Azure is a cloud platform provided by Microsoft, offering a broad range of services to support DevOps practices, including tools for continuous integration, continuous delivery, version control, monitoring, and infrastructure management. Azure DevOps services enable organizations to automate their software delivery pipeline, enhance collaboration, and ensure high-quality software production at scale.

In this post, we will explore some of the key DevOps services on Azure, their major features, and how they contribute to creating a more efficient and reliable DevOps pipeline.

1. Azure DevOps Services

Major Features:

• End-to-End DevOps Solution:
  • Azure DevOps is a comprehensive suite of services that provides everything needed for managing the DevOps lifecycle. It includes tools for version control, agile planning, automated builds, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), release management, and testing.
• Integrated Workflows:
  • Azure DevOps integrates seamlessly with other Azure services and third-party tools, allowing teams to create fully automated workflows across the software development pipeline. These integrations help streamline communication and tasks, ensuring faster releases.
• Scalable and Flexible:
  • Azure DevOps offers a scalable platform that can handle large projects, multiple teams, and distributed development. It adapts to both small and enterprise-level needs, providing flexibility in how tools and services are configured.
• Support for Agile, Scrum, and Kanban:
  • With built-in agile project management tools, Azure DevOps helps teams adopt agile methodologies and manage backlogs, sprints, and releases using frameworks like Scrum and Kanban.

2. Azure Pipelines

Major Features:

• CI/CD Automation:
  • Azure Pipelines provides a fully managed CI/CD service that allows teams to automate the build, test, and deployment processes. By supporting both cloud and on-premises environments, Azure Pipelines helps teams release software frequently and reliably.
• Integration with Multiple Languages and Platforms:
  • Azure Pipelines supports a wide variety of programming languages, such as Java, Python, Node.js, and .NET, as well as platforms including Linux, Windows, and macOS. It provides flexibility to teams working with different tech stacks.
• Pipeline as Code:
  • Using YAML-based configuration, Azure Pipelines allows developers to define their CI/CD pipeline as code. This ensures the pipeline is version-controlled and easily reproducible across different environments.
• Parallel Builds and Deployments:
  • Teams can run multiple builds in parallel, speeding up the process and improving efficiency. Azure Pipelines allows for scaling as necessary, ensuring that deployment times are minimized.

3. Azure Repos

Major Features:

• Version Control with Git:
  • Azure Repos provides Git-based version control, enabling developers to manage their source code and collaborate effectively. It offers unlimited private repositories and secure, distributed version control.
• Code Collaboration:
  • Developers can create pull requests, review code, and comment on changes, ensuring that the team follows best practices and maintains high-quality standards.
• Branch Policies:
  • Azure Repos allows teams to define and enforce branch policies, such as requiring code reviews, linking commits to work items, and ensuring that builds succeed before a pull request can be merged.
• Security and Compliance:
  • Azure Repos provides granular access controls, making it easy to manage who can access the codebase and perform specific actions. This is essential for maintaining security and compliance standards in enterprise environments.

4. Azure Monitor

Major Features:

• Real-Time Application and Infrastructure Monitoring:
  • Azure Monitor provides a comprehensive solution for collecting, analyzing, and acting on telemetry data from both applications and infrastructure. It helps teams monitor the health, performance, and availability of their applications and services in real-time.
• Custom Dashboards:
  • Azure Monitor allows teams to create custom dashboards to visualize important metrics and data in real-time. This provides at-a-glance insights into system health, application performance, and user behavior.
• Alerting and Notifications:
  • Azure Monitor includes built-in alerting mechanisms to notify teams of performance issues, anomalies, or downtime. Teams can customize alerts based on specific metrics, ensuring they are informed of any issues that require immediate attention.
• Root Cause Analysis and Troubleshooting:
  • The platform helps with root cause analysis by providing logs, metrics, and traces that allow teams to diagnose issues faster. It integrates with tools like Log Analytics to give deeper insights into application and infrastructure behavior.

5. Azure Automation

Major Features:

• Infrastructure Automation:
  • Azure Automation helps DevOps teams automate repetitive tasks and infrastructure management. With capabilities like runbooks, scripts, and scheduled tasks, teams can automate tasks such as provisioning, configuration management, and updates.
• Hybrid Management:
  • Azure Automation allows teams to manage both cloud-based and on-premises environments from a single pane of glass. This helps ensure that hybrid environments are consistently configured and maintained.
• Configuration Management:
  • Azure Automation integrates with Chef, Puppet, and PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) to automate configuration management. This ensures that infrastructure components are configured correctly and remain in compliance with policies.
• Update Management:
  • Azure Automation includes update management capabilities that help ensure systems are up to date with the latest patches. This reduces security risks and improves system reliability.

6. Azure Container Services

Major Features:

• Containerization and Orchestration:
  • Azure provides powerful container services such as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Container Instances (ACI). These services help organizations deploy, manage, and scale containerized applications in the cloud.
• Managed Kubernetes:
  • Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a managed Kubernetes service that allows teams to orchestrate containerized applications with ease. AKS takes care of the complexities of managing Kubernetes clusters, such as upgrades, scaling, and monitoring, allowing teams to focus on application development.
• Seamless Integration with DevOps Pipelines:
  • Azure container services integrate well with Azure Pipelines, enabling DevOps teams to easily build, test, and deploy containerized applications using CI/CD workflows.
• Multi-Region Availability:
  • Azure Container Services support multi-region deployments, ensuring high availability and resilience for containerized applications. Teams can deploy containers in multiple regions and ensure that the application is always accessible, even during failures.

The Power of DevOps Services on Azure

Azure offers a comprehensive suite of DevOps services that empower teams to automate their entire software delivery pipeline. With services like Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, Azure Monitor, and Azure Automation, organizations can achieve greater agility, improve collaboration, and enhance application reliability.

These services provide teams with the tools they need to manage everything from code versioning and deployment automation to infrastructure management and application monitoring. By leveraging Azure’s cloud-based DevOps solutions, organizations can streamline their workflows and drive innovation, all while maintaining security, scalability, and operational efficiency.

Azure, also known as Microsoft Azure, is a cloud computing platform and set of services offered by Microsoft. It provides a wide range of cloud services that enable organizations to build, deploy, and manage applications and services through Microsoft’s global network of data centers. Azure offers both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) capabilities, allowing businesses to choose the level of control and flexibility they need for their applications.

Some of the benefits of using Azure include:

• Scalability: Azure is a scalable platform that can be easily scaled up or down to meet your needs.
• Reliability: Azure is a reliable platform that is backed by Microsoft’s infrastructure.
• Security: Azure is a secure platform offering various security features.
• Cost-effectiveness: Azure is a cost-effective platform offering various pricing options.

What are the top use cases of Azure?

