Mark Russinovich and Scott Hanselman on Stage talking about Copilot, ChatGPT and AI

Scott and Mark learn responsible AI

Always check the output of AI

Microsoft Azure Local 

NEW Microsoft Introducing disconnected Operations (Preview)

Azure Local with disconnected Operations
Awesome!

NSG with Azure Local

Security in Azure Local video

 

Defender for Cloud

Get Started Today

Azure Linux 3.0 on AKS kubernetes in Preview

QuickStart

AKS Automatic
Dynamic System Node pool in Preview

More Buit-in policies for AKS

Auto-Instrumentation with Application Insights
Preview in January 2025

Enhanced Risk & Attack Path Analysis for Containers

Microsoft Azure Container Registry – Image Auto Patching in Private Preview
Security on Vulnerabilities

Network Isolated Cluster in Public Preview
Here you find Best practices for cluster isolation in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Microsoft Container Vulnerabilities Management

Container Vulnerabilities Assessment throughout the software development lifecycle.

Defender for Cloud Container Security
Continuously reduce risks.

Attack path and remediation on your AKS Kubernetes Cluster Inside overview

Container Security posture from Code to runtime is important!

Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Fleet Manager Auto-Upgrade

Microsoft AKS Static Egress Gateway for Pod-level Access Control.

Block pod access to the Azure Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) endpoint (preview)

Trusted launch for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Seccomp Default Public Preview

Node Auto Provisioning GA January 2025

Comprehensive Security Controls overview

Experience Security Copilot Today

My Conclusion

Always start small with New innovative features like Azure Copilot or making your Adaptive Cloud first in a test environment.
Do your own experiences, testing and make your Secure architecture designs for your production. Keep it simple because it can be quick complex with a lot of dependencies. Microsoft works hard to make your life more easy in this changing IT landscape
I like to thank all the people who supported the Microsoft Ignite 2024 event, it was Awesome with a lot of Great News.

Here you find the Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News.

 

Microsoft Azure Adaptive Cloud approach enabled by Azure Arc.

Adaptive Cloud approach Key Services and Products.

Operate everywhere with AI-enhanced management and security

AI-enhanced Central Management & Security

Get Started with Azure Arc Jumpstart here

Welcome to the heart of our mission at Azure Arc Jumpstart, where we strive to transform your learning experience into a smooth and empowering journey. Our commitment is rooted in the principles that drive us forward:

1. Enabling immediate engagement: Arc Jumpstart is designed to offer a seamless “zero to hero” experience. We understand the value of your time, and our goal is to enable you to dive right into Azure Arc, eliminating barriers and complexities.

2. Comprehensive guidance: We provide more than just guides; we offer comprehensive, step-by-step instructions tailored for various independent Azure Arc scenarios. Our content is meticulously detailed, incorporating extensive automation, vivid screenshots, and insightful code samples. This ensures that your learning journey is not just informative but also visually enriching and deeply engaging.

3. Unparalleled user experience: Our dedication lies in delivering a rich and immersive experience. We go beyond the basics, curating a user-centric environment that resonates with both beginners and seasoned professionals. Whether you’re setting up your environment on-premises or in the cloud, our guides empower you to focus on Azure Arc’s core values without being bogged down by technical intricacies.

4. Embracing platform flexibility: We recognize the diversity of your infrastructure, and our mission is to provide a platform-agnostic approach. Arc Jumpstart accommodates your infrastructure, whether it resides on-premises or in the cloud. Our focus is to ensure that regardless of your setup, you can harness the true potential of the Azure Arc platform effortlessly.

Investments to further the Adaptive Cloud Approach

Introducing Microsoft Azure Local enabled by Azure Arc

Scott Hanselman about Visual Studio and Copilot

More AI development in Visual Studio or VSCode

Microsoft Windows 365 Link

This is Awesome, my next question is:
How fast will this solution be on Mobile?

Windows Hotpatch will be Available Spring 2025
for Windows 11 and Windows 365.

Windows Resilient Security Platform

Quick Machine Recovery in Insider program early 2025.

Microsoft working together with Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency

Smart App Control only Verified apps are allowed.

Windows Hello for Business Update with support for passkey.

Administrator Protection.

