Windows Azure Virtual Machines announcements

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    New Security Enhancement: User defined administrator name
    Drew McDaniel [MSFT]

    As a security enhancement for Windows virtual machines we now allow, actually force, you to select a name for the administrator account. By selecting your own administrator account name it is more difficult for an attacker to guess both your administrator account name and your password. You will see this new feature in the Azure Portal when you deploy a Windows VM from either the gallery or via the Quick Create option.

    The name that you provide will be used to rename the built-in administrator account. If you connect to the virtual machine using the RDP protocol you will need to select the option to enter a new username and then enter the name that you selected for the administrator name. For example if the administrator name selected was “MyAdmin” then you would configure the RDP connection like this:


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    Reboot warning for VMs deployed prior to April 16th
    Drew McDaniel [MSFT]

    Note: This warning only applies to Virtual Machines deployed prior to April 16th that are part of a availability set. Feel free to stop reading if this warning does not apply to you.

    The symptom that we are trying to avoid here is an unexpected reboot of a VM. Under rare conditions you could have all VMs in an availability set reboot if you make a change to any VM in the cloud service that contains these VMs. The underlying issue is a defect that was resolved before Virtual Machines were brought out of preview; however some VMs that were deployed during the preview timeframe may still be affected.

    Required conditions for a VM to be affected by this defect (VM must meet all conditions):

    1. VM deployed before April 16th
    2. VM added to an a availability set after the VM was initially provisioned
    3. No change to the cloud service that contains the VM except for stop/start/reboot of VMs since April 16th.

    Resolution: If you believe that you have one or more VMs that meet the conditions described above, then all that is needed to get the VMs health again is to make any change to the cloud service that contains these VMs. The change can be any of the following operations:

    • Add or remove VM from the cloud service
    • Add or remove a data disk to any VM in the cloud service
    • Add or remove an endpoint on any VM in the cloud service
    • Resize any VM in the cloud service
    • Change the availability set of any VM in the cloud service

    You should make this change at a time when it is OK for the VMs in the cloud service to reboot. If the VM(s) were being affected by this defect then they will reboot when you make the change to the cloud service. From this point forward the defect will not affect your VMs and reboots of your VMs will only occur on configuration changes that require a reboot such as changing the size of a VM which will reboot just the VM that has the size changed.

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    Performance Guidance for SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines - White paper published
    Madhan Arumugam Microsoft employee

    Performance Guidance for SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

    Authors: Silvano Coriani, Jasraj Dange, Ewan Fairweather, Xin Jin, Alexei Khalyako, Sanjay Mishra, Selcin Turkarslan

    Technical Reviewers: Mark Russinovich, Brad Calder, Andrew Edwards, Suraj Puri, Flavio Muratore, Hanuma Kodavalla, Madhan Arumugam Ramakrishnan, Naveen Prakash, Robert Dorr, Roger Doherty, Steve Howard, Yorihito Tada, Kun Cheng, Chris Clayton, Igor Pagliai, Shep Sheppard, Tim Wieman, Greg Low, Juergen Thomas, Guy Bowerman, Evgeny Krivosheev

    Editor: Beth Inghram

    Summary: Developers and IT professionals should be fully knowledgeable about how to optimize the performance of SQL Server workloads running in Windows Azure Infrastructure Services and in more traditional on-premises environments. This technical article discusses the key factors to consider when evaluating performance and planning a migration to SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines. It also provides certain best practices and techniques for performance tuning and troubleshooting when using SQL Server in Windows Azure Infrastructure Services. 

    Read on: Performance Guidance for SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

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    Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview image on Windows Azure
    Narahari Dogiparthi [MSFT]

    We are excited to announce that we’ve added a new gallery image for Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview in Windows Azure Platform Image Gallery. Now, you have the opportunity to preview all the latest features on Windows Server 2012 R2 by provisioning a VM using the preview image. Note that the support for this image will be provided through the following channels during the preview time period. The official support for this image will be announced once Windows Server 2012 R2 released to GA (General Availability).

     

    Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview – General

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsserverpreview

     

    Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview – Setup

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserver2012r2previewsetup

     

    Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Preview

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2012R2EssentialsPreview

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    BizTalk Server 2013 Evaluation Image Expiration
    Corey Sanders [MSFT]

    The evaluation time period of the existing BizTalk Server 2013 Evaluation image expired on 08/02/2013. A new platform gallery image was released on 08/03/2013.