Here are some of the top use cases of Azure:

• Web applications: Azure is a great platform for hosting web applications. It offers a variety of services that can be used to build and deploy web applications, including Azure App Service, Azure Databases, and Azure Traffic Manager.
• Mobile applications: Azure is a great platform for developing and deploying mobile applications. It offers a variety of services that can be used to build and deploy mobile applications, including Azure Mobile Apps, Azure App Service, and Azure Functions.
• IoT: Azure is a great platform for developing and deploying IoT solutions. It offers a variety of services that can be used to connect, manage, and analyze IoT devices, including Azure IoT Hub, Azure IoT Edge, and Azure Time Series Insights.
• DevOps: Azure is a great platform for DevOps. It offers a variety of services that can be used to automate the development, testing, and deployment of applications, including Azure Pipelines, Azure Boards, and Azure Artifacts.
• Data analytics: Azure is a great platform for data analytics. It offers a variety of services that can be used to store, process, and analyze data, including Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Data Factory, and Azure Synapse Analytics.
• Machine learning: Azure is a great platform for machine learning. It offers a variety of services that can be used to build, train, and deploy machine learning models, including Azure Machine Learning Studio, Azure Machine Learning SDKs, and Azure Machine Learning Compute.
• Artificial intelligence: Azure is a great platform for artificial intelligence. It offers a variety of services that can be used to build, train, and deploy artificial intelligence applications, including Azure Bot Service, Azure Cognitive Services, and Azure Machine Learning.

What are feature of Azure?

Here are some of the features of Azure:

• Scalability: Azure is a scalable platform that can be easily scaled up or down to meet your needs. You can scale your resources up or down based on demand, so you only pay for what you use.
• Reliability: Azure is a reliable platform that is backed by Microsoft’s infrastructure. Microsoft has a proven track record of uptime and reliability, so you can be confident that your applications will be up and running when you need them.
• Security: Azure is a secure platform offering various security features. Azure has a team of security experts who are constantly working to protect your data.
• Cost-effectiveness: Azure is a cost-effective platform offering various pricing options. You can choose the pricing option that best fits your needs, so you can save money on your cloud computing costs.

What is the workflow of Azure?

The workflow of using Microsoft Azure involves several key steps, from project creation to development, testing, deployment, and ongoing management.

The workflow of Azure can be divided into the following steps:

• Planning: The first step is to plan your Azure deployment. This includes deciding what Azure services you need, how you will architect your Azure resources, and how you will manage your Azure costs.
• Deployment: The next step is to deploy your Azure resources. This can be done using the Azure portal, the Azure CLI, or the Azure SDKs.
• Configuration: Once your Azure resources are deployed, you need to configure them. This includes setting up your Azure storage, databases, and networking.
• Testing: It is important to test your Azure deployment before you put it into production. This includes testing your Azure applications and services to make sure they are working properly.
• Monitoring: Once your Azure deployment is in production, you need to monitor it. This includes monitoring your Azure resources for performance, availability, and security.
• Maintenance: Azure resources need to be maintained on a regular basis. This includes patching your Azure VMs, updating your Azure databases, and monitoring your Azure costs.
• Scaling: As your Azure deployment grows, you may need to scale your Azure resources up or down. This can be done easily through the Azure portal or the Azure CLI.
• Decommissioning: Once your Azure deployment is no longer needed, you can decommission it. This includes deleting your Azure resources and removing them from your Azure subscription.

How Azure Works & Architecture?

Azure is a cloud computing platform that offers a broad range of services, including computing, storage, networking, databases, analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Azure is a highly scalable and reliable platform that can be used to build and deploy a wide variety of applications.

Azure architecture is divided into three layers:

• Compute: The compute layer provides the resources that your applications need to run. This includes virtual machines, containers, and serverless computing.
• Storage: The storage layer provides a place to store your applications’ data. This includes blob storage, file storage, and table storage.
• Networking: The networking layer connects your applications and data together. This includes virtual networks, load balancing, and DNS.

How to Install and Configure Azure?

Installing and configuring Microsoft Azure involves creating an Azure account, setting up resources in the Azure portal, and using Azure services.

To install and configure Azure, you need to follow these steps:

1. Create an Azure account: You need to create an Azure account to access Azure services. You can create an Azure account for free.

2. Install the Azure CLI: The Azure CLI is a command-line tool that can be used to manage Azure resources. You can install the Azure CLI on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

3. Configure the Azure CLI: Once you have installed the Azure CLI, you need to configure it with your Azure subscription credentials. You can do this by running the following command:

az login

4. Create an Azure resource group: A resource group is a logical container for Azure resources. You can create a resource group by running the following command:

az group create --name my-resource-group

5. Create an Azure virtual machine: A virtual machine (VM) is a computer that runs on Azure. You can create a VM by running the following command:

az vm create --resource-group my-resource-group --name my-vm

6. Connect to your Azure VM: Once you have created your Azure VM, you need to connect to it. You can connect to your Azure VM using the Azure CLI or the Azure portal.

7. Configure your Azure VM: Once you have connected to your Azure VM, you need to configure it. You can configure your Azure VM by installing software, configuring settings, and connecting to networks.

8. Deploy your application to Azure: Once your Azure VM is configured, you can deploy your application to Azure. You can deploy your application to Azure using the Azure CLI, the Azure portal, or a variety of other tools.

9. Manage your Azure resources: Once you have deployed your application to Azure, you need to manage your Azure resources. You can manage your Azure resources using the Azure CLI, the Azure portal, or a variety of other tools.

Fundamentals Tutorial of Azure

Here’s a fundamentals tutorial of Microsoft Azure to help you understand the basics and get started:

1. Create an Azure Account:

1. Go to the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com/.
2. Sign in using your Microsoft account. If you don’t have one, you can create a new account.

2. Navigate the Azure Portal:

1. Explore the Azure portal interface. The left-hand menu contains various categories of services like Compute, Networking, Databases, AI + Machine Learning, and more.

3. Create a Virtual Machine:

1. Click on “Virtual machines” in the left-hand menu.
2. Click “+ Add” to create a new virtual machine.
3. Choose the OS, configure VM settings (name, size, region), set up authentication (SSH key or password), and review the configuration.
4. Click “Review + Create” and then “Create” to provision the virtual machine.

4. Create a Storage Account:

1. Click on “Storage accounts” in the left-hand menu.
2. Click “+ Add” to create a new storage account.
3. Provide a unique name, select the performance tier and replication option, and configure advanced settings if needed.
4. Click “Review + Create” and then “Create” to create the storage account.

5. Deploy a Web App:

1. Click on “App Services” in the left-hand menu.
2. Click “+ Add” to create a new web app.
3. Provide a name, choose the runtime stack (e.g., Node.js, .NET), and configure other settings.
4. Click “Review + Create” and then “Create” to deploy the web app.

6. Set Up Azure SQL Database:

1. Click on “SQL databases” in the left-hand menu.
2. Click “+ Add” to create a new Azure SQL Database.
3. Configure database settings, including server name, credentials, and advanced options.
4. Click “Review + Create” and then “Create” to provision the database.

7. Explore Azure Functions (Serverless):

1. Click on “Function Apps” in the left-hand menu.
2. Click “+ Add” to create a new function app.
3. Choose the runtime stack (e.g., Node.js, C#), set up storage, and configure other settings.
4. Create a simple function that responds to an HTTP trigger.

8. Monitor Resources:

1. Azure provides monitoring and diagnostics tools for your resources. Explore metrics and logs for insights into performance and usage.

9. Secure Resources:

1. Set up security measures such as firewalls, virtual networks, and identity and access management (Azure Active Directory) to protect your resources.