Personal Data Encryption to Windows Enterprise
Only decrypted via Windows Hello

Microsoft 365 in File Explorer

Windows Search is Cool
Coming in 2025

My Conclusion

Make your own test environment and become a Windows Insider to be one of the first to test these Awesome New features!
You can make this of course in Microsoft Azure Cloud or in your own Azure Local environment
There are so much possibilities, to keep yourself up-to-date with this changing IT landscape.

 

 

Mark Russinovich Microsoft Azure CTO Starting and Running 10.000 Containers in Azure in just 90 seconds!
That is unbelievable

Here you find my screenshots and links of the Microsoft Ignite 2024 session with Mark Russinovich.
First a quick introduction about Microsoft Azure Boost in this video.

Microsoft Azure Boost more IOPS and Throughput

Before and After Azure Boost Local Storage improvements.

Can you believe it, these are no typo’s 6.6 M IOPS !

Azure Boost Networking

Network driver Update in Azure Boost.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) Today

SDN Accelerating offloads with DPU

 

Secure 1.6 Tbps+ to storage over WAN
Can you believe it

Microsoft announcing Azure Container Instances NGroups (Preview)

Cloud Native Apps are more than just Kubernetes

Radius in the Cloud

New Azure Container Solutions

Security Trusted Execution Environments (TEE)

When you missed Mark Russinovich at Ignite 2024 session, you can watch it on-demand here

My Conclusion

Not only with Microsoft Copilot, Azure AI or Open-AI is the IT landscape changing, but the Adaptive Cloud is evolving very quick and hardware, Software Defined is getting faster and faster but also scaling in Datacenters.

This Jeremy Winter Talking about Power-efficient Datacenter Infrastructure.

Power-efficient datacenter infrastructure is very important for Microsoft, and what I see is More Software solutions with less hardware.
Software defined and AI solutions are changing the IT Cloud Landscape also in a Hybrid way with On-premises Datacenters.
10 years ago IT workloads was 80% on-premises datacenters and 20% in the Cloud, Today this is Changed to maybe 30% on-premises and 70% in the Cloud of companies IT solutions.  Here you can Learn more at Microsoft Learn Ignite 2024

Photo of the Day Rick Claus at the Microsoft MVP – RD Wall at MS Ignite 2024

Keynote by CEO Satya Nadella

Love this Windows 365 Link Device (Preview)

The world’s Computer

Microsoft Azure Local announcement

Microsoft Azure Integrated HSM

for Security first

Microsoft Azure Boost DPU Chip

Microsoft adopts NVIDIA Blackwell to power the next frontier of AI supercomputing

Security is a Team Effort

Microsoft Security Exposure Management

Scott Guthrie on Stage with the Most Developer Tools

Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Announcement 

Microsoft SQL Server 2025 Preview Announcement by Scott

Microsoft SQL Overview Slide with Fabric

Jeremy Winter about Azure and staying ahead of evolving threats at every layer

Microsoft Windows Server 2025 Hyper-V

This was my first day impression of Microsoft Ignite 2024 Event, It was Awesome to see and hear all the News!

Here you find the Microsoft Ignite 2024 Book of News

Let’s go for Day 2 of Microsoft Ignite 2024

 

Windows Server 2025 and SystemCenter 2025 available!

Windows Server 2025 and System Center 2025: A New Era of IT Management

Microsoft has officially launched Windows Server 2025 and System Center 2025, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of IT infrastructure management. These releases bring a host of new features and enhancements designed to improve security, performance, and manageability for both on-premises and hybrid cloud environments.

Windows Server 2025: Key Features and Enhancements

• Advanced Security Features: Windows Server 2025 introduces several security enhancements, including Credential Guard, which is now enabled by default to protect against credential theft attacks. The new Active Directory functionalities offer improved security for confidential attributes and default machine account passwords.
• Hybrid Cloud Capabilities: With hotpatching enabled by Azure Arc, Windows Server 2025 allows for seamless updates without requiring reboots, minimizing downtime and enhancing operational efficiency. This feature is particularly beneficial for organizations operating in hybrid cloud environments.
• Performance Improvements: Windows Server 2025 delivers up to 60% more storage IOPs performance compared to its predecessor, thanks to NVMe storage performance enhancements. Additionally, the introduction of block cloning support provides significant performance benefits when copying files.
• User Experience Enhancements: The new Desktop shell in Windows Server 2025 adopts the Windows 11 look and feel, supporting features like Bluetooth mice and keyboards, 7z and TAR compression formats, and the new Task Manager.

