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Lesson Learned #146: Restoring a backup from Azure SQL Managed Instance to OnPremises

by Contributed | Nov 23, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

We saw several service request where our customer want to restore a backup taken in Azure SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server OnPremise and they are getting the following error: Msg 3169, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The database was backed up on a server running version xx.xx.xxxx. That version is incompatible with this server, which is running version xx.xx.xxxx. Either restore the database on a server that supports the backup, or use a backup that is compatible with this server.

Msg 3013, Level 16, State 1, Line 1

RESTORE DATABASE is terminating abnormally.

That error came because Native COPY_ONLY backups taken from managed instance cannot be restored to SQL Server because managed instance has a higher database version compared to SQL Server. For more details, see Copy-only backup.

Due to this limitation, I would like to suggest to use bacpac method or if you need to have updated both environments at the same time use transactional replication.

Key Features of SQL Analytics in Azure Databricks

by Contributed | Nov 23, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

As customers continue to standardize on data lakes and the Lakehouse architecture, users expect to be able to query the data in their data lake using SQL. In fact, approximately 41% of all code executed on Azure Databricks is SQL. The SQL Analytics service in Azure Databricks was created to provide SQL users with a familiar SQL-editor experience as well as provide optimized BI connections for querying and analyzing data in the data lake.

SQL Analytics Key Features

Below are some of the key features in the SQL Analytics service in Azure Databricks:

The first key feature to highlight is the Query Editor. This editor provides a familiar experience (vs. the traditional notebook experience in Azure Databricks) where users can explore their databases, write SQL queries with intelligent auto-complete, and view query output in either a tabular display or in a rich set of visualizations.

Users can turn the queries and visualizations they create in the query editor into Dashboards. Dashboards can include content from several different queries, and also allow for basic text/markdown cells. Once created, dashboard data can be manually refreshed or refreshed on a schedule.

In addition to dashboards, queries can be scheduled, and alerts can be created to notify users when a field in the scheduled query meets a certain threshold. Alerts can even be created for multiple columns.

SQL Analytics also has a catalog for dashboards and queries. This catalog allows users to save their queries and dashboards and share them with other users. Users can also add tags to their saved queries and dashboards to make them easier to search, and they can even use Favorites to mark frequently used queries and dashboards.

The SQL Endpoint in the SQL Analytics service also provides easy connectivity to other BI and SQL tools via ODBC/JDBC connections. Tools such as Power BI can connect using the native Azure Databricks connector and take advantage of faster, more efficient ODBC/JDBC drivers.

Another exciting feature in the SQL Analytics service is the ability to see Query History details. On the History page, users and admins can see details about all the queries that have been run. This includes specifics such as the query itself, who ran the query, what endpoint did it run on, was it successful, the duration, how much time was spent compiling-executing-result-fetching, rows read/returned, files scanned, bytes read from cache, and many other details.

The final key feature to look at in the SQL Analytics service is the compute engine. SQL Analytics uses the same Delta Engine found in the rest of Azure Databricks. This means a single, consistent set of APIs and functions across the entire workspace. The SQL Analytics service goes one step further by also making use of the Photon-powered Delta Engine. This vectorized engine was purpose built for doing SQL and data frame operations while maintaining the same single, consistent set of APIs and functions currently used across the entire workspace.

For more information about the SQL Analytics service in Azure Databricks, check out the docs page and the Databricks launch blog. The SQL Analytics service is currently in Public Preview. Contact your Azure Databricks representative to request access. Get started with Azure Databricks by joining an Azure Databricks workshop.

Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 96

by Contributed | Nov 23, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

We continue to expand the Azure Marketplace ecosystem. For this volume, 83 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:

Applications
	ACSIS Cloud Based Traceability Solutions: The ACSIS cloud platform provides traceability of products, inventory, and assets to enable real-time visibility and optimization across your organization’s extended supply chain.
	ADISIGHT-DDS: Designed for production planning personnel in the manufacturing industry, ADISIGHT-DDS calculates and simulates the delivery date of materials and parts based on demand prospects and priorities set for each order. This app is available only in Japanese.
	AUDIT MASTER: Available only in Japanese, AUDIT MASTER collects, monitors, and audits database operation logs, enabling users to manage multiple database environments, including Microsoft Azure SQL Database.
	Azure Sentinel-as-a-Service: AccountabilIT’s round-the-clock security operations center (SOC) connects to your Microsoft Azure Sentinel deployment to quickly strengthen your organization’s security posture and provide enhanced protection against threats.
	Azure Sentinel Cognitive SOC Service: Powered by Microsoft Azure Sentinel, Wipro’s Cognitive SOC-as-a-Service delivers managed detection and response from Wipro’s 15 global cyber defense centers. Rapid deployment with pre-built integrations and use cases helps customers realize value within days.
	B12 for K12: Tightly integrated with Microsoft Teams, B12 for K-12 is a communication platform for K-12 schools that links the four key stakeholders in education (student, educator, school management, and guardians) to support educational goals and outcomes.
	Bank-BI SAAS: Bank-BI is an enterprise-wide business intelligence and analytics solution that offers sophisticated capabilities for data modeling, reporting, query, and analysis while collecting data from numerous disparate sources in a central repository.
	Bever Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Microsoft Power Platform, Bever Pharma is a process control system for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Facilitate digital transformation by boosting productivity, reducing ongoing costs, and increasing patient, doctor, and partner satisfaction.
	Billing subscription to Sepago for Nerdio Manager: Nerdio Manager for Windows Virtual Desktop enables you to deploy, manage, and autoscale your desktop environments. Operationalize large deployments, reduce Microsoft Azure costs with scheduled and event-driven autoscaling, and speed up deployments with Nerdio.
	Cerenade eCMS Offer: Cerenade’s eCMS is comprehensive case management software for attorneys and paralegals. The solution helps users manage cases, clients, forms, processes, reports, and billing to help their practices run more efficiently and effectively.
	Check-in & check-out online for hotels: The NeoCheck Onboarding platform enables customers to check in online from any device before arriving at a hotel. The process is simple, guided, and fast (approximately 40 seconds), and it complies with data collection security requirements.
	Claimbox: Claimbox provides scalable service to manage millions of claims for the insurance industry. Available only in Polish, Claimbox helps decrease the cost of indemnities and claims operations while delivering an outstanding digital experience for customers.
	Clobba: Clobba is a reporting and analytics module for monitoring call quality, user adoption, employee productivity, call costs, and SIP trunk utilization in Microsoft Teams. The solution is fully customizable for user requirements, whether they are IT administrators or business users.
	COVID-19 Health Check: Built on Microsoft Power Apps and SharePoint Online and integrated with Microsoft Teams, InfoTech’s COVID-19 Health Check application is designed to help companies cope with the COVID-19 pandemic within their walls, both physical and virtual.
	Dasha Voice AI Platform: Dasha.AI’s Voice AI Platform helps automate your business with conversational, human-like voice artificial intelligence. Deliver an exceptional customer experience while generating leads, gleaning actionable insights, and growing your sales pipeline.
	Document Management: Developed by SimbioX IT Consulting, GED Fast is a cloud or on-premises SharePoint-based solution that enables you to quickly scan, organize, and search business documents using any device. This app is available only in Portuguese.
	factoHR: Designed for organizations of any size across all industries, factoHR is a comprehensive human resources management system that covers recruitment, onboarding, time tracking, payroll and leave management, analytics, and more.
