Azure Feeds

Retirement: Azure Data Share will be retired on 12 November 2029; migrate your data-sharing workloads before that date to Microsoft Fabric (External data sharing, cross-tenant delegated shortcuts, IQ Share) or to an appropriate data-source-specific sharing solution.

Public preview: Azure Front Door Premium Auth Policy can now validate Microsoft Entra ID JWT bearer tokens at the edge, so configure Auth Policy rules (issuer, audience, claims) to block invalid tokens before they reach your APIs or web apps.

Generally available: Azure Front Door Premium now supports mutual TLS (mTLS) using X.509 client certificates, so enable client-certificate authentication on Front Door to protect sensitive applications and APIs and update your certificate provisioning and rotation processes.

Public preview: Azure Monitor Workspace now supports per-workspace auto-scaling of ingestion limits; when enabled the service dynamically adjusts a workspace's ingestion quota ceiling based on observed usage, replacing the need to change quotas manually.

Public preview: Microsoft-managed performance monitoring for Azure SQL Managed Instance is now available; begin testing it for business-critical MI workloads as an alternative to custom scripts and disconnected tools, and review the preview documentation for setup, telemetry...

Public preview: Azure Front Door Premium WAF now supports rate limit grouping, allowing you to group requests for rate limiting instead of counting separately per client IP (which distributed attacks can bypass); review and update WAF rate limit rules and tests.

Public preview: Distributed accelerator for cloud storage (DACS) is available for AKS, a distributed read-through cache that runs inside your AKS cluster and uses local NVMe disks across nodes for AI workloads; deploy to NVMe-backed AKS nodes to test caching behaviour.

Generally Available: Azure Functions now supports .NET 11 using the isolated worker model while keeping the Azure Functions programming model and host integration; build or migrate function apps to target .NET 11 and validate tooling, extensions, and deployments.

Public preview: Azure Front Door Standard and Premium now support native gRPC routing, so you can route gRPC calls to specific services and methods via Front Door and test your gRPC traffic using the preview.

Generally available: Azure Front Door Edge Actions are now GA, allowing you to run lightweight JavaScript during client request and response processing as serverless compute at the edge, so you can deploy edge functions for real-time request/response logic.

Public preview: Azure Route Server now supports IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack mode, so you can enable dual-stack on Route Server to exchange IPv4 and IPv6 routes across supported hybrid networking connections; existing IPv4-only connections remain unchanged.

Retirement: Support for .NET 8 and .NET 9 on Azure Static Web Apps ends 10 November 2026; migrate any managed Functions APIs to .NET 10 by that date because apps will continue running without security updates or support for .NET 8/9.

Public preview: Azure File Sync now provides a guided Azure portal experience to modernise Arc-enabled Windows Servers, so test the preview to evaluate hybrid Azure Files access or migration workflows and update deployment and operational runbooks accordingly.

GA: Azure Front Door now supports configurable TLS key exchange policies, including hybrid post-quantum key exchange; select a predefined policy for your Front Door endpoints to add post-quantum key exchange while balancing client compatibility.

Generally available: WAF Insights is now built into Application Gateway WAF policies, providing interactive dashboards that combine WAF logs and metrics: access WAF Insights from the WAF policy to investigate blocked requests and WAF events.

Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server REST API version 2026-10-01 is now stable; update automation and clients to the 2026-10-01 endpoint to start using expanded maintenance management, immutable backups, and multi-tenant encryption features.

Generally Available: Route maps for Azure Route Server are now available in the Azure public cloud; configure route maps to control inbound and outbound routing across hybrid connections and update Route Server configurations and network policies accordingly.

Public Preview: Azure Firewall now supports application rules (layer 7) for IPv6 HTTP and HTTPS traffic, so update your IPv6 or dual-stack firewall policies and rule sets to author and test application rules for HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

Public preview: you can now create multi-disk, crash-consistent, agent-less restore points for VMs using Premium SSD v2 or Ultra data disks with SCSI controllers, so enable and test these restore points in your VM backup workflows.

Public preview: Application Gateway for Containers adds centralised JWT validation via the AuthPolicy custom resource, so platform teams should create AuthPolicy CRs to validate token signature, issuer, lifetime, and audience using signing keys from a trusted endpoint.

Public preview: Application Gateway for Containers introduces the MCPRoute custom resource to route Model Context Protocol (MCP) traffic, enabling platform teams to publish MCP servers behind stable hostnames and paths while centralising TLS, JWT validation, and Web Application...

Public preview: Application Gateway for Containers now supports private frontends reachable only through approved Azure Private Link private endpoints, so move internal applications, shared services, and cross-cluster traffic onto private frontends to keep traffic off public...

Public preview: Azure Storage Discovery now exposes advanced capacity insights (access patterns, data age, storage tiers, and object size distribution), so you can analyse storage usage to plan tiering, retention, or reclamation.

Public preview: Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance let you lock immutable retention for Point-In-Time Restore (PITR) backups to your configured PITR retention instead of the default 7 days, so enable/configure immutability to meet compliance (for example 35 days).

Generally Available: Azure Site Recovery now supports Virtual Machine Scale Sets with flexible orchestration (VMSS Flex) with improved target configuration and end-to-end recovery workflows, including failover, so update your disaster-recovery runbooks and target settings to...

Configure Azure IoT Hub file upload to target an Azure Storage account that is protected by a firewall and uses a custom domain, following the guidance to ensure devices can privately upload files.

Build serverless microservices on Azure Container Apps by using Dapr for building blocks and KEDA for event-driven autoscaling, and update your Container Apps deployments to integrate Dapr components and KEDA scaling where appropriate.

Follow the day-2 practices for patching AKS worker nodes and upgrading Kubernetes versions, and plan node and control-plane updates to maintain cluster stability and security.

Implement the Architecture Center's proven practices to configure SAP NetWeaver on Windows in Azure for high availability and disaster recovery, and update your deployment to match the guidance.

Use data lake storage when you need to store terabytes or petabytes of native, raw-format data, and design your ingestion and access patterns for large-scale analytics workloads.

For massive-scale Virtual WAN deployments, design with multiple VWAN hubs per region to scale capacity and distribute regional connectivity.

Evaluate the four Microsoft Fabric deployment patterns and choose the one that organises capacities, workspaces, and items to meet your isolation, operational, and cost requirements.

Follow the Azure reference baseline architecture when deploying AKS clusters to align with recommended infrastructure patterns and reduce custom configuration surprises during cluster rollout.

If you run ScreenConnect, apply Microsoft's recommended mitigations and deploy the Microsoft Defender XDR hunting rules from the post to detect and block SCKit campaigns that deploy unauthorised remote access and target technician sessions.

AKS networking introduces updates for connectivity, high-throughput and low-latency performance, routing isolation, and customizable network visibility, review the new AKS networking capabilities before scaling AI, HPC, or multi-cluster deployments.

If you deploy or test coding agents with third-party datasets or model checkpoints, assume post-training supply-chain poisoning can enable remote code execution and other malicious behaviour, and validate provenance and isolate model execution before using them in production.

If you plan to start using SQL's AI features, follow the 'Resources for the SQL AI Developer' and use the DP-800 guidance the post describes to build the practical skills required to apply those capabilities.

Threat actors are deploying GSocket on compromised Linux servers to retain encrypted remote access after the original vulnerability is patched; follow the Microsoft Security Blog guidance to hunt for GSocket indicators, investigate persistence, and remediate affected hosts.

