Generally Available: Enhanced Cost Management Exports

Generally Available: Enhanced Cost Management Exports
April 2025
Enhanced Cost Management exports are now generally available across all Azure regions and clouds.

This release improves how customers automate and analyze cost and usage data. Key enhancements include expanded dataset support (price sheets, reservation recommendations, reservation details, and reservation transactions), flexible export formats (CSV with Gzip compression, Parquet with Snappy compression), and support for the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS) format version 1.0.

Customers can configure partitioned files, enable overwrite support, backfill historical data—up to thirteen months from the Azure portal or up to seven years using the REST API—and export to storage accounts with firewall and network security restrictions. Schema versioning is supported to maintain compatibility with existing data pipelines.

These updates help organizations streamline FinOps workflows, manage costs at scale, and align with enterprise security and compliance requirements.

Public Preview: Azure API Center May Updates
May 2025

We are excited to announce our May updates for Azure API Center. This public preview release includes several exciting new features designed to enhance user experience and streamline API management:

• Users can now configure and granularly assign access to APIs and their specific versions, providing more control and flexibility in managing API permissions. This new capability ensures that users can manage their API permissions with greater precision, enhancing security and operational efficiency.
• Additionally, we are now offering integration with Copilot Studio. This integration aims to provide low-code developers with access to organizational APIs by creating a custom connector in Copilot Studio from Azure API Center, thereby simplifying the development process and expanding the usability of APIs.
• Furthermore, the updates bring MCP server support, allowing users to register remote MCP servers into API Center. This means that API Center can now serve as a private remote MCP registry, providing a centralized and secure repository for MCP services.
• Lastly, we are introducing semantic search capabilities, making it easier to find and discover APIs within the API Center portal or through data plane API. This feature uses advanced search algorithms to quickly find relevant APIs.

**Generally Available: UAE North regional availability with Microsoft Dev Box
Microsoft Dev Box**
May 2025
United Arab Emirates (UAE) North is now a supported region for Microsoft Dev Box. For more information on Dev Box regional availability

Public Preview: Azure Logic Apps now available as Agent tool in Azure AI Foundry
May 2025
We’re excited to announce that Azure Logic Apps connectors and templates are now available as tools within the AI Agent Service in Foundry. This integration brings the power of enterprise-grade integration to AI agents, enabling them to interact with hundreds of systems from databases to SaaS applications through low-code workflows.

With this release, developers and business users can:

• Seamlessly connect AI agents to enterprise systems using prebuilt Logic Apps connectors
• Leverage templates to automate complex tasks and orchestrate intelligent actions
• Rapidly extend agents’ capabilities without writing custom code
  This integration unlocks a faster path to building goal-oriented, enterprise-ready agents that act across systems with precision and reliability.

Generally Available: Enhancements to Purchase-Related Details in Cost Management for MCA Customers
May 2025

By June, we introduce improvements that will provide more detailed and accurate information on reservations (RIs), Azure Saving Plans (ASP), and 3rd party purchases from the Azure Marketplace.

1. RIs and ASP purchases will now show their billing subscription ID, helping customers with showback and chargeback.
2. ServiceStart and ServiceEnd dates will now show the term of the offer.
3. Data for RIs and ASP purchases will now populate the payGCostinBillingCurrency and the paygCostinUSD. This enables customers to compare their costs to retail prices in both currencies. This will be released by June.
4. For customers with monthly billing plans for commitment-based offers, the pricingCurrency and costInPricingCurrency fields will now show values for all installments.
5. For Marketplace purchases completed via the Azure Portal, we are adding support for tags. Purchases will also include the resourceUri, subscriptionId, and resourceGroupName. Note: Not all Marketplace purchases support these fields.
6. Effective Price will now populate for purchases. Effective price is in pricing currency, like all price points in the Cost Management data.
7. Customers of partners will now be able to view purchases and refunds at the subscription scope.

Public Preview: Azure SQL updates for late-April 2025
April 2025
In late-April 2025, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL:

• The MSSQL extension for VS Code now includes Schema Compare in its April release—making it easier to compare database schemas, identify differences, and apply updates across databases or files.