November Azure Newsletter

Having trouble viewing this email? View as a webpage.     Azure Newsletter November 2017     Free 12 months of access         Be informed Be empowered Be inspired Be enhanced         Search by keyword or sort articles by categories via the website version.       Featured     Customer-submitted story: Sagitto "Sagitto combines field-portable spectroscopy and machine learning to help companies measure processes rapidly and cost-effectively. We build predictive models for our customers using Azure Machine Learning. These models are tailored to our customers' apps, and they're securely stored within the Azure cloud platform. Azure allows our customers to retain ownership of their data and the models built from it, with the assurance of all day, every day access." George Hill, founder, Sagitto.     Free e-book download: Enterprise Cloud Strategy In the second edition of the Enterprise Cloud Strategy e-book, we've taken the essential information for how to establish a strategy and execute your enterprise cloud migration and put it all in one place. This valuable resource for IT and business leaders provides a comprehensive look at moving to the cloud, as well as specific guidance on topics like prioritizing app migration, working with stakeholders, and cloud architectural blueprints. Download now.     New: Learn cloud skills with Azure Essentials Meet Julia White, Corporate Vice President, Azure Marketing—she introduces Microsoft Azure Essentials, a free resource for IT professionals and developers who want to quickly learn new skills with Azure. With just three short steps—watch, learn, and try—you'll get started on the path to deep Azure knowledge. Watch now.     Visual Studio App Center now generally available Automate the lifecycle of your iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS apps. Connect your repository and within minutes build in the cloud, test on thousands of real devices, distribute to beta testers and app stores, and monitor real-world usage with crash and analytics data. All in one place. Our free tier helps you get started for free and only pay as your app grows. Learn more.     Announcing Innovate.AI: A global startup competition Are you an early-stage company using artificial intelligence (AI) and/or machine learning and looking for funding? Microsoft Ventures is hosting Innovate.AI, a global competition with a total prize pool worth $5.5 million US dollars (USD) for startups in North America, Europe, and Israel. One innovative company from each region will win a $1 million USD investment from Microsoft Ventures and participating venture capitalist partners, and $500,000 USD in Azure credits. Applications are open now until December 31, 2017. Learn more and apply.         Upcoming events         Microsoft Tech Summit Tel Aviv November 29, 2017 Tel Aviv, Israel     The AI Summit December 5, 2017 New York, New York     KubeCon + CloudNativeCon December 6, 2017 Austin, Texas   Microsoft Tech Summit Toronto December 13, 2017 Toronto, Canada       NRF 2018 January 14, 2018 New York, New York       Mobile World Congress February 26, 2018 Barcelona, Spain     Find Azure-related events             Be informed           Watch on-demand content from Microsoft Connect(); 2017   Whether you're creating cloud-native applications, infusing your apps with artificial intelligence (AI), or just getting started, on-demand content from Microsoft Connect(); 2017 will inspire you to build the apps of the future. Join our Cloud Chief, Scott Guthrie, and top developer minds for the latest in open source technologies, Azure, data, AI, DevOps, Visual Studio, Xamarin, and cross-platform applications.             Accelerate your journey to the cloud   Reduce the complexity of your cloud migration by using a single comprehensive service instead of multiple tools. Now in preview, Azure Database Migration Service is designed as a seamless, end-to-end solution for moving on-premises Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and other relational databases to the cloud. The service supports migrations of homogeneous/heterogeneous source-target pairs, and the guided migration process is easy to understand and implement. Learn more.     Microsoft SQL Operations Studio now in preview   Microsoft SQL Operations Studio offers a modern, keyboard-focused T-SQL code experience with built-in features such as multiple tab windows, a rich T-SQL editor, IntelliSense, keyword completion, code snippets and code navigation, and source control integration. You can execute ad-hoc SQL queries; view and save results as text, JSON, or an Excel file; and edit data, organize your favorite database connections, and browse database objects in a familiar object browsing experience. This feature is available for download at no cost to you and runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS.     Azure Cosmos DB: 99.999 percent read availability at global scale   We've been making continuous improvements to our stack, and now even stronger service-level agreements (SLAs) for Azure Cosmos DB are available. Databases spanning multiple regions will now have 99.999 percent read availability. Learn more.     