Azure Content Understanding now supports the GPT-5.6, GPT-6, and GPT-6.1 model families for document, text, speech, and video workflows; consult the updated model recommendations and choose the appropriate model family for your workload.

If you run Linux kernels in your environment, review the MDASH findings (33 assigned CVEs, 38 merged fixes) and apply upstream kernel updates to mitigate the eight demonstrated local root privilege-escalation issues, and add manual validation of AI-generated bug reports to your...

If your organisation must prepare business content for AI while keeping Microsoft 365 context and governance, consider M-Files SharePoint Embedded to add information management and content context into custom apps while preserving existing Microsoft 365 security practices.

Read the PASS Summit West roundup on Azure SQL Dev Corner to identify which Microsoft SQL 2026 updates affect your environment, then schedule validation tests and update your deployment and rollback plans accordingly.

If you train or serve NVIDIA GPU models on Azure, host your datasets on Azure NetApp Files to provide high-throughput shared storage, use ANF short-term clones for rapid experiments, and mount ANF from AKS for containerised inference workflows.

Generally available: Azure App Service for Linux now supports .NET 11 and Python 3.15, and adds Node.js 26 as LTS,select these runtimes for new apps or schedule testing and upgrades for existing production workloads.

Microsoft Research shows a capable agent can be turned into a sleeper by editing fewer than ten neurons, so add model-weight integrity checks and anomaly detection (for example, frontier-agent-style detectors) into your training, CI/CD, and runtime monitoring to detect small...

PowerShell 7.7 is now GA as a Standard Term Support (STS) release: plan to test and upgrade your scripts, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment images, and update any distribution or installation references to 7.7.

.NET 11 is now generally available (GA): it delivers C# 15, faster developer tooling, runtime and library performance improvements, and new web, mobile, desktop, and AI capabilities, so plan upgrades and test your apps for compatibility.

November 2026 servicing updates for .NET and .NET Framework were published; review the release notes, test the cumulative updates in staging, and schedule deployment to affected servers and apps according to your maintenance windows.

Public preview: App Service plan start and stop scheduling is now in preview, letting you schedule starting and stopping of apps together across plans, so configure schedules to coordinate app lifecycles.

FORGE Lab found memory-safety bugs in Rust's core and std where safe Rust can trigger undefined behaviour; review and audit any unsafe-to-safe interfaces in your code and dependencies, add targeted memory-safety tests and static analysis to catch misplaced-trust patterns.

Use agentic mode in Azure Content Understanding for complex, multi-step document tasks that need iterative, document-native reasoning, and keep using standard mode for single-pass, efficient extraction jobs.

Retirement: built-in R and Python visuals in Power BI will stop working in published reports in May 2027; Power Query Python scripts are unaffected, R-powered custom visuals will also stop, and these visuals will only continue to run locally on older Power BI Desktop with R or...

Apply security and governance at each medallion layer in Fabric Data Warehouse: align access controls and policies to the raw, refined, and curated boundaries so each audience only has the permissions they need.

Implement the Microsoft Entra blog's recommended setup and maintenance patterns to scale a US-only Conditional Access policy and add country-specific travel exceptions to reduce administrative overhead.

Revise your threat model and plan for solutions that let you run queries on data the database cannot read, because encryption at rest protects against stolen disks but does not stop administrators with runtime access who see decrypted data in memory.

Phased rollout (preview): Azure App Service and Azure Functions are beginning to support TLS 1.3 hybrid key-exchange group X25519MLKEM768, so test client, proxy and middleware compatibility for connections that may use this post-quantum hybrid KEM.

GA: App Service Free (F1) Windows sites now support 64-bit (x64) applications, so you can run newer runtimes such as Node.js 24 and Node.js 26 without moving to a paid plan; verify your app build and runtime settings for x64 compatibility.

Update detection and incident-response playbooks to account for Storm-3358's October 2026 use of the agentic AI framework ARTEX against the financial sector: increase telemetry collection, tune detections for agentic-AI behaviour, and prioritise controls for financial workflows.

SharePoint tools are coming to the Work IQ API, letting you surface SharePoint content and invoke SharePoint actions from custom apps and agents via the same workplace intelligence layer that powers Microsoft Copilot, so plan to use Work IQ as your integration point for...

Microsoft observed threat actors using the agentic framework ARTEX to find OAuth application secrets on GitHub and then use compromised OAuth apps to act in tenants: scan repositories and commit history for exposed OAuth secrets, revoke or rotate affected credentials, audit and...

Preview: Power BI reports in OAP-protected workspaces can now query semantic models in other workspaces, but a workspace administrator must explicitly add an OAP exception policy allowing each destination to enable report-to-model connections.

If you use Microsoft Entra Workload Identity, Conditional Access, or Zero Trust, review your authorisation model and add runtime revalidation where the execution context can change, so authority revoked after authentication cannot still permit an operation.

Microsoft Foundry extension for Azure Developer CLI is generally available: install the extension to set up, test, evaluate, and deploy hosted agents and keep agent and deployment configuration alongside your code.

GA: Install or update the Microsoft Foundry extension for Azure Developer CLI to set up, test, evaluate, and deploy hosted agents and keep agent and deployment configuration alongside your code.

Action: spend ~15 minutes completing the 2026 .NET Developer Survey to provide feedback that will shape future .NET investments and surface common developer challenges.

Run the GitHub Copilot Upgrade Agent to modernise your .NET apps for Windows Arm64: it identifies migration blockers, helps plan the porting work, and assists with making code changes you can review and apply.

Microsoft announced a new on-premises security initiative combining guidance, migration pathways, and product investments: review the guidance and migration options and align your on-prem plans to reduce security risk.

Review and apply the November 2026 Microsoft Security recommendations: implement the published configuration and policy changes for AI agent security, least-privilege access, threat protection, and exposure management across your tenants and endpoints.

Preview: Power Query's new experience changes data acquisition so you can find sources before picking a connector, search or browse databases, team-maintained Fabric items, recent sources, or paste existing query logic; test the preview and update discovery workflows.

GA: Azure Traffic Manager linked records let you associate Azure Public DNS record sets directly with Traffic Manager profiles without using CNAMEs to trafficmanager.net, so update DNS provisioning or automation to create linked records to avoid exposing the trafficmanager.net...

Microsoft observed a sharp rise in email-based phishing in Q3 2026, plus recovery of CAPTCHA-gated phishing and increased spoofing of familiar business-service sender domains that exploit security override behaviour: review email protection rules, tighten override processes...

Update any Node.js installations your organisation controls to 22.23.4, 24.22.1, or 26.12.1 to patch DNS, TLS certificate validation, and Brotli decompression vulnerabilities (Brotli can corrupt memory and enable code execution); prioritise runtimes and pipelines that handle...

Foundry Local brings agentic coding to run directly on developer hardware, so you can run agentic coding workflows locally on your device rather than only in hosted environments.

Browser automation and hosted-agent resilience are now GA in Microsoft Foundry, so plan production adoption and update agents; the Copilot harness is in preview (test in dev), and Decisions API plus SDK and chapter-linked Handoff demos have updates to review before upgrading.

Route summarization in Azure Route Server lets you control which prefixes are learned and advertised at VNet edges for ExpressRoute, Azure VPN Gateway, and SD-WAN, so review your Route Server policies and update summarization settings to limit propagated routes.

