# 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.