5 Key Announcements from Microsoft Ignite
Password-less authentication, Azure Arc and simplifying edge development were among the popular topics.
March 9, 2021
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As always, Microsoft gave plenty of airtime to its latest advances in security. Ironically, as it was doing so, the company was also acknowledging the zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange Server, exploited by hackers in China.
Among the security-related announcements at Ignite, Microsoft said Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) now supports password-less authentication using biometrics. It includes Windows Hello for Business, the Microsoft Authenticator app or FIDO2-based security keys from Yubico, Feitian and AuthenTrend.
Also coming to Azure AD is Temporary Access Pass. Now in preview, it can generate a time-limited code to create or recover a password-less credential.
Microsoft has added “authentication context” to its Azure AD Conditional Access policy engine to enable more granular policies without making it difficult to access less sensitive information.
To protect IoT and hybrid cloud environments, Microsoft is also bringing Secured-core to Windows Server and edge devices. Microsoft 365 data loss prevention (DLP) now supports Chrome browsers and on-premises servers including file shares and SharePoint.
Microsoft wantsto make it easier for partners to build applications that use cameras, sensors and embedded microphones. The launch of Azure Percept is a kit that includes hardware accelerators that are designed to integrate with Azure AI and Azure IoT services. According to Microsoft, Azure Percept works with Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Machine Learning, Azure Live Video Analytics and other Azure services. It analyzes visual and audio data in real time and is for solution providers that don’t have a deep bench of coders.
Azure Arc is Microsoft’s new hybrid cloud platform that enables organizations and hosting providers to run Azure-enabled applications at their own sites. Microsoft released Azure Arc last year with support for virtual machines and Azure data services, specifically Azure SQL Managed Instance and Azure PostgreSQL. At Microsoft Ignite, the company expanded on the Azure data services that are compatible with Azure Arc.
The newest one is Azure Machine Learning, which lets data scientists and developers build, run and manage machine learning models, according to Microsoft Azure general manager Arpan Shah.
“This reduces data movement while meeting security and compliance requirements,” he noted. “In one click, data scientists can now use familiar tools to build machine learning models consistently and reliably and deploy anywhere.”
Microsoft also expanded its Azure Arc for Kubernetes distribution. Microsoft designed it to be compatible with any cloud-native computing foundation (CNCF) conformant Kubernetes distribution. But the company has worked with key providers of Kubernetes distributions to offer validated solutions, including Red Hat OpenShift, Canonical’s Charmed Kubernetes and the Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE). The newest validated releases include VMware Tanzu and Nutanix Karbon.
Microsoft has recently stepped up its emphasis on the Power Platform, its tools that are aimed to enable self-service functions such as creating analytics models, task automation and low-code, no-code development. The tools respectively are Power BI, Power Automate and Power Fx. At Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft made a move that will make its Power Automate robotic process automation (RPA) tool widely available. Power Automate, which automates tasks across applications, is now available for all Windows 10 users free of charge. Coming to Power BI in April is an enhanced Power BI that will introduce a new autoscale option and usage-based pricing.
Microsoft wants to double the capacity of its Azure public cloud service in China. The company said it will do so with the addition of an Azure Region in North China in 2022. The operator of the new region will be Microsoft partner 21Vianet. Microsoft’s partnership with 21Vianet in China dates back to the launch of its first two regions in March 2014.
Microsoft wants to double the capacity of its Azure public cloud service in China. The company said it will do so with the addition of an Azure Region in North China in 2022. The operator of the new region will be Microsoft partner 21Vianet. Microsoft’s partnership with 21Vianet in China dates back to the launch of its first two regions in March 2014.
Microsoft typically hosts its Ignite conference in the fall, but because of COVID-19, the company created two virtual events. The first was in September. Microsoft held the second one last week.
Microsoft Teams was in the spotlight during Ignite, as officials talked up plans to provide tighter integration with Dynamics 365. Also, Microsoft said support for webinars and webcasting is coming to Teams imminently.
But there was much more to Microsoft Ignite. Here are five such announcements (in the slideshow above) that partners will want to know more about.
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