Azure Batch updates

Here are the latest updates to Azure Batch: * **Improved container support with Azure Marketplace VM images** * [Batch has supported container applications](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/batch/batch-docker-container-workloads) for a while now, but to use it with Linux, you needed to create a custom image with the container and install other software. [Newly available Azure Marketplace Linux images](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/batch/batch-docker-container-workloads#supported-virtual-machine-images) have the container runtime preinstalled, together with the appropriate drivers if GPU VMs or VMs with RDMA are being allocated. Both CentOS and Ubuntu images are available. * **Azure Batch rendering** * Chaos Group V-Ray is generally available on a pay-per-use basis and is preinstalled on the rendering images. The [Batch pricing page](https://azure.microsoft.com/pricing/details/batch/#graphic-rendering) has been updated. Blender is available preinstalled on the rendering images. An early version of a Blender client plug-in is also [available on GitHub](https://github.com/Azure/azure-batch-rendering/tree/master/plugins/blender). Autodesk Maya 2017 and 2018 are both supported on the rendering VM images. The list of applications and application versions provided on the rendering VM images are frequently updated and listed in the [documentation](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/batch/batch-rendering-service#supported-applications). * Multiple rendering templates are available for pool and job creation in the [Batch Labs gallery](https://github.com/Azure/BatchLabs-data/tree/master/ncj) section. * [Integration with the Deadline render manager](https://github.com/Azure/azure-deadline/tree/master/CloudProviderPlugin) is available. Use Deadline to provision Azure VMs, and use Azure for your rendering. * **Batch Labs** * There have been many improvements and new features added over the last few months to the [Batch Labs cross-platform client](https://azure.github.io/BatchLabs/), which has rich capabilities for developing, debugging, and monitoring your Batch usage. * **Job task and pool node counts** * New APIs return [task counts for a job](https://docs.microsoft.com/rest/api/batchservice/job/gettaskcounts) and [node counts for pools](https://docs.microsoft.com/rest/api/batchservice/account/listpoolnodecounts). These APIs can avoid lengthy "List" API calls when there are large numbers of items. * **New VM sizes** * The latest GPU VMs can be allocated via Batch. [An article](https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/batch/batch-pool-vm-sizes) has been added with the latest information regarding Batch support for VM families. * **Fast data transfer** * A tool is [now available on The Garage](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/garage/profiles/fast-data-transfer/) that provides fast upload of data into Azure: up to 4 TB per hour from a single client machine. * Batch * Features * [ Batch](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/batch/)