The A-Z Weekly Wrap: 9th October 2026

Welcome to this week’s atozazure weekly wrap for the 9th October 2026. Below are all the key platform changes, additions and retirements for the past week.

Compute & Containers

• AKS on Bare Metal Now on Ubuntu (In Preview)
  Enables running Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) directly on bare-metal hardware powered by Ubuntu without intermediate virtualisation overhead, optimising raw compute performance and hardware access for latency-sensitive workloads.

• Anyscale on Azure (Generally Available)
  Provides a fully managed orchestration platform for scalable, distributed Python and Ray architectures running directly natively on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), streamlining large-scale machine learning training and inference pipelines.

• DCsv3 and DCdsv3-Series Azure Virtual Machines Retirement (Retiring)
  Microsoft has formally announced the retirement of the confidential computing DCsv3 and DCdsv3-series virtual machine sizes on 31st October 2029, requiring platform architects using Azure Virtual Machines to plan migrations to newer generation hardware platforms.

• Pod Name Dimension in AKS Pod Platform Metrics Retirement (Retiring)
  Support for granular per-pod name dimensions on Azure Monitor platform metrics will retire on 30th September 2027, moving Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) telemetry to aggregate pod counters to reduce metric ingest footprint and optimise ingestion costs.

Databases & Storage

• Azure Backup for PostgreSQL Flexible Server and Elastic Cluster (v2) (In Preview)
  Delivers physical, snapshot-based backups from managed disks with support for long-term retention up to 10 years and direct "Restore as Server" workflows, significantly reducing RTO and backup overhead for Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server.

• Major Version Upgrades (MVU) for PostgreSQL Elastic Clusters (In Preview)
  Allows seamless, in-place major engine version upgrades without provisioning secondary infrastructure or running complex data export/import routines on Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

• SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines in Azure Bleu (Generally Available)
  Extends enterprise SQL Server deployment and management capabilities into the sovereign French cloud region, ensuring compliant data sovereignty on Azure Virtual Machines.

• SQL Performance Monitoring for SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (In Preview)
  Integrates Microsoft-managed telemetry collection and automated diagnostic insights directly into SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines, removing the need for manual profiler scripts or third-party monitoring agents.

• Always Encrypted with Intel SGX Enclaves in Azure SQL Database Retirement (Retiring)
  Hardware-enforced Intel SGX enclave support for Always Encrypted in Azure SQL Database will retire on 31st October 2027 as legacy confidential hardware is phased out, prompting migrations to VBS (Virtualisation-based Security) enclaves.

Networking, Identity & Management

• HTTP/3 over QUIC Support in Azure Application Gateway (In Preview)
  Introduces transport-layer enhancements using UDP-based QUIC on Azure Application Gateway, mitigating head-of-line blocking, accelerating TLS handshakes, and improving edge client connection resilience.

• Azure App Service on Azure Stack Hub Retirement (Retiring)
  New deployments of Azure App Service on Azure Stack Hub are no longer supported, with full service retirement slated for 30th September 2029 as hybrid workloads shift towards Azure Arc-enabled app services.

That’s a wrap on this weeks Azure updates, if you found this helpful make sure to follow blog.atozazure.com for future updates, guides, and technical insights.