Azure Partner Pulse: February 2022

Save the date for Citus Con: An Event For Postgres - a free, virtual, and global developer event organized by the Postgres team at Microsoft. Attendees will hear from open source users, Azure database customers, and experts in PostgreSQL and Citus about how these different audiences use Postgres. There will be both on demand and livestream talks for Citus Con that will take place across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas timezones, which will be published and free for anyone to watch on YouTube.

Join the event

The Azure Cosmos DB Conf will be happening April 19-20, 2022 and is a free online virtual developer event organized in collaboration with the Azure Cosmos DB community. The event will be streamed in three, 3-hour live segments with 25-minute sessions. Each Live Stream will have its own unique content delivered by community members and Microsoft.

Submit a session idea

Azure Open Source Day

Learn how to turbocharge your open-source apps and data by using Linux and hybrid cloud technologies together. Explore open-source innovations like Visual Studio Code, GitHub Codespaces, the new Azure Cosmos DB API for MongoDB, and the new CBL-Mariner Linux distribution built by Microsoft for Azure services. Join this free digital event to ask Microsoft insiders your questions in the live chat Q&A, and you’ll hear from Linux industry leaders like Red Hat and SUSE. Plus, hear Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, share a special announcement on the 30th anniversary for Linux.

Watch on-demand

Important dates:
Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 ESUs: Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 year two ESUs are coming to an end on January 14, 2022. The year three end is January 14, 2023.
Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 ESUs: Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 year three ESUs will end on October 10, 2023.

In January, we hosted a webinar titled ‘Plan for Windows Server and SQL Server 2012 End of Support’ where we answered questions for customers and explained how to migrate to Azure. See the End of Support FAQ and check out the new blog in our Tech Community highlighting the key dates for Windows Server End of Support key dates.

On-demand webinars:

• Effectively Migrate SQL Server to SQL Server on Azure VM
• Bring Cloud Value to Your Windows Server Anywhere
• Modernize Windows Apps with Azure Kubernetes Service on HCI
• Save Money and Simplify Management of SQL Server on VMs
• Introduction to SQL Server 2022
• Monitoring Your Hybrid Environment with Redgate
• Migrate Windows and SQL Server with Azure VMware Solution

Azure is the best place for Windows Server and SQL Server workloads, and Azure SQL provides a variety of options for migrating, modernizing and innovating in the cloud. Azure SQL Managed Instance is the cloud destination for modernizing your on-premises SQL Server applications at scale, combining the best of SQL Server with all the benefits of a fully managed service. Our announcements at Ignite enable customers to move even more of their most demanding, mission critical workloads to the cloud.

SQL Server 2012 is Coming to End of Extended Support on July 12, 2022. After the end of support, customers lose access to critical security updates that protect customers against potential security vulnerabilities. Customer options include:

• Migrate to Azure and register with SQL Server IaaS Agent extension for free ESUs.
• Purchase Extended Security Updates and register with Azure Arc to receive ESU patches on-premises.
• Modernize to Azure SQL Managed Instance, Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server 2019, or the recently announced private preview of SQL Server 2022.

Resources:

• Review the L300 SQL Managed Instance technical deck
• Help your customers understand modernizing critical workloads to SQL Managed Instance by sharing our on-demand webinar.
• Review the SQL Server 2022 pitch deck and datasheet.
• Register customers for the gated SQL Server 2022 Early Adoption Program or email questions to [email protected].

Thought Leadership content: The Right Route to Transformation article tells the story of our customer, Bertelsmann, its transformation journey and why they chose to modernize their businesses on the Microsoft Cloud platform. The article further reinforces the strategic partnership between Bertelsmann and Microsoft that was announced in a press release: Bertelsmann and Microsoft partner to transform consumer experiences in media and education.

The story is enriched by perspectives from industry leaders from IDC, the MIT Sloan School of Management, Intel and Microsoft.

