Generally Available: Azure SQL Trigger for Azure Functions in Consumption plan

Public Preview: Rule-based routing in Azure Container Apps
Azure Container Apps now supports rule-based routing in public preview. This feature provides greater flexibility and composability to your Azure Container Apps by simplifying your architecture for microservice applications, A/B testing, blue-green deployments, and more.

Rule-based routing allows you to direct incoming HTTP traffic to different apps within your Container Apps environment based on the requested host name or path. This includes support for custom domains. Instead of having to configure a separate reverse proxy, such as NGINX, you can now provide routing rules for your environment and incoming traffic will automatically be routed to the specified target apps.

Generally Available: Azure SQL Trigger for Azure Functions in Consumption plan
Azure SQL trigger for Azure Functions is now generally available in the consumption plan.

You can now build application logic in azure function apps consumption plan that can scale apps to zero and up driven by the data from Azure SQL database. Azure SQL trigger for Azure Functions allows you to use nearly any SQL database enabled with change tracking to develop and scale event-driven applications using Azure Functions.

Invoking an Azure Function from changes to an Azure SQL table is now possible through the Azure SQL trigger for Azure Functions in all plans for Azure Functions supported languages.

Azure SQL trigger for Azure Functions will enable you, with nearly any SQL database enabled with change tracking, to develop and scale event-driven applications using Azure Functions. The Azure SQL trigger is compatible with Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server and can be developed with all Azure Functions supported languages for all plans.
With input and output bindings for SQL already in GA, you can quickly write Azure Functions that read and write from your databases. Together with triggers and input/output bindings, the SQL extension for Azure Functions provides you improved efficiency with low-code/no-code database interactions and enables those who are looking to migrate their applications to Azure the ability to participate in modern architectures.

**Generally Available: New major version of Durable Functions
Azure Functions**
Durable Functions extension v3 is now generally available. Major improvements in this new major version include improved cost efficiency for usage of Azure Storage v2 accounts and an upgrade to the latest Azure Storage SDKs, as well as the .NET Framework used by the extension.

Specifically, the Microsoft.Azure.WebJobs.Extensions.DurableTask v3.x package is introduced, which represents a breaking change for Durable Functions C# apps that use the in-process model. Since the Durable Functions .NET isolated package, namely Microsoft.Azure.Functions.Worker.Extensions.DurableTask, references the former as its underlying assembly, the updates mentioned above apply to the isolated package as well starting from version 1.2.x.

Generally Available: ACLs (Access Control Lists) for Local Users in Azure Blob Storage SFTP
We are excited to announce the general availability of ACLs (Access Control Lists) for Azure Blob Storage SFTP local users. ACLs make it simple and intuitive for administrators to manage fine-grained access control to blobs and directories for Azure Blob Storage SFTP local users. Learn more about this important new capability in the blog post here.

This new enhancement significantly improves the management and usability of Azure Blob Storage SFTP by providing more granular access control over the container model and extending customer options. Please reach out to blobsftp@microsoft.com for any feedback about SFTP for Azure Blob Storage.

**Private Preview: DCesv6 and ECesv6 series confidential VMs with Intel® TDX
Virtual Machines**
The DCesv6 and ECesv6 series are Azure’s next generation of Confidential Virtual Machines powered by the 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® processors (code-named Emerald Rapids) with Intel® Trust Domain Extensions (Intel® TDX). This will help to enable organizations to bring confidential workloads to the cloud without code changes to applications. The supported SKUs include the general-purpose families DCesv6-series and the memory optimized families ECesv6-series.

Confidential VMs are designed for tenants with high security and confidentiality requirements, providing a strong, hardware-enforced boundary. They ensure that your data and applications stay private and encrypted even while in use, keeping your sensitive code and other data encrypted in memory during processing. Additionally, we offer in-guest attestation support, enabling customers to confidently attest to and verify the integrity of their machines.

