Microsoft Copilot in Azure (preview) is an AI-powered tool to help you do more with Azure. With Microsoft Copilot in Azure, you can gain new insights, discover more benefits of the cloud, and orchestrate across both cloud and edge. Copilot leverages Large Language Models (LLMs), the Azure control plane, and insights about your Azure environment to help you work more efficiently.
You can try Copilot now in the Microsoft Azure portal in Preview !
Click on Copilot and click on Next.
Give your feedback.
Click on Try Copilot.
Now you can use Azure Copilot Preview.
for example, show me all running Virtual Machines.
Prompt engineering is the process of designing prompts that elicit the best and most accurate responses from large language models (LLMs) like Microsoft Copilot in Azure (preview). As these models become more sophisticated, understanding how to create effective prompts becomes even more essential. Read here more about Write effective prompts for Microsoft Copilot in Azure
Conclusion
Microsoft Azure Copilot preview can be very handy to support you with deployments, troubleshooting in Azure Cloud services and
Hybrid with Azure Arc. Time to market and going live in production can be quicker because you don’t have to search yourself for the right command or scripts. Copilot will be smarter and more efficient, and you can learn from Copilot approaches. You are still in control because you have to check it if Copilot advise is the right thing to do. Try it yourself and experience the Azure Copilot Preview version 😉
Windows Server 2025 Insider Preview Azure Arc enabled Server
The Azure Connected Machine agent receives improvements on an ongoing basis. To stay up to date with the most recent developments, this article provides you with information about:
Further more, keep also your Azure Arc enabled Extensions up-to-date for your Azure Hybrid Services.
Automatic extension upgrade supports the following extensions at this moment:
Azure Monitor agent – Linux and Windows
Log Analytics agent (OMS agent) – Linux only
Dependency agent – Linux and Windows
Azure Security agent – Linux and Windows
Key Vault Extension – Linux only
Azure Update Manager – Linux and Windows
Azure Automation Hybrid Runbook Worker – Linux and Windows
Azure extension for SQL Server – Linux and Windows
More extensions will be added over time. Extensions that do not support automatic extension upgrade today are still configured to enable automatic upgrades by default. This setting will have no effect until the extension publisher chooses to support automatic upgrades. So have a look at your manual upgrade extensions too!
CBL-Mariner Linux is a lightweight operating system, containing only the packages needed for a cloud environment. CBL-Mariner can be customized through custom packages and tools, to fit the requirements of your application. CBL-Mariner undergoes Azure validation tests, is compatible with Azure agents, and is built and tested by the Azure Edge & Platform to power various use cases, ranging from Azure services to powering IoT infrastructure. CBL-Mariner is the internally recommended Linux distribution for use with Microsoft cloud services and related products.
In the following steps we are going to install CBL-Mariner 2.0 on Hyper-V as a virtual Docker Container Host.
First you have to download CBL-Mariner 2.0 (Azure Linux) ISO here
Enable Secure Boot Template: Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority
When you have made your Virtual Machine on Microsoft Hyper-V, you have to change the Security Boot Template from Microsoft Windows to Microsoft UEFI Certificate Authority and then you can boot from the ISO.
Select the Installation Experience
I used the Graphical Installer,
Select Next.
Default is the installation type: CBL-Mariner Core
I selected Installation type: CBL-Mariner Full
Read and Accept the CBL-Mariner Eula.
Here you can Partition your Storage.
Enter the Computer hostname and Create a User account.
Install Now.
Installing CBL-Mariner 2.0 on the VM.
And yes It’s fast 😉
Login with your new created user account.
It’s a habbit of my to update always the OS before doing other installations, so in the next steps we are going to upgrade to the latest updates since the ISO is released. Then we are going to install Azure-CLI and Docker Host for Containers.
Type the Command: Sudo dnf upgrade
The OS is now asking a couple of times if it’s OK to install.
Installing of Packages to update the System.
Upgrade of CBL-Mariner 2.0 is Completed.
Installing Microsoft Azure-CLI on CBL-Mariner 2.0
The Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI) is a cross-platform command-line tool to connect to Azure and execute administrative commands on Azure resources. It allows the execution of commands through a terminal using interactive command-line prompts or a script. Here you can find more about Microsoft Azure-CLI
First, we install the ca-certificates then we install Microsoft Azure-CLI
type Y if this is OK.
Azure-CLI is installed.
The Latest Microsoft Azure-CLI is running on your up-to-date CBL-Mariner VM.
Type command: cat /etc/os-release and you can see the exact version of CBL-Mariner 2.0
Installing Docker Container host on CBL-Mariner 2.0
Docker provides the ability to package and run an application in a loosely isolated environment called a container. The isolation and security lets you run many containers simultaneously on a given host. Containers are lightweight and contain everything needed to run the application, so you don’t need to rely on what’s installed on the host. You can share containers while you work, and be sure that everyone you share with gets the same container that works in the same way.