10. Scale Resources:

1. Learn about scaling options, both vertical (resizing) and horizontal (increasing instances) scaling, for your virtual machines and web apps.

11. Explore Further:

1. Azure offers a plethora of services like AI, analytics, IoT, and more. Explore these services and their documentation to understand how they can benefit your projects.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced the acquisition of ReFirm Labs, a provider of security solutions for organizations using Internet of Things (IoT) and network edge devices.

Fulton, Md.-based ReFirm Labs was founded by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) hackers in 2017, producing security products for large enterprises and small-to-medium businesses. Its inception started earlier, in 2010, with the Binwalk Open Source project, designed to help security analysts extract firmware images from devices, according to a ReFirm Labs announcement.

ReFirm’s Web site is fairly upfront about its team coming from the NSA, per a company blurb:

Our team is composed of former offensive cyber professionals from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), where we specialized in the weaponization of device vulnerabilities. When IoT adoption exploded across the commercial sector, we knew that more businesses than ever were exposing themselves to attacks — so we turned our offensive cyber innovations into proactive tools for corporate leaders.

Microsoft is buying ReFirm Labs “to enrich our firmware analysis and security capabilities across devices that form the intelligent edge, from servers to IoT,” according to David Weston, Microsoft’s director of enterprise and OS security, in the announcement. To that end, it’s adding ReFirm Lab’s Centrifuge firmware platform, he added.

Centrifuge was replaced with Binwalk Enterprise, an analysis product designed for use by larger organizations such as telcos and device manufacturers, according to a January ReFirm Labs announcement. Binwalk Teams is the company’s other product for small and midsize organizations. The product differences have to do with things like the availability of policy and compliance reporting capabilities, and more, as described in this product comparison sheet (PDF).

It’s not clear from the company announcements whether ReFirm Labs’ products will continue to be sold. Microsoft’s announcement suggested they will be folded into Microsoft products. The deal’s terms weren’t described.

Weston described the ReFirm Labs acquisition as being synergistic to Microsoft’s earlier acquisition a year ago of CyberX, which built security solutions for both IoT devices and the operational technology used in industrial systems. Microsoft was a partner with CyberX before acquiring the company, and CyberX’s technology was later added to Microsoft’s Azure Defender for IoT security solution.

The ReFirm Labs acquisition will be used to help both builders of IoT and Edge devices and their customers, Microsoft contended. It offered the following illustration to that effect:

Microsoft explained in a video that IoT device builders are unintentionally shipping devices with software exposed to “known threats” that then get sold to businesses. Those businesses also are unaware of the flaws, mostly because it’s difficult to detect vulnerabilities at the firmware level. The ReFirm Labs addition will bolster Azure Defender for IoT to detect the problems, adding “firmware protection, certificates and device updates” capabilities. Device builders can address vulnerabilities early on by uploading their firmware for analysis in Microsoft’s cloud.

The acquisition adds to Microsoft’s general efforts to address security issues at the firmware level. Other efforts along those lines, according to the announcement, include Microsoft’s Pluton security processor, Secured-core PCs and Microsoft’s emerging Windows Server 2022 Secured-core server approach.

Global Continuous Deployment Software Market Research Report 2021

Global Continuous Deployment Software Market present insights on the current and future industry trends, enabling the readers to identify the products and services, hence driving the revenue growth and profitability. The research report provides a detailed analysis of all the major factors impacting the market on a global and regional scale, including drivers, constraints, threats, challenges, opportunities, and industry-specific trends. Further, the report cites global certainties and endorsements along with downstream and upstream analysis of leading players. The research report comes up with the base year 2021 and the forecast between 2021 and 2027.

Drivers and Risks

The report pays special attention to factors which contribute to the Continuous Deployment Software Market growth also known as market drivers. Any changes in these market dynamics directly affect the market growth hence the report provides a future insight into important factors that should be monitored and which could be leveraged by companies, vendors, distributors and all stakeholders alike to their advantage. The report also provides an insight into the challenges faced by the market and the strategies used by existing players to overcome or avoid these risks.

Segment by Type

Cloud Based
Web Based
Segment by Application

Large Enterprises
SMEs
Regional overview

As already mentioned, the report covers different regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa. The different strategies employed by different players in different regions has been studied extensively in order to gain an understanding of the global market. It is important to understand where the Continuous Deployment Software market has been, currently is and where it is projected to go so that an accurate picture of the future may be painted. Studying the Continuous Deployment Software market allows an outlook, the latest trends, and prospects in the period of 2021 to be embraced and understood.

Latest industry news

The key players in the global Continuous Deployment Software market have been busy acquiring startups and participating in collaborations, mergers, and innovations. This report highlights how the most prominent vendors in the market have been contributing to the market. In addition to highlighting the most prominent vendors, the report also takes a look at promising new players in the global Continuous Deployment Software market.

Key questions answered in the report:

What is the growth potential of the Continuous Deployment Software market?
Which product segment will grab a lion’s share?
Which regional market will emerge as a frontrunner in the coming years?
Which application segment will grow at a robust rate?
What are the growth opportunities that may emerge in the Continuous Deployment Software industry in the years to come?
What are the key challenges that the global Continuous Deployment Software market may face in the future?
Which are the leading companies in the global Continuous Deployment Software market?
Which are the key trends positively impacting the market growth?
Which are the growth strategies considered by the players to sustain hold in the global Continuous Deployment Software market?

The Continuous Deployment Software market research report completely covers the vital statistics of the capacity, production, value, cost/profit, supply/demand import/export, further divided by company and country, and by application/type for best possible updated data representation in the figures, tables, pie chart, and graphs. These data representations provide predictive data regarding the future estimations for convincing market growth. The detailed and comprehensive knowledge about our publishers makes us out of the box in case of market analysis.

Reports and Markets is not just another company in this domain but is a part of a veteran group called Algoro Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. It offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for a wide range of sectors both for the government and private agencies all across the world. The database of the company is updated on a daily basis. Our database contains a variety of industry verticals that include: Food Beverage, Automotive, Chemicals and Energy, IT & Telecom, Consumer, Healthcare, and many more. Each and every report goes through the appropriate research methodology, Checked from the professionals and analysts.

Microsoft announced last week that the ability to use Azure Monitor to monitor Windows Virtual Desktop environments is now at the “general availability” commercial-release stage.

Windows Virtual Desktop is Microsoft’s virtual desktop infrastructure service, commercially launched in September 2019. It houses the operating systems (Windows 7 and Windows 10) and apps on Microsoft’s servers for remote access by end users. While Windows Virtual Desktop lets organizations have a more centralized management control over Windows apps and devices, which can even be thin-client devices, it possibly comes with complexities.

However, an “insights” capability in Azure Monitor at least promises better monitoring of Window Virtual Desktop service health.

“With Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop, you can find and troubleshoot problems in the deployment, view the status and health of host pools, diagnose user feedback and understand resource utilization,” Microsoft’s announcement indicated.

The new Azure Monitor capability brings improved data collection. Cost estimates are said to be better optimized. The user interface for Windows Virtual Desktop setups is said to be easier, including when setting up virtual machines and Windows Event Logs. Warnings now appear at the top of the Host Diagnostics page, as well.