	Foglight for Databases: Quest’s Foglight for Databases helps users detect and resolve performance issues by providing a single view into complex environments and enabling database administrators to quickly pinpoint issues before they spiral out of control.
	Gamma People Centric Security (DLP) for Teams: Gamma is a people-centric security solution that continuously monitors employee actions in real time and delivers event-driven security awareness training with patent-pending AI technology.
	Human Resources: SimbioX IT Consulting’s ContrataFast human resources solution helps reduce the time spent onboarding new employees by enabling them to submit all their documentation digitally from any device. This app is available only in Portuguese.
	Immuta: Immuta’s award-winning automated data governance platform creates trust across data security, legal, compliance, and business teams so that they can work together to ensure timely access to critical business data with minimal risks.
	iNeurons: Built on Microsoft Azure, iNeurons helps small and midsize manufacturing organizations with intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation services, data acquisition from machines and sensors, data calculation, and decision analysis. This app is available only in Traditional Chinese.
	Infosys Virtual Assistant: Infosys Virtual Assistant is a bot that features multiple artificial intelligence and natural language processing capabilities and uses a wide range of Microsoft services, including Bot Channels Registration, Azure App Service, Azure Application Insights, Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Storage.
	Insite LMS – The enterprise construction platform: The Insite LMS enterprise construction platform drives efficiency in industrial construction sites by supporting logistics, material tracking, site management, deviations, and project progress.
	Intranet Fast: Available only in Portuguese and integrated with Microsoft 365, SimbioX IT Consulting’s Intranet Fast is a cloud or on-premises SharePoint-based solution to help you engage employees across more than 30 communication, productivity, security, and governance capabilities.
	iREP Security: iREP Security is a mobile reporting, maintenance tracking, and monitoring system that uses GPS trackers and live image captures to enable your investigating officers and guards to write incident reports on-site.
	Knowledge Mining Solution: WinWire Technologies’ Knowledge Mining Solution for healthcare organizations uses Azure Cognitive Search, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Text Analytics for health to uncover latent insights. The solution ingests unstructured data and enriches medical terms with ICD-100-CM and RxNorm codes.
	Manapro Solutions: Manapro Consultants offers its Infrastructure Assurance service and other critical business services on Microsoft Azure. Available only in Spanish, this offering includes consulting on secure and scalable Azure deployments tailored to your organization’s remote growth needs.
	Markup ERVS – Electronic Remote Voting System: Markup ERVS is a secure electronic remote voting system that enables elected officials to record their vote in committee, council, or plenary proceedings from authenticated devices and from any location with a reliable internet connection.
	Mountable Hybrid Image Backup to Azure with BMR: UltraBac’s Hybrid Image Backup solution uses a mountable image format that can be written to any disk or online storage media type. Users can schedule backups at any required frequency, with no limit to the number of incremental backups between full backups.
	NCR Transaction Processing – Authentic: Whether you need to add mobile payment and e-commerce capabilities, build a multichannel payments solution, create a payments hub, or develop omnichannel payment services, NCR Corporation’s Authentic empowers you to deliver great customer-focused services now and in the future.
	NeoFace Reveal: NEC’s NeoFace Reveal is a latent facial recognition and identification application that enables government agencies to detect and identify facial images by quickly searching against small to very large image databases.
	NOREN: NOREN is a content management system (CMS) that supports day-to-day website operations with out-of-the-box CMS standards. This app is available only in Japanese.
	On-Shelf Availability Measurement (SaaS): Retail Solutions’ Retail Compass is an enterprise on-shelf availability measurement platform that enables almost real-time identification of macro and micro trends, allowing CPG suppliers and retailers to make strategic decisions that lead to optimized stock and the recapture of lost sales.
	On Shelf Availability Solution: Bee Solutions’ On Shelf Availability solution determines whether products are being replenished on store shelves, identifies phantom inventory, and determines when extra inventory needs to be sent to stores. This app is available only in Portuguese.