Generally Available: ExpressRoute Metro Peering locations and Global Reach are now available in more regions
Following the general availability of ExpressRoute Metro in October, 2024, we’re rolling it out in four new locations. This broader footprint enables more customers to benefit from increased resiliency to strengthen the reliability of their private connectivity to Azure.

In addition, we are introducing two new ExpressRoute locations in Brussels, further enhancing secure and private cloud connectivity access across Europe.

New ExpressRoute Metro locations:

• Atlanta, United States of America
• Jakarta, Indonesia
• Madrid, Spain
• Milan, Italy

New ExpressRoute Peering locations:

• Brussels, Belgium
• Brussels2, Belgium

ExpressRoute Direct is now available in all of these new locations.
ExpressRoute Global Reach, which allows private connectivity between your on-premises sites through Microsoft’s global network, is now offered in the following additional locations:

• Belgium
• Italy
• Spain

**Generally Available: Performance Plus for Azure Disk Storage
Azure Disk Storage**
Azure Disk Storage now offers the feature called Performance Plus in GA, which enhances the IOPS and throughput performance of Premium SSD, Standard SSD, and Standard HDD disks that are sized 513GB or larger. Performance Plus is offered for free and is available to use through deployments on Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI), PowerShell and the Azure Portal.

Public Preview: Azure Backup enables vaulted backup for Azure Data Lake Storage for comprehensive data protection
Azure Backup now supports transferring your Azure Data Lake Storage backups to the vault. A vault stores backups and recovery points created over time. You can define a backup schedule with daily or weekly backups and specify retention settings for how long backups will be stored in the vault. Vaulted backups are isolated from the source data, enabling you to continue business operations even if the source data is compromised by performing seamless restores using existing recovery points.

Key capabilities of vaulted backups include:

• Off-site copy of data: Recover mission-critical data from backups, irrespective of the state of the source data.
• Protection from accidental or malicious deletion: Backups are isolated from the source storage account, preventing accidental or malicious deletion.
• Long-term retention: Retain backup data for up to 10 years to meet compliance requirements.
• Alternate location recovery: Restore data to an alternate account if the source storage account is compromised.
• Secure backups: Built-in security capabilities like soft-delete, management immutability, and data encryption help protect your backups in the vault.

In the preview, you can configure vaulted backups for block blobs in a HNS-enabled standard general-purpose v2 ADLS Gen2 storage account in the regions mentioned here. Support for other regions will be added incrementally. For more details, refer to this article.

Public Preview: Remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) support in Azure Functions

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a way for apps to provide capabilities and context to a large language model. A key feature of MCP is the ability to define tools that AI agents can leverage to accomplish whatever tasks they’ve been given. MCP servers can be run locally, but remote MCP servers are important for sharing tools that work at cloud scale.

Today, we’re pleased to share an early preview of triggers and bindings that allow you to build tools using remote MCP with server-sent events (SSE) with Azure Functions. Azure Functions lets you author focused, event-driven logic that scales automatically in response to demand. You just write code reflecting unique requirements of your tools, and Functions will take care of the rest.

Generally Available: Microsoft Azure Available from New Azure for U.S. Government Secret Cloud Region in the US

A new Azure for U.S. Government Secret cloud region is now generally available.

With multiple geographically separate regions, Azure for U.S. Government Secret provides customers with multiple options for data residency, continuity of operations, and resilience in support of national security workloads. It is natively connected to U.S. Government classified networks and operates in accordance with U.S. Department of Defense Security Requirements Guide and other relevant frameworks .

All Azure for U.S. Government Secret regions deliver familiar experience and alignment with existing programs, enabling mission teams to build low and deploy high with consistency across governance, identity, development, and security. Customers utilizing the new region will have access to a number of Azure foundational offerings at launch, including the ability to utilize Azure ExpressRoute for private, high-bandwidth connectivity.

This announcement provides further evidence of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to the mission of national security, enabling customers and partners to realize the vision of a multi-cloud strategy and achieve greater agility, interoperability, cost savings, and speed to innovation. Please reach out to your Microsoft representative to learn more or visit Azure for U.S. Government.