Microsoft warned preview users of the Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop solution that they will have to go through some manual configuration steps in order to optimally switch to the general availability release version. Those steps are needed to “help reduce your Azure Monitor Log Analytics cost,” Microsoft explained in this March 25 announcement.

The use of Azure Monitor comes with its own complex cost structure, which is outlined at this Microsoft pricing page. Organizations pay for what they use, but there are various charges associated with Azure Monitor use, which are broken down in detail on the pricing page.

Organizations using Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop will need to have an Azure Log Analytics account for the data storage aspects.

“To start, we recommend you choose the pay-as-you-go model and adjust as you scale your deployment and take in more data,” Microsoft indicated in this document on Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop regarding the Log Analytics account that’s needed.

Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop doesn’t appear to support complex virtual desktop infrastructure environments right now.

“Windows Virtual Desktop currently only supports monitoring one subscription, resource group, and host pool at a time,” Microsoft’s document explained in a note.

To use Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop, organizations will need to be using “the latest release of Windows Virtual Desktop that’s compatible with Azure Resource Manager,” the document indicated, without naming the version. Organizations also need a Log Analytics workspace where data collection is enabled for Windows Virtual Desktop diagnostics and performance. Some read-access permissions also need to be turned on.

Microsoft also recommends using “Windows Events Logs from your Windows Virtual desktop session hosts” with Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop.

VMware last week unveiled VMware Cloud to help customers unlock the power of multi-cloud and deliver modern applications at the speed of business.

VMware Cloud boosts developer productivity by enabling them to build and deploy to any cloud. The platform enables IT to modernize infrastructure and operations with better economics and less risk.

With the launch of VMware Cloud, VMware also announced new offerings that bring a more integrated experience to customers. These offerings include:

– VMware Cloud Universal: a flexible subscription that simplifies the purchase and consumption of VMware multi-cloud infrastructure and management services.

– VMware Cloud Console: a single monitoring and management environment for VMware Cloud infrastructure regardless of where it’s deployed.

– VMware App Navigator: a new offering for assessing and prioritizing app transformation initiatives across an entire application estate based on the value of each app.

With VMware Cloud, customers can deploy apps to VMware Cloud Foundation running in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Oracle Cloud; on VMware Cloud on Dell EMC; and across hundreds of VMware Cloud Verified partners.

London, United Kingdom & Redmond, Wash., United States:
Schlumberger and Microsoft announced an expanded strategic partnership to accelerate new technologies for the energy industry. The first offering, the Schlumberger Enterprise Data Management Solution for the OSDU Data Platform—a new industry standard for energy data—is available today. Energy companies will now benefit from an OSDU-compliant solution, and the ability to seamlessly connect to the DELFI* cognitive E&P environment from Schlumberger. The Enterprise Data Management Solution is ready for global customers to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Schlumberger’s preferred global public cloud platform for OSDU-compatible solutions.

The companies’ mutual contributions to the first commercial release of the OSDU Data Platform establish the foundation of the Schlumberger Enterprise Data Management Solution. Through this partnership they will enhance the Enterprise Data Management Solution, tighten integration with OSDU and develop new scalable data ingestion capabilities, unified AI templates and domain services. These new joint solutions will be built using industry focused cloud, data and AI innovations and domain expertise from Microsoft and Schlumberger. The companies will work together to bring these new products to market, including sales, service and support.

“Introducing a global cloud-based data solution, built by Schlumberger and Microsoft, means the energy industry can fully embrace their digital transformation with confidence. By working together, we have opened access to data and AI, unlocking significant potential for productivity increases and performance gains across all domains,” comments Hinda Gharbi, executive vice president Services and Equipment, Schlumberger. “These new possibilities and opportunities have become a reality today; our joint solution is available for deployment on Azure across the globe. Our industry can now quicken the pace of innovation to accelerate the digital future of energy.”

“Our expanded partnership with Schlumberger underscores the vision we share to help the energy industry’s digital transformation,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud + AI, Microsoft. “By harnessing AI technologies, companies can simplify their data to gain valuable insights and streamline workflows. Built on Azure, and open and interoperable by design, these new solutions and platforms will enable every customer and partner in the energy industry to compete and thrive.”

Schlumberger

Schlumberger (SLB: NYSE) is a technology company that partners with customers to access energy. Our people, representing over 160 nationalities, are providing leading digital solutions and deploying innovative technologies to enable performance and sustainability for the global energy industry. With expertise in more than 120 countries, we collaborate to create technology that unlocks access to energy for the benefit of all.

NEW YORK, March 18, 2021 /CNW/ — QuerySurge today announced the availability of its enterprise data validation & testing solution in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use in the Azure cloud. QuerySurge customers can now take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure platform, with streamlined deployment & management and pay-as-you-go pricing.

“We are excited to release QuerySurge in the Azure marketplace as a pay-as-you-go solution,” said Bill Hayduk, CEO of RTTS and leader of the QuerySurge software division. “Microsoft Azure solves some of the biggest challenges that our customers face - procuring the optimal environment with flexible scalability, full disaster recovery capabilities and enterprise-level security. And the new pay-as-you-go pricing, where customers pay only for what they use each month, provides great financial flexibility.”

QuerySurge automates the data validation and testing of data warehouses, big data lakes, data migration projects, BI reports and enterprise applications with full Azure DevOps functionality for continuous testing of customers’ data pipeline.

Integration with Microsoft Azure DevOps

QuerySurge now provides an extension for Azure DevOps, Microsoft’s toolchain for developing and deploying software.

“The QuerySurge integration with Azure DevOps allows users to automate the data validation in their DevOps CI/CD pipelines,” said Hayduk. “Implementing QuerySurge throughout the development cycle ensures that data changes, whether during data migrations from on-prem to the cloud or full in-cloud data warehouse testing, load as expected throughout the current DevOps cycle and corresponding releases.”

QuerySurge

Launched in 2012, QuerySurge ensures that data extracted from data sources remains intact in the target data store by analyzing and pinpointing any differences quickly. With over 150 customers in 30+ countries and a partner ecosystem that includes 70+ leading technology vendors, systems integrators and consulting organizations, QuerySurge is at the forefront of the data quality movement.

QuerySurge is the software division of RTTS, the premier pure-play QA & testing organization that specializes in test automation. Headquartered in New York, RTTS has had 1,000+ successful engagements at over 700 corporations since 1996. RTTS is a Microsoft Gold DevOps Partner and has been part of the Microsoft partner ecosystem since 2005.

In a bid to ramp up its cloud portfolio in China, Microsoft is planning to open a new Azure region in the country through its local operating partner, 21Vianet.

The move comes amid growing demand for cloud services in China.

This expansion is expected to effectively double the capacity of Microsoft’s intelligent cloud portfolio in China in the coming years, which includes Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform operated by 21Vianet, Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday.

According to the white paper, China Cloud Industry Development1, the cloud market in China is expected to reach 300 billion yuan (approximately $46 billion) in 2023.

In response to the pandemic, 63 per cent of organisations in China are leveraging cloud-related innovations to accelerate digitisation in their products, payments, e-commerce, automation, and more.

