Azure Bicep is a declarative Infrastructure-as-Code language for deploying Azure resources. There are various ways to deploy them, via Azure Portal, ARM Template, Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, Terraform, and other means. However, unlike Azure Resource Manager Templates, Bicep is very intuitive and understandable even for non-programmers.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is constantly expanding. It might seem overwhelming to a beginner or redundant to a pro, but Azure Container Apps, actually, introduces simplicity. If you want to test out applications or are not skilled in AKS, the new service allows you to deploy containerized apps without complex infrastructure.

Azure Data Explorer is a powerful software for real-time analysis of large volumes of streamed data. However, it can be used for data storage as well, and it’s cheaper than Microsoft Sentinel. Additionally, the service is useful if you want to query logs with Kusto Query Language (KQL), which is also available for Azure Log Analytics.

You may need your Sentinel logs in long-term retention based on government requirements. Azure Log Analytics starts charging for such retention after 90 days have elapsed. However, you can use a Playbook that creates an Azure Storage account and, after 90 days, automatically moves such logs to cold storage to avoid retention billing.

Microsoft Azure Sentinel is a wide-range cloud-native security and event management service. There’s a variety of ways to manage and automate its services. One of such methods is infrastructure as code, where you can automate how Azure Sentinel will respond to alerts and incidents using a Playbook and Azure DevOps.

Azure NetApp Files is akin to cloud-based shared storage for performance-intensive and latency-sensitive applications. It leverages both SMB and NFS protocols, so it’s applicable for both Windows and Linux. The service is designed to migrate and run your most demanding, complex, file-based applications in the cloud with no code change.

Release Pipelines in Azure DevOps is incredibly handy for your entire software delivery. While Azure DevOps has various automation features for projects within, you can also automate various tasks regarding Azure DevOps itself. There are many ways to start your release, and today show you how to run your release through PowerShell.

Virtual Appliance is a broad concept. It could include Firewall, Scanner, Network VM, and a lot of other virtualized instances. Primarily, to back that up, you need snapshots, and backing up a Virtual Appliance in Azure wasn’t quite user-friendly before. Now, however, you can perform all the necessary actions smoothly, in a matter of a few clicks.

Notifications can be incredibly useful for displaying vital information on your machine or on a remote user workstation, for example. You can create and display your desired notifications using PowerShell and a custom GitHub module for it — BurntToast. To enjoy this technique though, you’d have to use Windows 10 or Windows Server 2019.

Azure, just as any other industry flagship, spends a lot of time working on upgrading its current features and developing new ones. Privileged Identity Management feature (PIM) that enables you with more efficient resource management and control is one of the most recent releases.