Deprecation: Support for low-trust SharePoint add-ins in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition ends 12 January 2027 and the January 2027 public update will disable them by default, so identify affected solutions and plan migration to supported alternatives such as SharePoint...

If you run Microsoft Entra ID SSO in Jira Service Management Data Center (Jira 10.3.26), do not enable Force Azure Login with plugin v1.1.11 because it creates an infinite logout redirect loop, and be aware plugin v1.3.7 upgrades have reported UI functionality regressions.

Complete the SPFx developer survey by 9 December 2026 to provide feedback that will shape future SPFx investments and roadmap priorities (survey highlights include Copilot UX components and community engagement opportunities).

Upgrade to Azure PowerShell Az 16.5.0 if you manage App Service automation: it adds App Service plan controls for asynchronous scaling, PowerShell commands to manage Managed Instance on Azure App Service, Isolated v4 plan support, and updates automation to a newer Microsoft.Web...

Deploy SQL MCP Server without a configuration file by supplying the undocumented DAB_CONNSTRING environment variable, enabling rapid containerised deployment in Docker, Azure Container Apps, ACI, or AKS; set the env var with your connection string before starting the container.

Public Preview: Azure Files adds expanded BCDR data protection to recover from accidental changes, regional disruptions, and ransomware within and across regions; enable the preview on affected storage accounts, update backup and disaster recovery runbooks, and validate...

Agent skills can be delivered as NuGet packages to provide up-to-date library documentation to models, so publish and version your skills as NuGet packages to keep model-facing docs current.

Overlapping CIDRs in Azure Databricks VNet-injected workspaces (for example 10.100.0.0/20) create routing ambiguity, so renumber the compute VNets or remove the need for direct network access to those subnets (use private access instead).

Apply Microsoft Threat Intelligence's detection and investigation guidance to inspect Inno Setup installer sessions, update endpoint and installer telemetry, and add IOC/detection rules for the fake-download campaign using trojanized Inno installers that deliver monetization...

Register for .NET Conf, 10-13 Nov, to follow the .NET 11 launch and attend Microsoft and Community Days so you can capture release notes and plan your upgrade and testing schedule.

Microsoft was named a Leader in Gartner's 2026 Magic Quadrant for AI Agent Management Platforms; review the Gartner report and assess Microsoft's agent management capabilities against alternatives for upcoming procurement, architecture, or DevOps tool decisions.

Reassess plans to build a custom document platform: document requirements from customers, security, and operations often expand scope, so evaluate existing document platforms or managed services to reduce ongoing development, compliance, and operational burden.

Install and configure six Azure plugins for AI agents (AKS operations, Cost Management, Advisor recommendations, Kusto graph analysis, Azure Local, Foundry IQ) using the blog's installation commands and example prompts to add those capabilities to your agent.

DP-420 has been updated to an AI-focused Cosmos DB certification: you can take the exam free at Microsoft Ignite, or claim a 50% discount on the certification test through Data Days, if you want official Cosmos DB/AI credentials.

Servicing release: update Microsoft.Data.SqlClient to 7.1.2, 7.0.4, or 6.1.8 to get a dependency security fix, tighter certificate validation, and bug fixes, and verify your HostNameInCertificate values when connecting by IP, alias, or via a load balancer.

Read the new guidance on AMD-powered Azure Confidential VMs to understand real-world throughput and latency trade-offs so you can pick the confidential VM SKU and sizing that meet your application performance needs.

Review the Intel TDX performance findings to see whether Intel-based confidential VMs close the performance gap for your workloads and adjust VM choice or sizing accordingly.

If you're attending Ignite 2026, add the Microsoft SQL sessions (starting with BRK450 'No Cloud Required') to your agenda to cover architecture, migration, and hands-on SQL development sessions across the week.

Migrate NuGet-based Logic Apps Standard apps and custom built-in connectors to .NET 10 by retargeting projects, resolving a few dependency conflicts, running the correct local host, and updating a handful of Azure app settings, your C# and workflow definitions should not need...

Update or install the Azure Container Apps extension for Visual Studio Code to manage Container Apps Sandboxes from the Azure Resources view, inspect sandbox state, and follow operation results in the Azure output channel as part of your development workflow.

The Instructor-Led Training Title Plan moved to a weekly publishing cadence; check http://aka.ms/Courseware_Title_Plan for the latest ILT title updates and adjust your courseware sync schedule accordingly.

Apply the published caching pattern architectures and how-to guidance for Azure Managed Redis to offload high-frequency reads from your database, reduce load, and stabilise latency during traffic spikes.

Announced at Ignite 2026: a major expansion of the Azure Resource Manager MCP server adding richer write and action operations, direct single-resource reads, stronger deployment workflows, and an experimental skills experience, test the new MCP-driven plan, act, and verify...

When designing hybrid AI, assess moving inference or other steps to Surface endpoints to shift compute off cloud resources and reduce overall compute and network cost by using device NPUs or on-device models where appropriate.

Expect Windows Update to evaluate driver updates separately per deployment ring, so driver classification, timing, and availability can differ by ring; check each ring's Windows Update view and vendor pages when troubleshooting rollouts.

IDC finds AI is now the top priority for many SMBs and 40% operate without a full-time IT employee, so partners selling to SMBs should lead with AI-focused managed services and low-ops solutions to close capability gaps.

Azure introduces the ND MI455X v7 rack-scale configuration (72 MI455X GPUs, 18 AMD EPYC CPUs, 31 TB HBM4 per rack) aimed at long-context inference and multi-agent services, so plan for rack-scale compute, memory, and network architecture when targeting these workloads.

GA: SQL Server 2025 adds Resource Governor to Standard and Standard Developer editions and includes a new workload-group setting to cap tempdb data space, so test the new cap and known caveats before enabling it in production.

Azure ND GB200 v6 and ND GB300 v6 VMs matched bare-metal and InferenceX reference baselines in the tested throughput and latency, so consider these VMs for inference workloads without expecting major performance loss versus those baselines.

Microsoft Marketplace now hosts transact-capable offers from partners like StackGen (Shipyard) and Forescout, allowing direct purchase through the Marketplace,review each offer page to procure and understand billing and lifecycle details.

GA: AMD Instinct MI300X accelerators are generally available as managed endpoints in Microsoft Foundry and as Azure ND MI300X v5 VMs; also note HDv2-series VMs for data preparation and MI455X options for next-generation AI infrastructure.

Microsoft has validated and deployed production NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 systems in its datacentres, so you can target Vera Rubin-class infrastructure on Azure for supported high-performance AI workloads.

Treat Copilot Studio agents as governed actors: supported agents can have Microsoft 365 accounts, directory profiles, and Teams and Outlook presence, so update your access, data use, cost, and behaviour controls accordingly.

Build Copilot plugins as combinations of skills (reusable instructions), tools (APIs with defined inputs, outputs, and permissions), and connectors to enable retrieval and actions inside Copilot workflows, and design them around those component types.

Microsoft Security expanded Project Perception with new purpose-built capabilities to help secure autonomous AI agents acting as insider threats, so evaluate those controls to manage agent permissions, behaviour, and risk rather than using blanket blocking.

Azure Local version 2610 adds a single security-setting option that lets you relax the secure-by-default baseline while keeping drift control, and ships a baseline update that moves much closer to CIS Benchmark and DISA STIG compliance,review and adjust the setting if the...