AI-powered Azure SQL Database Automatic tuning is rolling out as a new default   Automatic tuning in Azure SQL Database leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to provide stable and peak performing databases at a large scale through continuous monitoring, identifying and applying tuning actions in a safe and managed fashion. This mature capability consists of automated index management and plan regression correction and is rolling out as a new default via an Automatic tuning on-by-default journey.     Azure Cosmos DB Apache® Cassandra API now in preview   The Apache® Cassandra API preview is now available on Azure Cosmos DB. This API allows developers who are familiar with Cassandra and using its SDKs and tools to "lift-and-shift" existing apps and/or build new apps using the Cassandra API against a globally distributed, multi-model database service designed to scale throughput and storage across any number of geographical regions with comprehensive service-level agreements (SLAs). Sign up today to get access to the Apache® Cassandra API.     Spark connector for Azure Cosmos DB generally available   Spark connector for Azure Cosmos DB enables real-time data science, machine learning, advanced analytics, and exploration over globally distributed data in Azure Cosmos DB by connecting it to Apache Spark. The connector efficiently exploits the native Azure Cosmos DB-managed indexes and enables updateable columns when performing analytics. It also utilizes push-down predicate filtering against fast-changing globally-distributed data addressing a diverse set of Internet of Things (IoT), data science, and analytics scenarios. Spark-structured stream support using Azure Cosmos DB change feed, query performance improvements, and support for the latest Spark version are also included.     Azure Cosmos DB Table API generally available   Azure Cosmos DB Table API is now generally available in all Azure regions. With Azure Cosmos DB Table API support, applications written for Azure table storage can now leverage the premium capabilities of Azure Cosmos DB, including turnkey global distribution, low latency reads/writes, automatic secondary indexing, dedicated throughput, and much more. Azure Cosmos DB Table API support is accessible through the Azure portal.     Aggregation pipeline preview and Unique Indexes for Azure Cosmos DB MongoDB API   Now in preview, Aggregation pipeline support lets Azure Cosmos DB developers using the MongoDB API perform data manipulation in multi-stage pipelines even within a single query. This enables streamlined development of more sophisticated apps. Aggregation pipeline can be turned on in the Azure portal. Also, the Unique Index capability is now generally available and introduces the uniqueness constraint on any document fields that are already auto-indexed in Azure Cosmos DB. Azure Cosmos DB now implements MongoDB 3.4 wire protocol, allowing the use of tools and apps relying on the MongoDB API.     New VM images: SQL Server 2017 on Linux and Windows   SQL Server 2017 images on Linux and Windows are now available in Azure Marketplace. SQL Server 2017 is the first release available on Linux, giving you the choice of running SQL Server on virtual machines (VMs) based on Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE, or Ubuntu. SQL Server 2017 also provides new capabilities, including graph data support, adaptive query processing, and built-in Python and R analytics. Find out more at the Azure Blog and by watching the Getting Started video.     Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances now available   Azure Reserved Virtual Machine Instances let you reserve virtual machines (VMs) to prioritize workloads when and where you need them most. With up to 72 percent cost savings over Pay-As-You-Go pricing, these reserved instances improve budgeting and forecasting because they are purchased in 1- and 3-year terms with a single up-front payment. Purchasing is easy—you select only three items: region, VM series, and term. If you decide at any time during the term that you need to exchange or cancel reservations, that's easy, too. What's more, Windows Server customers can save up to 82 percent with the Azure Hybrid Benefit.     Introducing AZ extension   Extend Azure CLI by adding new or overriding existing commands from an external package. Build on top of existing functionality with ease. Dev teams can now own code bases, tooling, and other resources to produce new features for Azure CLI. Learn more.     P15 tier now available for Azure Managed Disks   Now available in all Azure regions, P15 disks are 256 GB Premium managed disks that provide 1,100 input/output operations per second (IOPS) and a throughput of 125 MB per second. Learn more on the Managed Disks pricing webpage.     