What’s new: RHEL 9.3 support for AMD confidential VMs, temp disk encryption, new regions

Microsoft Azure is pleased to announce the availability of the RHEL 9.3 confidential SEV-SNP public preview image on Azure. Our collaboration with Red Hat integrates Azure’s scalable infrastructure with Red Hat’s cloud-native solutions, creating a robust platform that allows developers to unleash their full potential.

Confidential computing centered on data security serves as a catalyst for transformative digital experiences, furthering innovation in the cloud era. The support is designed to provide organizations with flexibility and reliability to deploy applications and workloads quickly and securely across cloud environments.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.3 confidential image

The launch of RHEL 9.3 introduces several new features that enhance security for customer workloads. A key feature is the ability to run on the Azure confidential VMs with AMD SEV-SNP, offered as a public preview. This image supports comprehensive protection throughout the data lifecycle – whether data is at rest, in transit or in use. This helps organizations meet security requirements using features like Secure Boot, vTPM, and confidential disk encryption. Learn more here.

The RHEL 9.3 confidential image is now available to run confidential workloads and applications in the cloud. With this release, businesses can successfully modernize and transform their operations while maintaining a trajectory for future innovation.

Announcing new regions for DCas/DCads/ECas/Ecads v5 confidential virtual machines

We are also thrilled to announce the expansion of Azure Confidential VMs featuring AMD SEV-SNP technology to the following new regions: Italy North, Germany West Central and UAE North. This expansion brings the total number of regions offering this service to twelve, enhancing our commitment to providing secure and reliable cloud services worldwide.

The new regions join the existing list, which includes East US, West US, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Japan East, Switzerland North, North Europe, West Europe, and Central India. With this expansion, businesses in these regions can now leverage the enhanced security features of Azure confidential VMs, further enhancing their digital operations and data protection strategies. For the latest information on the products available by region, please check out the link.

Introducing Temp Disk Encryption for Confidential VMs in Public Preview

Our commitment to security continues today with the support for Azure confidential VMs, a significant step towards hardening temp disks. This new feature encrypts the temp disk of a confidential VM using symmetric key encryption technology and makes the disk content accessible only to the VM.

Confidential temp disk encryption encrypts files such as page files, in addition to customer data. For more details, check out the blog post.

General Availability of Azure Databricks Support for AMD-based SEV-SNP Confidential VMs

We are pleased to announce the General Availability (GA) release of Azure Databricks support for AMD-based confidential VMs, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of cloud-based data analytics.

Since its introduction, Azure Databricks has become a pivotal tool for data professionals, data engineers and data scientists, offering a collaborative unified analytics platform that accelerates time to insight. The integration of Azure Databricks support for AMD-based confidential VMs ensures a cohesive and versatile environment for our valued customers.

Azure Databricks support for AMD SEV-SNP confidential VMs is now available in all Azure regions where DCa and ECa-series VMs are offered.