	OutBoard DataTiering: Datavard OutBoard is a comprehensive suite designed to help you manage your complete data lifecycle and keep your SAP data growth under control. Reduce operational efforts and expenses, easily access archived data, and boost system performance with OutBoard.
	Panzura: Panzura transforms cloud storage into high-performance enterprise file systems. Whether you have five locations or 500, Panzura delivers one authoritative data source for all users, one set of data to manage, one security policy to implement, and one view over your entire file network.
	Pass On Bag of Good – B2B: Repasses Intermediation of Payments Ltda drives sustainability in fashion and other industries by providing businesses with co-branded “bags of good,” encouraging shoppers to fill the bag with clothing they no longer use so it can be resold and worn again. This offering is available only in Portuguese.
	Socxo: Socxo helps organizations achieve a balanced blend of branded, industry, and user-generated content for highly effective internal and external communications. The gamified platform provides deep insights around social media reach, content performance, engagement, and lead generation.
	SOFTEL Cloud Security Management (Education): SOFTEL’s Cloud Security Management solution enables education industry users to identify shadow IT applications; run awareness, password security, and active antivirus campaigns; monitor, report, and score security; lock down desktop applications; and more.
	SOFTEL Cloud Security Management (Finance): SOFTEL’s Cloud Security Management solution enables finance industry users to identify shadow IT applications; run awareness, password security, and active antivirus campaigns; monitor, report, and score security; lock down desktop applications; and more.
	SOFTEL Cloud Security Management (Government): SOFTEL’s Cloud Security Management solution enables government industry users to identify shadow IT applications; run awareness, password security, and active antivirus campaigns; monitor, report, and score security; lock down desktop applications; and more.
	SOFTEL Cloud Security Management (Healthcare): SOFTEL’s Cloud Security Management solution enables healthcare industry users to identify shadow IT applications; run awareness, password security, and active antivirus campaigns; monitor, report, and score security; lock down desktop applications; and more.
	SOFTEL Cloud Security Management (Manufacturing): SOFTEL’s Cloud Security Management solution enables manufacturing industry users to identify shadow IT applications; run awareness, password security, and active antivirus campaigns; monitor, report, and score security; lock down desktop applications; and more.
	SOFTEL Cloud Security Management (Retail): SOFTEL’s Cloud Security Management solution enables retail industry users to identify shadow IT applications; run awareness, password security, and active antivirus campaigns; monitor, report, and score security; lock down desktop applications; and more.
	SOFTEL Microsoft User Adoption (Education): SOFTEL’s User Adoption and Change Management portal and training services enable education industry Office 365 administrators to provide customer-led user adoption for Office 365, monitor users’ Microsoft product utilization, and monitor and report on overall consumption.
	SOFTEL Microsoft User Adoption (Finance): SOFTEL’s User Adoption and Change Management portal and training services enable finance industry Office 365 administrators to provide customer-led user adoption for Office 365, monitor users’ Microsoft product utilization, and monitor and report on overall consumption.
	SOFTEL Microsoft User Adoption (Government): SOFTEL’s User Adoption and Change Management portal and training services enable government industry Office 365 administrators to provide customer-led user adoption for Office 365, monitor users’ Microsoft product utilization, and monitor and report on overall consumption.
	SOFTEL Microsoft User Adoption (Healthcare): SOFTEL’s User Adoption and Change Management portal and training services enable healthcare industry Office 365 administrators to provide customer-led user adoption for Office 365, monitor users’ Microsoft product utilization, and monitor and report on overall consumption.
	SOFTEL Microsoft User Adoption (Manufacturing): SOFTEL’s User Adoption and Change Management portal and training services enable manufacturing industry Office 365 administrators to provide customer-led user adoption for Office 365, monitor users’ Microsoft product utilization, and monitor and report on overall consumption.
