Azure AI & App Innovation Updates - March 2026#
By Lionel Gurret.
Introduction#
This article lists Azure updates for March 2026.
Updates#
AI + machine learning#
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Databricks OneLake Catalog Federation
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Lakeflow Connect Free Tier now available in Azure Databricks
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Foundry Agent Service
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Databricks update workspace network configuration
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Databricks Lakebase
Containers#
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Red Hat OpenShift in Indonesia Central
- Retirement: Retirement: Deprecation of sidecar for remote-write for Azure Monitor managed service for Prometheus
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Cross-cluster networking in Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Container Storage v2.1.0 now with Elastic SAN integration and on demand installation
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Red Hat OpenShift Managed Identity and Workload Identity
- [In preview]: Retirement: Flatcar Container Linux for AKS (preview)
DevOps#
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Monitor Prometheus community recommended alerts for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Ingest OTLP data into Azure Monitor with the OpenTelemetry Collector
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Summary rules in Log Analytics workspace now support manual “Retry bin”
Compute#
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Ephemeral OS Disk with full caching for VM/VMSS
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Blue-green agent pool upgrade in AKS
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Container network metrics filtering for AKS
- [In preview]: Public Preview: AI Agent for container networking troubleshooting
- [In preview]: Public Preview: AKS managed GPU metrics in Azure Monitor
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Container network logs in AKS
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Application routing with meshless Istio in AKS
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Application Network
Networking#
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Default Rule Set 2.2 and updates to ruleset support policy
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Draft & Deploy on Azure Firewall
Security#
Internet of Things#
- [In preview]: Retirement: External Data Import & Data Connections in Azure Machine Learning will be retired on September 30, 2026
Developer tools#
Features#
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Event Grid provides new capabilities for smarter, more secure event-driven architectures
- [Launched]: Generally Available: GitHub Copilot in SQL Server Management Studio 22
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure SRE Agent with new capabilities
Storage#
- [Launched]: Generally Available: User delegation SAS for Azure Tables, Azure Files, and Azure Queues
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Premium SSD v2 Disk is now available in US Gov Arizona
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Premium SSD v2 Disk is now available in South India
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Entra ID-Based Access for Azure Blob Storage SFTP
Integration#
Regions & Datacenters#
Retirements#
- Retirement: Retirement: Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL will retire on March 31, 2029
- Retirement: Retirement: Emissions Impact Dashboard for Azure
Databases#
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure SQL updates for late-March 2026
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Cosmos DB Mirroring in Microsoft Fabric with private endpoints
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Fabric Mirroring integration for Azure Database for MySQL
- [Launched]: Public Preview: Azure SQL Managed Instance change event streaming
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Custom time zone support for pg_cron via cron.timezone in Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- [Launched]: Generally Available: PostgreSQL migration service supports compatible EDB workloads into Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- [Launched]: Generally Available: PostgreSQL migration service supports for Google AlloyDB into Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Online migration now uses the pgoutput plugin
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure SQL updates for mid-March 2026
- [Launched]: General availability: Azure SQL updates for mid-March 2026
- [In preview]: Public preview: GitHub Copilot integration in Schema Designer for the MSSQL extension
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Database DevOps in SSMS powered by SQL projects
- [In preview]: Public Preview: SQL MCP Server
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Versionless key support for transparent data encryption in Azure SQL Database
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Data API builder with built-in GitHub Copilot in MSSQL extension
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Terraform, Bicep, Ansible support for elastic clusters on Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL dashboards with Grafana
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Customer‑managed encryption keys now supported on Premium SSD v2 disks for Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Query Profiler in MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code
Hybrid + multicloud#
Azure Sphere#
Virtual Machines#
- Retirement: Retirement: HC-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired on May 31, 2027
- Retirement: Retirement: HBv2-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired on May 31, 2027
- Retirement: Retirement: NP-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired on May 31, 2027
Azure VMware Solution#
Batch#
- Retirement: Retirement: Support for Windows Server 2016 Marketplace images on Azure Batch pools will end on January 12, 2027
- Retirement: Retirement: Migration of Azure Batch Low-Priority VMs to Spot VMs in early March
- Retirement: Retirement: End of life reminder of NVv3 and NVv4-series Azure virtual machine in Azure Batch pools
Migration#
- [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Storage Mover enables private data transfers from AWS S3 to Azure Blob
Azure Policy#
Sources#
https://azure.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Dev Blog Azure Website