Azure Updates: NFS v4.1; Nuance review; Apache Log4j 2 vulnerability

Azure Storage program manager Rena Shah discussed the general availability of NFS v4.1 shares. This expands the workloads that can run on Azure file shares by offering POSIX compatible files for container-based workloads and Linux VMs. Examples of workloads include SAP applications, database backups and replications, and user directories. Shah wrote:

Customers running critical systems such as SAP have told us that synchronous zonal redundancy is a game-changer for them to achieve high availability for their application layer. With Azure premium file shares you can choose between Locally redundant storage (LRS) or Zonal Redundant Storage (ZRS) redundancy. With ZRS, data is synchronously replicated to three different availability zones within an Azure region. This means your applications’ access to the data will not be disrupted, even in the unlikely event of an entire zone failure. SAP storage administrators gave us great feedback including: “easy to use”, “good performance”, and “better cost optimization.”

The new offering includes built-in locking and Files CSI driver as a way to access Files shares from AKS. Microsoft announced that it is offering a minimum of 3000 IOPS, a significant increase from a previous 400 IOPS baseline. Additionally, NFS v4.1 supports Reserved Instances.

Director of product marketing Naga Surendran shared that Forrester, in its latest Forrester Wave, has named Microsoft as a Leader in Enterpise iPaaS for 2021. Microsoft received its placement based on Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, DevOps, GitHub Actions, Monitor, and Application Insights, as well as its 450 out-of-the-box connectors.