System Center 2025: Streamlined Management

• Infrastructure Modernization: System Center 2025 supports the latest Windows Server version from Day 0, providing management and monitoring capabilities for Azure Stack HCI 23H2 clusters. This ensures that organizations can manage heterogeneous infrastructure with a single management plane.
• Enhanced Security: System Center 2025 includes support for Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.3, ensuring that all data transmissions are protected by the latest encryption standards. Additionally, Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2025 introduces the capability to securely store passphrases in Azure Key Vault.
• Improved Automation and Monitoring: System Center Orchestrator allows for efficient creation and execution of runbooks using native PowerShell scripts, while System Center Operations Manager provides comprehensive monitoring of health, capacity, and usage across applications and infrastructure.
• Backup and Disaster Recovery: DPM 2025 offers flexible and efficient data protection strategies, including the ability to exclude specific disks from backups in Hyper-V environments. This ensures that organizations can tailor their backup solutions to meet their specific needs.

Conclusion

The release of Windows Server 2025 and System Center 2025 represents a significant advancement in IT infrastructure management. With enhanced security, improved performance, and robust hybrid cloud capabilities, these new versions are set to empower organizations to achieve greater efficiency and agility in their operations. Whether you’re managing on-premises servers or hybrid cloud environments, Windows Server 2025 and System Center 2025 provide the tools and features needed to stay ahead in the ever-evolving world of IT.

For more detailed information, you can visit the official Microsoft blog.

Don’t forget Microsoft Ignite Global Event

Earlier this month, Microsoft held their annual Ignite conference, and shared several big announcements. There are plenty of blogs and podcasts out there which have summarized some of the highlights, and of course we have Microsoft’s own Book of News, too. I won’t bore you with another re-hash like that.

Instead, I just want to talk about one announcement in particular that has piqued my interest, especially for the SMB space. The product? Microsoft Syntex. What, never heard of it? I don’t blame you. Or, if you have heard of it, did you assume this was just going to be one of those “Enterprise things?” That was my first reaction: “Content A.I.,” they called it. A fancy set of Machine Learning algorithms that will help you to better organize and categorize data, or at least that’s what I thought.

It turns out that Microsoft Syntex is going to be an umbrella that houses all kinds of interesting capabilities, some of which will be of particular interest to the SMB.

I encourage you to check out some of the content from Ignite: go see demos on some of these features for yourself. For example, content assembly, summarization of documents, translation of documents, etc. We also have native eSignature capabilities to look forward to! Yes, I know we have long had the ability to integrate with third-party clouds such as Adobe or Docusign to accomplish these tasks, but having the ability to natively collect signatures right in the Microsoft cloud (so that it never leaves your tenant) has certain benefits, too.

Next, I want to draw your attention to Backup and restore, as well as Archiving (coming 2023). Finally: we will have a native solution for handling backup and restore of data! I assume this will cover single item restores as well as an entire mailbox or document library. I am excited to see if this service can displace the third-party solutions that we service providers have been stapling on to date.

The Archiving piece is especially interesting to me, because this is going to involve a “cold storage” option that is (supposed to be) extremely cheap. This means old content can be preserved and kept available, but access times may be a bit slower (as content needs to “warm-up” or rehydrate before it is fully accessible again). This was sorely needed, as I have blogged before about the expensiveness of SharePoint storage, especially for the SMB, where we lack the volume in terms of seats to obtain decent capacity in the Microsoft cloud (1 TB per tenant plus 10 GB/user).

There are still some question marks around how much Syntex is going to cost, but I have reason to be optimistic: Microsoft announced that this service will be available on a “Pay-as-you-go” basis. In other words, you pay for the features/services you consume or use, but not the ones you don’t. Therefore, if you have no desire to use content assembly, but you still want to turn on the archive features, you could do so, and not worry about getting charged for the features you aren’t using.

