Azure CLI Microsoft Ignite Highlights

Hi everyone! as Microsoft Ignite wraps up, we’re sharing some of the latest features we released in the Azure CLI supporting various announcements for Microsoft Ignite. We also released several important updates to Azure CLI commands and even a new extension. Here are some of the exciting announcements and updates.

(NOTE: The Azure CLI commands in the format az command --parameter that are shown below are not intended to be run as is, they only show the key parameters that need to be used for the feature described. Please refer to the documentation links provided to learn how to use the command with all the required parameters.)

Compute

Azure VMSS flexible orchestration mode support. With the GA release of Azure VMSS flexible orchestration mode, Azure CLI has released several updates to support the release including updated default values for an easier VMSS Flex creation experience and user friendly error messaging to help identify limitations when creating scale sets with flexible orchestration.

New commands to enhance support for VM/VMSS run-command. Customers now have more control over their run-commands using CLI. They can create, delete, and update run-commands for a VM, place the VM into a waiting state until a condition is met with wait, or get more information about your run-commands using list and show! az vm run-command create

Support for cross-region incremental snapshot copies. Customers can now use az snapshot --copy-start to create snapshots even when source and target regions are different. For example, if you need to copy a snapshot to and edge location from your main region.

Support for choosing Ephemeral OS disk provisioning location in CLI. Using az vm/vmss create --ephemeral-os-disk, you can choose the provisioning location with the new --ephemeral-os-disk-placement preview parameter. Available options are CacheDisk (Cache disk) and ResourceDisk (Temp disk).

Automatic in-guest patching support for VMSS. Customers can now use the new --patch-mode parameter in az vmss create to onboard scaled set virtual machines to automatic in-guest patching. Multiple options are possible for Windows and Linux VMs based on your needs. For more information, check out the az vmss documentation.

New Commands to support gallery applications on VM, VMSS, and Azure Compute Gallery. Customers can now manage their VM applications with new az vm application commands and manage Azure Compute Gallery (formerly known as Shared Image Gallery) applications with new az sig gallery-application commands.

Storage

Protected append support for immutable storage. Customers can now create immutable storage containers with the ability to append blocks to a blob. This applies to time-based retention and legal hold policies. When creating the immutability policy for a storage container, you can use the new --allow-protected-append-writes and --allow-protected-append-writes-all flags to enable the ability. This doesn't enable modification to the existing content of storage containers and can only append to the end of the container. for more information check out the az storage container doc.

Update blob storage rehydration priority. Customers can now use Azure CLI to update archived blob storage rehydration priority with az storage --set-tier --tier. For more information, see the az storage blob documentation.

Support for no squash and all squash for NFS 3.0.. Customers can now create or update an NFS 3.0 container to enable or disable root squash with az storage container-rm create/update --root-squash. Acceptable values for --root-squash are RootSquash, AllSquash, and NoSquash. For more information, see the NFS protocol how-to and the az storage container-rm docs.

KeyVault

Define policy rules under which a key can be exported. The --policy parameter has been released for az keyvault key create in public preview and customers can define policy rules using JSON or a JSON file. For more information, check out the az keyvault key doc.

Support for key rotation and key rotation policy. Customers can now create and update key rotation policy as well as rotate keys based on key rotation policy using az keyvault key rotation-policy and az keyvault key rotate. For more information, see the az keyvault key doc.

Network

Support for scale units and skus in Azure Bastion. Customers can now set the scale units and SKU's with Azure CLI when creating an Azure Bastion host.

New Azure Logz Extension

Logz is a SaaS to centralize log, metric, and tracing analytics in one place. Customers can now manage MIcrosoft Logz with the logz extension. To install the extension, run az extension add -n logz. For more information about all the capabilities of the extension, checkout the logz extension documentation. NOTE: The extension is currently experimental.

Wrap up

There has been a ton of amazing work involved in releasing the latest version of Azure CLI. Along with a new authentication library, there are more updates in the latest release and we would love to hear your feedback! Thank you for the continued support and we look forward to hearing from you.