	SOFTEL Microsoft User Adoption (Retail): SOFTEL’s User Adoption and Change Management portal and training services enable retail industry Office 365 administrators to provide customer-led user adoption for Office 365, monitor users’ Microsoft product utilization, and monitor and report on overall consumption.
	SOFTEL Skype for Business Auto Answer (Education): SOFTEL’s auto-answer solution for Skype for Business supports cases where education industry end users are not allowed to physically interact with the user interface to accept incoming calls. In most cases, this is to facilitate voice or video calls being instigated by external boards or examiners.
	SOFTEL Skype for Business Auto Answer (Finance): SOFTEL’s auto-answer solution for Skype for Business supports cases where finance industry end users are not allowed to physically interact with the user interface to accept incoming calls. In most cases, this is to facilitate voice or video calls in remote branches or secure locations.
	SOFTEL Skype for Business Auto Answer (Government): SOFTEL’s auto-answer solution for Skype for Business supports cases where government industry end users are not allowed to physically interact with the user interface to accept incoming calls. In most cases, this is to facilitate voice or video calls being instigated by judiciaries and other legal entities.
	SOFTEL Skype for Business Auto Answer (Healthcare): SOFTEL’s auto-answer solution for Skype for Business supports cases where healthcare industry end users are not allowed to physically interact with the user interface to accept incoming calls. In most cases, this is to facilitate voice or video calls in rural patient clinics or patient at-home services.
	SOFTEL Skype for Business Auto Answer (Manufacturing): SOFTEL’s auto-answer solution for Skype for Business supports cases where manufacturing industry end users are not allowed to physically interact with the user interface to accept incoming calls. In most cases, this is to facilitate voice or video calls in remote offices or overseas locations.
	SOFTEL Skype for Business Auto Answer (Retail): SOFTEL’s auto-answer solution for Skype for Business supports cases where retail industry end users are not allowed to physically interact with the user interface to accept incoming calls. In most cases, this is to facilitate voice or video calls being instigated in remote offices.
	SOFTEL Teams Direct Routing (Education): SOFTEL’s solution for the education industry supports direct routing and associated services in Microsoft Teams. The offering integrates with analog workflows and features SBC management and monitoring, user adoption, device management, and more.
	SOFTEL Teams Direct Routing (Finance): SOFTEL’s solution for the finance industry supports direct routing and associated services in Microsoft Teams. The offering integrates with analog workflows and features SBC management and monitoring, user adoption, device management, and more.
	SOFTEL Teams Direct Routing (Government): SOFTEL’s solution for government supports direct routing and associated services in Microsoft Teams. The offering integrates with analog workflows and features SBC management and monitoring, user adoption, device management, and more.
	SOFTEL Teams Direct Routing (Healthcare): SOFTEL’s solution for the healthcare industry supports direct routing and associated services in Microsoft Teams. The offering integrates with analog workflows and features SBC management and monitoring, user adoption, device management, and more.
	SOFTEL Teams Direct Routing (Manufacturing): SOFTEL’s solution for the manufacturing industry supports direct routing and associated services in Microsoft Teams. The offering integrates with analog workflows and features SBC management and monitoring, user adoption, device management, and more.
	SOFTEL Teams Direct Routing (Retail): SOFTEL’s solution for the retail industry supports direct routing and associated services in Microsoft Teams. The offering integrates with analog workflows and features SBC management and monitoring, user adoption, device management, and more.
	Spinify For Teams: Spinify for Microsoft Teams is a sales gamification solution designed to motivate, engage, and celebrate your teams. Motivate teams with instant recognition and productivity gains, and increase sales performance with real-time competitions.
	Symbio: Ploetz + Zeller GmbH’s Symbio SaaS offering goes beyond traditional business process management (BPM) to serve as a company-wide integrated management system. Available in German and English, Symbio helps organizations visualize, optimize, and automate all their processes.
	Teams Legacy Integration for Modern Workplace: Mercato Solutions Limited’s Microsoft Teams integration offering modernizes your legacy systems by enabling them to work in Teams in a highly scalable Microsoft Azure environment. Bridge the gap between third-party systems and Teams, ensuring legacy systems are no longer a costly problem.