    If you have an existing Virtual Machine running BizTalk Server 2013 evaluation, you can create a new VM using the updated evaluation image and then redeploy your applications. In the existing BizTalk Server 2013 Evaluation Virtual Machine, you will receive an error titled “Failed to start the BizTalk Host Instance”. Check the event log on the server <Server Name> for more details.

DNS and Traffic Manager announcements

Windows Azure Virtual Network announcements

Windows Azure Storage, CDN and Caching announcements

Windows Azure SQL Database announcements

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    SQL Data Sync - Please provide necessary information when asking questions
    Mahesh Dudgikar Microsoft employee

    Folks,

    If you are using SQL Data Sync and need to ask something related to an issue you maybe encountering, then please add the below details in your post. This helps to look at the logs and help troubleshoot instead of multiple back and forth posts.

    Server id: Your server id

    Region: Where your Data Sync Server is located/created

    Time / Date: Date and time when you encountered the issue

    Tracing Id: The tracing id you see in the message in UI

    Thanks,

    Mahesh

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    SQL Data Sync - service maintenance impacting sync groups in the US North Central region from 08/13 US PST to 08/20 US PST
    Han, MSFT Microsoft employee

    Hi all,

      We will be conducting a service maintenance on the SQL Data Sync service hosting in the US North Central region from 08/13 US PST to 08/20 US PST.  Sync groups in the region may encounter intermittent sync interruptions.  On premise SQL Data Sync agents may go offline during the service maintenance.  In the event of agents going offline, users will need to restart the offline agents after the maintenance period.  Agents should be back online after the restart.  Sync operations should continue as normal.

    We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. This service update includes a few internal technology updates.  We hope to bring greater running experience to you through the update.

    Thank you for your continued interests in SQL Data Sync.  

    Thanks,

    SQL Data Sync

Windows Azure Media Services announcements

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    Submit Feature ideas to our User Voice
    John Deutscher Microsoft employee

    We have a User Voice site that we have been using for IIS Media Services on-premises for many years that we would like to direct our customers to post new feature requests and vote on features for Azure Media Services as well.  We decided to mix the customer feature list, as many of the same feature requests will impact both our cloud and on-premises solutions for Media Services.

    Please post your feature requests to our User Voice Media Services site here:

    http://azuremediaservices.uservoice.com/

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    On-Demand Streaming usage metrics now available
    Anton Kucer - MSFT

    You can now monitor your usage of On-Demand Streaming for your media services accounts via the following three metrics that are now available via the Azure Media Services dashboard. 

    Streaming Data Out - Indicates how many Bytes of egress data has been used for On-Demand Streaming.

    Streaming HTTP Errors - Indicates how many HTTP Errors have occured. This includes server errors (e.g. HTTP 500 caused by blob store or a media services component) as well as typical client errors (e.g. HTTP 404 or 403). In a future update we will provide additional granularity so that you can track these errors individually.

    Streaming Requests - Indicates how many requests for data have been made for on-demand streaming.

    If there are other metrics that you would like to see available for on-demand streaming, add the request to our uservoice board - https://azuremediaservices.uservoice.com/

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    Just Released - Windows Azure Media Services .NET SDK with storage 2.0 update on NuGet and via Github as Open Source
    Mingfei

    We just released Windows Azure Media Services .NET SDK via Nuget:  https://nuget.org/packages/windowsazure.mediaservices/ 

    There are two versions listed there: 

    • .NET SDK 2.2.0.1:
      • Storage 2.0 upgrade: we make our SDK compatible with storage SDK 2.0 now
      • Notification APIs: adding encoding notification APIs enables you to monitor your encoding progress
    • .NET SDK 2.1.0.0:
      • It depends on storage 1.7 with notification APIs for encoding

    We also made our .NET SDK open source on Github: https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-media-services.

    We will be taking contributions and if you found any issues, please report to issue tab and we will triage regularly: https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-media-services/issues?state=open.


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    Requesting a higher number of reserved units in a Media Services account
    Anton Kucer - MSFT

    By default every Media Services account can scale up to a max of 5 Encoding and 5 On-Demand Streaming Reserved Units. You can request a higher limit via a support ticket if your business needs are not met with 5. Note that billing will still be based on the actual number of Reserved Units you have provisioned in your account. In other words, if your max is 50 Encoding Reserved Units in your account but you scale it down to 10 you will only billed for 10.