As well, since it is a usage-based model, we expect SMBs to pay less in order to process less data. Whereas an Enterprise organization could have thousands of requests per day against Syntex capabilities, in the SMB we should see a fraction of that. So, we could be talking pennies or dollars, vs. hundreds or thousands of dollars.

If you like me, and are similarly interested in learning more about Microsoft Syntex, I encourage you to check out the following from Microsoft:

• Introducing Microsoft Syntex – Content AI for the Microsoft Cloud
• https://aka.ms/Syntex/Ignite2022
• https://aka.ms/Syntex/Start

Cheers!

P.S. – You have probably noticed it has been quiet around this blog for a bit: yes, that is true. I am working on some big updates to my publications and will have more to share about that soon. Stay tuned!

The post What I am most excited for in 2023 after Ignite 2022 appeared first on ITProMentor.

From October 12th to 14th, Microsoft Ignite (Microsoft's annual conference for professionals, services and enterprise products) was held in Seattle and around the world.

More than 907 sessions and 1212 speakers from around the world to speak around the following topics: Azure, AI, Business Applications, Industry Cloud, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Security and Windows.

And this year again, there were a lot of announcements. Impossible to mention them all in this article but I have selected 6 announcements that particularly interested me and for which I will follow their development.

,# 1 Microsoft Places: Turn your spaces into places

Who are the people in the office?

How to tell my colleagues that I will be at the office that day?

How to know where my colleagues are?

How to better reserve spaces?

The new connected workplace platform wants to answer all these questions.

Microsoft Places' hybrid scheduling will draw on data from Outlook and Teams and allow you to visualize the upcoming week and know when your colleagues and close associates plan to be in the office. You will be able to view which days are the most crowded in the office, making it easier to meet face to face.

Several administration functions are provided, as well as room maps to see where your closest colleagues are sitting and choose your office accordingly.

Microsoft Places will be available in 2023 and if you want to know more, you can refer to the official announcement.

,#2 : “working hours and location” in Outlook and Teams

For this meeting, who will be on site and Who will be remote ?

In the same spirit as Microsoft Places, here is a new feature to facilitate hybrid work habits. We all know it today. Scheduling a meeting when it comes to determining who can attend in person, who will be remote or if you need a conference room.

Working hours and location is a new little module that allows a user to set their working hours in Outlook by week, specifying when they will be remote or in the office. They can also set different working hours per day, or multiple working slots in a day.

Colleagues can then see each other's work locations by using the scheduling wizard in Outlook, in the people map in Teams, or by opening a person's contact card.

If you want to know more, you can refer to the official announcement.

,#3 : rebranding Office app to Microsoft 365 app

Big change coming: office.com, the Office mobile app and the Office for Windows app will become the Microsoft 365 app, with a new icon, look and additional features.

We will find the interface that we already know with the "create" and "my content" modules, to which will be added :

- Feed : Relevant content based on who you work with and what you work on is surfaced through an easy-to-digest interface to simplify your workflow. Available today for commercial users on the web, Windows, and mobile.

- Tagging : A new way to group and organize your content with custom tags across all types of content. Available today for commercial users on the web and Windows

The changes will begin rolling out for Office.com in November 2022. Then, the changes will begin rolling out for the Office app on Windows and the Office mobile app in January 2023. If you want to know more, you can refer to the official announcement.

,,# 4 : Refresh interface of OneDrive

Change also to the OneDrive sharing interface. This one is enriched with new features particularly interesting:

- Visual file type filters to search better by document type

- The "People" filter to access all the files you have collaborated on by person card. The view shows by default the last people you collaborated with but it is possible to search for other people using a search bar.

- The "Meetings" filter to find files shared in a meeting you attended. This view includes all the meetings you've been invited to, as well as all the files shared in attachments, discussions and even meeting recordings, making it easier to find information.

If you want to know more, you can refer to the official announcement.

,#5 : Microsoft Teams channels reimagined

Change also in the Teams channel interface. This one is enriched with new features particularly interesting:

- The compose box and recent messages now appear at the top of the page. This makes it much easier to create a new message without having to look at the bottom of the window.

- Message composition now groups message types, such as announcements, Q&A, video clip and more to come ...

- Each post in a channel can be pinned more easily and users can also pop out the post, keep an eye on the discussion, while continuing to work on other topics.

