Defender for APIs / Defender for Azure API Management APIs is in Public Preview

Defender for APIs went to public preview in April 2023. In simple words, "Defender for Cloud continuously monitors the configuration of your API management to identity potential security vulnerabilities and recommends actions to mitigate them"

I had a look at my Azure instance. It can be found under the security section.

 If your organisation has many APIs and especially if it is exposed as public APIs or partner APIs or even internal APIs then this would be very useful. Because it continuously monitors.

 Remember security is always important. This adds one more layer of security feature to the Azure API Management service.

Ref:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/defender-for-cloud/defender-for-apis-introduction

Azure Data Factory Connectors Overview/ Supported Connectors for Azure Data Factory

Recently I was searching, whether it's possible to write to SharePoint using Azure Data Factory. But couldn't find many options. And found this useful info on the Microsoft Site.

• Source - Where data starts

• Sink - Where data ends

And for SharePoint, it had this row

Always check whether connectors are available as per your requirements. Here is the link to the documentation

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/connector-overview

How to Choose managed Azure Data store?

Have you struggled to choose the right managed azure data store for your application? Did you know that Microsoft had released a cool decision tree for it? I found it quite useful when I had choose the correct Azure managed data store. 

(Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/technology-choices/data-store-decision-tree)

Microsoft SaaS Offerings

Ever wondered what are the SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings from Microsoft? SaaS offering is something like users connect , configure and use without worrying about upgrades, installation etc. Offerings are well described here by Ivan Kosyakov . He has also provided a high level overview of each services. It's worth a read!  You might have already used some of the Microsoft SaaS offerings.

Thanks to the author. Here is a link to his article. 

https://biz-excellence.com/2023/06/21/microsoft-saas/

If you want to understand the difference between SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) please refer this nice and simple article by Paolo.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-explain-iaas-paas-saas-pizza-maker-paolo-della-rocca

Express Design - Sketch on Paper to Mobile App!

Here is my favourite from the Microsoft Build 2022!

Shared from: Ryan Cunningham 

Well, I would call it Express power but actually it is called Express Design

Here is the shared video - A simple sketch on paper is turning into a working mobile app!! How Cool!!!

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RE4XPSq

Azure Service Bus Large Message

 This was an amazing news for me from Ignite 2021!

Azure service bus premium, now supports payloads upto 100MB. Previously, it was just 1MB and it was  quite challenging for some requirements.Also that is a big jump 1MB to 100 MB!!!

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/updates/azure-service-bus-large-message-support-reaches-general-availability/

 

 

 

Auto Number Feature in Dynamics 365 CRM

'Requester' comes with a requirement.

Given A specific entity is available in Dynamics 365 CRM

When A record is created in Dynamics 365 CRM

Then An autonumber should be generated in a specific format after the record creation.

As we all know we used to write plugins for this requirement in Dynamics CRM 2011 version etc. But currently it is an out of the box feature (Introduced in 2019). It's just a new data type introduced by Microsoft. 

Note: This feature is only available in the new interface ( ie: https://make.powerapps.com/)

So navigate to https://make.powerapps.com/ and choose the correct environment.

When you add a new column after choosing your solution, you would see the magic as a datatype : ). And then when a record is created ( post record creation), it populates the autonumber. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!

But then the requester thinks that everything is super easy to do in Dynamics CRM / Power Platform. Well, not everything : )