Taswar Bhatti
The synonyms of software simplicity
Linkedin Newsletter

Hi everyone,

Your weekly dose of 5 Highlights Thursday is here, a list of information and links that you may find helpful in your Azure journey. Feel free to forward this along to anyone who you think may enjoy such sharing.

1. Microsoft partnership with Mistral AI

Microsoft on Monday announced a new partnership with French start-up Mistral AI as the U.S. tech giant seeks to expand its footprint in the fast-evolving artificial intelligence industry. Read more in the link below:

Mistral AI

Mistral AI

2. Research Forum Keynote: Research in the Era of AI

Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Research and Incubations, discusses how recent developments in AI have transformed the way Microsoft approaches research.

3. Develop Your Copilot Skills (Part 2)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally changing how we relate to and benefit from technology. In this episode of the #AzureEnablementShow, Aaron and Natalie share some of the amazing—and FREE—training resources available to help you get the most out of #MicrosoftCopilot. In this second of three episodes, Natalie will share some of the video and self-paced learning resources available for GitHub Copilot, including Introduction to GitHub CoPilot, GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio, Learning AI with GitHub Copilot, and GitHub Copilot Fundamentals – Understand the AI pair programmer.

4. DevOps Security Capabilities in Defender CSPM

In this episode of Defender for Cloud in the Field, Charles Oxyer joins Yuri Diogenes to talk about DevOps security capabilities in Defender CSPM. Charles explains the importance of DevOps security in Microsoft CNAPP solution, what are the free capabilities available as part of Foundational CSPM, and what are the advanced DevOps security features included in Defender CSPM. Charles demonstrates how to improve the DevOps security posture by remediating recommendations, and how to use code to cloud contextualization with Cloud Security Explorer.

5. Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Day: AI Fundamentals – March 6th 2023

Explore core AI concepts at Azure Virtual Training Day: AI Fundamentals from Microsoft Learn. Join us for this free training event to learn how organizations use AI technology to solve real-world challenges and see how to build intelligent applications using Azure AI services. This training is suitable for anyone interested in AI solutions—including those in technical or business roles.

Azure Virtual Training Day

Azure Virtual Training Day


You can complement this edition of 5 Highlights Thursday with our MEA Developer Channel on YouTube where we have weekly interviews and learning material on Microsoft Azure, and much more.

And, as always, please give me feedback on LinkedIn. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Last by not least, know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them.

Subscribe on LinkedIn

Have a wonderful Thursday 🙂

Taswar

Linkedin Newsletter

Hi everyone,

Your weekly dose of 5 Highlights Thursday is here, a list of information and links that you may find helpful in your Azure journey. Feel free to forward this along to anyone who you think may enjoy such sharing.

1. Demo of Azure AI & pgvector with Azure Database for PostgreSQL

This video showcases how you can improve the relevance of search results on a recipe website by using Azure OpenAI. Specifically the demo shows how you can use the new azure_ai (Preview) extension along with the open source pgvector extension and the Azure Database for PostgreSQL managed service to deliver semantic search results—as compared to search results you could obtain in the past via pattern matching with the LIKE clause in Postgres, or via Postgres full text search. The demo also shows how azure_ai gives you an integration between Azure Database for PostgreSQL and the Azure AI Language service, so you can do things like sentiment analysis, language detection, and PII redaction. In combination with the Azure Database for PostgreSQL service and pgvector, the new azure_ai extension to Postgres gives you the capability to build entirely new classes of applications—entirely in Postgres.

2. Encryption and Ledger in Azure SQL Database | Data Exposed

In this episode of Data Exposed, learn about the recent Azure SQL security innovations with Anna Hoffman and Pieter Vanhove.

3. Microsoft Fabric February 2024 Update

Read the Microsoft Fabric Feb Update. They have a lot of great features this month including Fabric Git Integration REST APIs, Fabric notebook status bar upgrade, Copilot in Dataflow Gen2, and many more!

Microsoft Fabric February 2024 Update

Microsoft Fabric February 2024 Update

4. Save money with Arc SQL Server licensing – what you need to know | Data Exposed

If you are used to traditional licensing options and pay for software assurance, you may wonder why you would ever use pay-as-you-go billing. In this episode of Data Exposed with Anna Hoffman and Sasha Nosov, we’ll cover how to use our new PayG model and understand how you can use Extended Security Updates.

5. MVP TechBytes – An Overview of Azure Virtual Desktop with Mahammad Kubaib

Dive into Azure Virtual Desktop with MVP Tech Bytes! 💻 Join Mahammad Kubaib and Taswar Bhatti to explore its benefits, deployment, and configuration. Discover how Azure Virtual Desktop can streamline and secure your virtual desktop experience. Don’t miss out on expanding your software development skills.