Forrester TEI: The recently conducted Forrester’s 2021 Total Economic Impact Study uncovered strong performance of customers’ SAP environments running on Azure. Performance metrics included:

• 112% ROI
• $26.1M quantifiable benefits
• $12.36M NPV
• <6 months payback period
• 14% reduction in development time
• 25% reduction in development resource
• 30% reduction in expansion time

Join our webinar on Reducing Costs and Drive Business Value with SAP on Azure

New customer stories:

• NBA builds a solid foundation for innovation and business success with SAP on Azure
• Metrie increases customer response times, overall agility with SAP on Azure

Azure provides excellent value for Linux and OSS DB migrations, from managed PostgreSQL and MySQL to distributed NoSQL database from Cosmos DB. The new benchmark report by global tech consultancy Cazton found Azure Cosmos DB faster than MongoDB Atlas in most common use cases, 93% less expensive for reads, and 20% less expensive for writes.

Resources:

• Review Azure Open Source Day, where customers and Microsoft insiders share the successes using Linux, open-source databases, and AI.
• Mark your calendars for Citus Con: An Event for Postgres on April 12-13. Hear from Azure database customers as well as experts in PostgreSQL and Citus about how they use Postgres.
• Submit session proposals for Azure Cosmos DB Conf, the virtual developer event for all things Azure Cosmos DB, which returns April 19-20, 2022.
• Use the newly added MongoDB to Azure Cosmos DB Migration Pitch Deck and Oracle to Azure L100 Pitch Deck found on Azure Patner Zone

Tools
Azure Pricing Calculator for Azure Virtual Desktop now enables:

• Estimating ANY deployment size, unblocking SMBs with deployments of fewer than 100 users and large enterprises with 10,000+ users
• Combining session host compute, storage, and networking estimates within a single module
• Viewing cost-per-user estimates based on their selections

Skilling

• The free 30 Days to Learn It program now provides 15 hours of training for Azure Virtual Desktop certification. Participants who complete the training within 30 days can be eligible for 50% off the cost of a Microsoft Certification exam.
• Modules have been added to the Azure Immersion Workshop for Azure VIrtual Desktop (AIWAVD) on getting started, cost optimization, Teams optimization, MFA, monitoring, and MSIX app attach.
• New Azure Virtual Desktop click-through lab provides a lab experience similar to AIWAVD in a shorter timeframe (1.5 hours), via a click-through format with voiceover.

It’s sure been a busy month on hybrid with quite a few exciting updates to share:

• Review how cloud trends show customers increasing investments in hybrid and multicloud in the Official Microsoft Blog post bylined by Erin Chapple. In tandem, we published a Transform Blog highlighting hybrid and multicloud customer, Nokia.
• We recently pushed live our latest webinar, “Bring Azure Anywhere with Azure Arc”. This webinar delivers an introduction into Azure Arc-enabled data services and walks through a few financial services use cases. Watch on demand: Azure Arc Webinar | Microsoft Azure
• To facilitate guest licensing for Azure Stack HCI customers, there is a new offer now in public preview that brings simplicity and more flexibility for licensing. Learn more.

We often hear from software leaders that the set of potential levers to improve business performance is so large and diverse – that it is often unclear how to prioritize or where to start. The Developer Velocity Assessment leads to a precise understanding of what it takes for a company to increase Developer Velocity through a comprehensive review of software development practices including technology, working practices, and organizational enablement.

Learn more about Developer Velocity here and take a first assessment with your customers here.

Resources:

• Review the Digital and Application Innovation BDM Deck and our Application Innovation TDM Deck with latest messaging, customer, embedded demos and product updates.

Resources:

• Review Azure Open Source Day
• Read the Tandemploy GmbH customer story about building a talent marketplace using AKS, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Synapse Analytics.
• Read the Colin’s customer story about how they modernized their retail point of sale application using .NET Core, AKS, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

In November, we helped customers think strategically with the Modernizing Apps and Data IDC whitepaper and an on-demand virtual event. Product momentum continues with Azure Spring Cloud integration with Elastic for unified observability of Spring Boot apps.

