Public Preview: Azure SQL update for early-May 2026

Public Preview: Azure SQL update for early-May 2026
In early May 2026, the following update and enhancement was made to Azure SQL:

• Right‑size memory for Business Critical Azure SQL Managed Instance to improve performance without overprovisioning.

Public Preview: Bulk Restore for Azure Virtual Machines using Azure Backup
Azure Backup now supports ‘Bulk Restore’ for Azure virtual machines (VMs), enabling customers to restore multiple VMs (upto 100) in a single operation. This feature simplifies large-scale recovery scenarios while preserving control and granularity at an individual VM level. Customers can select multiple VMs, choose restore points, apply common restore parameters and track restore progress centrally. This feature is optimized for scenarios such as outages, ransomware recovery, improving recovery speed and operational efficiency

Public Preview: Azure NetApp Files enable backup by default
Azure NetApp Files now enables backup by default when creating new volumes, delivering a more seamless and secure data‑protection experience. Backups are automatically provisioned during volume creation, reducing setup effort while still allowing customers to opt out when needed. This enhancement improves usability, strengthens data resilience, and is available across all Azure NetApp Files regions

Public Preview: Azure Cosmos DB Shell—your new command line for data workflows
Azure Cosmos DB Shell is now available in public preview, introducing a modern command-line experience with agentic capabilities powered by Model Context Protocol (MCP). You can now query, explore, and manage your data more efficiently through intelligent, AI-assisted workflows.

Public Preview: Azure Cosmos DB spherical quantization for improved vector search
Azure Cosmos DB now offers spherical quantization in public preview to help you achieve faster vector indexing with higher recall and accuracy at scale. Spherical quantization is an advanced vector compression technique designed to preserve search quality while improving vector indexing and search performance.

Public Preview: Application Gateway for Containers managed add-on + AKS Automatic
We previously announced the availability of Application Gateway for Containers and the Application Gateway for Containers AKS Add-on for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). At that time, one limitation was that Application Gateway for Containers could not be provisioned into an AKS Automatic cluster.

Application Gateway for Containers can now be used with AKS Automatic through the Application Gateway for Containers AKS Add-on.

With this update, customers using AKS Automatic can deploy Application Gateway for Containers by enabling the AKS Add-on, allowing Application Gateway for Containers to be managed and integrated as part of the AKS Automatic experience. This removes the need to manually provision or manage supporting infrastructure and aligns with the simplified operational model of AKS Automatic.

This enhancement enables customers to:

• Use Application Gateway for Containers as the managed ingress and load balancing solution for AKS Automatic clusters
• Benefit from a fully managed, Azure-native experience through the AKS Add-on
• Reduce operational overhead while adopting Gateway API–based application delivery

You can get started by enabling the Application Gateway for Containers AKS Add-on on your AKS Automatic clusters.

Generally Available: AVS Support for AV64 SKU on Azure Elastic SAN
Azure Elastic SAN datastores are now supported with AV64 SKUs, enabling higher-scale and higher-performance storage options for Azure VMware Solution deployments.

Generally Available: Single Volume Snapshots on Azure Elastic SAN
Azure Elastic SAN now supports single volume snapshots, enabling incremental, point‑in‑time backups of individual SAN volumes. Snapshots capture only changes since the previous snapshot and reside within the SAN, allowing customers to quickly deploy new volumes from a restore point or export data to managed disk snapshots for long‑term retention. Snapshots are capacity efficient, consume SAN storage instead of incurring separate billing, and inherit the redundancy configuration of the parent SAN.

Snapshots consume provisioned SAN capacity rather than incurring separate billing and can be exported to managed disk snapshots for longer‑term retention beyond the lifecycle of the source volume. Snapshot redundancy is automatically aligned with the redundancy configuration of the parent Elastic SAN.

Generally Available: Azure Elastic SAN support for AVS Gen2 Private Cloud
Elastic SAN datastores deliver simpler connectivity and improved performance when used with AVS Gen2 Private Cloud:

Simpler connectivity & configuration

• No ExpressRoute gateway required
• A single Private Endpoint is sufficient to configure the optimal number of iSCSI sessions

Higher performance

• No throughput limitations imposed by ExpressRoute gateway bandwidth
• Ability to achieve the entire provisioned Elastic SAN throughput

This significantly simplifies deployment while maximizing performance for throughput‑intensive AVS workloads.

Generally Available: Azure Functions durable task scheduler Consumption SKU
The Durable Task Scheduler Consumption SKU is now generally available. Run durable workflows and AI agent orchestrations on Azure with pay-per-use pricing. No storage to manage, no capacity to plan, and no idle costs.

The Consumption SKU charges only for actions dispatched, making it ideal for bursty workloads like AI agent orchestration, event-driven pipelines, and API-triggered workflows.

It supports up to 500 actions/second, 30-day data retention, a built-in monitoring dashboard, and identity-based security with Entra ID and RBAC. Works across Azure Functions, Azure Container Apps, AKS, and any compute environment using the Durable Task SDKs.