Generally Available: SharePoint Connector for Azure Databricks

The SharePoint connector for Azure Databricks is now generally available. Organizations can use Lakeflow Connect to ingest files from SharePoint into Azure Databricks, helping unify enterprise content with data and AI workflows on Azure.

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Generally Available: Unity AI Gateway on Azure Databricks

Unity AI Gateway is now generally available on Azure Databricks. Unity AI Gateway provides centralized governance for AI models, agents, tools, and MCP services, helping organizations monitor usage, manage costs, apply guardrails, and enforce access controls across AI workloads.

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Generally Available: Explicit proxy in Azure Firewall

Azure Firewall explicit proxy is now generally available. Explicit proxy enables customers to configure applications and browsers to send HTTP and HTTPS traffic directly to Azure Firewall using proxy settings, providing an alternative to route-based traffic steering and enabling more granular control over outbound web traffic.

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Retirement: Nested confidential (cc_v5) VMs will be retired on September 1, 2026

On September 1, 2026, the cc_v5 confidential VM series will be retired and will no longer be available for use or purchase. Any affected VM that has not been resized before that date will deallocated.

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Public Preview: Perimeter link feature in network security perimeter

Perimeter link (cross-perimeter connectivity) is a network security perimeter capability that allows trusted resources in two different network security perimeters to securely communicate with each other using Managed Identity (MSI), without requiring additional network security perimeter access rules or network configuration changes. It preserves Zero Trust boundaries while enabling controlled service-to-service access across perimeters

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Public Preview: Azure Private Link support over IPv6

Azure Private Link over IPv6 enables you to privately access Azure PaaS services, such as Azure Storage and Azure SQL Database, over IPv6-based connectivity. You can now use IPv6 private endpoints to connect from IPv6 clients in an Azure virtual network or from on-premises networks over ExpressRoute.

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Public Preview: Azure DNS enables DNS-based load balancing through Traffic Manager integration

Azure DNS now offers a seamless way to integrate with Azure Traffic Manager for DNS-based traffic routing. Customers can now directly associate Azure DNS record set with Traffic Manager profiles without creating CNAME record for trafficmanager.net domain.

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Generally Available: Azure Virtual Network routing appliance

Azure Virtual Network routing appliance is now generally available. It delivers private connectivity across virtual networks, using specialized hardware for low latency, high throughput, and better performance than virtual machines.

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Generally Available: Trusted Launch as Default

Trusted Launch as Default (TLaD) is now generally available for new Azure Gen2 virtual machines and virtual machine scale sets. TLaD automatically enables Secure Boot and vTPM for supported deployments, helping customers establish a stronger security baseline for workloads at no additional cost.

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Generally Available: Immutability to the most recent seven days of backups on Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance

To enhance backup protection, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance now automatically apply immutability to the most recent seven days of backups. This capability is enabled by default for all databases, regardless of the configured point-in-time restore retention period.

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Generally Available: Single-click purchase for public SaaS offers

Eligible SaaS products on Microsoft Marketplace now support a simplified purchase experience in Azure portal. Customers can review plan, billing, resource group, contact details, and terms information on a single page for completing the purchase.

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Public Preview: Route-Maps for Azure Route Server

Route maps for Azure Route Server are now available in public preview, providing fine-grained control over inbound and outbound routing across hybrid connections. Customers can manage routes advertised to and from Azure Route Server BGP peerings with Network Virtual Appliances (NVAs), ExpressRoute gateways, and VPN gateways in the same virtual network.

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Public Preview: Azure SQL updates for late-July

In late-July 2026, the following update and enhancement was made to Azure SQL: Regex-based dynamic data masking (DDM) extends the built-in DDM feature with pattern‑based masking to hide sensitive data like emails, phone numbers, and identifiers—centrally enforced at the database layer.

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Generally Available: Azure Automation supports PowerShell 7.6 runbooks and Runtime environment

Azure Automation is pleased to announce: General Availability of in-support PowerShell 7.6 runbooks Runtime Environment GA, enabling customers to seamlessly upgrade their outdated scripts to supported runtime versions. Support for Azure CLI commands in PowerShell 7.6 runbooks GA Benefits: Stay current – Access to new language versions for improved security and performance.

