Microsoft simplifies IoT, updates Azure Site Recovery

I surveyed 100 people to see what they wanted most in 2022, and the top two answers were more resources to get started with IoT and more ways to back up their data. These were followed by an end to the pandemic and world peace. Unfortunately, we won’t tackle those last two, but you better believe we're going to knock the first two out of the park.

Now, let's talk about IoT, data backup, and everything that's new with Azure this week!

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Microsoft has made a big push in the overall developer experience for IoT Central.

First up, Microsoft has launched a new GitHub repository cataloging resources that can help you get started with your IoT Central solution. This repository can be your bookmark for getting access to code samples in a variety of languages, architectural guidance, sample applications that leverage the IoT Central APIs, and helpful utilities like the Azure IoT CLI extension.

In addition to this, Microsoft has also provided additional resources in its IoT Central documentation to help people learn their way around. If you have a connected device solution on the horizon, these resources should make getting started a little bit easier.

Next up, do you remember that time you left a perfectly functioning data center to head off on a week-long vacation to Tahiti only to come back and discover that ransomware had effectively taken down your painstakingly curated collection of cat videos? It’s happened to all of us at some point.

Thankfully, Azure Site Recovery is now able to solve this problem for you, as they have extended the time you can hold onto recovery points from 72 hours to 15 days. That means you can sip a few more drinks on the beach without worrying that your recovery points are sailing away beyond the horizon.

In addition, Azure Site Recovery’s recent updates include a lot of additional goodies including additional replication options, expanded Linux support, and the ability to leverage zone-redundant storage disks when replicating Azure VMs. If you play a critical role in your organization’s disaster recovery plans, you’ll want to review these new capabilities to see how you can take advantage of them.

Finally, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that Microsoft is making it easier to leverage persistent volumes in your Azure Kubernetes Service workloads with AKS persistent volume backup. With this new AKS capability, you can back up and restore application data stored in a persistent volume.

You might be saying, "That’s great news! How can there be a bad side to this?"

Well, the bad news is that it’s only available in a private preview, and you’ll have to sign up to get access. However, I don’t expect it to be too long before this ends up in a public preview where everyone can try it out.

Whatever your hopes and dreams are for 2022, I hope that these Azure updates get you a step closer. Want to keep up with all things Azure? Subscribe to A Cloud Guru on YouTube for weekly Microsoft Azure news (plus news from those other cloud providers too). You can also like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or join the conversation on Discord!

We'll see you next week. Keep being awesome, cloud gurus!