You can complement this edition of 5 Highlights Thursday with our MEA Developer Channel on YouTube where we have weekly interviews and learning material on Microsoft Azure, and much more.

And, as always, please give me feedback on LinkedIn. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Last by not least, know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them.

Subscribe on LinkedIn

Have a wonderful Thursday 🙂

Taswar

MVP TechBytes

Dive into Azure Virtual Desktop with MVP Tech Bytes! 💻 Join Mahammed Kubaibi and Taswar Bhatti to explore its benefits, deployment, and configuration. Discover how Azure Virtual Desktop can streamline and secure your virtual desktop experience. Don’t miss out on expanding your software development skills.

To learn more:

🔗 YouTube channel:    / @vdibuzz  

🔗Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/user/mahammad-kubaib/

🔗 Blog: https://vdiclub.wordpress.com/blog-2/

Summary

What is Azure Virtual Desktop:
Azure Virtual Desktop is a cloud service that provides application and desktop virtualization hosted on Microsoft’s cloud. It allows users to access their Windows desktops and applications from any device and location.

Benefits of Azure Virtual Desktop:
Azure Virtual Desktop has many benefits, such as: simplicity, security, cost-effectiveness, scalability, flexibility, and sustainability. It enables users to work from anywhere, use their own devices, reduce hardware and licensing costs, adjust the number of virtual machines according to demand, and lower the environmental impact of e-waste.

Licensing and prerequisites for Azure Virtual Desktop:
Azure Virtual Desktop requires a Microsoft subscription, an identity provider (Azure Active Directory and Active Directory), an operating system license, a network connectivity to Microsoft cloud URLs, and a remote desktop client. Users with Office 365, Windows Enterprise, or Education licenses can use Azure Virtual Desktop for free, and only pay for the Azure infrastructure costs.

Architecture and types of Azure Virtual Desktop:
Azure Virtual Desktop has a PaaS model, where some components are managed by Microsoft (control plane) and some are managed by the customer (virtual machines, applications, Azure files, and Active Directory). The customer can choose between two types of virtual desktops: personal or pooled, and single session or multi session. Personal desktops are dedicated to one user, while pooled desktops are shared by multiple users. Single session desktops allow only one user per virtual machine, while multi session desktops allow more than one user per virtual machine

Linkedin Newsletter

Hi everyone,

Your weekly dose of 5 Highlights Thursday is here, a list of information and links that you may find helpful in your Azure journey. Feel free to forward this along to anyone who you think may enjoy such sharing.

1. Satya highlights AI transformation in India

While visiting India, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sat down for an interview with CNBC and discussed the AI transformation we’re living through. He said AI is “tangibly changing economic productivity.”

2. Security Update Release Summary February 2024

Our February mini-briefing video includes an overview of the release and then a discussion of a few items from today’s release.

3. Develop Your Copilot Skills (Part 1)

We are entering a new era of AI—one that is fundamentally changing how we relate to and benefit from technology. In this episode of the #AzureEnblementShow, Aaron and Natalie share some of the amazing—and FREE—training resources available to help you get the most out of #MicrosoftCopilot. In this first of three episodes, you’ll get an overview of Copilot, learn about Copilot for Microsoft 365, and get a look at some of the skilling resources for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. Be sure to stay tuned for episodes two and three, when we’ll dive a little deeper into the resources being offered for GitHub Co-Pilot and demo one of the learning paths that is available to you.

4. Microsoft unveils Face Check for secure identity verification

Check out Face Check, the latest addition to our Entra Verified ID digital identity platform. Face Check, powered by Azure AI, allows businesses to match a user’s selfie to their government ID or employee credentials, providing an extra layer of security for sensitive operations like password resets or help desk access #secruty #microsoftentraid

Entra

5. Azure Takeoff – Azure Availability Sets

Join Taswar Bhatti & Hatim Nagarwala to learn how to ensure high availability and reliability for your Azure VMs. Discover availability options like availability sets, zones, and proximity placement groups. See a demo of creating and configuring availability sets in Azure portal. Master best practices for your Azure VMs’ resilience journey.


You can complement this edition of 5 Highlights Thursday with our MEA Developer Channel on YouTube where we have weekly interviews and learning material on Microsoft Azure, and much more.

And, as always, please give me feedback on LinkedIn. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Last by not least, know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them.

Subscribe on LinkedIn

Have a wonderful Thursday 🙂

Taswar

MVP TechBytes
Don’t miss me and Betim Beja on MVP TechBytes discussing Power Platform PCF Development!
Learn about code component pros/cons, framework mockups, standard vs virtual components, and contributing to open-source projects.