	Thalamus: Thalamus is a web portal that provides interactive reporting to internal and external stakeholders. Designed for the healthcare sector, Thalamus meets the needs of those who want to keep their data private, while still being easy enough for anyone to use.
	The Illusive Platform and Azure Active Directory: The Illusive Platform enhances the visibility and monitoring of privileged identities in Microsoft Azure Active Directory by identifying and eliminating pathways and credentials that attackers might exploit to move toward critical data.
	Tiliter: The Tiliter Scan&Go Scale identifies products without barcodes to improve the self-checkout process. The solution uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to recognize any product without a barcode, including fresh produce, mixed nuts, dried fruit, candy, and bakery items.
	TrackIT – Fleet management solution: TrackIT is an innovative solution that facilitates the management of machine fleets. Using IoT, big data, business intelligence, and AI technologies, TrackIT combines operational and managerial demands in a single platform. This app is available only in Portuguese.
	Trio Enterprise: Empower your service teams by backing them up with subject matters specialists and other experts throughout your organization. With Enghouse Contact Center in Microsoft Teams, users can answer calls, search databases, join specialist teams, subscribe to statistics reports, and more.
	Violence detection: Oddity.ai B.V.’s deep learning algorithm accurately detects violence in live video content while accounting for anomalies and ensuring privacy by recording only activities, not human traits.
	Wood ENVision: Wood’s ENVision provides real-time insights into emissions and carbon releases by streamlining and automating diverse types of data to provide a clear, auditable, and accurate view of emissions from any asset, organization, or city.
Consulting services
	2 Day Azure Best Practices Assessment: This two-day assessment from AccessIT Group includes a test of your Microsoft Azure environment against industry benchmarks, including 900 tests and more than 300 rule validations via read-only API access.
	App Mod/New (.Net) App Service & SQL DB: 3wk Imp: InCycle Software’s .NET Application Modernization Accelerator for Microsoft Azure App Service and Azure SQL Database provides the key components for successful application modernization. Use cloud services and modern practices to drive business advantage with InCycle and Azure.
	Azure: 1-Wk POC_1: In this one-week proof of concept, Phidiax will assess your organization’s environment and provide you with guidance and recommendations via a collaborative approach, ensuring you have a clear understanding of the next steps toward cloud development.
	Azure Governance Workshops – (3) 2 hour sessions: Champion Solutions Group’s Azure GlidePath for Governance Jumpstart Service delivers three two-hour workshops to help you embrace access, security, and governance in your Microsoft Azure environment.
	Azure Synapse Analytics 1 Day Online Workshop: CLOUD SERVICES’ workshop contains theoretical and practical tasks designed to help you start working with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, which combines enterprise data warehousing and big data analytics. Learn to solve analytics tasks more efficiently with CLOUD SERVICES.
	Azure WVD with Zero Trust Model 2Wk Implementation: This two-week implementation from Adfolks will quickly deploy and scale your Windows Virtual Desktops and applications on Microsoft Azure in a zero-trust security framework. Get built-in security and compliance features as well as simplified management with Adfolks and Azure.
	Cyber Defense 365: 2-Day Implementation: Protect your organization’s business data, operational infrastructure, and business identity against cyber threats with MICROSYS SRL’s Cyber Defense 365 enhanced security and data protection implementation.
	DaaS on Azure Cloud: 1 Week Implementation: Adfolks’ DaaS on Azure includes build, configure, manage, and store functions while delivering safe, secure, and intelligent desktops that are ready to use.
	Migrate on-premises SQL to Azure 1-Hr Briefing: In this free one-hour briefing, SSA Group will cover everything you need to know about migrating your on-premises Microsoft SQL Server database to Microsoft Azure. Deliverables include recommended steps you can take to start the cloud migration process.
	Virtusa SQL DB Migration Assessment in 4 weeks: Virtusa LTD’s accelerated assessment includes a report that will provide options to migrate your workloads to Microsoft Azure quickly and cost-effectively. This assessment also facilitates cloud migration at scale from multiple sources.

