Azure portal updated with easier homepage navigation and new functionalities

Microsoft has brought a number of updates to its Azure portal, that will make the navigation of landing page easier, add new tile features to dashboard, and increase functionality in Azure Container Instances (ACI).

The Azure portal is a unified console that allows users to build, manage, and monitor everything from a single place. Users can choose to view and manage their web apps, databases, virtual machines (VMs), virtual networks, storage, and Visual Studio team projects. Enterprises can personalize the portal on the basis of team and projects.

Leon Welicki, Principal Group PM Manager, Azure portal, explained three updates in a recent blog post. The first one is the updated Azure portal home page (landing page). Microsoft has made the home page experience faster and easier so that users can enter Azure instantly. From there, they can check recent resources and navigate to most used services. They can also find the ways to use specialized services for learning, monitoring, securing, and optimizing the apps and infrastructure.

Microsoft has highlighted the primary services in the ‘Azure services’ section at the top, while providing access to other services in the list. The home page will display 12 recently used resources, but users can access full list as well.

Second, Microsoft has introduced a shared time range for tiles on dashboards. On Azure dashboards, the users previously had to set specific time range for individual tile, but now they can globally specify the time for supported tiles.

Third, there is a new start functionality in Azure Container Instances (ACI) that will make it easier to start and restart containers in ACI via the Azure portal. ACI is an application that allows development of apps without having to manage virtual machines or learning new tools.

“If you have any stopped containers, a new “Start” command will be available on the ACI overview page that will let you start all of your containers quickly and easily,” wrote Leon Welicki.

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Microsoft will be launching new “how to” videos on YouTube on Azure channel, which will be related to Azure portal. These videos will help users to learn about specific features and make them more productive.