“This unveils a big opportunity. Microsoft Cloud operated by 21Vianet was the first international public cloud compliantly launched in China through a local operating partner,” Alain Crozier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Greater China Region (GCR), said in a statement.

“The upcoming region will reinforce the capabilities to help further nurture local talents, stimulate local innovation, grow local technology ecosystems, and empower businesses in a wide range of industries to achieve more,” Crozier said.

Microsoft has been collaborating with 21Vianet to run its cloud services in China since 2014 as foreign cloud service providers are prohibited from owning and operating their own datacentres in the country.

In accordance with Chinese regulatory requirements, Azure regions operated by 21Vianet in China are physically separated instances from Microsoft’s global cloud but are built on the same cloud technical base as its global peers.

The consistent architecture across China and global markets makes it easy for multinational companies to transplant their IT systems and business applications to China or vice versa.

“Announced in 2012, and officially launched in March 2014 with two initial regions, Microsoft Azure operated by 21Vianet was the first international public cloud service to become generally available in the China market,” Omar Khan, General Manager, Microsoft Azure, wrote in the blog post.

“Following Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform operated by 21Vianet successively launched in China in 2014, 2019, and 2020.”

The biggest challenge we face, is the lack of our ability to come together. Because of this, the technology industry has seen a major shift toward cloud computing. Defined as a web-based computing model, cloud computing allows users to share information with other devices and computers instantly. This can allow multiple people to access the same files and data with minimal effort and can also give users the option to easily store large amounts of data.

The way the cloud works is quite simple and very cost-effective. Rather than investing in expensive hardware or renting that hardware from an enterprise data center, you pay to access the huge pool of cloud resources available from, in this case, Microsoft. These resources allow your business to host email and web servers, store files and data, create virtual machines and applications, and much more.

As your business grows and you require more resources, you simply purchase more from the cloud. No need to upgrade or maintain existing hardware or increase floor space and electricity costs. Everything in the cloud is done remotely, from basic email hosting to running applications and complex data analysis, which means the demands on your local computers and network are significantly reduced. All you need to be able to do on-premise is run your cloud platform from a reliable internet connection – the platform itself will handle everything else, leaving you free to focus on critical business activities.

These days, many businesses take advantage of the convenience offered through cloud platforms. The second-largest cloud service provider is Microsoft Azure. As a computing platform, it also functions as an online portal that can be used to manage and access various services and resources that Microsoft offers. With over 200 products and cloud services, MS Azure can help your business to build, run and manage applications across multiple locations and on-premises through the cloud, customized to your business needs. This huge range of cloud services for every type of business to streamline and scale their operations, without the need for physical infrastructure, maintenance or upfront costs. Instead, you have full control of the price and pay only for what you use. Microsoft Azure puts your cloud services in your hands and gives you the tools you need to manage, grow and improve your business from anywhere.

Retire your local servers when you move all your server functions to the cloud with less physical infrastructure to manage.

Pay only for what you use so your company can scale and grow without any large capital investments. You have total control over your costs each month with predictable monthly fees and can easily adjust your usage and capacity on demand to suit your budget. Azure can spin-up or spin-down services as needed, so you are not paying for resources when not in use, like your line of business applications and file access (weekends/evenings, etc.). The key is the set-up from your IT Provider. With Azure, you can save up to 25% when you prepay.

With all your key business applications and data in the cloud, you minimize your risk of downtime and you are spontaneously protected when disaster strikes. Downtime is limited to a matter of hours, not days, and your staff and remote users have permanent access no matter what.

Build, monitor and maintain your Azure cloud solution to ensure optimal performance continuously with ongoing monitoring and support from your Microsoft Azure Specialist. You can rest easy knowing your IT infrastructure is in expert hands while you focus on what is important for your business.

Cost, security, speed, scalability and productivity are the main benefits of using cloud computing through Microsoft Azure.

Microsoft Azure offers a range of flexible pricing options to suit businesses and cloud environments of every size. There are no upfront costs – in fact, you can get started with Microsoft Azure for free for 30 days in certain circumstances, then pay only for what you consume.

Products and services are priced individually, making it easy for your IT team or Provider to pick and choose the resources you need and scale up as your business grows. You will want to carefully analyze and select the right plans for performance (CPU), redundancy, memory, hard drive type (solid state for performance-disk access), and storage capacity.

Together with a team of more than 3,500 Microsoft Azure cybersecurity experts working to protect your business assets and data, you can also continually monitor your security and get deeper insights from Microsoft Azure’s built-in Security Center. Here you can get a consolidated view of your cloud health, apply policies to comply with security standards and best practices, fix common misconfigurations, and analyze security data to ensure you are ahead of any threats.

Microsoft Azure also gives you the ability to secure your resources with identity management and security features such as multi-factor authentication, identity protection, access review, conditional access, and a key vault to encrypt and store passwords, keys and other confidential information.

Build, monitor and maintain your Azure cloud solution to ensure optimal performance continuously with ongoing monitoring and support from your Microsoft Azure Specialist. You can rest easy knowing your IT infrastructure is in expert hands while you focus on what is important for your business.

Dive Brief
IT leaders are eight times more likely to search for experts with AWS skills than Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure, according to data from Hired’s State of Software Engineers 2021 report, published Wednesday. The report examined thousands of candidate interview requests and salary data.
Redux.js, Google Cloud, React.js and AWS skills top the list of most in-demand coding skills, according to the report.
Demand for cloud skills grew as most companies turned to the cloud to uphold operations. Nine in 10 organizations say they increased their cloud workloads and use of machine learning technologies in 2020.

Dive Insight
Demand for cloud skills already ran high before the pandemic. But an increased reliance on software to solve complex business problems put additional strain on the supply.

Among cloud vendors, AWS continues to rule the field, though other providers are closing the gap. Amazon’s solution is in place at 76% of cloud adopters, according to Flexera’s 2020 State of the Cloud report. Closely trailing behind is Microsoft Azure, with 63% of businesses, and Google Cloud Platform.

Amazon is aware of the demand for cloud engineers. At the end of last year it announced an initiative to upskill 29 million people worldwide by 2026. Alongside dozens of two- and four-year colleges, the company has also advanced AWS certifications.

Expanding training helps create a bigger talent pool in the tech industry. It also helps reduce friction for prospective customers, as eight in 10 cloud leaders say lack of internal skills hinders successful cloud deployments, according to A Cloud Guru’s State of Cloud Learning report.

With cloud roles among the top tech positions in high demand, companies are adjusting their strategies to compete. Employers are infusing their talent attraction practices with creativity, while adapting them to source from broader talent pools free from geographic restraints.

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Global Database as a Service Market Segmented by Product Type:
On Cloud, On Premises

Global Database as a Service Market Segmented by Application:
Application A, Application B, Application C

Global Database as a Service Market Segmented by Region:
North America (U.S.; Canada; Mexico), Europe (Germany; U.K.; France; Italy; Russia; Spain etc.), Asia-Pacific (China; India; Japan; Southeast Asia etc.), South America (Brazil; Argentina etc.), Middle East & Africa (Saudi Arabia; South Africa etc.)

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Microsoft this week described a few security products that have reached “general availability” (GA) or commercial-release status, while also touting its overall security-market position.