New in Azure Functions: Introducing support for Java and building stateful serverless apps   The series of innovations in Azure Functions continues with more new features. Support for Java extends serverless benefits to Java developers. Additionally, we've added support for building more complex serverless scenarios including stateful orchestration, as well as custom bindings. Learn more and try the five-minute quickstarts for Azure Functions.     Preview available for Azure Container Service (AKS)-managed Kubernetes and geo-replication in Azure Container Registry   Azure Container Service (AKS) simplifies the deployment, management, and operations of Kubernetes by providing a fully managed Kubernetes container orchestrator service. It eliminates the complicated planning and deployment of fully-orchestrated containerized applications while avoiding being locked into any one vendor or resource. AKS-managed features are free—users pay only for cloud consumption. Geo-replication lets Azure Container Registry function as a single registry while being available for local operations in the replicated regions. As images are used across many Azure services, you can benefit from a single management plane while maintaining network-close, fast, and reliable image pulls. Learn more.     Azure Friday: Azure Container Registry geo-replication   Azure Friday's Donovan Brown learns about Azure Container Registry geo-replication. With it, you can now manage your global Azure footprint as one resource, enabling network-close deployments of your Docker containers. With regionalized WebHooks, you can deploy regions as your images arrive. Watch now.     Azure cool blob storage promotion ending soon—sign up now   Customers with a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) are eligible to receive significant discounts when committing to purchase and consume specified amounts of Azure cool blob storage. Cool blob storage is a cost-effective option for storage of infrequently accessed data. This cool blob storage promotion for EA customers will end on December 31, 2017.     Microsoft Translator adds Tamil as a new text translation language   Microsoft Translator announces the launch of their latest text translation language—Tamil—available in the Microsoft Translator API, a member of the Microsoft Cognitive Services collection. As a new or existing Translator Text API customer, businesses can now integrate Tamil translations across apps, desktop, and web apps. Tamil is one of more than 60 text translation languages supported through the API. Learn more about text translation capabilities in Microsoft Translator.     Azure Time Series Insights now generally available   Azure Time Series Insights is a managed analytics and visualization service that democratizes the Internet of Things (IoT) by making it simple to explore and analyze your IoT time series data. It lets you quickly validate your IoT solution and avoid downtime to mission-critical devices by helping you discover hidden trends, spot anomalies, and conduct root-cause analyses in near real-time. It also offers up to 400 days of real-time analytics and storage of time series data, helping organizations to spot and understand longer-term trends in their IoT data.     Azure IoT Edge now in preview   Make hybrid cloud and edge Internet of Things (IoT) solutions a reality with Azure IoT Edge, a service that delivers cloud analytics capabilities to the edge. IoT Edge provides easy orchestration between code and services, so they flow securely between cloud and edge to distribute intelligence across IoT devices. It enables artificial intelligence and advanced analytics at the edge. IoT Edge is also cross-platform, running on both Windows and Linux, and on devices even smaller than a Raspberry Pi with as little as 128 MB of memory.     Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service generally available   Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service dramatically simplifies the job of provisioning Internet of Things (IoT) devices to a solution. It works in harmony with Azure IoT Hub to help solutions enable zero-touch "plug and play" provisioning of IoT devices. You can pre-register devices and centrally control which IoT hub each device should be connected to and move devices between IoT hubs. Once connected, the device can be provisioned with the correct software, firmware, and configuration using the device management capabilities in IoT Hub.     Announcing the preview of Azure Stream Analytics on edge devices   This new Azure Stream Analytics feature extends the benefits of this unique streaming technology from the cloud down to the device level. Stream Analytics on edge devices has the same unified cloud-managed experience for stream analytics running across edge devices and the cloud. This approach lets organizations use streaming analytics in scenarios where connectivity to the cloud is limited or inconsistent, but the need for quick insight and proactive actions are essential to run the business.     