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Announcing: Reservation exchanges for Azure services supported by savings plans will no longer be available starting February 1, 2027

Starting February 1, 2027, Azure reservations exchanges will no longer be available for services covered by savings plans. At the time of this announcement, this includes reservations for the following services: Compute services: Azure Virtual Machines, including exchanges between non-premium and premium storage, Azure Dedicated Host, and Azure App Service.

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Public Preview: Symmetric keys on Azure Key Vault Premium

Microsoft is announcing symmetric keys on Azure Key Vault Premium are now available in public preview. This preview enables customers and partners to evaluate symmetric encryption capabilities using the oct-HSM key type and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm directly within Azure Key Vault.

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Generally Available: Claude Opus 5 on Azure Databricks

Azure Databricks now supports Anthropic Claude Opus 5 through AI Model Serving. Claude Opus 5 is Anthropic's latest model for advanced reasoning, coding, agentic workflows, and professional knowledge work.

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Public Preview: Support for SMB Opportunistic Locking (Oplocks) configuration

Azure NetApp Files now supports configuration of SMB opportunistic locking (oplocks) for SMB and dual-protocol volumes. Opportunistic locks (Oplocks) improve SMB client caching and are enabled by default.

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Public Preview: Azure Monitor Logs mirroring into Microsoft Fabric

This capability shares telemetry from Azure Monitor Log Analytics workspaces into Microsoft Fabric, making observability data available in OneLake as Delta Parquet, the open format, without duplication and with near real-time availability. All Azure Monitor Logs tiers are supported, including Analytics, Basic, and Auxiliary logs.

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Generally Available: Azure Sphere OS version 26.09 is now available for evaluation

Azure Sphere OS version 26.09 RC1 is now available for evaluation in the Retail Eval feed. Whilst this release encompasses no customer-facing changes, it represents a major bump in Azure Sphere's underlying Linux kernel version as part of Microsoft's long-term support and security commitment, as such, this release will operate for an extended evaluation period, until September 2026, enabling additional time for customer evaluation testing.

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Public Preview: Azure Databricks natively storing data in Microsoft OneLake

Azure Databricks can now natively write managed Delta tables to Microsoft OneLake. This capability enables customers to use OneLake as a unified storage layer for Azure Databricks workloads without managing separate storage accounts.

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Microsoft 365: Assign Different Content to Learning Groups in a Single Assignment

Enable educators to assign different content (attachments, resources, instructions) to different Individual Groups within a single Assignment. Today teachers must create separate assignments to differentiate — one for advanced readers, another for struggling students, etc.

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Microsoft 365: Control access to Learning Activities and Teach

IT administrators can manage access to Learning Activities and Teach from the Microsoft 365 admin center. Configure Learning Activities separately for educators and for students ages 13 and older and enable or disable Teach for educators to align AI experiences with your organization's policies and deployment readiness.

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Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server in India South Central

Now you can deploy Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server in the India South Central Azure region.

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SharePoint: Viva Connections multi-home site management moving to SharePoint admin center

Viva Connections multi-home site management is moving from the Microsoft 365 admin center (MAC) to the SharePoint Admin Center (SPAC). Administrators will be able to create and manage multiple Home sites, configure audience targeting, manage home site priority order, and remove Home sites directly from SPAC.

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Microsoft Viva: Copilot Dashboard - Targeted Audience Surveys

Targeted Audience Surveys let change leaders launch a Copilot Pulse survey directly from the Copilot Dashboard to all licensed or active users. Audiences update automatically using Insights data and respect existing dashboard filters like organization and job function, with privacy protected through population-level reporting only.

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Microsoft Viva: Rolling out Custom branding in Engage

Engage is rolling out Custom Branding, a new admin-led capability that lets organizations define a customized, tenant-wide visual identity across the Engage web and mobile apps. Engage-level admins can configure a brand name, add large and small logos, and a theme color that is applied consistently for all users in the tenant.

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Microsoft Edge: Import Google account data anytime from Settings

Microsoft Edge now lets users import their Google account data - including passwords, bookmarks, history, and autofill data - directly from Edge Settings, at any time after setup. Previously, users had no way to import this data from a Google account outside the first-run experience.

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Outlook: Drag and Drop

You can now reschedule events by dragging them to a new time slot in your calendar. This feature is available in day and multi day views.

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Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): New Rich Answer Cards

Surface new model-driven, dynamically placed Answer Cards across top 7 segments: weather, sports, finance, images, video, places and news for Entra & MSA users across all surfaces.

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