Democratizing IoT with IoT Plug and Play and New Pricing for Azure IoT Central

by Contributed | Nov 23, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Democratizing IoT for mainstream adoption is a core mission of Microsoft Azure IoT. While Azure IoT Central already simplifies IoT solution development, the recent addition of support for IoT Plug and Play and the introduction of a new Azure IoT Central pricing tier allows for the streamlined integration of devices into IoT solutions with an expanded set of scenarios.

Common IoT solution development challenges

IoT solution development typically starts by defining the device capabilities required for a solution. These are often solution specific and involve custom development on both the device and in the cloud. Device developers write code specific to the requirements, while cloud developers build corresponding cloud software to process and visualize the device data specific to the solution. This tight coupling (between device and cloud software) often results in little or no code reuse, preventing solutions from being future proof and generating cross dependencies that require close collaboration between device and cloud developers. In addition to software development challenges, hardware sourcing, integration, and ramping to production can take months, leading to long and expensive timelines.

IoT Plug and Play offers new approach to solution development

IoT Plug and Play introduces a new approach to building IoT solutions by decoupling the software on the device and solution in the cloud. With IoT Plug and Play, device developers describe the device capabilities using a declarative model. The type and shape of data the devices send to the cloud, as well as the interaction patterns for cloud to device communications, are modeled with the Digital Twin Definition Language (DTDL), an open-source language for describing models for IoT digital twins. The device model serves as a contract between the device and the IoT solution. Device developers can now build their device software independently of solutions. While solution developers can now build standard visualizations and experiences that can be reused across solutions. And as new IoT Plug and Play devices become available, these devices are easy to connect to existing solutions without any additional development

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/QZx35Ef6IMc?controls=0&autoplay=false&WT.mc_id=iot-c9-niner

IoT Plug and Play support in Azure IoT Central

With IoT Plug and Play now supported in Azure IoT Central, solution builders can build end-to-end production-grade IoT solutions without having to write new code on the cloud or the device. Start by selecting/buying ready-to-use devices found in the Azure Certified Device Catalog. These devices can be provisioned in Azure IoT Central in minutes as their capabilities are described in the catalog and programmatically understood.

It gets even easier, as solution developers can start using simulated devices complete with rich dashboards and visualizations derived from the DTDL device model. Once devices are added, it’s just a few clicks to add monitoring, alerting, device management jobs, and more. Additionally, ISVs and partners building Line of Business (LOB) applications can easily package devices into turnkey solutions for specific verticals—e.g., retail, health, manufacturing, smart buildings, energy—by pairing Azure IoT Central solution templates with IoT Plug and Play-enabled devices, making it easy to scale to multiple deployments.

IoT Plug and Play accelerates solution development by pairing ready to use IoT Plug and Play-certified devices with ready to use IoT platforms like Azure IoT Central, eliminating the need to write embedded code and reducing the overall integration time from weeks/months to days/hours. As a result, IoT becomes easier, faster and more predictable when you start with IoT Plug and Play in Azure IoT Central.

$1 per year per device

Additionally, we’re excited to be announcing the introduction of a new pricing tier for Azure IoT Central. Customers have made it clear that Azure IoT Central’s simplified pricing model is a fantastic way to streamline budgeting for large deployments and deliver predictable monthly costs for IoT solutions. However, the existing pricing tiers don’t meet the needs of devices sending just a few messages per day. To address this, we are introducing a new pricing tier in December 2020 at less than $1 per year per device. This new tier, named ST0, is designed for devices sending messages as frequently as every two hours. This new flexibility enables new scenarios such as fleet management, smart metering, smart appliances, smart buildings, as well as the breadth of asset and condition monitoring or predictive maintenance. Look for details to show up on Azure IoT Central pricing in the week ahead.

	Standard Tier 0	Standard Tier 1	Standard Tier 2
Use case	For devices sending a few messages per day	For devices sending a few messages per hour	For devices sending a message every few minutes
Price per device per month	$0.08	$0.40	$0.70
Monthly device message allocation	400	5,000	30,000
Include free quantities per application	2 free devices (800 included messages)	2 free devices (10,000 included messages)	2 free devices (60,000 included messages)
Overage pricing per 1K messages	$0.070	$0.015	$0.015

Additional resources include

IoT Plug and Play Public Preview

IoT Plug and Play certification tutorial

Add “Plug and Play” to your IoT solutions

IoT Plug and Play Certification program

Connect existing sensors with IoT Plug and Play bridge

Sample code available for supported languages

Azure Databricks activities now support Managed Identity authentication

by Contributed | Nov 23, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Azure Databricks supports Azure Active Directory (AAD) tokens (GA) to authenticate to REST API 2.0. The AAD tokens support enables us to provide a more secure authentication mechanism leveraging Azure Data Factory’s System-assigned Managed Identity while integrating with Azure Databricks.

Benefits of using Managed identity authentication:

Managed identities eliminate the need for data engineers having to manage credentials by providing an identity for the Azure resource in Azure AD and using it to obtain Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tokens. In our case, Data Factory obtains the tokens using it’s Managed Identity and accesses the Databricks REST APIs.

It lets you provide fine-grained access control to particular Data Factory instances using Azure AD.

It helps prevent usage of Databricks Personal Access Tokens, which acts as a password and needs to be treated with care, adding additional responsibility on data engineers on securing it.

