Azure Premium SSD v2 disks are now generally available in Brazil Southeast and expanded to a third Availability Zone in Malaysia West and Indonesia Central.
AKS MCP Server adds unified tooling in public preview to reduce tool/context overhead when managing AKS MCP servers. Two new tools are introduced: call_az and call_kubectl.
AKS clusters using node auto-provisioning can now enable LocalDNS, removing a previous limitation where LocalDNS couldn’t be used with that cluster type.
Azure Disk Storage now generally supports instant access for incremental snapshots of Premium SSD v2 and Ultra Disks, enabling immediate restores to new disks after snapshot creation.
Mid-February 2026 Azure SQL preview adds new Visual Studio Code publishing support for SQL Projects and introduces a Connections Migration dialog to import existing workflows.
Azure announced a public preview AKS managed add-on for Application Gateway for Containers that automates deployment and lifecycle management of the gateway and its ALB Controller.
Azure Disk Backup is adding a private preview feature called Vaulted Backups for Azure Disk. It extends current disk protection beyond in-subscription operational snapshots toward storing backups in a vault tier.
Azure introduced a public preview of the Azure Virtual Network routing appliance for providing private connectivity across virtual networks using a dedicated routing appliance.
Azure NetApp Files Elastic zone-redundant storage (Elastic ZRS) is now in public preview. It aims to provide continuous access and zero data loss even if an entire Azure Availability Zone becomes unavailable.
Azure Container Storage v2.1.0 is generally available, adding native Elastic SAN support and a lightweight on‑demand installation model to simplify deployment and operations for Kubernetes workloads on Azure.
Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager now offers namespace‑scoped resource placement in public preview, providing fine‑grained control to select and propagate individual namespace resources across multiple clusters.
Azure Application Gateway WAF v2 now offers Public Preview support for additional rate‑limiting GroupBy options that use the X‑Forwarded‑For (XFF) HTTP header, enabling better client identification when the gateway is behind proxies or CDNs.
Microsoft will end support on April 1, 2026 for weak DHE TLS cipher suites used by Azure Front Door (Standard, Premium, Classic) and Azure CDN from Microsoft (Classic) to improve security.
Azure Databricks serverless workspaces are now generally available: a fully managed workspace option that includes preconfigured serverless compute and default storage to provide an enterprise-ready, SaaS-like experience with no infrastructure to manage.
Microsoft announced the general availability of Default Rule Set (DRS) 2.2 for Web Application Firewall (WAF) on Azure Application Gateway. The Azure-managed rule set provides active protection against common web vulnerabilities and exploits and includes Microsoft Threat Intelligence.