Microsoft has announced new features this year surrounding hybrid migration, data, security and compliance, and developer tools to enable rapid, secure adoption of Azure cloud services. For those considering the move to a cloud infrastructure, Azure offers competitive features such as pay-as-you-go and pay-for-what-you-need subscription pricing models attractive to businesses of every size.
Microsoft’s announcements emphasize enhancements to products and services including the release of the next generation of Azure Stack HCI; new Azure Migrate features and Azure Lighthouse security enhancements; and third-party connectors for Azure Sentinel.
VMware
Designed, built, and supported by Microsoft, VMware has endorsed the next generation of Azure VMware Solution. For companies struggling to identify fast and cost-effective solutions to enable business stability and resiliency, the Azure VMware Solution seamlessly extends or completely migrates existing on-premises VMware applications to Azure.
Azure Migrate features
Azure Migrate, the central hub of Azure cloud-migration services, now offers new tools for the discovery, assessment, and migration of workloads to the cloud. Customers can now conduct more thorough datacentre assessments and import and create assessments using uploaded Configuration Management Database data.
Also, now available are Azure Migrate advanced specializations, training, and support for PowerShell. A cross-platform task automation and configuration management framework, PowerShell includes a command-line shell and scripting language. To meet requirements of critical workloads, Microsoft has added Azure disks and networking enhancements.
Azure Stack HCI
Combining hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) with native Azure hybrid capabilities and employing validated hardware, this cluster runs virtualized workloads on-premises to consolidate aging infrastructure and connect to Azure for cloud services. Users can deploy and run Windows and Linux virtual machines in datacentres or computing as a distributed paradigm ”at the edge ”leveraging existing tools, processes, and skillsets.
Early benchmarking shows Azure Stack HCI input/output operations per second (IOPs) in the 13 million-plus range and over 1 million requests per second for TPC-c SQL server workloads. Both of these are in line with industry-leading performance. Azure Stack HCI extends datacentres to the cloud where tools such as Azure Backup, Azure Monitor, and Azure Security Center are used.
Security features
Azure Lighthouse is Microsoft’s solution for cross-customer management at scale. This application allows partners to differentiate services as measured in greater efficiency and automation. Among other new features, Azure Lighthouse now supports multifactor authentication and privileged identity management with a single control plane for service providers to view and manage Azure across their customer base.
Partners can now use permanent or eligible role-based access control (RBAC), achieved through the addition of parameters to the ARM template customers use to onboard to Azure Lighthouse. Partners can also elevate access to short-term, privileged (built-in RBAC) to address management tasks in the customer’s tenant, and support customers without requiring higher, permanent-level access.
Third-party connectors
With distributed teams, security and risk-management practices have necessitated critical review. Microsoft has released third-party connectors for select security offerings for users of Microsoft Azure Sentinel.
The CEF, Syslog, Direct, Agent, Custom, and other connectors include sample queries, dashboards, and analytics to help collect security data, detect and respond to threats, and provide immediate security insight across partner solutions, including networks, firewalls, endpoint protection, and vulnerability management.
Azure HDInsight and Apache Hadoop
Apache Hadoop is an open-source Java framework primarily intended for the storage and processing of large sets of data on clusters. With Azure HDInsight users can deploy and provision Apache Hadoop clusters, which provides a software framework for managing, analyzing, and reporting on big data. Users can provision a new HDInsight cluster based on Apache code built and supported by Microsoft and automatically migrated to the supported distribution.
Azure Data Factory preview
Usually stored in relational, non-relational, or other types of storage systems, Raw, unorganized data is of little use. It does not have the context required to make the information meaningful. Businesses must use orchestrating and operationalized processes to enhance raw data so they can glean actionable business insights.
A managed-cloud service, Azure Data Factory processes complicated hybrid extract-transform-load (ETL), extract-load-transform (ELT), and data integration projects. Once processed, the transformed data can be published to datacentres such as Azure SQL Data Warehouse for business intelligence applications to consume.
New practice playbooks
In 2017, Microsoft introduced a series of Cloud Practice Development Playbooks written by Microsoft and partners and recently published two new titles. Compiled from insights and best practices of more than a thousand Microsoft partners, the playbooks help Microsoft customers build practices in cloud application development, data platform and analytics, cloud infrastructure and management, security, and more.
The Microsoft Azure Center of Excellence Playbook details how partners can grow an Azure-focused practice. The App Innovation Practice Development Playbook describes how partners can be successful using Microsoft technology and programs to create and deliver application development services and intellectual property.
Summing up
Microsoft continues to expand the Azure cloud services landscape, from partnerships to playbooks, to well-considered features. Azure helps organizations meet business challenges and exceed business expectations.
While 2020 has been a big year for Azure announcements, some features are in preview status and yet to be released. Other features are not unavailable as of this writing but will be soon.