Earlier, you could access the Databricks Personal Access Token through Key-Vault using Manage Identity. Now, you can directly use Managed Identity in Databricks Linked Service, hence completely removing the usage of Personal Access Tokens.

High-level steps on getting started:

Grant the Data Factory instance ‘Contributor’ permissions in Azure Databricks Access Control.

Create a new ‘Azure Databricks’ linked service in Data Factory UI, select the databricks workspace (in step 1) and select ‘Managed service identity’ under authentication type.

Spoiler (Highlight to read)

Note: Please toggle between the cluster types if you do not see any dropdowns being populated under ‘workspace id’, even after you have successfully granted the permissions (Step 1).

Sample Linked Service payload:

{
    "name": "AzureDatabricks_ls",
    "type": "Microsoft.DataFactory/factories/linkedservices",
    "properties": {
        "annotations": [],
        "type": "AzureDatabricks",
        "typeProperties": {
            "domain": "https://adb-***.*.azuredatabricks.net",
            "authentication": "MSI",
            "workspaceResourceId": "/subscriptions/******-3ab0-48f2-b171-0f50ec******/resourceGroups/work-rg/providers/Microsoft.Databricks/workspaces/databricks-****",
            "existingClusterId": "****-030259-dent495"
        }
    }
}

Spoiler (Highlight to read)

Note: There are no secrets or personal access tokens in the linked service definitions!

Using Windows Admin Center on-premises to manage Azure Windows Server VMs

by Contributed | Nov 23, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Contributed by @Orin Thomas

At the moment, a Windows Admin Center (WAC) add-in for the Azure Portal is in preview. Unfortunately at the time of writing, the preview is over subscribed and you might be waiting for a while before the feature becomes generally available.

You could go through the effort of deploying a VM in Azure, installing WAC on it, then configuring all the necessary Network Security Groups and Firewall Rules to allow you to interact with that instance. But another option is to spin up a WAC gateway server instance on a local VM, configure Windows Server’s built in Azure Network Adapter as a VPN connection (between your on-premises server and the VNet that hosts your Windows Server VMs in Azure), and then add connections from the WAC gateway server to your Windows Server VMs in Azure.

1. The first step you need to take is to install Windows Admin Center on a local Windows Server instance and configure it as a gateway server. You’ll be connecting from your privileged access workstation (remember that you should avoid doing important secure admin stuff from the same system that you use to surf the web) to this gateway server instance.

If you need a reminder on the steps required to install Windows Admin Center, consult the Windows Admin Center installation documentation.

2. Once you’ve completed this installation, you’ll need to connect the gateway server to the Azure Subscription that you want to mange. You do this by selecting the Azure Hybrid Services node and registering your WAC instance with Azure.

Find the steps at Register your gateway with Azure.

3. Once you’ve registered the WAC gateway server instance with Azure, you’ll need to set up the Azure Network Adapter. You do this on the Networks node of WAC when connected to the gateway server instance, specifying the details of the virtual network you wish to connect to.

When you do this, all the point-to-site VPN infrastructure required to connect the on-premises WAC instance to Azure is created and configured and your WAC instance will now have its own connection into the VNet that hosts your Windows Server Azure VMs.

4. The only preparation you need to do for your Windows Server VMs in Azure is to create a firewall rule that allows WINRM-HTTP traffic from the gateway subnet. You can do this with the command:

Set-NetFirewallRule -Name WINRM-HTTP-In-TCP-PUBLIC -RemoteAddress x.x.x.x/YY

(where x.x.x.x/YY is the address space of the VNet that hosts the VMs)

5. Once this connection is established, you’ll be able to add Windows Server Azure VMs to WAC. The easiest way to do this is to use the Windows Server Azure VM’s internal IP address on the Azure VNet.

6. Then with the connection established, you’ll be able to manage Windows Servers on your on-premises network as well as Windows Servers running in Azure, using the same WAC gateway server!

Learn more:

Windows Admin Center product page

Windows Admin Center frequently asked questions

Windows Admin Center documentation

Microsoft Learn – Explore Azure networking services

Microsoft Learn – Architect network infrastructure in Azure