    To open a support ticket please following the instruction below

    1) Log in to your Azure account at http://manage.windowsazure.com

    2) Go to http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/contact/

    3) Click on "Get Support"

    4) Select your subscription

    5) Under support type select "Technical"

    6) Click on "Create Ticket"

    7) Select "Windows Azure Media Services" in the product list presented on the next page

    8) Select "Media Processing" as "Problem type" and then select "Reservation Units" under category

    9) Click Continue

    10) Follow instructions on next page and then enter details about how many Reserved Units you need and which kind (i.e. Encoding or On-Demand Streaming).

    11) Click submit and you are done with opening your ticket



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    Release of WAMS Asset Replicator
    Mingfei

    We have released to codeplex an open source tool that can be used for mirroring assets between two WAMS accounts.  One of the primary use cases for the tool is to implement streaming redundancy across two geo-diverse data centers.

    Here is the project link:  https://replicator.codeplex.com/

    And this is a helpful blog:
    Mariano Converti - http://blogs.southworks.net/mconverti


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    Service Management APIs
    Milan Gada (MSFT)

    WAMS Service Management APIs are now live on MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/dn167014.aspx

    Feedback welcome

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    Breaking changes for Windows Azure Media Services .NET SDK GA
    Mingfei

    Please refer to my blog for breaking changes for WAMS .NET SDK GA.

    http://mingfeiy.com/breaking-changes-for-windows-azure-media-services-ga/

    Please let me know if you couldn't follow it to fix your code.

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    Media Processor changes for Jan 2013
    David Bristol [msft] Microsoft employee

    Starting today, January 14, 2013 the following media processors have updated version numbers and GUID identifiers.  The task presets for the Windows Azure Media Encoder remain unchanged from the last update.

    Media ProcessorVersionGUID
    Storage Decryption1.5.3aec03716-7c5e-4f68-b592-f4850eba9f10
    Windows Azure Media Encoder2.2.0.070bdc2c3-ebf4-42a9-8542-5afc1e55d217
    Windows Azure Media Packager2.2.0.0a2f9afe9-7146-4882-a5f7-da4a85e06a93
    Windows Azure Media Encryptor2.2.0.038a620d8-b8dc-4e39-bb2e-7d589587232b

    Additionally the REST API version 1.0 will be deprecated.  This means that if you are using the version 1.0 of the .Net SDK it will begin to fail.  You should update immediately to the most recent version of the SDK by using the NuGet package.  See the NuGet package announcement below.

Service Bus 1.0 announcements

Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication announcements

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    Introducing Multi-Factor Authentication
    Steve Justice [MSFT] Microsoft employee

    Windows Azure is pleased to introduce Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication. In addition to entering a username and password during sign in, the user is also required to authenticate with the Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication app on their mobile device or via an automated phone call or text message. In order for an attacker to gain access to the user’s account, they would need to know the user’s login credentials and be in possession of the user’s phone.

    See What is Windows Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for more information.

Windows Azure Development announcements

Workflow Manager 1.0 announcements

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    Welcome to the forum!
    Jurgen Willis

    Welcome to the discussion forum for the Workflow Manager 1.0 Beta release (also referred to as Windows Azure Workflow).  Workflow Manager provides hosting and management capabilities on top of the Windows Workflow Foundation.  It also powers workflows in SharePoint 2013 and the next version of Office 365.  You can install the Workflow Manager from the Web Platform Installer.  Documentation and samples can be found on MSDN here.  We look forward to your questions and feedback.

Windows Azure Web Sites announcements

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    Bug: International Domain Name (IDN) Support
    rjones_max Microsoft employee

    Hi folks,

    We're investigating a bug related to international domain names.  Use of unicode or punycode characters may cause your website to become inaccessible.

    While we look into this issue, we recommend only using domain names with ASCII characters.  

    Thanks!

    Ryan

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    Intermittent Capacity issues with reserved instances
    Apurva Joshi (AJ) Microsoft employee

    Hello,

    Due to high demand of all types of reserved instances in EAST US data center and small instances in Europe, we are experiencing capacity issue every now and then. We are acting as fast as we can to meet the demand. We are also exploring other options to expand the capacity during the preview timeframe. Your business is very important to us and thanks ever so much for trying out windows azure websites.

    Thanks,

    Windows Azure Websites Team

    NOTE: If you are new to Windows Azure Websites and have an option to deploy your site in Europe data center (when EAST US capacity is maxed out), please choose that option. If you have already created sites in EAST US then your workspace is rooted to that DC and you will not have an option to switch the DC at that time. This is know bug and will be fixed soon.

Windows Azure Active Directory announcements

Windows Azure BizTalk Services announcements

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