Reaching GA are some Azure Security Center capabilities, Azure Defender for IoT and Application Guard for Office. These releases were announced on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Microsoft’s security-business prowess was highlighted in the company’s fiscal-year 2021 Q2 earning report given by Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO. He noted that Microsoft’s security solutions revenue recently surpassed $10 billion.
A transcript was needed since a near-eight-minute gap occurred during the Tuesday presentation.

Microsoft’s $10 billion security revenue figure was enough for researchers at analyst and consulting firm Forrester to declare that “Microsoft is now a cybersecurity behemoth.”
Security Stats
Microsoft security stats were touted in a Wednesday announcement by Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for security, compliance and identity. She offered the following security highlights:

Microsoft Defender blocked “almost six billion malware threats” in 2020.
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 blocked “more than 30 billion email threats” in 2020.
Azure Active Directory processes “more than 30 billion authentications” per day.
Azure Sentinel “analyzes over 4 petabytes of data each month.”
Microsoft solutions are protecting “more than 400,000 customers across 120 countries.”
Jakkal suggested that no other software company was handing “security, compliance, identity, and management as an interdependent whole.”

“Microsoft’s security organization is an intense, massive collaboration that drives services, intelligence, technologies, and people — all coming together as one humming machine with a singular mission,” she added.

Application Guard for Office GA
Application Guard for Office is Microsoft’s more improved approach for dealing with malicious files found on Web sites and in e-mail attachments. The product reached GA status, Microsoft announced on Wednesday. It had been at the preview stage back in August.

Microsoft has long had a Protected View security mechanism that mainly just acts as a precaution when users attempt to open documents attached in e-mails. Protected View permits end users to turn on editing in the documents, which can also enable attacks. With Application Guard for Office, these files get opened in a virtual machine “sandbox” environment, namely a “Hyper-V-enabled container,” which is isolated and prevents any malware from spreading into systems.

Despite the product’s name, Application Guard for Office is just for subscribers to the Office 365 service. Additionally, organizations can only get Application Guard for Office when they subscribe to E5-type plans, a top pricing option. Microsoft’s announcement also noted that “Application Guard works in conjunction with Microsoft Defender for Office 365,” a security solution that’s part of the newly renamed Microsoft Defender product line. Other security components in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 include “Safe Attachments, Safe Links, and Safe Documents,” the announcement explained.

Microsoft’s announcement affirmed that Application Guard for Office won’t be turned on by default for licensees:

Azure Security Center Enhancements
The Azure Security Center portal now has multicloud management capabilities, with the ability to work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) reaching GA status, Microsoft announced on Wednesday.

It seems that just some capabilities are at GA in Azure Security Center, though. Microsoft specifically pointed to the ability to show AWS and GCP misconfigurations in its “Secure Score Model and Regulatory Compliance” features as being available.

Microsoft additionally turned on “Azure Security Benchmark as the default security policy for Azure Security Center,” which is conceived as bolstering its recommended policy settings.

Also at GA is the ability to use Azure Defender for Servers with Microsoft’s Azure Arc product to “simplify the on-boarding and security of virtual machines running in AWS, GCP and hybrid clouds.” Azure Arc is Microsoft’s multicloud management portal that also supports on-premises implementations, per a Microsoft “Overview” document. Azure Defender for Servers appears to be a component of the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint security solution. It’s tersely described in this Microsoft document as adding “threat detection and advanced defenses for your Windows and Linux machines.”

In response to customer feedback, Microsoft now lets organizations “exempt resources” from Secure Score “at a subscription level and now at a management group level.” Secure Score is Microsoft’s security assessment service. Some organizations apparently requested this exemption because they are using “third-party technology” (non-Microsoft solutions) for their security-posture assessments.

Azure Defender for IoT GA
Microsoft also announced on Wednesday that Azure Defender for IoT, its agentless security solution for unmanaged “Internet of things” devices and so-called “operational technology endpoints,” has reached GA status. It had been at the public preview stage back in October. The solution is designed to work with devices that use “specialized industrial protocols such as Modbus, DNP3, and BACnet.”

Azure Defender for IoT works with Microsoft recently acquired CyberX technologies to discover devices, find vulnerabilities and perform continuous device monitoring. Governance details are handled, too, when the service is used with a security information and event management solution, such as Microsoft’s Azure Sentinel. It also works with “Splunk, IBM QRadar and ServiceNow” solutions.

Azure Defender for IoT can be used on a customer’s site, or it can be tapped as an Azure service. The latter approach lets organizations connect Azure Defender for IoT with Microsoft’s Azure Defender security services. Alternatively, there’s a “hybrid” deployment possibility, “where security monitoring is performed on-premises but selected alerts are forwarded to a cloud-based SIEM like Azure Sentinel,” the announcement explained.

Microsoft on Tuesday reported its Azure cloud computing services grew 50 percent, the second quarter of acceleration in a business that had begun to slow as the global pandemic benefited the software maker’s investment on working and learning from home.

The company’s shares rose 5 percent in extended trading after gaining about 41 percent in 2020 as COVID-19 shifted computing to areas where the software maker has bet big. It also saw a surprise recovery in sales on the LinkedIn professional social network and navigated a chip shortage that had threaten to hold back its Xbox business.

The shift to work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated enterprises’ switch to cloud-based computing, benefiting Microsoft and rivals such as Amazon’s cloud unit and Alphabet’s Google Cloud.3

On a conference call with investors, Microsoft executives said they expect a midpoint of $14.83 billion (roughly Rs. 1,08,150 crores) in revenue from the company’s “Intelligent Cloud” segment for the fiscal third quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations of $14.12 billion (roughly Rs. 1,02,960 crores), according to Refinitiv data. For the company’s productivity segment and its personal computing segment, sales are expected to have a respective midpoint of $13.48 billion (roughly Rs. 98,300 crores) and $12.50 billion (roughly Rs. 91,150 crores), compared with estimates of $12.90 billion (roughly Rs. 94,060 crores) and $11.60 billion (roughly Rs. 84,570 crores), according to Refinitiv data.

Microsoft said GamePass, the company’s $10 (roughly Rs. 730) monthly gaming subscription, has 18 million users, up from 15 million disclosed in September. The Xbox Live online gaming service has more than 100 million monthly active users. Microsoft did not give an update on the 115 million Teams daily users it disclosed in October but did say that the mobile version is used by 60 million daily users.

Microsoft said revenue in its “Intelligent Cloud” segment rose 23 percent to $14.6 billion (roughly Rs. 1,06,400 crores), with 50 percent growth in Azure. Analysts had expected a 41.4 percent growth in Azure, according to consensus data from Visible Alpha. The previous quarter Azure grew 48 percent.

This was really driven by continued customer demand, with stronger-than-expected consumption as customers have increased their focus on digital transformation,” Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood told Reuters in an interview.

Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said that last year, “economic weakness and delays in implementation had masked the extent to which Azure was benefiting from the accelerated shift to the cloud caused by the pandemic. But with these results that benefit is now plain to see.”

LinkedIn revenue growth, which dipped as the pandemic shut down businesses, reached 23 percent, near its pre-pandemic rate of 24 percent a year earlier. Hood said advertisements on LinkedIn drove the increase.