Intel and Microsoft will present sessions at Microsoft Ignite 2026 (Nov 17-20), including a joint Intel and Microsoft Innovation slot on Nov 17 covering Intel Foundry, sovereign cloud, confidential computing, security ecosystem updates, edge AI, and intelligent...

November security update for partners introduces new Microsoft Defender capabilities, an updated Frontier Accelerate for Security module, and delegated access for Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR,partners should review the capability, skilling, and incentive changes ahead of...

Windows Autopatch in Microsoft Intune now lets a single quality update policy manage multiple update types (Windows quality updates, supported .NET Framework updates, and quick machine recovery updates), set automatic or manual approval per type, and view device status in new...

Microsoft is embedding governance natively into Microsoft Fabric: the OneLake catalog is now the single foundation for governing data across your Fabric estate, so start planning to centralise governance policies and catalog configuration in OneLake.

PostgreSQL uses MVCC so UPDATE and DELETE create dead row versions rather than immediately freeing space, which leads to table and index bloat; monitor bloat metrics and plan maintenance to control disk growth and performance impact.

Microsoft Marketplace published 258 new offers (Oct 4-6, 2026), including Power BI and cloud/AI solutions,review the new entries in Marketplace to trial, procure, or update your solution catalogue.

Microsoft announced the Partner of the Year 2026 winners and finalists; Finland's Country Partner of the Year is Nordcloud, an IBM Company,update your partner rosters and case studies if you reference regional awardees.

Microsoft Foundry Local demonstrates a privacy-aware personal agent pattern: keep planning and private workspace data on-device and send sanitised, restricted representations to cloud assistance, so design agents to retain original evidence locally and control the final answer.

Copilot in Database Hub is now in public preview: ask plain-language questions about your Azure, Fabric, on-premises, and multicloud databases and get answers grounded in Database Hub telemetry and metadata,try the preview to speed up estate triage and analysis.

Azure Migrate now supports assessing Azure Container Apps as a target workload, producing app readiness, migration requirements, sizing recommendations, and estimated hosting costs, so run assessments to identify suitable apps and required code or configuration changes before...

FinOps toolkit 15 adds an agent plugin to surface FinOps guidance and your cost data inside the AI tools you use, lets you run FinOps hubs on your own machine with NAT Gateway support for private hubs, and adds datasets plus PowerShell commands to automate reservation and...

Upcoming change: Windows will adjust adaptive hibernate to switch between Modern Standby and full hibernate based on battery level, so test resume latency, app state handling, and any power-policy scripts on your devices.

Confidential Data Disk Encryption extends guest-side encryption and attestation-based key release to attached data disks on Azure confidential VMs, so update VM deployments and key-release workflows to protect attached data disks beyond host- or storage-based encryption.

Register for the Frontier Transformation Engineer Summit (live virtual, December 2026) to learn the Microsoft Frontier vision and partner skills for delivering AI transformation at scale.

Read Microsoft's best-practice guidance for building agentic applications with Foundry Agent Service to help make your agents reliable, secure, scalable, and cost-effective.

Read the November Microsoft Global Community Initiative newsletter for upcoming community event dates, resources, and guidance for community builders and event producers.

Retirement: Microsoft Learn for Educators (MSLE) is ending Microsoft-funded Skillable labs for new and pending class requests,requests not yet fulfilled will not be provisioned, and do not submit new requests for Microsoft-funded labs.

At Ignite 2026 (Nov 17-20, San Francisco and online) prioritise sessions on the Agentic SOC blueprint, ISOC, and expanded SIEM capabilities in Microsoft Sentinel to see demos and architecture guidance you can apply to your SOC.

Attend BRK324, 'The Alert Is Dead: The Blueprint for the Agentic SOC', Wed Nov 18 at 9:00 AM PT during Ignite 2026 for Defender and Sentinel architecture and operational guidance.

Follow the four reference architectures for private connectivity between Microsoft Fabric/Power BI and on-prem SQL Server: VNet data gateway over ExpressRoute, VNet data gateway over Site-to-Site VPN, outbound-only on-prem data gateway, and managed private endpoints with...

Available today: Anthropic Claude Fable 5.2 is rolling out in Microsoft Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio, and Copilot Work IQ will ground Fable 5.2 responses in your organisation's files, meetings, chats, and business data within existing permissions.

Preview: Project Perception's Attack Investigation Agent (limited public preview) performs the first round of investigation from a single Microsoft Defender alert to reduce analyst triage work.

If you need to run a local Streamlit AI prototype for users, containerise the app and deploy it to Azure Container Apps while planning where to store images, how to manage secrets, expose endpoints, configure autoscaling, and automate CI/CD as the guide describes.

Microsoft announced the 2026 Microsoft Partner of the Year winners and finalists; inform your partner-facing teams so they can recognise awardees and follow up on collaboration or referral opportunities.

A refreshed HLK for Windows 11 (25H2 and 26H1) and Windows Server 2025 is available from 4 November 2026; download the Oct refresh, run the updated playlists (43 test additions, 7 removals), and note you may continue submitting with the previous HLK only if you can pass tests...

If you use Microsoft Fabric data agents in Foundry, be aware Traditional versus Simplified Chinese script mismatches can return zero results for matching keys; normalise or map script variants before filtering and validate agent behaviour against representative data.

Microsoft announced new Microsoft Sentinel connectors at Ignite 2026; review the added connectors and enable those that bring useful signals into Sentinel and the Integrated Security Operations Center for richer investigations.

The guided Copilot experience in VS Code now supports Python projects, so you can use the guided workflow to move Python ideas into deployed Azure apps and follow the checkpointed decisions for review and iteration.

ESPC 2026 runs 30 November to 3 December in Amsterdam covering Microsoft 365, Copilot, Teams, SharePoint, and related topics; register and plan sessions if you want hands-on or planning guidance for those technologies.

October 2026 Copilot Connectors updates made the connectors catalogue comprehensive, added new domains, improved answer richness, and simplified connection management; review the updated catalogue and update connector configurations that feed your Copilot deployments.

Public preview: Auto-scale for ingestion limits in Azure Monitor workspace is now available; enable the preview to have ingestion limits adjusted automatically based on usage so you avoid manual limit requests and reduce risk of throttling, and monitor cost and capacity during...

PostgreSQL 18 expands EXPLAIN output to include buffer activity, repeated index access, memory and disk usage, WAL behaviour, parallel execution, and window-function processing; use the new EXPLAIN details to pinpoint the actual source of query performance problems.

Public preview: Community Agent for Viva Engage adds more knowledge sources, clearer answers, and easier draft review and activity tracking, ask your network admin to enable the Community Agent preview to try it.

New global MCP endpoint (https://mcp.dashboard.azure.com) lets AI agents query and update Azure Monitor metrics, logs, Resource Graph, Prometheus, and dashboards as the signed-in Microsoft Entra ID user, with no Azure Managed Grafana or MCP server to deploy.

Azure Local now includes validated partner solutions to confirm common ISV tooling (backup, SOC monitoring, identity providers) will work in sovereign and edge deployments, consult the Azure Local validated solutions list before production deployment.

Microsoft Foundry supports native subagents so you can build dual-mode voice agents that answer simple queries immediately and run backend workflows for complex requests without pausing the conversation.

GA: .NET 11 is generally available for Azure Functions using the isolated worker model, update or create function apps to target .NET 11 and the new required Azure.Functions.Sdk project SDK (updated tooling templates already use it); C# support is available now.

