Linux and Open Source on Azure Quarterly Update - July 2024

The past few months have been a whirlwind of innovation, collaboration, and inspiring conversations. We announced a wave of new innovations and participated at multiple events including Open Source Summit North America, Red Hat Summit, and LinuxFest Northwest. Let's dive into some of the highlights!

 

 

 

[HEADING=1]What’s new with Linux on Azure [/HEADING]

 

ED25519 SSH key support for Linux VMs (Public Preview)

 

We recently announced ED25519 SSH key support for Linux VMs (in preview), providing customers with better security and performance with a smaller key size. Now customers can choose between RSA and ED25519 based SSH keys.

 

 

 

New Azure VMs based on the Azure Cobalt 100 processor (Preview)

 

At Microsoft Build in May, we announced the preview of the new Azure VMs featuring the Cobalt 100 Arm-based processor. These new VMs provide optimal performance and power efficiency for Linux and open source workloads. To learn more, read our preview blog and article on CIO.com.

 

 

 

Azure Linux now supports Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) LTS

 

With Azure Linux support for AKS Long Term Support (LTS), customers benefit from having a stable and regularly serviced node OS in addition to Kubernetes. Read the blog to learn more.

 

 

Enhancements to Linux migrations using Azure Migrate

 

We announced support in Azure Migrate for Azure Hybrid Benefit during assessments and business cases for Linux workloads, allowing you to better understand the potential cost savings from migrating to Azure. With Azure Hybrid Benefit for Linux, you can achieve costs savings by easily switching between licensing models – bring your own subscription (BYOS) or pay as you go (PAYG) – for VMs running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or SUSE Enterprise Linux subscriptions (SLES). Read the blog to learn more about the Azure Hybrid Benefit support and other enhancements to Azure Migrate for migrating Linux workloads to Azure.

 

 

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Fedora 40 images available in Azure via Community Gallery

 

You can now deploy Fedora 40 images in Azure via the community gallery, a feature of Azure Compute Gallery that enables you to share and discover non-commercial images on Azure. Read this article to get started with Fedora in Azure.

 

 

[HEADING=1]What’s new with Azure and open source[/HEADING]

 

EBPF-Powered threat protection using Inspektor Gadget

 

Inspektor Gadget is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project that aims to change the way we consume and execute eBPF programs by managing its packing, deployment and execution. Learn more about how a new sensor component of Microsoft Defender for Containers, a cloud-native solution for securing container solutions, leverages Inspektor Gadget applications running in Kubernetes by detecting vulnerabilities at runtime.

 

 

Troubleshooting DNS issues in an AKS cluster using Inspektor Gadget

 

Did you know that you can use the open source project Inspektor Gadget to troubleshoot Domain Name System (DNS) failures in your AKS cluster? DNS problems within Kubernetes can disrupt communications between pods, services, and external resources, which results in application failures and performance degradation. Check out our new documentation detailing how you can use Inspektor Gadget to get past these DNS issues.

 

 

 

[HEADING=1]Linux and open source events [/HEADING]

 

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Open Source Summit North America

 

Ross Gardler from our Linux E2E experiences team delivered a blazing fast

on Microsoft’s transformation into an open source leader. He also shared some insights on an open source project that can help you learn how to adopt your projects and products in the cloud. And that wasn’t all - there were 15 total Microsoft sessions! Read our blog for a summary of all the Microsoft sessions. You can watch the recordings for all the sessions on the .

 

 

 

LinuxFest Northwest

 

At LinuxFest Northwest, Sudhanva and Olivia from the Azure Linux Product team shared learnings from building Azure Linux, Microsoft’s own Linux distribution. You can catch the

to learn more.

 

 

 

Red Hat Summit

 

Back in the beautiful city of Denver, Colorado, Red Hat Summit was full of exciting Microsoft news and announcements such as enhancements to Azure Migrate, Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO), and SQL Server (yes, SQL Server runs on Linux!). Check out this blog to get the full recap of the latest innovations for running Red Hat on Azure.

 

 

 

[HEADING=1]What’s coming up next [/HEADING]

 

Upcoming Linux and open source events

 

Over the next few months, we’ll be at events all around the world, including DebConf24 (Busan, South Korea), Flock to Fedora 2024 (Rochester, NY), and Open Source Summit Europe (Vienna, Austria. We hope to see you there! Here are some of the Microsoft sessions to check out at each event:

 

 

 

• DebConf24
  
  • Cloud team BoF
    

  [*]Flock to Fedora

  • Unlocking Systems Insights: Leveraging eBPF for Data Collection
    

  [*]Open Source Summit

  • Contain Your Excitement: A Developer’s Guide to Containerized Brillance
    
  • Linux Sandboxing with Landlock
    
  • Panel Discussion: Do One Thing, and Do it Well: Special Purpose OSes Apply the Unix App Philosophy to the Whole OS
    
  • Next-Gen Testing and Compliance: Ensuring Integrity in a Complex World
    
  • Open Source Software Engineering Education
    

 

 

 

[HEADING=1]Bonus content [/HEADING]

• If you are still deciding between options for migrating from CentOS, check out some of the insightful webinars that we recently participated in with
  and SUSE. And for full CentOS EOL guidance on Azure, read our documentation.
  
• Read the recently published case study to learn how Fujitsu Limited enhanced security and operational efficiency with Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure
  
• If you haven’t already, watch the
  and
  Mechanics videos!
  

 

 

 

If you have any feedback or questions, please drop them in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

 

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