Adobe and Microsoft integrated sales and marketing solution demos now available in Microsoft Technology Centers   Adobe and Microsoft deliver the most advanced sales and marketing capabilities to help companies digitally transform and engage customers in new ways. They break down data silos with the Common Data Model to create real-time personalized customer touchpoints. They also engage customers with rich, intelligent personalization from the entry point of a customer journey—from anonymous to advocacy. There's seamless integration of Adobe Experience Cloud, Dynamics 365, Azure, Office 365, and Power BI. To request a demo, please contact your Microsoft Account executive or visit the Microsoft Dynamics 365 website.     Now open: IT Skills and Salary Survey   Global Knowledge has opened its eleventh annual IT Skills and Salary Survey, the largest of its kind in the industry, and you are invited to participate. All contributions are confidential and will shed insight into industry salaries, in-demand certifications, skill gaps, and the existing career landscape. The survey results help to generate an annual report used by industry insiders, hiring managers, and IT professionals. Participants can opt in to receive the report when it's ready later in 2018. Take the survey before it closes December 1, 2017.           Be empowered           Expedition Cloud: Cloud strategy with Mel Lowe   When you have decades' worth of data to move to the cloud, where do you start? Do you "lift and shift" existing applications, or rebuild and optimize them in the cloud? What's the most efficient way to transition to cloud technology, and what's the right order of operations? When on the verge of moving nearly all Microsoft operations to the cloud, our pros had these questions—and more. Watch the video.             Build your cloud skills with the latest in Azure and Microsoft 365 at Microsoft Tech Summit   Attend a free technical learning event for IT pros and developers brought to you by the experts who build and run our cloud services. Whether you're developing innovative apps or delivering optimized solutions, Microsoft Tech Summit can help evolve your skills, deepen your expertise, and grow your career. Customize your learning with more than 70 sessions, keynotes, hands-on labs, and more. Find a free event near you.     Get trained and certified on Azure   Learning cloud skills with Azure helps set your career on the path to success. Whether you're an IT professional or a developer, you can open career possibilities and expand job options. You can learn role-based skills with short, online learning paths that are accessible anytime. Get advanced skills through in-depth instructor-led or online courses with Microsoft learning partners. Then validate your expertise with Azure skill exams. Get started today.     Course: Experience the Microsoft cloud with Cloud Adoption Test Lab Guides   For IT professionals and developers who want to learn how to simplify the move to cloud-based services and workloads, this course offers in-depth and practical guidance. Learn how to use Cloud Adoption Test Lab Guides to get hands-on with Microsoft Cloud technologies, including Office 365, Enterprise Mobility + Security, and Dynamics 365. Watch now.     Watch on-demand now: Microsoft Azure OpenDev   Learn how to build an open source DevOps pipeline and bring an enterprise app to the cloud at this virtual community-focused event. Follow the journey of an enterprise app moving to the Azure cloud, beginning with development and version control through Git; then moving to continuous integration and deployment, all the way through monitoring. Watch now and see what's possible with open source.     Course: Managing Identity   This free, self-paced security course explores the latest ways to manage identity. You'll learn practical steps and guidance on identity management, based on real-world experience provided by the Microsoft Incidence Response teams. With videos, text, and hosted labs, you'll have the opportunity to get hands-on as you explore Active Directory best practices and learn how to secure Azure Active Directory. Enroll now and get started implementing and managing identity as part of your cybersecurity defense plan.     Course: Cloud Application Development   Find out how cloud app development can help solve business problems as our expert MVP instructors guide you through the subject. They'll explore data services provided by Azure, show you how Azure can help increase developer productivity in a tool-agnostic way, and how to build cross-platform mobile apps. There are lots of demos in this practical cloud app development tutorial. Watch now.     Course: SharePoint Automation with DSC   Learn what PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) is and how you can use it to build SharePoint farms and reverse engineer existing SharePoint farms. See DSC in action, review best practices and guidance, and get an overview of Azure Automation with DSC to support implementation of SharePoint solutions for your organization. Watch this free on-demand course.     