Resources:

• Learn about upcoming support for Azure Red Hat OpenShift and new apps on Azure and review this success story from Jotun Group on how they modernized .NET apps and SQL Server data with AMMP
• Leverage new Low Code assets: Low Code TDM Pitch Deck and Low Code Patterns and Scenarios
• Join the Azure Spring Cloud Enterprise preview
• Read technical stories from Sphera (Java on App Service + SQL DB) and Liantis IT (Azure Spring Cloud + SQL DB)
• Customers with MongoDB data should read this new Cazton benchmark report showing Cosmos DB faster in common use cases and less expensive than MongoDB Atlas (93% less for reads, 20% less for writes)
• Explore the revamped Java on Azure Microsoft Learn paths grouped by topic: Get started with Java on Azure, Best practices for Java apps on Azure, Expand the capabilities for Java apps on Azure
• Watch these webinars: Migrating and Modernizing Your Workloads with Azure, Connect Your SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance, Discover and Assess .NET Apps Using Azure Migrate at Scale, Accelerate App Modernization with Azure Spring Cloud

Resources:

• Learn more about new offerings in GA, including managing Azure ML workspaces using Terraform, new Speech Recognition capabilities in Azure Cognitive Services, and enhanced configuration for semantic search in Azure Cognitive search
• Watch these webinars: Fuel App Innovation with Specialized Cloud AI Services and Accelerate the ML Lifecycle with AML
• Leverage the recently developed Azure ML pricing calculator to get an estimate to how much an Azure Machine Learning project would cost running with services like Power BI, Synapse Analytics and AKS. You’ll find this estimation exercise under example scenarios.
• Explore recent customer stories Xpeng, Met Office, INSPIRE Global LLC, GEP, Okinawa University, Mashreq, Royal Bank of Canada, Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG, Peloton, Datasite, BMW, Text Request, Kantar, Komatsu, Cricuru.com, and Sensyne
• Organize and deliver hands-on experience with AI Immersion Workshop, covering both ML platform and AI-led scenarios.
• Tune in to the AI Show Live every Friday 11AM-1PM PST at https://aka.ms/LearnTV and https://aka.ms/AIShowLive. During the livestream, our hosts, Seth Juarez and Ayşegül Yönet, are joined by guests to showcase the amazing work happening in AI at Microsoft. Developers learn what's new in AI in a short amount of time and are informed of Microsoft Docs, Learning Paths, Modules and other assets that empower them to get started and on the road to success immediately. Fridays following the livestream, a short on-demand episode is published on AI Show | Microsoft Docs. On Friday, February 25th, be sure to watch the AI Show | Analyze unstructured docs and more with Azure Form Recognizer

Following the successful launch of the Cloud Adoption Strategy Evaluator in Q2, we published a new Microsoft Mechanics video in January. This video emphasizes the importance of leveraging the new assessment to build a comprehensive business case, and also highlights other assessments like the Azure Well-Architected Review, Governance Benchmark, and more. Please help us amplify this video and share these tools with your customers.

We just published a new Azure Enablement Show episode on the hybrid and multicloud scenario. This episode discusses different Microsoft Azure features like the Azure landing zone accelerator, Azure Arc, and ArcBox and how they can assist organizations configure and deploy hybrid and multicloud environments. Watch this video and share.

We also launched a new cloud economics blog series, starting with “Rightsize to maximize your cloud investment with Microsoft Azure” and Azure Hybrid Benefit deep dive. Check them out!

Check out our recent Security thought leadership post and this one regarding enhancements of the VM rightsizing recommendation in Azure Advisor.

Be on the lookout next month for a new Well-Architected landing page in the Azure website (www.azure.com)!

