Time to read: About 3 minutes
Intended for: Infrastructure Engineers, Cloud Architects
Key takeaway: In this update, I will highlight key announcements from Microsoft’s latest Build conference that focus on cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft Build, a Microsoft conference focused on software engineers and web developers, took place on May 25-27, 2021. There were many announcements as part of the event. The following is a list of announcements related to infrastructure enhancements and improvements.

Logic Apps

Azure Logic Apps has new hosting options, improved performance, and developer workflows.  Included in these updates is integration with VS Code with a new extension, now in Public Preview, to provide a local development option.  Additional hosting improvements have also been made.  Logic Apps can now run anywhere Azure Functions run, including containerized with Docker, Kubernetes, or App services.

PowerShell Support for Durable Functions

A Durable Function is an extension of Azure Functions that enable a developer to write complex resource deployments.  These deployments include parallel and sequential steps as we as long-running workflows.  Durable Functions version 3.x now supports PowerShell 7, extending the product to a wide variety of developers and automation tasks.

Azure Bicep v0.4

Azure Bicep is a Domain Specific Language (DSL) used to deploy resources in Azure.  Improvements to Bicep announced at Build 2021 include a Bicep linter designed to catch a customizable set of authoring best practices.  New Snippets and resource scaffolding can insert required properties of any resource type to help declare resources faster.  Improvements are also underway to provide high-quality Bicep examples to the ARM Template QuickStart GitHub repo.

Azure Monitor

Azure Monitor helps collect, analyze, and respond to telemetry data. New capabilities announced at Build 2021 include easy onboarding of Applicants Insights for Java apps on Azure App Services. Now in preview, Java apps written in Windows and Linux App Services can be onboarded without code changes. Also in preview is Query packs for Log Analytics. Query packs provide the ability to create and share queries within an organization.

For more information on Build 2021, check out the book of news located at the link below and contact RBA for more details on how your organization can leverage these new features.

Microsoft Build 2021 Book of News