Luper's Learnings - Azure Technical Community for Partners (August 2015)

This is the August 2015 monthly edition of Luper’s Learnings. We’re now a full month into Microsoft’s new fiscal year (FY16) and I’m here to tell you that after the enthusiasm of our Worldwide Partner Conference and several internal events during the month of July, Azure is top of mind for all at Microsoft and we’re continuing to charge forward with new service development, investments in additional datacenters and more and more field resources to work with you and our customers to drive Azure deployments & customer success. Of course, a new fiscal year on my team means that it’s time to start planning for travel, events and partner visits. I will try to share updates here and look forward to meeting some of you as I plan travel in the next 6 months to Canada, US, UK, France, Australia and some other destinations around the world.

Here are topics I’ve run across and my Learnings from the last month…

Keeping up is hard to do! As you may have heard at //build, Ignite, WPC or any number of other opportunities, Azure has had 500+ new releases in the last 12 months. A great place to track these releases is the Service Updates page. “One place. All updates.” Three new ones posted just yesterday.

• Have you had a chance to pass your Azure certification exams yet? We really want to help our Azure partners achieve the MPN Gold Cloud Platform Competency. One of the requirements is for two individuals within a partner organization to each pass an Azure exam. For the next five months, if you attempt the 70-532, 70-533 or 70-534 Azure exams and don’t achieve a passing score the first time, we’ll give you a free Second Shot.

• If you really want to prove your prowess and you pass all three of the exams I mentioned above, you will earn the new MCSD: Azure Solutions Architect certification.

• In our last fiscal year, we ran a series of events around the world called Azure University. This fiscal year, we’ll continue running some of those events in person but have renamed the series to Cloud Platform University and have also added an online component. Many of the online classes will be collaborative, include homework and have interactive opportunities as well as spanning multiple weeks. The first online offering started this week. Some upcoming Cloud Platform University Online (CPO) offerings include:

• From an in person perspective, we are working to bring Cloud Platform University to Egypt, several US cities, Canada, France, Columbia, Mexico, Germany, India and more. Today, registration is open for the below:

• Coming in just over a month, the first ever Cortana Analytics Workshop in Redmond. Being held September 10 -11 you will have the opportunity to learn about Microsoft’s advanced analytics vision, get architectural guidance and hands-on training on how to build your own apps and custom solutions using the state-of-the-art Cortana Analytics platform and tools. You’ll get to network with other data professionals and have loads of fun, to boot! Learn more and pre-register today.

• In addition to the many readiness offerings mentioned above, Azure DevCamp has been updated. With topics ranging from PaaS overview to features on App Service, Data Platform, Media and more, the full content (just updated within the past couple of weeks) including hands on labs are available at https://aka.ms/azure-devcamp.

• Of course, we continue to update, add to and maintain the Azure Partner Readiness Catalog (APRC.) We’re soliciting new contributors, starting with P-Sellers who have B- Microsoft credentials. Want to contribute to the catalog? Let me know!

Microsoft loves Linux. Seriously. I didn’t make this up. Satya even said so.

• I have mentioned previously that Linux and open source technologies are first class citizens on Azure. I want to make sure that you and your customers are very comfortable running open source and Linux workloads on Azure. We do those things REALLY well. A good place to stay current on what we’re doing with current and future open source and Linux technologies on Azure is the Openness site. Some of the current stories and announcements include Open source system integrator moves to Azure to expand business, Expanding Linux and OSS customer support for Azure (I mention this again just below), Combining open source and Microsoft technologies creates opportunities for Microsoft partners and New features for open source developers in Visual Studio and .NET releases.

• Guy Bowerman talked about our Expanding Linux and OSS Support on Azure. He talks about scope and the ½ dozen Linux distros that are supported. No news on Red Hat yet.

• I’m also a huge proponent of the Azure Trust Center and have told you about it before. It’s fun to share real examples of where Microsoft is stepping up to respect and protect customer data including Brad Smith’s legal challenge to a US government search warrant. Additionally, for the past six months, we have shared a monthly Security Newsletter. In the July edition, Tim Rains focuses on a topic that is top of mind for many CISOs and IT professionals —cloud security. With more and more organizations around the world leveraging cloud services, understanding how to protect your assets in the cloud and provide users with secure access to those assets is more important than ever.

• The excitement around Azure Resource Manager continues. Recently, Tom FitzMacken posted an Azure Resource Manager Overview including a short video. Just last week, Meagan McCrory blogged about Tagging on Compute, Network and Storage Resources. Consistent use of tags on Compute, Network, and Storage resources created through the Azure Resource Manager allows organizations to track their usage in a new way. By analyzing your tagged Azure resources and usage data, powerful consumption insights can be gained.

• Enterprise Mobility enthusiasm and uptake is continuing and growing, too. Great resources here highlighting that Microsoft was recognized in Visionary Quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Identity as a Service as well as a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites.

