Generally Available: New built-in roles for Azure Chaos Studio**

December 2024 update
Generally Available: New built-in roles for Azure Chaos Studio
Azure Chaos Studio Experiment Contributor, Chaos Studio Operator, and Chaos Studio Reader are new Azure built-in roles users can utilize to manage access to Chaos Studio within their organizations
Chaos Studio Experiment Contributor: Can create, run, and see details for experiments, onboard targets, and manage capabilities.

Chaos Studio Operator: Can run and see details for experiments but cannot create experiments or manage targets and capabilities.

Chaos Studio Reader: Can view targets, capabilities, experiments, and experiment details.

Generally Available: Azure SQL updates for early-December
In early-December 2024, the following updates and enhancements were made to Azure SQL:

Get enhanced monitoring now that the dynamic management function (DMF) displays the component causing throttling of the primary log generation rate in Azure SQL Database Hyperscale.

Save 35% to 55% on compute costs with a one-year or three-year reservation for Azure SQL Database, now also available for zone-redundant General Purpose databases.

Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server in Spain Central and Mexico Central regions
Now you can deploy Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server in the Spain Central and Mexico Central regions.

Generally Available: Performance management server parameters now modifiable in Azure Database for PostgreSQL
We're thrilled to announce that you can now modify multiple performance management server parameters in Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server. You can specify the value of hash_mem_multiplier, wal_sender_timeout, and wal_receiver_timeout. You can also modify log_min_duration_sample, log_parameter_max_length, log_parameter_max_length_on_error, log_statement_sample_rate, vacuum_buffer_usage_limit, vacuum_failsafe_age, vacuum_multixact_failsafe_age , log_connections, and log_disconnections.

Generally Available: High-availability health status monitoring for Azure Databse for PostgreSQL-Flexible Server
With the general availability of high-availability (HA) health status monitoring for Azure Database for PostgreSQL – Flexible Server, you can now track and maintain the health of HA-enabled instances with ease. This feature offers real-time insights into the readiness of your primary and standby replicas, helping you proactively identify and address any issues impacting availability or failover capability. Based on the Azure Resource Health Check framework, this monitoring solution enables you to optimize uptime and minimize potential disruptions to your database services.

Generally Available: Enhanced AKS logs with Kubernetes metadata and logs filtering
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) logs now include detailed metadata, such as PodLabels, PodAnnotations, PodUid, Image, ImageID, ImageRepo, and ImageTag. These additions provide richer context and improved visibility into workloads, aiding in troubleshooting and monitoring. The integration with Grafana further enhances this by enabling users to visualize and analyze logs more effectively, utilizing Grafana's powerful dashboard capabilities.

Generally Available: AKS automated deployments UI
The AKS automated deployments feature has received UI updates designed to make it easier for customers to get started with Azure Kubernetes Service. With these new improvements, you can now select specific locations for saving autogenerated Dockerfiles and Kubernetes manifest files. With automated deployments, you can easily get your apps up and running on Azure Kubernetes Service.

Generally Available: Vaulted backup for AKS
Azure Backup now supports vaulted backups for AKS, enabling cross-region disaster recovery, long-term retention and immutable security. This simplifies compliance and strengthens resilience for cloud-native applications.

Customers can protect clusters during a regional disaster recovery, store backup data for up to 10 years to meet compliance requirements, and secure backup data at an offsite location to safeguard against ransomware threats.

Generally Available: Force attach/death API support in AKS
With the release of Kubernetes v1.30, the Azure Disk CSI driver has adopted the force detach capability. This feature allows the driver to force detach zone-redundant storage (ZRS) data disks from VM nodes in a failed zone and attach them to another VM, reducing the Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

Stateful workloads in AKS clusters can now quickly recover from zone failures by detaching ZRS data disks from affected VM nodes and reattaching them to new VMs.

Generally Available: Open-source feature update:vLLM model serving in KAITO
KAITO now supports high throughput model serving with the open-source vLLM serving engine. In the KAITO inference workspace, you can deploy models using vLLM to batch process incoming requests, accelerate inference, and optimize your AI workload by default, preventing out-of-memory (OOM) errors and minimizing workload disruptions.

Generally Availble: Paraller Image Pulls by Default in AKS
By default, AKS versions earlier than 1.31 use serialized image pulls. Starting with AKS version 1.31 preview, AKS defaults to parallel image pulls. Generally, serialized image pulls are less performant than parallel pulls, especially when dealing with large or numerous container images. This update helps to enhance overall system efficiency.