Microsoft yesterday announced several updates to its Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Updates include the availability of the new G-series type of VM’s, the availability of Ubuntu image with a fully integrated Docker engine and a public preview of Azure Key Vault providing the abiltiy to safeguard and control keys and secrects using Hardware Security Modules (HSM) in the cloud.
Starting yesterday it has made available the G-series in Windows Azure, offering up to 32 vCPUs using the latest Intel Xeon processor E5 v3 family, 448GB of memory, and 6.59 TB of local Solid State Drive (SSD) space. Also the maximum count of attached data disks has been increased to 64, enabling the attachment of up to 64 TBs of persistent disks in Azure Storage. More information about how to deploy the new G-series can be found here.
Up until now customers had to install a Docker Azure extension to a running Linux VM in order to have support for Docker, but starting yesterday a Docker gallery item from the Azure Marketplace can be used instead to provision a Ubuntu image including a fully integrated Docker engine.
More information about deploying Docker on Ubuntu Server can be found here.
Azure Key Vault is a cloud hosted FIPS-validated Hardware Security Module (HSM) backed service for managing cryptographic keys and other secrets used in cloud applications. This service is a public Azure service that will, over time, be the trust root for important Microsoft first party services, for third party services seeking to offer higher assurances, and for your own custom line of business (LOB) Azure-hosted applications. More information about the public preview of Azure Key Vault can be found here.