Kimi K3.1 Pro (open-weight, multimodal, 2.8 trillion parameters, 1 million token context) is now available on Fireworks on Microsoft Foundry, use Fireworks for optimized inference and Foundry for enterprise deployment and governance.

Released: November 2026 Security Updates for Exchange Server Subscription Edition RTM, apply the SUs to affected Exchange servers and Exchange Management tools; Exchange Online customers are already protected.

Public preview: App Service plan start/stop lets you stop or start a plan and thereby manage all its apps and deployment slots together for Pv4 and Pmv4 plans (operations are asynchronous), try it to simplify multi-app environment management.

Copilot connectors now bring specialist financial research and data into Copilot alongside your organisation's files and conversations so you can run client reviews and other financial workflows with connected context.

Partners should review the November AI Business Solutions update (news, incentives, skilling, CloudAscent signals, and go-to-market guidance) and act on relevant incentives, skilling opportunities, and Ignite announcements to grow AI practices.

Use the Microsoft Ignite Agent 365 guide to find the keynote and innovation sessions that show the latest Agent 365 updates and roadmap, and attend sessions relevant to your role to learn required operational or security changes.

Foundry now supports a Microsoft Copilot harness that lets you run fully managed or BYO harness agents as hosted agents with isolated VM sandboxes, autoscaling, zero idle cost, per-agent Entra Agent IDs, egress restrictions, and an MCP-compatible toolbox, so update your agent...

Preview: Azure HDv2 virtual machines are now in preview for accelerating AI data processing, HPC, and agentic workloads, evaluate HDv2 for CPU-side data collection, cleaning, and formatting to avoid underutilising downstream GPU capacity.

Azure Container Linux (ACL) gains simpler fleet scaling, hardware-backed protection for sensitive workloads, and new code-integrity and vulnerability assessment options, plan node upgrades and adjust your scaling and security audits accordingly.

When an MCP tool queries a private Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server (VNET-injected or private link) with public access disabled, ensure your MCP server has private network connectivity and encrypted connections per the post's configuration patterns to avoid access...

Microsoft Marketplace published 220 new offers on 29-30 September 2026 (examples include Aider Matrix for Power BI and AspenTech OT solutions); review the new listings to find trial or purchase options that match your stack.

Generally available: multilingual post-stream refinement in Azure Speech (Microsoft Foundry) now uses an LLM Speech streaming model for faster, refined final transcriptions, consider enabling or migrating to it for live multilingual scenarios.

If you run LLM inference with Foundry Local (for example Qwen3-8B in a diagnostic-ranking app), test how the model handles incomplete or misplaced rankings and design fallback or correction logic and placement choices based on the prototype's lessons.

Generally Available: Copilot connectors now support write actions in Copilot Chat and Cowork, letting you review and approve create, update, and delete operations in connected Microsoft, partner, or custom apps (write actions for Copilot in Office coming soon).

Add version store read metrics to your SQL Server monitoring and alerting to close a blind spot that can explain unexplained CPU increases, and update dashboards or agents to surface those metrics.

Generally Available: Durable Task extension for Microsoft Agent Framework is now available; install it to give agents durable execution so workflows preserve progress, track finished steps and running jobs, and recover state after restarts.

When AI agents must not access mailboxes, use the pattern combining Purview, Sentinel, and Logic Apps to automate export of high-consequence shared-mailbox emails into a tamper-resistant audit trail as described in the post.

Sign up for the Windows Server Technology Adoption Program (TAP) to share operational experience and feedback that will inform priorities across security, resiliency, and consistent operations on-premises, cloud, and edge.

Manage Microsoft Foundry Toolboxes separately: define each toolbox in its own azure.yaml, deploy it independently from project infrastructure and agents, and pass environment-specific Bicep outputs through GitHub Actions as the recommended pattern.

When migrating PostgreSQL to Azure Database for PostgreSQL, include cold-cache performance tests and validate on-disk ordering and storage IOPS, because identical index scans can show large latency differences once data is read from disk.

Claude Fable 5.2, Claude Fable 5.2 Fast, Claude Mythos 5.2, and Claude Mythos 5.2 are now available in Microsoft Foundry; evaluate these models in your Foundry projects for software engineering, scientific research, and finance workloads.

CSP partners should review the November 2026 Partner Center Technical Corner for time-sensitive offer retirements, security updates, and new sales recommendations that affect billing, subscription management, and profitability.

Windows Backup for Organizations is renamed to Windows settings backup and restore, now unifies Enterprise State Roaming (ESR) management, makes Backup the default and surfaces Restore with a restore summary, so review and update device backup policies and admin workflows to...

Now available: Microsoft 365 Mailbox Replication Service (MRS) supports OAuth for on-premises Exchange mailbox migrations, so configure OAuth for MRS, create an OAuth migration endpoint, and use it in migration batches to avoid using privileged AD basic credentials.

Azure Policy for AKS now supports scoped enforcement actions, letting you define the enforcement action (deny, audit, warn) together with the enforcement point where it applies, so update your AKS policies to place enforcement at the correct admission or audit points.

Part 3 of the DIB series publishes Microsoft's AI governance guidance and a 90-day plan, so security teams in the Defence Industrial Base should follow the recommended agent governance pillars and the 90-day checklist to operationalise AI controls.

Generally available: Real-Time Multichannel Speech-to-Text in Azure Speech (Microsoft Foundry) can now be used in production to transcribe stereo audio via the same Speech SDK integration, and it adds multichannel language identification, so validate and deploy stereo...

Accessibility Assistant in Word for Windows now flags missing or improper heading use (for example, visually styled text not using built-in heading styles), so content authors and accessibility reviewers should apply proper built-in heading styles to fix document structure.

Microsoft Advertising's Campaign Management API now uses Api-Revision header versioning for new response fields and objects: supported SDKs set this header automatically, while HTTP clients should include the Api-Revision header to opt in to additions (AdditionalFields...

Azure Arc will have breakout sessions, hands-on labs, and table talks at Microsoft Ignite (Nov 17-20, in San Francisco and online) focused on discovery, governance, security, and operations for distributed estates, so register for the sessions or labs you need to get hands-on...

A practical walkthrough shows how existing Python agents and a Microsoft Agent Framework demo interact with Copilot harnesses across GitHub, Microsoft Foundry, and Copilot Studio, so read the article to assess whether to rewrite, wrap, or keep your pro-code agents when adopting...

CAST and HosheBartar Technologies have transactable offers in Microsoft Marketplace (for example, CAST Highlight), so procurement and migration teams can now purchase these partner offers directly through Marketplace when planning app modernisation and Azure migrations.

Create a dedicated Microsoft Fabric workspace and implement a Bronze, Silver, Gold medallion architecture to ingest files and SharePoint content, apply transformations and governance, and produce analytics-ready datasets for reporting.

Inventory and govern non-human identities, including applications, service principals, managed identities, CI/CD runners, and automated AI agents, by applying lifecycle controls, least-privilege access, credential rotation, and activity monitoring the same as you do for human...

Design your Azure AI-agent solution so the model is a replaceable component and integrate tenant reports, asset history, approved repair guidance, contractor availability, and work orders with human-in-the-loop options to produce diagnoses, coordinated bookings, and verifiable...

Paper describes implementing a Microsoft Copilot agentic loop inside a secure container in Copilot Studio, exposing CLI and file tools and materialising large datasets on disk so models can run long, multi-turn tasks that touch thousands of records; consider this architecture...

