Azure Updates: ADLS Gen2 API access; Lenovo edge servers; Lustre; Cost Management; GitHub Actions

As December got underway, Microsoft made more sparse updates, playing catch-up after the major US Thanksgiving holiday. In addition to fixing bugs, the Azure team expanded Cost Management and GitHub Actions, while touting new Lenovo edge servers.

Senior program manager Priya Shetty explained that in Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, customers can achieve programmatic access with REST APIs, Blob REST APIs or turn to multi-protocol access. Microsoft is in the process of expanding file system operations, previewing PowerShell, CLI, Java, Python and .NET SDKs. PowerShell and CLI will bridge the gap, letting customers integrate these services into their CI/CD pipelines. CRUD operations are enabled through the preview.

According to principal program manager Duane Bourgeois, Microsoft has finished validating Lenovo ThinkSystem SE530 edge servers for Azure Stack HCI. SE530 servers were designed by Lenovo for edge scenarios, smart connectivity, harsh environments and management with Lenovo XClarity Controllers. For customers with hyperconverged infrastructure needs, Bourgeois encouraged using other Azure services like Site Recovery, Backup, Monitor, Network Adapter, Witness or Arc for Servers.

Microsoft employee Paul Edwards, writing on the Tech Community, pointed out that Lv2 VM instances with NVMe disks can support a Lustre file system. They lack the same SLAs as premium disk storage, but in combination with HSM offer a very fast high performance file system. He demonstrated how to download Azure HPC, setup an environment and deploy a PBS cluster and Lustre file system. Azure CycleCloud fills  helps with running Lustre projects and templates.