“We continue to see advertising market recovery,” she said.

Microsoft bundles several sets of software and services such as Office and Azure into a “commercial cloud” metric that investors watch closely to gauge the company’s progress in selling to large businesses.

Commercial cloud gross margins – a measure of the profitability of its sales to large businesses – were 71 percent in the quarter, compared with 67 percent a year earlier.

Revenue from its personal computing division, which includes Windows software and Xbox gaming consoles, rose 14 percent to $15.1 billion (roughly Rs. 1,10,030 crores), driven by strong Xbox content and services growth, beating analysts’ estimates of $13.5 billion (roughly Rs. 98,400 crores), according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Microsoft in November released two new Xbox consoles, its most visible non-work and non-school brand, but the hardware proved difficult to find as a global semiconductor shortage contributed to tight stocks as many retailers. Xbox hardware sales were up 86 percent despite the shortages, and Hood said growth is likely to continue, with older models also contributing to sales.

“Demand still outpaces supply, and we do expect that to continue,” Hood said. “The team did a nice job of getting consoles, both of this newest generation as well as continuing to sell the older generation, which provides a great value for gamers.”

Microsoft’s gaming business topped $5 billion (roughly Rs. 36,430 crores) in quarterly sales for the first time ever and was propelled by gaming subscriptions and sales as well as new consoles. Microsoft said Xbox content and services revenue grew 40 percent in the quarter.

The software giant’s overall revenue rose to $43.08 billion (roughly Rs. 3,14,000 crores) in the second quarter ended December 31, from $36.91 billion (roughly Rs. 2,69,000 crores) a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates of $40.18 billion (roughly Rs. 2,92,850 crores), according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Microsoft is seeing a re-acceleration of growth in its Azure cloud platform, which helped drive results that blew past Wall Street expectations for the company’s latest quarter.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company on Tuesday reported that revenue for Azure spiked 50 percent during its fiscal second quarter of 2021, ended Dec. 31, compared to the same period a year earlier. That’s even faster growth than during Microsoft’s previous quarter sequentially, when Azure revenue had climbed 48 percent year-over-year.
In total, the company reported revenue of $43.08 billion for its fiscal Q2. That’s up 16.7 percent from $36.91 billion during the same quarter a year ago, and well above the Wall Street consensus estimate for the quarter of $40.18 billion.

“These were blowout numbers that will be another feather in the cap for the tech sector as the cloud growth party is just getting started in our opinion led by MSFT,” wrote Daniel Ives, managing director for equity research at Wedbush Securities, in a note to investors on Tuesday.
The Azure results propelled 23-percent revenue growth in Microsoft’s intelligent cloud segment, which reached $14.6 billion during the quarter.

“With Azure, some of the core differentiation we have [is] when it comes to our hybrid leadership, some of the new data products that are highly differentiated and competitive in the marketplace–as well as the integration with every other layer of our stack,” CEO Satya Nadella said during Microsoft’s quarterly earnings call with analysts Tuesday.

Those factors–paired with industry solutions the company now offers in healthcare and retail verticals–“are all leading to that time to value, the price differentiation and cost advantage to customers–and most importantly, [to] agility in their ability to build their own digital capability,” Nadella said. “So that’s what you see in the acceleration around Azure.”

Perficient, No. 55 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2020, “is seeing rapid growth across several Microsoft technologies” including Azure, said Jeffrey Davis, chairman and CEO of the St. Louis-based solution provider, in comments provided by email to CRN.

“Azure continues to expand in multiple directions across several industries. COVID forced businesses to be nimble, which placed a high priority on real-time access to data to make critical business decisions,” Davis said. “We’re seeing increased client investment in foundational infrastructure, governance, open source and automation technologies such as Terraform and Azure DevOps.”

Meanwhile, “clients are also exploring the full suite of Azure Data Services as workloads are targeted for cloud migration and platform innovation,” he told CRN. “We’re currently supporting several new Azure enterprise customers with wholesale app modernization targeting Azure as well.”

Microsoft’s other commercial cloud businesses also had a strong showing during the company’s fiscal second quarter. Office 365 commercial revenue climbed 21 percent from the same period the year before, while Dynamics 365 revenue grew 39 percent.

Office 365 includes the popular Teams collaboration app, which is continuing to create new growth opportunities for solution providers, Davis told CRN.

“Now that they’ve established a foundation with Teams, many businesses are starting to look at Teams governance as a means to operationalize their Teams deployments and push the platform forward,” he said.

During Microsoft’s quarterly call on Tuesday, Nadella said that Teams is resonating so well with businesses because it “is the first product”—even more so than Outlook was in the past—that can “integrate communications, collaboration and business process.”

The company’s personal computing segment ended up being its largest business during the quarter, pulling in revenue of $15.12 billion–up 14.5 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.

Xbox content and services revenue surged 40 percent during the quarter, while revenue from Windows commercial products and cloud services increased 10 percent and sales of Surface devices grew 3 percent. Windows OEM revenue was up 1 percent during the quarter, year-over-year–though that was a reversal from the previous quarter sequentially, when the Windows OEM revenue fell 5 percent.

Meanwhile, during the call with analysts on Tuesday, Nadella also mentioned the widespread cyberattack stemming from the breach of SolarWinds Orion, which federal officials have attributed to Russian intelligence efforts. Microsoft is among the companies that have been ensnared in the attacks.

“The recent SolarWinds attacks are a stark reminder of how critical security is to our customers,” Nadella said.

During the past 12 months, Microsoft’s security business revenue has grown by more than 40 percent to surpass $10 billion, he said.

“This milestone is a testament to the deep trust organizations place in us, and we will continue to invest in new capabilities across all our products and services to protect our customers,” Nadella said.

In other indicators of Microsoft’s strong quarter, the company’s net income during the period jumped to $15.46 billion, or $2.03 per diluted share, up from $11.65 billion, or $1.51 per diluted share, during the same quarter a year earlier.

Ultimately, customer demand is staying strong for work involving Microsoft technologies even amid uncertain economic conditions, Davis told CRN.

“Our Microsoft customers have expressed great determination to proceed with projects. Current clients are pursuing more development opportunities and new business activity is strong,” Davis said. “In many ways, the uncertainty illuminated the need for additional cloud adoption and the flexibility of cloud services. As this exceptional situation became the new normal, IT leaders recognized preexisting gaps in infrastructure, resilience, and solution delivery – gaps that Azure is perfectly positioned to address.”

And, “as organizations implement Azure for the first time, kicking off large migration efforts or embracing the simplicity of managed services, this renewed wave of transformation is driving tremendous demand for Azure services,” Davis said.

The cloud computing landscape appears to be in rude health after new analysis found that the three industry heavyweights were all showing ongoing performance improvements.

That’s according to the 2021 Cloud Report from Cockroach Labs, which claimed that Google Cloud has made up ground in a number of areas on rivals AWS and Microsoft Azure.

“Working with each of the three major cloud providers, we worked to optimize all microbenchmarks to be more accurate and representative of real-world performance,” the report read. “We evaluated 54 machine configurations and conducted nearly 1,000 benchmark test runs including CPU, Network Throughput, Network Latency, Storage Read Performance, Storage Write Performance, and Cockroach Labs Derivative of TPC-C, the industry-standard OLTP benchmark.”