If repair and renovation work share the same buildings, align capacity, schedules, and handovers between repair desks and renovation programmes to avoid duplicate visits and wasted contractor effort.

Dutch social housing teams should connect repair, asset, and programme planning systems so tenant issues and long-term renovation plans are visible across teams, reducing repeat work and easing capacity strain.

Azure Logic Apps (Standard) VS Code extension now supports .NET 10 custom code: update to Azure Logic Apps (Standard) extension v5.1013.2 and extension bundle 1.194.31, then create or migrate .NET 10 local-function projects and let the extension install the .NET 10 SDK/runtime...

Attend or watch the Microsoft Ignite Microsoft Entra session on 18 Nov 2026, 10:15 AM Pacific to see the latest secure access demos and product roadmap items that may affect how you manage identities, devices, and access policies.

The Instructor-Led Training title plan has moved to a weekly publishing cadence; check http://aka.ms/Courseware_Title_Plan to keep your courseware and materials current.

You can deploy Foundry image and video models and give ComfyUI keyless Microsoft Entra ID access via two custom nodes, then build an image-to-video pipeline,follow the article's deployment and auth steps before integrating into your pipelines.

Microsoft Foundry introduced fal multimodal capabilities for video and image workflows, enabling multi-model pipelines that combine image and video generation to meet different quality, motion, control, and cost requirements.

Implement closed-loop evaluation workflows in Microsoft Foundry to continuously compare active and candidate agent versions, detect instruction drift, and measure cost versus quality; verify the platform resources and integration prerequisites before rollout.

Azure Front Door now supports hybrid post-quantum key establishment for inbound TLS 1.3, so plan TLS configuration updates and client compatibility testing if you intend to adopt post-quantum TLS groups at the edge.

The Protection & Posture Insights report now shows malicious links beyond email (Teams, Office files, and Microsoft 365 Copilot responses) and other tenant-specific visibility updates; review the report to find gaps and harden Defender configurations.

Prepare IIS web servers on Azure IaaS VMs so Azure SRE Agent can diagnose issues: ensure IIS logs, disk metrics, and configuration-change telemetry are available to the agent and that the agent has the required reader-only access to those artefacts.

From GitHub Universe 2026: apply the practical guidance MVPs shared on AI context, security, and policy to your team's developer workflows, community talks, or toolchain configurations.

Autoruns 1.0 is available for Linux, Process Explorer 1.0 for macOS, and other Sysinternals ports and updates (jcd 1.1, listent 1.1, ProcDump 3.6), so download the appropriate releases to diagnose boot, startup, and process issues on Linux and macOS.

Mixed Reality Link now supports streaming your Windows desktop to Meta Quest 3 or 3S headsets over USB, so use the wired option when Wi-Fi is congested, unavailable, or blocked by public networks.

Moonshot AI's Kimi K3.1 Pro is now available in Microsoft Foundry, providing an open-weight, multimodal model with text and image understanding and up to a 1 million-token context window for agentic workloads.

Private preview: ACR Connected Registry on Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes can use a user-assigned managed identity to authenticate synchronisation through Microsoft Entra ID, letting teams manage repository access via Azure RBAC instead of shared secrets.

Partners should update their business and go-to-market plans to include AI skills, offerings, and investments, following Jay McBain's analysis that AI will reshape the industry over the next 20 years and create growth opportunities.

Azure Policy can now evaluate the caller's identity at request time, enabling policies that control both what changes are allowed and who is allowed to make them, so author or update policies with identity conditions to enforce real-time governance.

Public preview: Reserve auto-deprovisioning for Cloud PCs is now in public preview; October updates also include session continuity for Windows 365 Flex, external identity and redirection controls, new Intune Cloud PC settings, and Azure Government connectivity improvements.

Microsoft announced a new on-premises security initiative focused on server workloads that will provide guidance, migration assistance, and product investments to help reduce on-prem risk, so review the forthcoming guidance and migration options for your critical servers.

Assess your PostgreSQL deployment for high connection counts and read-intensive workload bottlenecks, and apply the configuration and operational recommendations in the blog to reduce slow queries and excessive resource use.

The Higher Education AI Champion (HEDAC) Community is now open: higher-education faculty, staff, IT, researchers, and leaders can join to get onboarding, ready-to-use prompts, monthly expert calls, and a peer network to support campus AI adoption.

Microsoft Ignite 2026 runs 17-20 Nov in San Francisco and online: register, plan which Microsoft Entra sessions to attend, and check in at any of the five eligible Entra sessions to enter the prize draw.

If your team uses Power Automate and SharePoint, implement the tutorial to build an AI Builder invoice-extraction workflow that validates invoices against SharePoint purchase-order data and routes approved items to reviewers.

Microsoft expanded sovereign AI with Foundry Local on Azure Local, enabling organisations to run AI models, agents, and applications in customer-controlled, disconnected, or regulated environments via Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes with local inference, model management, GPU...

Region expansion: as of 1 October 2026, Microsoft expanded 5-year commercial protection plan options for eligible Surface devices to additional commercial markets, so organisations can now buy longer protection terms to match extended device lifecycles.

Microsoft launched the Project Perception Community, presenting a coordinated, multi-agent security approach (red, blue, and green agents) for security teams to evaluate as a way to surface risk, investigate threats, and improve defensive workflows while keeping people in...

You can designate a separate Microsoft Fabric capacity for Copilot usage and assign users or groups so eligible Copilot usage is billed to that designated capacity while the workspace and its underlying workloads remain on their existing capacity.

Microsoft Ignite is scheduled for 17-20 November 2026 in San Francisco and online; if you plan to attend, register for the physical or digital pass to catch SharePoint and OneDrive sessions showing how they act as the knowledge platform for Copilot and agents.

If you will attend Microsoft Ignite (17-20 November 2026, San Francisco or online), expect SharePoint and OneDrive sessions demonstrating their role as the knowledge platform for Copilot and agents, and register for the event or digital pass.

Security fix available: update Azure Sphere SDK to version 26.06.1 to address risks related to the compromised eMudhra intermediate CA keys that could be used to impersonate TLS endpoints.

Discover and classify AI agents as non-human identities and secure them: inventory agents, the credentials they hold, and their data access, then apply controls across people, AI applications, and hosting platforms per Microsoft's guidance.

Public preview: Microsoft Entra Conditional Access policy plans are now available to define access intent once and enforce it consistently across identities, reducing the need to manage dozens of individual policies,evaluate the preview to simplify enterprise-scale access...

Investec scaled cloud and AI adoption across about 8,000 employees by emphasising a learning culture and people-first upskilling, so leaders planning large-scale adoption should assess their learning culture and structured upskilling programmes.

Pricing change: Azure CSP promotions go live 2 November, partners must review the promotions readiness guide and FAQ, use the sandbox and Microsoft Learn, and prepare Partner Center and billing/reconciliation processes to activate offers.

Register for Microsoft Entra deep-dive webinars on 15-17 December to receive practical, post-Ignite guidance for implementing the latest Entra identity and network access announcements.

If you own AI cost or FinOps, attend Microsoft Ignite FinOps for AI (17-20 November, San Francisco or online) to learn practical techniques to plan, control, and optimise AI spend via keynotes, breakouts, demos, and hands-on labs.

Add the MCP operations layer to your Azure VM image pipeline (Part 2) to expose controlled build status, validation evidence, and optional pipeline queueing; the article includes runnable implementation and step-by-step wiring for Azure DevOps and Azure Compute Gallery.

