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