We’ve assembled a list of the best cloud computing services around
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Also check out our roundup of the best cloud storage solutions
Back in 2018, when Cockroach Labs first issued a comparative cloud report, AWS outperformed Google Cloud across almost every metric. By 2020, all three major cloud providers showed relatively equal performance, while 2021’s report reveals that each provider comes out on top for at least some of the benchmark criteria tested.

Cloud comparisons
Looking more closely at Google Cloud, Cockroach Labs praised the level of network throughput delivered, which bettered that being offered by both AWS and Azure. Google Cloud also had the best single-core CPU performance and outperformed its rivals in terms of network and storage I/O throughput.

Despite its impressive gains, Google Cloud was not the only provider to receive praise in the report. AWS was judged to be the most cost-effective over a three-year period and delivered the best latency figures, while Azure beat its competitors on storage I/O read IOPS, write IOPS, and write latency when provisioned with ultra disks.

Given the respective strengths of the three cloud providers, declaring an overall winner was more difficult this year than it has been previously. While Google Cloud delivered the best overall performance, AWS boasted the best cost-efficiency, and Azure scored highly when its Ultra Disk storage was employed. Promisingly, all three cloud providers seem to be offering customers improved performance year-on-year.

The company says India is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing auto insurance markets, relies largely on traditional ways to renew policies and process repair claims, which usually required inspectors to physically look over vehicles and assess damages. This leads to a delay in the process of inspection, resulting in keeping the cars and policyholders off the road for longer. To mitigate this challenge, Reliance General Insurance collaborated with Celebal Technologies, a Microsoft partner, to create the new AI solution, which allows customers to buy or renew policies anytime, anywhere.

The new technology uses AI to identify damage from the vehicle image feeds and procures the correct assessment which gets instantly delivered to consumers. In this process, right from the accident spot, the insured can access Reliance Selfi app to intimate the claim, upload the photos and documents to get the claim registered. Once the claim is generated, the AI tool starts processing and almost instantly generates a provisional repair work order for the customer. It also gives an option to the customer to opt for on-the-spot settlement which can be credited in customers’ account immediately.

The insurance company says Rapid brings down the process of claims intimation to claims settlement period, to complete in less than an hour, from an otherwise time-consuming and hassled process that took an average period of 10 to 12 days.

Rakesh Jain, CEO, Reliance General Insurance said, “Introducing this AI-based solution, makes the entire vehicle claims process completely superfast and hassle-free for our customers. This technology brings the much-needed acceleration to more than 60% of claims we receive for our passenger vehicles which have just peripheral damages. With the use of Rapid, a significant decrease in the claim processing time is achieved, which will result in an enhanced customer service experience. This initiative connects well with our brand philosophy ‘Tech + Heart’, offering tech solutions with human touch.”

Venkat Krishnan, executive director, Commercial Partners, Microsoft India said, “Microsoft’s goal is to amplify human ingenuity by making the benefits of AI accessible and valuable to everyone. We are pleased to collaborate with Reliance General Insurance to bring the power of artificial intelligence and its transformative impact to reimagine the experience for their customers. We thank our partner Celebal Technologies for creating the solution, which makes the both the renewal and claims processes agile and more efficient, in a secure and scalable manner.”

Microsoft is reportedly designing Arm-based chips for Azure servers and some Surface PCs, signaling the computer giant’s increasing willingness to lower its reliance on Intel.

Bloomberg reported Friday that the Redmond, Wash.-based company is working on in-house processor designs for its own servers that run Azure, mirroring an effort by Amazon Web Services, which has already began offering cloud instances using its own Arm-based server CPUs, Graviton.

The news organization, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the plans, said Microsoft is also exploring its own chip designs for some Surface PCs, which already include models with chips co-designed with Qualcomm and AMD separately.

In a statement to CRN, Frank Shaw, corporate vice president of communications at Microsoft, confirmed that the company is investing in its own chip design capabilities.

Because silicon is a foundational building block for technology, we’re continuing to invest in our own capabilities in areas like design, manufacturing and tools, while also fostering and strengthening partnerships with a wide range of chip providers,” he said.

Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Arm, which licenses chip designs to companies that make their own processors, has been making a bigger push into the data center over the past few years with its Neoverse platform. In September, the company revealed its V1 and N2 core designs, both of which Arm said significantly outperform CPUs made by Intel and AMD while also having high energy efficiency.

“The emergence of Arm in the data center is being powered by many factors: customization, efficiency, ecosystem diversity, but all of that builds on top of performance,” Chris Bergey, senior vice president and general manager of Arm’s infrastructure business, said in September. “If Neoverse wasn’t delivering a significant measurable value proposition you would not see the market adoption and momentum that we are achieving.”

But Arm has also been finding more success with client computers in recent times, most notably with Apple’s Arm-based M1 processor, which is now available in a few Mac models. Apple has said that the M1 can outperform competing processors by up to two times.

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Nvidia, a semiconductor company that primarily makes GPUs but is also starting to built its own server systems, is in the process of acquiring Arm from its current owner, SoftBank, for US$40 billion.

That this year has been an interesting one for us in IT is an understatement. It’s been a very good year for public cloud though, with record growth in AWS and Azure. And for many businesses, the “digital transformation” journey towards the cloud has been highly accelerated. Maybe last year’s small proof-of-concept Azure deployments have grown into full-scale production resources. Or the inability to access your co-lo datacenter servers due to COVID-19 restrictions has forced a migration of VMs to public cloud.

Whatever the reason, you may find yourself responsible for a lot more cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) resources and now taking stock of the security posture of all of it.

This article will look at the comprehensive guidance Microsoft offers for “how to do security” in Azure and how to use the tool that brings it all together: Azure Security Center (ASC).

Cloud Adoption Framework

The CAF is a good place to start, at any stage in your cloud journey, particularly for larger businesses. Based on cloud adoption best practices from Microsoft, partners and customers, it has guidance and tools to shape technology, people and processes for cloud success. It covers strategy and planning, migration, governing, management, organization and innovation. Here we’re going to focus on the security strategy, part which covers conceptS such as securing your cloud resources as well as using cloud technology to transform how you do security, along with the shared responsibility model.

Moving to the cloud means that some parts of security (physical hosts/network/datacenters) are now the responsibility of the provider, whereas other parts stay with you (data, endpoint devices, accounts and identities). Further, with IaaS you still have to secure the OS and applications in your VMs, apply network controls and manage your identity directory (Azure Active Directory — AAD). Using PaaS services shifts some of these responsibilities to the cloud provider, depending on the service you’re using. This is one reason that you should look to modernize your applications away from IaaS towards PaaS as there’s less for you to secure, but new features to understand to ensure a good security resilience.

The CAF also covers different admin security roles involved in managing cyberrisk and how they change when you’re in the cloud. More direct guidance is also on offer through a set of recommendations and a reference implementation.
The Well-Architected Framework, on the other hand, is a set of assessments building on these five pillars:

Cost Optimization
Operational Excellence
Performance Efficiency
Reliability
Security
The assessments ascertain where you’re at today, and then spits out a set of curated guidance to improve your approach.