Docker provides tooling and a platform to manage the lifecycle of your containers:
Develop your application and its supporting components using containers.
The container becomes the unit for distributing and testing your application.
When you’re ready, deploy your application into your production environment, as a container or an orchestrated service. This works the same whether your production environment is a local data center, a cloud provider, or a hybrid of the two.
Now we are going to install the Docker Container host software on Microsoft CBL-Mariner 2.0 (Azure Linux):
Type Command: sudo tdnf install moby-engine moby-cli ca-certificates -y
Type command: sudo systemctl enable docker.service
Type command: sudo systemctl start docker.service and then type command: sudo systemctl status docker.service
Now you can pull or create your containers from here for example:
Type Command: docker run -it -d –name my_container ubuntu bash
Here I’m inside the Ubuntu Linux Container running on CBL-Mariner 2.0 with Docker Container Host.
Docker Container Ubuntu image.
More information about Microsoft CBL-Mariner 2.0 you can find here:
Running Microsoft CBL-Mariner 2.0 (Azure Linux) on Azure Stack HCI Hyper-V Cluster or in Microsoft Azure Cloud can be very powerfull as a lightweight Linux operating system at the Edge. Now we did running Docker Container Host on CBL-Mariner 2.0 (AzureLinux) but you can also install Microsoft Azure Arc agent to use this Operating System in a Adaptive Cloud way for Azure Hybrid Management and security. Try it yourself first in your test lab and when you have build a great security by design solution, use it in production for your business.
Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes allows you to attach Kubernetes clusters running anywhere so that you can manage and configure them in Azure. By managing all of your Kubernetes resources in a single control plane, you can enable a more consistent development and operation experience to run cloud-native apps anywhere and on any Kubernetes platform.
Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes works with any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) certified Kubernetes clusters. This includes clusters running on other public cloud providers (such as GCP or AWS) and clusters running on your on-premises data center (such as VMware vSphere or Azure Stack HCI).
In the following step-by step installation, we are going to connect a Kubernetes Cluster with Azure Arc services.
Here you set the subscription and resource group first.
Cluster name in Azure and the Microsoft Azure Region.
and at last, the network connectivity method, in my scenario a public endpoint.
you can add your tags.
Here you can select your script type Bash or PowerShell Then download your script.
Azure login
Enter the code and login your Azure subscription.
You now have signed in.
Check these Provider registrations (requirement)
Running the bash script.
Starting to install Azure Arc agents on the Kubernetes Cluster.
In Azure Portal, Kubecluster is connected to Azure.
kubectl get pods -n azure-arc
Kubecluster Overview in Azure portal.
the kubecluster is Azure Arc enabled and running. 🙂
Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes with Azure Monitor options.
Azure ArcNetworking extension for loadbalancer service.
Installing Docker on Windows Server 2025 Insider Preview Build 26080.1
During the Microsoft Windows Server Summit 2024 I got inspired to run a Windows Server 2025 Insider Preview Build and do something with Microsoft WinGet because this is now default installed on the latest Windows Server 2025 Insider Preview Build.
So with the following command, I installed Docker on the Window Server Insider Preview Build version 26080:
the NanoServer Insider container image is in the repository.
So now is Microsoft Windows Package Manager (WinGet) tool handy on this Windows Server Insider Build, because I like to have Microsoft Visual Studio Code Installed to play with Windows Nano Server Insider Container.
First I did a Winget upgrade –all
with Winget search vscode you get the list To install Visual Studio Code with Winget: winget install Microsoft.VisualStudioCode
Visual Studio Code is installing.
Visual Studio Code is Installed.
I installed the Docker extension in VSCode.
Microsoft Windows Nano Server Insider Image version 26080 in VSCode.
Running Nano Server Insider Container on Windows Server 2025 Insider Preview Build.
On the Container host is a virtual Nat adapter 172.24.16.1 for
the containers the gateway.
Important:
This is not for production environment but for testing and learning only with new Microsoft technologies.
Don’t miss this Awesome Microsoft Windows Server Summit 2024 virtual event to get the latest and Greatest information powered by the Engineering team!
When: March 26-28, 2024. Mark your Calendar 😉
Topic wise: it will be wide ranging covering all the new goodness of Windows Server 2025, on-prem and Hybrid scenarios, Azure Arc, Identity, Virtualization, SMB updates and more!
Here you can find more information: Windows Server Summit 2024
Make it more secure by design with Windows 11 and do security assessments / scans for vulnerabilities on your pc’s in your company.
I hope this free E-Book will give you more security insights.
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