Summary

In this episode Betim, a Microsoft MVP, talks about code components for the Power Platform and how to use Storybook to test and showcase them.

The benefits and challenges of code components: Code components allow professional developers to extend the Power Platform and help low-code developers to deliver solutions faster and bettr. However, code components also have some limitations, such as the test harness, the Web API, and the virtual components.

The role of component framework mock and Storybook: Betim has created a component framework mock that mocks the whole API of the component framework and integrates it with Storybook, a tool that helps to build and display components in different scenarios and configurations. This way, developers can test their components more easily and collaborate with other stakeholders.

The examples of code components: Betim shows some examples of code components, such as the colorful option set, the switches, the audio player, and the calendar. He also explains how to set up stories and how to use citations for the components.

The call for action for the viewers: Betim invites the viewers to check out his GitHub repository and blog post where he shares his code components and how to use them. He also encourages the viewers to contribute to the component framework mock and to use it for their own components.910

Azure Takeoff Show
Join Me & Hatim Nagarwala to learn how to ensure high availability and reliability for your Azure VMs.
Discover availability options like availability sets, zones, and proximity placement groups.
See a demo of creating and configuring availability sets in Azure portal.
Master best practices for your Azure VMs’ resilience journey.

Learn More:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/availability-set-overview

Summary

Ensuring High Availability for your Virtual Machines in Azure

When it comes to running virtual machines in the cloud, one of the key concerns is ensuring high availability. In Azure, there are several options available to help you achieve this, including availability sets, availability zones, and proximity placement groups.

Availa2bility Sets

Availability sets are a way to ensure that your virtual machines are distributed across multiple physical hardware units within a data center. This helps to mitigate the impact of hardware failures, power interruptions, or other issues that might affect a single hardware unit.

It’s important to 4note that existing virtual machines cannot be added to an availability set; you need to create new virtual machines to join an availability set.

Availability Zones

Availability zones take the concept of availability sets a step further by distributing your virtual machines across multiple data centers within a region. This helps to protect against larger-scale issues that might affect an entire data center, such as natural disasters or power outages.

Proximity Placement Groups

Proximity placement groups are used when you need to ensure low latency between virtual machines. By placing virtual machines in a proximity placement group, you can ensure that they are physically located close to each other within a data center.

In summary, Azure provides several options to help you ensure high availability for your virtual machines. By using availability sets, availability zones, and proximity placement groups, you can protect against hardware failures, power interruptions, and other issues that might impact the availability of your virtual machines.

Linkedin Newsletter

Hi everyone,

Your weekly dose of 5 Highlights Thursday is here, a list of information and links that you may find helpful in your Azure journey. Feel free to forward this along to anyone who you think may enjoy such sharing.

1.Mr. Maedas Cozy AI Kitchen: Designing Trust with Sarah Gold

Sarah Gold, Founder and CEO of Projects by IF, is the guest in the Cozy AI Kitchen this week. Together with John Maeda, they discuss the meaning of ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthy’ in an AI world.

2. Build a recommender Full stack App using OpenAI and Azure SQL: Step-by-Step Guide

Check out this step-by-step guide for creating an intelligent web app with #AzureOpenAI Service. This blog post shows you how to create a recommender full stack app with OpenAI and #AzureSQL.

OpenAI Azure

3. How to Convert Audio to .WAV for Speech Service Using MoviePy

Azure Speech Service requires audio files to adhere to specific standards. Find out how to use MoviePy to easily convert your audio files to make them compatible with #Azure Speech Service.

MoviePy

4. Build a production RAG using Azure AI Studio & Prompt Flow

Learn how to build a production-level RAG app for a customer support agent – and integrate it with your web-based product catalog. Streamline your end-to-end app development from prompt engineering to LLMOps with prompt flow in #Azure #AI Studio.

PromptFlow

5. MVP TechBytes – Message Brokers for Microservices Communication with Mukhammadkarim Tukhtaboev

Join me and Mukhammadkarim Tukhtaboev‘s discussion on microservices and message brokers in this MVP TechBytes episode. Learn about improving application performance, choosing communication methods, comparing Kafka and RabbitMQ, and setting up RabbitMQ in a.NET app with a live demo. Enhance your software development skills now. 🚀


You can complement this edition of 5 Highlights Thursday with our MEA Developer Channel on YouTube where we have weekly interviews and learning material on Microsoft Azure, and much more.

And, as always, please give me feedback on LinkedIn. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Last by not least, know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them.

