Azure AI & App Innovation Updates - October 2026

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By Lionel Gurret.

Introduction

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This article lists Azure updates for October 2026.

Updates

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AI + machine learning

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Cost management and tagging for Claude models in Microsoft Foundry
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Databricks Private network gateway

Containers

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• [Launched]: Retirement: Pod name dimension in AKS pod platform metrics

DevOps

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Advanced platform metrics for Azure Monitor
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Metrics usage insights for Azure Monitor workspace
• Retirement: Retirement: Microsoft Dev Box will be retired on September 18, 2028
• [Launched]: Retirement: Azure Deployment Environments will be retired on February 22, 2027

Compute

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Managed StandardV2 NAT Gateway for AKS
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Anyscale on Azure
• [Launched]: Generally Available: SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines in Azure Bleu

Networking

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: HTTP DDoS ruleset for Azure Front Door Premium WAF
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Front Door profile and route level WAF policies
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Disable VNet peering route
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Service tag match condition for Azure Front Door Premium WAF
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Keyless TLS on Application Gateway with Azure Key Vault Managed HSM
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure DNS enables DNS-based load balancing through Traffic Manager linked records
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Standard service endpoint
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Exceptions in WAF for Azure Application Gateway and Azure Front Door
• [In preview]: Public Preview: IPv6 Support for Application Gateway WAF

Security

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: External key management for Azure Key Vault Managed HSM

Databases

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Support database-level managed identity (including FIC) in Create Database Scoped Credential T-SQL
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Cosmos DB Safe Key Rotation
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server in East US 3
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure HorizonDB expands to additional regions
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Major version upgrades (MVU) for Azure Database for PostgreSQL elastic clusters

Feature

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Large OS Disk Encryption for Azure Confidential VM migrations
• [Launched]: Generally Availabile: Automatic zone balance for Virtual Machine Scale Sets
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Cloud HSM hardware audit logging
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Enabling the Bulk admin role for SQL Server on Linux
• [In preview]: Public Preview: AKS on bare metal now on Ubuntu

Developer tools

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure MCP Server 3.0

Azure Container Apps

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• [Launched]: Announcing: Migrate Azure Container Apps logging destination from Log Analytics to Azure Monitor

Management and governance

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Cross Tenant Restore with Azure Backup
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Marketplace private offer enhancements
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Network Watcher VNet flow logs filtering
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Item Level Recovery for Azure VMs with Premium SSDv2 and Ultra Disks in Azure Backup
• [Launched]: Generally Available: Azure Site Recovery Support for Azure ARC-enabled Windows VMWare/Physical servers
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Backup for PostgreSQL flexible server and elastic cluster (v2)

Storage

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• [Launched]: Generally Available: Higher limit of Azure Blob Storage accounts per region per subscription
• [Launched]: Generally Available: ABFS Vectored Read for Azure Data Lake Storage
• [In preview]: Public Preview: Azure Files cross-region data copy and synchronization with Azure Storage Mover

Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD)

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• [Launched]: Announcing: Choose Your Own Telephony (CYOT) for Microsoft Entra

Retirements

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• Retirement: Retirement: Azure Key Vault Secrets Provider Extension for Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters

Integration

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• [In preview]: Public Preview: Microsoft Agent 365 integration with Azure API Management

Announcement

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• [Update]: Announcing: Multiparty private offers in Microsoft Marketplace expands to Hong Kong

Mobile

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• Retirement: Retirement: Azure App Service on Azure Stack Hub
• Retirement: Retirement: Support for Java 8, 11 and 17 will end on September 1, 2027

Hybrid + multicloud

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• Retirement: Retirement: Always Encrypted with Intel SGX Enclaves

Microsoft Fabric

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• [Launched]: Announcing: Table discovery in OneLake Catalog search

Linux Virtual Machines

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• Retirement: Retirement: DCsv3 and DCdsv3-series Azure Virtual Machines will be retired on October 31, 2029

Sources

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https://azure.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Dev Blog Azure Website