Resources:

• WA Learning Path
• Armchair Architects blog/video series: Resiliency, Multi/Hybrid Cloud, and Is that Configurable?, How architecture will evolve, part 1 and part 2, You finished your Well-Architected Review…now what?
• Well-Architected series in the Azure Enablement Show

Complete the new Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty 30 Days to Learn It Cloud Skills Challenge

In about 13 hours (less than an hour a day during the 30-day challenge), learn how to use Azure Virtual Desktop to deliver remote desktop and remote app experiences in Microsoft Azure. Completing the free Azure Virtual Desktop 30 Days to Learn It Cloud Skills Challenge will result in eligibility for 50% off the Azure Virtual Desktop certification exam.

Register

As we drive innovation in our services, we will also retire older and outdated services and update them with new offerings to help your customers improve their business operations. Please review these retirements in Azure updates retirement section. We have sent targeted email communications and service health notifications to affected customers. If you know your customers are using the retired services, features, APIs, tools or SKUs, please remind them to follow the steps in the migration documents and transition to the replacement versions.

Call to action:
Go to Azure updates on Azure website, in Update type, select retirements and the year. Select filter results.

New customer stories
As part of its digital transformation, @Axpo has vastly improved the status and performance of its hydro plant asset-management system, which is built on @Microsoft Azure. https://aka.ms/AAf9n67 #AzureIoT #AzureMaps. Grupo Bimbo takes a bite out of production costs with Azure IoT throughout factories. https://aka.ms/Grupo-Bimbo-IoT.

Resources:

• Recent Case studies: Bridgestone
• Recent Blogs: Azure AI Supercomputer Delivers Record MLPerf Results, Connected-Cloud architecture for EDA workloads in Azure at scale with data security
• Content: AI + AI Infrastructure whitepaper
• Events: AMD at Ignite, NVIDIA at Ignite, AMD Acceleration Datacenter Premier, Azure HPC + AI at SC21, Microsoft Sessions at GTC Fall Conference

We recently launched the Total Economic Impact of Mixed Reality Using HoloLens 2, which highlights how mixed reality solutions on HoloLens 2 are delivering material ROI while enhancing and streamlining enterprise operations. Included in the deliverable are industry spotlights for manufacturing, healthcare, education, and AEC.

As part of our effort to expand our developer learning content, we recently published a new MS Learn module focused on enabling MR apps to detect real-world objects with Azure Object Anchors. Azure Object Anchors is a mixed reality service that helps you create rich, immersive experiences by automatically aligning 3D content with physical objects. Real-time marker-less 3D content alignment and the ability to use existing 3D models significantly helps reduce touch labor and alignment errors while unlocking mixed reality scenarios. Quickly grasp the fundamentals, convert your 3D models, and use the sample app to detect your object in the physical world.

Resources:

• Total Economic Impact of Mixed Reality Using HoloLens 2
• HoloLens 2 ROI Calculator
• Learn Module with Azure Object Anchors

We recently conducted a free digital event to showcase IaaS innovations, engage with product experts, and explore infrastructure solutions, in November 2021. Please leverage the content at Azure IaaS Digital Event.

Be aware of a networking recommended action: Azure Traffic Manager introduced additional IP addresses for endpoint monitoring service to enhance the capacity of our probing plane; please review to ensure Traffic Manager health probes for the application endpoints don’t fail and result in misrouting of traffic.

Resources

• Watch the Azure IaaS Digital event on demand content
• Learn about the GA of Multiple custom BGP APIPA addresses for active VPN gateways and the new Load Balancer SKU upgrade, now accessible through PowerShell script.
• Stay tuned: A new Azure Networking webinar is coming March 22. Stay tuned for more information.

The Azure VMware Solution team is excited to kick off H2 with a digital event in March. Registration will be published shortly, so penicil March 23rd in your schedule to tune into keynotes from Microsoft and VMware execs, as well as some fantastic hands-on experience for customers.

It’s been a busy start to the year with a raft of new assets and announcements:

New customer stories:

• University of Miami: University of Miami Gains Flexibility and DR resiliency with Azure VMware Solution
• Investor Bank: Investors Bank seamlessly transforms its data center using Azure VMware Solution

Forrester TCO study: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Azure VMware Solution

• Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Azure VMware Solution