Subscribe on LinkedIn

Have a wonderful Thursday 🙂

Taswar

MVP TechBytes

Here is video I did with Mukhammadkarim (from Uzbekistan) where we discuss on microservices and message brokers on MVP TechBytes episode. Learn about improving application performance, choosing communication methods, comparing Kafka and RabbitMQ, and setting up RabbitMQ in a.NET app with a live demo. Enhance your software development skills now.

🚀 To learn more about Mukhammadkarim:

🔗Twitter Handle:   / dotnetgooo  

🔗Blog: https://dotnetgo.com

🔗YouTube channel:    / dotnetuz  

🔗LinkedIn:   / mukhammadkarim-tukhtaboev 


Summary

Message Brokers in Microservice Architecture

In a recent episode of MVP TechBytes, Taswar and Mokhammadkarim discussed the benefits and challenges of using message brokers in microservice architecture. Mokhammadkarim, a software engineer with 10 years of experience in the field, shared his insights on the topic.

Mokhammadkarim began by explaining the difference between monolith and microservice architecture. In monolith architecture, there is a single deployable application, which can be difficult to scale and maintain. On the other hand, microservice architecture consists of a collection of independent and deployable services that can distribute the load and handle failures better.

One of the benefits of microservice architecture is the ability to distribute applications and pressures to multiple services and servers. This can help to distribute client requests and prevent system crashes. Additionally, if there is an error or exception in one service, it does not affect the other services, unlike in monolith architecture where a crash in one part of the system can bring down the entire system.

Taswar and Mokhammadkarim then discussed the role of message brokers in microservice architecture. A message broker is a third-party application that facilitates asynchronous communication between services. It can collect, store, and deliver messages to the appropriate consumers. It can also help with load balancing, fault tolerance, and decoupling.

There are several types of message brokers available, including Rabbit MQ and Kafka. Rabbit MQ is more reliable and flexible for queuing and delivering messages, while Kafka is more suitable for streaming and distributing large amounts of data. The choice of message broker depends on the specific needs of the application.

Mokhammadkarim also demonstrated how to set up Rabbit MQ in a .net application, including installing Rabbit MQ, the Erlang programming language, and the Rabbit MQ client library for .net. He showed how to create a custom service, a controller, and publisher and consumer methods for sending and receiving messages.

In summary, message brokers can provide many benefits in microservice architecture, including improved scalability, fault tolerance, and decoupling. The choice of message broker depends on the specific needs of the application, and there are several options available, including Rabbit MQ and Kafka.

Azure OpenAI for .NET Developers

I wanted to start a series of blog post, maybe later include videos also on Azure OpenAI specifically for .NET Developers. Developers who use C# as their main languge of choice. The reason is I see lots of Python examples out there and felt a market was left out for most of the examples on Github and writing. Don’t get me wrong I do like writing Python for quick parsing, automation to analytics, one just cannot beat the speed of it. In any case I hope you like this series of post, and I am starting with “What is Azure OpenAI?” and we will discover how Azure and OpenAI team up to bring you amazing AI models and services for all kinds of domains and applications.

What is Azure OpenAI?

Azure OpenAI and Neural Networks: Empowering AI-driven Solutions on Azure | LinkedIn

Azure OpenAI is a cloud-based platform that lets you access some of the coolest and most advanced artificial intelligence models and services on the planet. Azure OpenAI is the outcome of a partnership between Microsoft Azure and OpenAI, a research organization that wants to create and share friendly and helpful artificial intelligence for everyone.

Azure OpenAI lets you tap into the power of OpenAI’s awesome models, such as GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL-E, and Codex, for various tasks and domains, such as natural language processing, computer vision, code generation, and more. Azure OpenAI also gives you tools and frameworks for building and deploying your own AI solutions on Azure, such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service.

How do Azure and OpenAI work together?

Azure and OpenAI have been working together since 2016, when Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI to support its vision of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), a level of AI that can do anything a human can. As part of the partnership, Microsoft became the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, providing the infrastructure and compute resources needed to train and run its huge and complex models.

In 2020, Microsoft and OpenAI announced the launch of Azure OpenAI, a dedicated platform that gives you access to OpenAI’s models and services on Azure. Azure OpenAI is built on Azure’s global network of data centers, which offer high-performance computing, scalability, security, and reliability. The added benefit of Azure OpenAI is that it connects you with Azure’s existing AI offerings, such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service, to help you create and deploy end-to-end AI solutions and applications on Azure.

What types of models are supported on Azure OpenAI?