When you need to traverse complex paths and patterns across connected data in OneLake, choose Microsoft Fabric Graph as the engine for relationship and path queries rather than a vector database, and design your data model accordingly.

Deploy Traefik as your AKS ingress by installing the Traefik Helm chart and CRDs, ensuring you have a user node pool for ingress workloads, an internal LB subnet, kubectl and Helm access, and Kubernetes permissions to create Deployments, Services, Secrets, and CRDs.

Register for Microsoft Ignite 2026 (Nov 17-20, Moscone Center or online) and plan your agenda to include partner programming, starting with the Frontier Transformation Partner keynote, to target sessions that inform your customers and projects.

If you manage Windows Server, register for the Windows Server pre-day workshop (PREB20) on Nov 16 to see demos and early previews of the next Windows Server release, covering local AI, security, Hyper-V, Active Directory, networking, and storage.

Security leaders should update risk and response plans for the AI-driven compression of attack timelines and increased automation called out in the Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2026; use the CISO cheat sheet to prioritise mitigations and detection workstreams.

To get service-side auto-labeling approved, prepare artefacts that answer Access, Proof, Reversibility, and Scale, run bounded simulations and classification-only tests, implement explicit approval gates, and publish a tested rollback runbook before turning it on.

Plan for Windows Update certificate expiries in May and June 2027: validate that devices will recieve replacement certificates via monthly updates and identify any endpoints that need additional IT remediation ahead of expiry.

Copilot for US Government now delivers advanced Frontier Intelligence models cleared for GCC, GCC High, and DoD clouds and integrates natively into productivity apps, so review compliance, enablement, and deployment plans for your government tenancy.

Avoid the common Azure Local deployment failures by delaying irreversible decisions, involving the right stakeholders during scoping and design, and following the article's checklist of people, timing, and validation steps before you commit to hardware or topology.

If you run mission-critical workloads, configure and monitor Azure Failure Prediction and Detection (AFPD) telemetry and notifications and integrate AFPD's proactive mitigation guidance into your incident response to reduce hardware-related interruptions.

When processing high-volume market feeds such as Nasdaq Level 2, pre-filter and pre-process data with conventional code before calling Azure OpenAI to reduce token consumption and operating cost.

Use the CCOF implementation on GitHub (not a Microsoft product) to give developers Claude Code while enforcing identity, model access, budgets, and private networking via Azure API Management, and deploy to one user first before scaling.

Public preview: enable SharePoint tools in Work IQ to add 60+ native SharePoint operations via the Work IQ MCP server so Copilots and agents can find, create, organise, and share SharePoint content (tools are also rolling out to Copilot Studio).

Upgrade to mssql-python 1.17.0 to get reliability fixes: bulkcopy works after package upgrades with correct UTF-8 handling and destination validation, connection pools recover from dead connections, multi-statement batches report correct row counts, and Timestamp() follows PEP...

Microsoft published new ransomware recovery guidance for Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance on Microsoft Learn; incorporate the prepare, contain, restore, validate, and harden steps into your incident response and recovery plans for these services.

Hosting and hybrid cloud partners should assess rising costs, licensing shifts, and platform risk and evaluate the phased hosting modernisation path with Microsoft Adaptive Cloud described in the blog to expand service value and AI readiness.

Use Microsoft-Decision-1 on Microsoft Foundry to return structured decision outputs (yes/no, probability, or single-choice) so your package upgrade advisor can act immediately on model responses without extra text interpretation.

Outlook Search ranking, resilience, and the feedback loop are being changed; if you operate Outlook at scale, monitor search results and submit problematic queries and example messages through Microsoft feedback channels so the team can tune behaviour for your users.

Platform engineers and SREs should organise Terraform work for AI-assisted coding by standardising reusable Terraform modules and patterns, adding automated validation and policy controls, and documenting operational runbooks so AI-suggested changes are predictable and auditable.

Static Web Apps .NET 8 and .NET 9 support is ending (retirement): plan, test, and upgrade your apps to a supported .NET runtime to avoid service disruption.

Register to attend Microsoft Digital Sovereignty Day in Lausanne on 26 November 2026 to hear Thomas Maurer speak about sovereign private cloud with Azure Local.

Cilium 1.20 adds a migration path: upgrade Cilium and follow the documented steps to convert an AKS BYOCNI cluster from the default cluster-scope IPAM to multi-pool IPAM.

If you build with generative AI, treat system prompts and model instructions as a distinct, hardened channel and never merge them with untrusted input: the video explains prompt injection (direct, indirect, and jailbreak) and the core flaw that commands and data share the same...

The NVIDIA GTC Berlin 2026 session "Sovereign AI, From Azure to the Edge" (SB61158) recording is now available; watch it to review Microsoft's "your data, your models, your decisions" sovereign AI guidance for Azure and edge deployments.

If your organisation must comply with SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, or the EU AI Act, adopt the guide's seven-item compliance checklist: implement the recommended engineering controls and assign clear responsibilities to each team to satisfy audits and manage AI risk.

Don't treat AI coding tools as drop-in replacements: retain experienced engineers for architecture and code review, add strict validation and automated testing pipelines, and enforce human-in-the-loop approvals before production deployment.

macOS 27 introduces Apple Foundation Models with a local fm CLI and Private Cloud Compute, so test how the fm CLI and Private Cloud Compute fit your on-device model workflows and whether they integrate with existing tools like Ollama.

Audit and reduce the data you send to Microsoft Sentinel analytics tier, because ingestion is billed per gigabyte and incremental choices across your workspace will raise costs.

Open the GitHub Security Overview dashboard and use the Detection tab to triage and close ageing open alerts, and add this check to your regular security review cadence to reduce your alert backlog.

Add a CI/CD pipeline step that converts your EPAC definitions into one readable page per Azure Policy so documentation is generated and kept current alongside policy code changes.

Configure managed identity access or Microsoft Entra ID-only authentication for Azure SQL Database to remove password-based logins and reduce credential sprawl.

Recap of Azure Day with Kubernetes at KubeCon NA 2026 covering AKS pre-day sessions with the product team; the excerpt contains no specific GA, preview, retirement, pricing, region, or breaking-change details, so read the full post for actionable AKS updates.

Turn your Foundry playground gpt-5-mini deployment into a shareable Python chat app by adopting the Microsoft Foundry SDK and following the tutorial to make the model usable outside the playground.

Configure GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Codex to run inside VS Code dev containers by declaring their extensions and settings in your devcontainer configuration, so each repository gets project-specific tools, persistent settings, and isolated environments.

Configure Key Vault certificate contacts and the certificate issuance policy to receive pre-expiry email notifications, and add a KQL alert against Key Vault logs as a backup notification method.

New ISO/IEC 27090 AI security guideline: review the standard and update your AI risk assessments, threat models, and controls to specifically address data poisoning, evasion attacks, and prompt injection, and map required changes to training, testing, and incident response.

New 'Awesome Azure Policy' Chapter 4 was published: it collects recent community and Microsoft content on Azure Policy, so review the curated links to update or extend your policy artefacts and governance processes.

Make AI security engineering a core discipline in your team and prioritise remediating the recurring failures attackers keep exploiting, because new AI-specific attack techniques have emerged that target those same weaknesses.

Autopilot Self-Deploying can pause for 30 minutes: read Rudy Ooms' write-up to see the root cause he identified and the remediation steps to remove the wait.

