Azure Updates: DDoS attacks; Security Center; Analytics

Alethea Toh program manager for Azure Networking shared DDoS attack data from Q1 and Q2 of 2021. DDoS attacks grew in number and complexity due to heightened internet use, although in early 2021 attack bandwidth dropped to 625 Gbps from highs of 1 Tbps in 2020. Most attacks are short-lived, leveraging volumetric TCP floods, and have tended to concentrate most heavily in the US, Hong Kong, and UAE. Toh recommends protecting workloads with the Azure DDoS Protection Standard.

Principal program manager Altaf Tambawala explained new options in preview to re-size Azure VNets. Microsoft is introducing remoteVirtualNetworkAddressSpace and peeringSyncLevel.

You can update (add or remove) address space on a virtual network that is peered with another virtual network in the same region or across regions. Address space update on virtual networks also works if the virtual network has peered with another virtual network across subscriptions.

Among general updates, Microsoft announced the general availability of Sphere OS version 21.08, GitHub Codespaces, and changes to Text-to-Speech and IoT Central. Public previews include placement policies for VMware Solution and Cross Location Compute for Machine Learning. The Monitor Baseline and CalculateBaseline APIs will be retired on November 30. Cognitive Search skills are set for retirement August 31, 2024, users of IoT Central version 2 will need to migrate by March 1, 2022, and Java SDK 3.x will need to change over to 4.x by the end of August, 2024.

Several updates have touched on Security Center functionality, such as the public preview of the Sentinel connector with bi-directional alert synchronization or a 'compliance over time' workbook template in Monitor Workbooks gallery. Now GA are a reorg of Defender for Resource Manager alerts, new Disk Encryption recommendations, workflow automations, and continuous export of compliance data.

Senior product marketing manager Sonal Pardeshi shared ways to tackle major business challenges with AI and machine learning. Microsoft recently released a new report on the topic,  Aboard The Analytics Train? Machine Learning's Your Next Stop. Pardeshi gave the example of Australian company AGL, which is combining analytics and a ML Center of Excellence for everything from demand forecasting to procurement management. Similarly, major food company BRF uses Synapse Analytics and ML to forecast disease among livestock.