- Each channel will have a customizable header if you want to add a particular visual identity to a channel

This interface will be available in private preview by the end of the year and if you want to know more, you can refer to the official announcement.

,#6 : New features coming for Microsoft Loop

The development of Microsoft Loop continues and there have been many announcements. Here are the ones I find most interesting:

- Loop as an application with workspaces, pages and components (that sync with Microsoft 365 applications) to work on collaborative projects such as event planning, product development, brainstorming, etc...

- Loop components in more places (Word for the web + Whiteboard). Loop is now available in Word for the web, Whiteboard and Outlook for Windows. And the best part is that if you want to transfer the conversation to another application, you can copy and paste the component into Teams chat, Outlook or Whiteboard. All content remains synchronized and updated in real time, no matter where your teammates access the component.

- New Loop component types (Polls + Q&A). 2 new modules are introduced. Polls which allows you to create and launch quizzes and word clouds. Q&A for collects answers to questions in real-time across your team and tracks who responds to each question in line, providing clarity on who responds to what.

If you want to know more, you can refer to the official announcement.

From October 12th to 14th, Microsoft Ignite (Microsoft's annual conference for professionals, services and enterprise products) was held in Seattle and around the world.

More than 907 sessions and 1212 speakers from around the world to speak around the following topics: Azure, AI, Business Applications, Industry Cloud, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Security and Windows.

And this year, I had the privilege to be invited as a speaker to animate 2 sessions, the first one on a decision tree for Microsoft Teams and the second one on hybrid work around the new work habits and Microsoft Viva.

,Microsoft Teams Best Practices, Tips and Tricks from our experts

For Ignite 2022, Laurie Pottmeyer and Stephe Rose asked a panel of our MVP Community real world experts to share what they felt were the most impactful, currently available, Teams features for IT pros and their users.

Following my session, I was asked to write an article for Techcommunity on "Managing Communication Channels in Teams" including some of the ideas from my session, such as the decision tree to understand the differences between a team, a conversation group, a sharing channel, a loop etc ... and point out some of the differences between the Microsoft 365 business and Microsoft 365 education.

You can find this article by clicking on the image below

If you have any questions or comments this post, feel free to contact me

From October 12th to 14th, Microsoft Ignite (Microsoft's annual conference for professionals, services and enterprise products) was held in Seattle and around the world.

More than 907 sessions and 1212 speakers from around the world to speak around the following topics: Azure, AI, Business Applications, Industry Cloud, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Security and Windows.

And this year, I had the privilege to be invited as a speaker to animate 2 sessions, the first one on a decision tree for Microsoft Teams and the second one on hybrid work around the new work habits and Microsoft Viva.

,Microsoft Teams Best Practices, Tips and Tricks from our experts

For the first one, Laurie Pottmeyer and Stephen Rose invited MVP Community real world experts to hear and see what the most impactful Teams features are for them and their customers.

I presented a session with a strong focus on the right decisions to make in a Teams deployment, beyond just technical governance. I shared a decision tree that I use daily with my customers to make them understand the impact of choices on a team vs. a channel vs. a conversation group, etc...

Here is the description :

Let's stop talking only about technical governance! Any good adoption relies on people and their good understanding of communication and collaboration paths. No good technical governance without good governance of uses. I will propose a small tour of the right decisions and key organizational schema to have on teams, public, private and shared channels, Loop and some governance particularities between business and education tenants.

If you couldn't attend the session, check out the recording below

,Travail et équipes hybrides : où en êtes-vous ? (delivered in French),

For the second one, I was with Sarah El Marjani to animate a round table in French on hybrid work, what has changed in our work habits and I shared with the participants some good tips to find your way in the management of communication channels, in the management of collaboration and new work habits.

We also talked about some of the solutions from Microsoft Viva that can improve the daily life and experience of the employee.

Here is the description :

The pandemic has clearly shown the importance of communication and collaboration with people on site and remotely. What about today? How have the structures in Teams evolved with shared channels? Loop? Viva? What master plan to consider? What best practices to follow? What do we need to know about new features and adoption?

If you couldn't attend the session, check out the recording below

If you have any questions or comments about my 2 sessions, feel free to contact me

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