InfoQ Homepage Microsoft Azure Content on InfoQ
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Container Apps Express Reaches GA on a Newly Generally Available Sandbox Layer
Microsoft has made Azure Container Apps Express generally available alongside Container Apps Sandboxes, the microVM compute layer it runs on. Express skips environment provisioning and scales to zero, with subsecond startup from prewarmed pools. Custom domains, zone redundancy, Key Vault references, OpenTelemetry and Dapr are not supported.
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Zone Redundancy Comes to API Management Standard v2
Microsoft has enabled zone redundancy on the Standard v2 tier of Azure API Management, following its arrival on Premium v2 in December. Standard v2 starts at $700 per month against $2,801 for Premium v2, but carries a 99.95% SLA rather than 99.99%. Zone redundancy can only be configured when creating an instance.
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Foundry Model Router Expands from Two Regions to 28, Refreshing Its Model Pool
Microsoft expanded Foundry's model router from two regions to 28 for global standard and 21 for data zone deployments, while adding Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.6 and removing four deprecated models. Default deployments receive pool changes automatically; configured subsets exclude new models until added. The effective context window equals the smallest model in the pool.
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AKS Looks to Make Node Disruption More Predictable with New NAP Guidance
Microsoft is placing greater emphasis on controlling disruption in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Node Auto-Provisioning (NAP), publishing new guidance to help platform teams balance the efficiency benefits of automated node consolidation with application availability.
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Azure API Management Adds Dedicated AI Gateway Tier, Governing Models and MCP Tools
Microsoft released a dedicated AI Gateway tier of Azure API Management in public preview, with a control plane built around models, MCP servers and tools rather than APIs. It fronts Foundry, Bedrock, Vertex AI and OpenAI behind one endpoint, with policy cards instead of XML. Architects welcomed the consolidation while questioning where the governance boundary sits.
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Microsoft Brings AI-Powered Vulnerability Remediation to Azure DevOps with Copilot Autofix
Microsoft has announced the limited public preview of Copilot Autofix for GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps, extending AI-powered vulnerability remediation to teams using Azure Repos.
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Microsoft Expands Azure Kubernetes Service with Bare Metal, Fleet Management and AI Infrastructure
At this year's Microsoft Build 2026, Microsoft unveiled a broad set of enhancements to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) aimed at making Kubernetes a first-class platform for AI training, inference, and large-scale cloud-native applications.
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Azure Functions Ships Serverless Agents Runtime at Build 2026
Azure Functions shipped a serverless agents runtime in public preview at Build 2026. Agents are defined in .agent.md markdown files with YAML triggers, MCP server access, 1,400+ connectors, and sandboxed execution. The Functions team confirmed to InfoQ that the runtime adds no cold start overhead and no billing premium beyond standard Flex Consumption.
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Azure API Management Ships Unified Model API and MCP Content Safety at Build 2026
Azure API Management shipped a Unified Model API that lets clients speak one format while APIM transforms requests to Anthropic, Vertex AI, and other backends. Content safety policies now cover MCP tool calls and Agent-to-Agent payloads alongside LLM traffic. Token metrics expanded to track reasoning, cached, and audio tokens across providers.
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Microsoft Foundry Adds Runtime, Tooling, and Governance for Production Agents
Microsoft used their Build 2026 event to announce new functionality for Microsoft Foundry. Citing Foundry as "the place where AI agents move from experiments to production systems," in a blog post, Nick Brady writes that the release brings “runtime, tools, memory, grounding, models, observability, and governance” that developers need for production agents, rather than just new model endpoints.
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Microsoft Discovery Reaches GA on Azure, Powering the Agentic AI behind Majorana 2 Quantum Chip
Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Discovery, its Azure-based platform for deploying autonomous AI agent teams in scientific R&D. The platform powered the development of Majorana 2, a topological quantum chip with 1,000x reliability improvement and 20-second qubit lifetimes. Microsoft now targets a scalable quantum computer by 2029, halving its original timeline.
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Microsoft Launches Logic Apps Automation at Build 2026
Microsoft announced Logic Apps Automation at Build 2026, a new SKU at auto.azure.com packaging workflows, AI agents, knowledge services, and model access into a managed SaaS experience. Agents integrate via agent-loop orchestration, Foundry agents, and managed sandbox. Knowledge as a Service provides a fully managed RAG pipeline.
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Microsoft Announces Azure Linux 4.0, Its First General-Purpose Server Linux Distribution
Microsoft announced Azure Linux 4.0 and Azure Container Linux at Open Source Summit. Azure Linux 4.0 is a Fedora-based general-purpose server distribution for Azure VMs, the first time Microsoft has offered a supported Linux beyond container hosting. Azure Container Linux is an immutable container-optimized host built on Flatcar.
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Microsoft Launches Azure Copilot Migration Agent to Accelerate Cloud Migration Planning
Microsoft has launched the Azure Copilot Migration Agent, an AI assistant built into the Azure portal that automates migration planning, agentless VMware discovery, and landing zone creation. Despite being billed as generally available, the agent is in public preview and cannot execute migrations. Replication and cutover remain manual tasks in Azure Migrate.
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OpenAI Secures AWS Distribution for Frontier Platform in $110B Multi-Cloud Deal
OpenAI's $110B funding includes AWS as the exclusive third-party distributor for the Frontier agent platform, introducing an architectural split: Azure retains stateless API exclusivity; AWS gains stateful runtime environments via Bedrock. Deal expands the existing $38B AWS agreement by $100B and commits 2GW of Trainium capacity.