…

Our latest update for web users brings you a host of powerful features designed to make your spreadsheet tasks simpler, faster, and more enjoyable. From effortless resizing and streamlined inserts to enhanced navigation and easy cell highlighting, discover how these modern tools can revolutionize your workflows. Simple. Easy. Delightful [HEADING=2] Resize rows and columns with ease[/HEADING] Quickly resize rows and columns for better data visibility and presentation. Hover over the border of a row or column header, click and hold the handles, then drag to resize. Resize rows and columns with ease [HEADING=2] Simplified insert options[/HEADING] Our …

[HEADING=2]Cloud of Things accelerates the creation of smart connected products[/HEADING] Cloud of Things, an IoT and innovation company that creates connected field service solutions, has been a Microsoft partner for two years. Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, with an office in Newton, Massachusetts, Cloud of Things works globally with companies to make their products and services smarter and more profitable. DeviceTone IoT Suite, the company’s ready-to-run IoT solution available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, makes it quick to create smart connected products. DeviceTone IoT Suite offers customers a multitude of features, including open APIs and customizable device man…

We are excited to announce the release of new features aimed at enhancing the troubleshooting experience in Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server. These features provide detailed insights and metrics, enabling you to optimize your database performance effectively. Here are the use cases where these features can be used: [HEADING=1]Enhancements to autovacuum monitoring:[/HEADING] One of the significant enhancements is the addition of table-level autovacuum details. This feature allows you to: Monitor the number of times autovacuum ran. Check the number of dead tuples cleaned or not removed. Track the time taken to run the autovacuum. Autovacuum per t…

Bring your MySQL workloads to run on Azure. Azure Database for MySQL — Flexible Server offers a powerful, fully managed solution for MySQL workloads, providing unique platform-level optimizations that significantly enhance connection scaling and cost performance. Ensure high efficiency and reduced latency for mission-critical applications for up to twice the performance of other offerings. The integration with Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Search further extends its capabilities, enabling intelligent vector-based search and generative AI responses for more accurate and relevant user queries. Join Parikshit Savjani, Azure Database for MySQL Principal Group PM, s…

"Recording - Lowering Overhead Burden and Increasing Productivity of Medical Affairs Directors/Medical Science Liaisons - Starter Series Round 2 Pharma Focus" Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a digital assistant that can help Medical Affairs Directors and Medical Science Liaisons manage their work such as: Streamline Presentations Better prepare for KOL Engagements Easily stay current with the latest publications and clinical trial data related to the disease area you support Staying on top of team meetings ISS Assessments Clinical Trial Calls In this webinar recording Microsoft’s Helen Guan and Michael Gannotti present how Copilot for Microsoft 365 can benef…

[HEADING=1][/HEADING] [HEADING=1] [/HEADING] [HEADING=1]SYKSYN 2024 KUMPPANITUNNIT[/HEADING] Huomaattehan, että jo pidettyjen Kumppanituntien tallenteet löytyvät alta samasta rekisteröitymislinkistä noin kahden tunnin kuluttua Kumppanitunnin jälkeen. Kevään 2024 Kumppanituntien tallenteet löytyvät tästä linkistä. Microsoftin tekniset Kumppanitunnit järjestetään Cloud Champion -sivustolla, josta ne ovat kätevästi saatavilla tallenteina pari tuntia live-lähetyksen jälkeen. Muistathan rekisteröityä Cloud Champion -alustalle ensimmäisellä kerralla, jonka jälkeen pääset aina sisältöön sekä tallenteisiin käsiksi. Pääset rekisteröitymään, "Register now"-kohdasta.…

Released by Microsoft in mid-June 2024 under an MIT license, Florence-2 is less than 1B in size (0.23B for the base model and 0.77B for the large model) and is efficient for vision and vision-language tasks (OCR, captioning, object detection, instance segmentation, and so on). All of Florence-2's weights are publicly available, so you can fine-tune it quickly and easily. However, many people struggle with fine-tuning the latest SLM/multi-modal models, including Florence-2, in Azure ML studio. So, we want to walk through a step-by-step guide on how to quickly and easily train and serve from end-to-end in Azure ML. [HEADING=1] [/HEADING] [HEADING=1]1. Training prepar…

Last year, I shared a broad set of updates that showcased how Microsoft is embracing FinOps practitioners through education, product improvements, and innovative solutions that help organizations achieve more. This year, at FinOps X, we shared the first steps in a transformative vision to help accelerate FinOps and empower stakeholders across the organization with AI-powered experiences like Copilot and Microsoft Fabric. Whether you're an engineer working in the Azure portal or part of a business or finance team collaborating in Microsoft 365 or analyzing data in Power BI, Microsoft Cloud has the tools you need to accelerate business value for your cloud investments. …

This last week, I worked on two service requests that our customers got the following error message: (Reason: An instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. Connection was denied since Deny Public Network Access is set to Yes (Connectivity settings for Azure SQL Database and Azure Synapse Analytics - Azure SQL Database and Azure Synapse Analytics). To connect to this server, use the Private Endpoint from inside your virtual network (Azure Private Link - Azure SQL Database & Azure Synapse Analytics).) using Private link connection. In both situations, I have found that our customers are using custom DNS configurations. On rare…

Hi! In this blog post we will learn how to do Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) using local resources in .NET! We’ll show you how to combine the Phi-3 language model, Local Embeddings, and Semantic Kernel to create a RAG scenario. [HEADING=2]What is RAG?[/HEADING] Before we dive into the demo, let’s quickly recap what RAG is. RAG is a hybrid approach that enhances the capabilities of a language model by incorporating external knowledge. In example: using a RAG approach we can retrieve relevant documents from a knowledge base and use them to generate more informed and accurate responses. This is particularly useful in scenarios where a LLM needs up-to-date …

Microsoft recently launched a brand new Applied Skill Credential related to deploying and managing Azure Arc enabled servers. Here's me talking about it: An applied skill is a hands on test where you perform a set of real world tasks based on a couple of scenarios. Azure Arc is a set of technologies from Microsoft that extends Azure management and services to workloads in multi-cloud and on-premises environments. Using Arc, you can manage and govern on-premises, edge, and multi-cloud environments from a single control plane in Azure. Taking this 60 minute long free practical exam gives you a credential that’s useful if want to demonstrate that y…