• How else are Azure and mobile connected? Do you have favorite Azure related mobile apps that you use on your devices? I’m a Windows guy so I’m familiar with Remote Desktop, AzureSpy, Mobile Azure Manager, Azure Commander and AzureSQLMonitor but would love to hear from you about awesome Android and iOS apps that help you get things done in Azure. I’ll share those with the community in future editions.

• SQL Data Warehouse has now been in Limited Public Preview for just over a month. Are you using it? You can Get Started using info in James Rowland-Jones’ article.

• Alexandre Brisebois posted Moving to Azure DNS which details his experience using Microsoft Azure DNS. This prompted me to find a couple other related resources for you. Trevor Sullivan posted a 5 minute video on Channel 9 exploring Azure Resource Manager to manage Azure DNS. Sam Cogan talks about some of the gotchas he encountered. Lastly, Joao Madureira has shared documentation that was updated last week on Get started with Azure DNS.

• At our Worldwide Partner Conference a few weeks ago, we underscored our commitment to building an intelligent cloud platform and giving customers unparalleled advanced analytics capabilities within the Internet of Things (IoT) with Cortana Analytics Suite as announced by Takeshi Numoto. The capabilities of Cortana Analytics Suite are vividly illustrated in the North American Eagle project, in which Brandyn Bayes and a team rebuilt an F-104 Lockheed “Starfighter” into a high-velocity, jet-powered car. VentureBeat’s coverage.

• Particle and Microsoft are working together to provide a complete solution for Internet of Things products. The Particle cloud platform provides the infrastructure to bring your hardware online. Connected hardware is great, but often the real value comes from generating business intelligence from your fleet of IoT devices. Stream data from Particle-powered devices into Azure Event Hub, Azure Streaming Analytics, Azure Machine Learning and a host of other powerful cloud services. Get details, devices, tutorials and more.

• I’ve written about Azure Site Recovery before. Last month, Gaurav Daga announced the General Availability of Disaster Recovery for VMware Virtual Machines and Physical Machines to Azure using ASR. It’s been in preview since March and is now ready to be used broadly. Documentation continues to be updated with the most recent update posted last week.

• You know that Azure and Office 365 are siblings, or at least cousins, right? Just this week, Jeremy Chapman posted a 13 minute video on Channel 9, How to optimize your network connectivity and performance with Office 365 and Azure.

• Key Vault helps safeguard cryptographic keys and secrets used by cloud applications and services. By using Key Vault, you can encrypt keys and secrets (such as authentication keys, storage account keys, data encryption keys, .PFX files, and passwords) by using keys that are protected by hardware security modules (HSMs). It was announced in public preview in January and general availability in June on the Official Azure Key Vault Team Blog. There’s a 5 minute Developer Quick Start video and a Getting Started guide you should check out.

• Providing cloud-scale job scheduling and compute management, Azure Batch became Generally Available in early July.

• Azure Premium Storage has been generally available in some geographies since April as announced by Mark Russinovich. Watch a 5 minute overview or the entire Ignite session Understanding Which Workloads Are Ideal for Azure Premium Storage. Oh yeah, it became generally available in Japan East yesterday!

• Over the course of the past number of months, Davide Benvegnu of DBTek (yes, I know he posts a lot in Italian) has posted the first two parts of a three part series discussing Cloud Load Testing with Visual Studio Online. Part one, posted in January talks about simple load tests execution, directly using the using the VSO portal. Part two shows how to setup and execute Load Tests with Visual Studio and Visual Studio Online and part three, about Load Test APIs is still forthcoming.

• You’ll hear more about the Billing API in coming months but I thought I’d share Keith Mayer’s blog post Export Azure Subscription Usage to CSV with NEW Billing API and PowerShell to get you started.

• I know that you’ve heard about the Azure CLI before. A few Learnings crossed my inbox this past month so I thought I’d share them. It’s a set of open source, cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) commands for working with the Azure Platform. It provides much of the same functionality found in the Azure Management Portal, such as the ability to manage websites, virtual machines, mobile services, SQL Database and other services.

  • Install and Configure the Azure CLI and Install the Azure CLI

  • Using the Azure CLI for Mac, Linux, and Windows with Azure Service Management

  • Use the Azure CLI for Mac, Linux, and Windows with Azure Resource Manager

  • Run Azure CLI as a Docker Container: Avoid installation and setup

• Ever have difficulty remoting into a Windows-based Azure VM? Dhanashri Kshirsagar recently updated his methodical approach for correction and root-cause determination of Remote Desktop connections.

• Keep in mind… Azure is different. Azure is just one component of our enterprise story. Whether Windows and .NET or Linux / Open Source, fully on-premises (cloud based DR?), fully cloud or hybrid Azure almost always can plug in. Mike Schutz wrote last month how we continue Expanding our Hybrid Cloud and Furthering Cloud Hyper-Scale.

• Finally, as I try to do from time to time, here’s a little Learnings that has nothing to do with Azure but, in the spirit of Windows 10’s release last week, I thought I’d share this fun, geeky “feature” that persists in Windows 10. How to Activate God Mode on Windows 10

Thanks for sticking with me and making it to the bottom of the August Luper’s Learnings. If you have topics you’d like me to include, please let me know what they are!