Azure OpenAI supports a range of models developed by OpenAI, each with its own capabilities and applications and as of today the list keeps changing. Some of the most impressive models are:

  • GPT-4: A set of models that improve on GPT-3.5 with the ability to understand and generate natural language and code.
  • GPT-3.5: Models that also understand and generate natural language and code, with GPT-3.5 Turbo optimized for chat.
  • Embeddings: Models that convert text into numerical vectors to facilitate text similarity tasks.
  • DALL-E (Preview): Models in preview that can generate original images from natural language descriptions.
  • Whisper (Preview): Models in preview for transcribing and translating speech to text.
  • Text to Speech (Preview): Models in preview that can synthesize text into speech

These models are available through Azure OpenAI’s APIs, which allow you to send requests and receive responses in JSON format. You can also use Azure OpenAI’s Studio inside the Azure Portal, a web-based interface that lets you interact with the models and explore their features and functionalities.

Azure Chat Playground

Azure Chat Playground

What are the benefits of using Azure OpenAI?

Using Azure OpenAI has many benefits for you if you want to harness the power of artificial intelligence for your projects and businesses. Some of the benefits are:

  • Access to state-of-the-art AI models and services that can do a wide range of tasks and domains.
  • Ability to build and deploy custom AI solutions on Azure, using Azure’s tools and frameworks.
  • Scalability and flexibility to handle large and complex workloads, thanks to Azure’s cloud infrastructure and compute resources.
  • Security and privacy, as Azure OpenAI follows Azure’s best practices and standards for data protection and compliance.
  • Cost-effectiveness, as Azure OpenAI offers various pricing plans and options to suit different needs and budgets.

Summary

I know we did not go through real code of C# but I wanted to share the fundamentals of Azure OpenAI and explain about how the powerful platform lets you access some of the most advanced artificial intelligence models and services in the world. Azure OpenAI is the outcome of a partnership between Microsoft Azure and OpenAI, a research organization that wants to create and share friendly and helpful artificial intelligence for everyone. Azure OpenAI lets you tap into the power of OpenAI’s awesome models, such as GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL-E, Embeddings, Whispers and Codex (the list keeps changing every day), for various tasks and domains, such as natural language processing, computer vision, code generation, and more. Azure OpenAI also gives you tools and frameworks for building and deploying your own AI solutions on Azure, such as Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Bot Service. Azure OpenAI offers many benefits for you if you want to harness the power of artificial intelligence for your projects and businesses, such as scalability, security, privacy, and cost-effectiveness.

In the next post we will go more details of the OpenAI Models.

Linkedin Newsletter

Hi everyone,

Your weekly dose of 5 Highlights Thursday is here, a list of information and links that you may find helpful in your Azure journey. Feel free to forward this along to anyone who you think may enjoy such sharing.

1. Learning Path: Get started with GitHub and Visual Studio Code

GitHub Copilot can do much more than just help you write code. It can help you understand someone else’s code, write documentation, learn a new technology, or debug a problem.

This collection of resources will help you get more out of GitHub Copilot:

GitHub and Visual Studio Code

GitHub and Visual Studio Code

2. Microsoft AI Tour

The Microsoft AI Tour offers free one-day, in-person sessions that will help you discover new opportunities to increase productivity with AI and enhance your skills to deliver more value using AI and Microsoft Azure. Find an event near you.

Microsoft AI Tour

Microsoft AI Tour

3. Build intelligent apps with AI and cloud-native technologies

Start building intelligent, cloud-native apps. Explore learning resources from #MicrosoftLearn. Follow step-by-step guidance, interactive content, and documentation to learn about #OpenAI, Azure Kubernetes Service #AKS, and cloud-native apps.

intelligent apps with AI

intelligent apps with AI

4. Learn .NET 8 with New Beginner Videos

New to .NET? Check out these new .NET 8 for beginners videos to tackle #dotNET one step at a time, from C# to generative AI to .NET IoT and more.

Learn what .NET is, what you can build with it, how to get started.

.NET 8

.NET 8

5. Azure Takeoff Show – Using Copilot and PowerAutomate for Email

This was so much fun don’t miss out and join Me & Hatim Nagarwala to discover the power of Power Automate and #Copilot. Learn how to automate tasks with Excel and email using Power Automata’s low-code platform and Copilot’s natural language query suggestions. 🚀 Watch a live demo on creating a flow that reads Excel data from OneDrive, checks task status, and sends reminder emails. Don’t miss out—level up your cloud skills and become a Power Automate and Copilot pro!


You can complement this edition of 5 Highlights Thursday with our MEA Developer Channel on YouTube where we have weekly interviews and learning material on Microsoft Azure, and much more.
And, as always, please give me feedback on LinkedIn. Which bullet above is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.
Last by not least, know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Share it with them.
Subscribe on LinkedIn
Have a wonderful Thursday 🙂
Taswar

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