Course: Data Series: Analytics: AA: Machine Learning   Watch this free, on-demand course for a look at the primary Microsoft advanced analytics tools, including Azure Machine Learning, which examines large amounts of data for patterns, and then generates code that lets you recognize those patterns in new data so your apps can make better predictions. Plus, learn about Azure Data Factory, SQL Server 2016 R Services, and Cortana Intelligence Suite. View the course.             Be entertained     *Comic source: https://cloudtweaks.com/humor/. Reprinted with permission.           Be inspired       Startup Arena moves to Azure App Service to optimize their build deployment   Arena—a TechStars Chicago 2016 startup—created a messaging app for sports fans to watch videos and discuss live events in real time. Arena's initial build process on AWS Elastic Beanstalk required devs to do low-value, repetitive, manual tasks several times a day to prepare and deploy their app. The solution? Streamline Arena's deployment process to staging and production using Azure App Service. Learn more             Be enhanced Partners       Tableau and Microsoft enable flexibility for modernizing your data estate   Tableau integrates seamlessly with Azure to modernize data platforms. This lets you gain deeper insights across all your data when and where you need it, with confidence that your data is trusted, and your platform is flexible, secure, easy to manage, and cost-effective. You can connect to Azure services like Spark on Azure HDInsight, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and Azure SQL Database. Tableau Server can be hosted in Azure or locally. Get Tableau running in Azure in a few clicks through preconfigured images in Azure Marketplace. Learn more         Finastra and Microsoft bring corporate banking and payments solutions to the cloud   Finastra and Microsoft have formed a strategic partnership to deliver Finastra's corporate banking and next-generation payments solutions via Azure. The partnership builds on the proven collaboration in releasing Finastra's cloud-based lending oversight solution in 2016. Building on that success, the partnership has expanded to include a suite of banking solutions, from payments to cash management and supply chain finance. Learn more     Azure Marketplace       Featured: Simply exceptional protection for Azure apps from PT Application Firewall   PT Application Firewall extends effortless, exceptional protection to Azure-based apps and the data they hold. With fast and smooth deployment, your apps get proactive defense against emerging and 0-day threats. PT Application Firewall's unique P-Code module offers targeted protection for the specific flaws in your source code. It automatically detects vulnerabilities and generates instant virtual patches that prevent attacks while you fix the code. Visit Marketplace page         Featured: Protect your data in the Azure cloud with Cohesity   Find out how you can extend Cohesity's on-premises data protection capabilities to the Azure cloud. With Cohesity and Azure you can support use cases including data protection, long-term archival, test/dev, and disaster recovery. Visit Marketplace page         New: CIS hardened images configured to CIS benchmarks available in Azure Marketplace   CIS is a non-profit entity focused on developing global standards and recognized best practices for securing IT systems. Hardened images are virtual machine (VM) images configured to be more resilient to cyberattacks. These images are available in Azure Marketplace and can be used by customers to create new, securely configured VMs. CIS is working to release additional hardened images, so check Marketplace for new updates. Visit Marketplace page         Test Drive: Build, deploy, and manage with Chef Automate, the continuous automation platform   The official Chef Automate with Chef server Azure Marketplace solution template lets you build, deploy, and manage your infrastructure and apps collaboratively. With one click, you get instant access to all commercial features included with Chef Automate, gain end-to-end visibility across your entire fleet, enable continuous compliance, and manage all change with a unified workflow. Test drive Chef Automate for 30 days free. Visit Marketplace page           Editor's note     Hi, I'm glad you've joined us for another news-packed edition of our newsletter. I want to share a couple of my favorite webpages that I hope will help you keep track of our products and how to use them. First, take a look at our Azure products webpage for a comprehensive list of our services. If you then need to find out more about some of these services and have a preferred learning style, the Azure resources webpage has them organized by type of resource such as videos, webinars, and white papers. Miwa             Please help us improve our communication by telling us what you think about this email:         Timely?             Helpful?                   Quick links       Azure Portal My Account Info     Azure Friday Channel 9     Azure Community Stack Overflow     Microsoft respects your privacy. To learn more please read our online Privacy Statement.       Microsoft Corporation | One Microsoft Way | Redmond, WA 98052 USA