MDMWinsOverGP being enabled can cause Autopilot Self-Deploying Mode to add about a 30-minute delay to application installations; when you see Autopilot install delays, check the MDMWinsOverGP policy and change its setting or precedence to fix timing.

Autopatch can cause roughly a 30-minute application installation delay in Windows Autopilot Self-Deploying Mode, so if you run both, plan to disable or reschedule Autopatch during Autopilot deployments and monitor install timing.

Pricing change: GitHub Advanced Security now offers a self-serve 30-day trial; sign up to evaluate GHAS and confirm which features are included in the trial versus paid tiers before committing to licences.

Put API keys and instance IDs into a secure configuration form (never paste them into chat), run the test, update the build plan when a test fails, and compare the plugin artefacts ToolSmith created against the approved plan.

Recognise signs of rejection sensitivity dysphoria in yourself or colleagues and reduce ambiguity by giving explicit, timely feedback, setting clear expectations, and using supportive communication to avoid prolonged productivity hits.

Preview: AKS now exposes an Upgrade Insights API that offers a dry-run simulation for cluster upgrades, so use the API to simulate upgrades, identify potential node and pod impacts, and plan remediation before applying real upgrades.

Adopt Conditional Access policy plans to factor out repeated attributes from your Conditional Access policies, and migrate existing policies into plans and rules to reduce duplication and simplify management.

Run the free, browser-only Active Cyber Program (ACP) web app to complete a ~1-hour cybersecurity self-assessment for SMEs: it requires no registration, sets no cookies, transmits no data, and returns a score, maturity level, and suggested next steps to act on.

No Azure-related change or action: this post is personal commentary about gaming and does not contain actionable Agent Security Update details for practitioners.

Configure agentic coding agents to use read-only MCP servers scoped to the task (for example Microsoft Learn MCP for documentation and an Azure MCP with a read-only principal), block cloud CLI access from agent terminals, and never run agents under your personal identity.

Create a folder containing a SKILL.md file to add an agent skill to the GitHub Copilot CLI, so the CLI recognises the skill from a single, self-contained artefact.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 adds a sixth function, GOVERN: for SMEs assign executive ownership for cyber risk, document clear responsibilities and decision authority, and extend governance to suppliers and contracts, see the linked GitHub workshop for templates and examples.

Review how you present and name automated features and adjust UX trust signals, fallback controls, and rollout communications when deploying AI to users.

Jamie Maguire extended a small prototype to explore the idea that syntax recall need not be the primary focus, so consider shifting training and tool choices toward understanding intent, workflows, and supportive editor tooling rather than rote memorisation.

Enforce HTTPS for Azure Storage REST access, use the supported client libraries (.NET, Python, Java, Node.js, Go), and configure access controls and management for Blobs, Files, Queues, Tables, and managed disks.

Install the Intelligent Terminal, a Windows Terminal fork now available as a test/preview on the Microsoft Store, to try built-in agent support and multitasking within agents for evaluating agent workflows and terminal multitasking behaviour.

Watch John Savill's weekly video for three operational updates this week: ASR for Azure Local, enhanced ASR support for VMSS Flex, and partitioned Azure Service Bus Premium; if you run any of these, review your disaster-recovery and scaling configurations.

Use VirtualMetric AI to analyse and troubleshoot DataStream pipeline components when Microsoft Sentinel appears healthy but telemetry or logs are missing, because a single pipeline component failure can disrupt telemetry without obvious SIEM errors.

No Azure action required: this is a personal review of the entry-level Surface Pro 12-inch aimed at travellers, not an announcement, retirement, or change to any Azure service you need to act on.

Use a single enterprise-managed settings file to control the GitHub Copilot agent runtime and distribute company plugins through an inner-source marketplace; review and apply your organisation's managed settings and publish internal plugins to the marketplace.

Adopt the ToolSmith plugin pattern shown in the video: require plan review and approval before build, implement a service-account connector that uses the instance API token and sends the instance ID in a header, and include the client's email with each action.

If you run multiple coding agents against one repo, adopt per-file lanes that agents must claim, assign agents a bounded set of work items, and implement an explicit messaging/sync protocol between agents to avoid conflicting edits.

Configure Foundry IQ to use Azure AI Search as the retrieval layer and Azure Blob Storage as the document store when building a text AI agent in Microsoft Foundry, following the post's step-by-step setup and connection guidance.

GitHub Enterprise Cloud supports unaffiliated users and you can automate their removal using the remove enterprise member GraphQL API, so update or create automation that calls that API to clean unaffiliated accounts.

Pilot a PRAISE-style preceptorship (PReceptorship for AI-augmented Software Engineering): pair early-career engineers with mentors and hands-on AI-augmented coding tasks to build judgement, skills, and confidence, and listen to the Hanselman interview for practical guidance.

Follow the step-by-step walkthrough to create and test your first Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent (a PMO-analyst example that reads project data), and apply the guide to set up and validate an Agent in your tenant.

Adopt the Active Cyber Program (ACP) to assess SME cybersecurity using its 11 domains, 74 controls, 0-3 scoring, five maturity levels, and six knock-out controls, noting ACP is not a substitute for ISO-27001 or proof of NIS2 conformity.

Instruction files are advisory, not enforcement: when building coding agents add enforced rules, hooks, or runtime guards to control agent behaviour instead of relying on instructions alone.

MXC (Microsoft eXecution Containers) contains agent and agent processes on your local machine with granular policy controls, evaluate the MXC repo and whiteboard from the video to set up containment and flag agentic processes.

Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) provides local containment for AI agents and the code they create, evaluate MXC (repo linked in the overview) as a way to isolate and control agent behaviour during local testing.

Shorten and chunk external-facing docs, internal runbooks, training, and meetings into skimmable summaries with clear action items and examples, because social media habits and faster AI-driven information flows are reducing attention for long-form content.

If you run multi-agent or model-orchestration workflows, audit them for chains where a smaller, unconstrained model can prompt a more capable model to perform refused actions, and add guardrails such as strict routing policies, input/output validation, and monitoring.

Enable GitHub Advanced Security's AI Applications Scanning to detect prompt-injection patterns in pull requests, configure repository settings as needed, and triage findings before merging.

If a single DevOps laptop enabled a $6.3B, multi-chain theft, immediately harden any developer or CI/CD workstation that holds deployment credentials: isolate and rebuild compromised machines, rotate credentials and secrets, enforce MFA and hardware-backed keys, and move...

Enable Key Vault soft delete and purge protection, configure RBAC-based access controls, and implement just-in-time access for secrets, keys, and certificates to reduce accidental deletions and limit standing privileges.

Decide and document clear boundaries between what your coding agents do and what remains a human responsibility: adopt the four ways work should return to a human and enforce the list of actions agents must never perform autonomously.

Follow the AI-901 video to deploy your first model with Microsoft Foundry, define system instructions, and send conversation inputs so you can reproduce a working chat-app workflow and improve prompt outcomes.

If you are evaluating GitHub Copilot Fusion, test its 'effort' model-routing option and benchmark your own prompts against GitHub's reported quality and cost trade-offs, then pick the routing that meets your latency, quality, and cost targets.

Preview: AKS now has health-aware upgrade gates, install the aks-preview CLI extension and use --enable-upgrade-gate or --disable-upgrade-gate on aks create and aks upgrade commands to have AKS evaluate monitoring health signals and pause or block upgrades accordingly.