Welcome to September’s edition of Azure News, collating the latest updates in the world of Azure. As always, if you need any further information on anything we share in this month’s newsletter, or if you have any Azure queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Node4 passes audit to retain Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status
We’re pleased to announce that Node4 has retained its Microsoft Azure Expert MSP status, one of a select group of organisations to hold this accreditation.
After achieving the status last year, we passed the annual re-certification against the latest Azure best practices, once again demonstrating our Azure expertise and commitment to service excellence.
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Azure server lifetimes extended by 50%, thanks to Microsoft
In a move that could come as a blow to cloud service providers wishing to build vast data centres as quickly as possible, Microsoft has announced plans to increase the lifespan of its cloud servers by half, from four years to six.
Longer deployment has been put down to “increased efficiencies in how we operate our server and network equipment as well as advances in technology that have resulted in lives extending beyond historical accounting useful lives,” announced CFO Amy Hood.
The reason seems to be quite simple; this change will save Microsoft as much as $3.7b in the 2023 fiscal year and with Amazon Web Services and Google announcing similar extensions, albeit by only a single year, industry leaders are clearly looking for ways to save money where they can.
Microsoft announces new enhancements for Azure VMware solution
Launched two years ago in response to the pandemic and the need to enable remote working, the Azure VMware solution has increased business resilience the world over, enabling faster responses and adaption to the changing business landscape.
Microsoft’s Partner Director for Product Management Ram Gowrishankar has announced a raft of updates to the solution, including:
- Global expansion to 24 regions
- Azure NetApp Files datastores for Azure VMware Solution
- Public IP to NSX Edge capability for Azure VMware Solution
- Enterprise VMware Cloud Director Services for Azure VMware Solution is now in Public Preview
- Jetstream DR for Azure VMware Solution
- VMware vRealize Log Insight Cloud for Azure VMware Solution is now generally available
- VMware vSphere 7.0
Microsoft lifts the lid on its Azure Threat Research Matrix
After working with Azure security researchers from across the industry over the last year, Microsoft has unveiled its Azure Threat Research Matrix, designed to provide details on the “tactics & techniques a potential adversary may use to compromise an Azure Resource or Azure Active Directory”.
The threat matrix goals are to give security professionals an easily accessible framework to visualise TTPs within both Azure and Azure AD, and to educate professionals about any potential configuration risks that can put Azure and Azure AD at risk if best practices aren’t followed.
MCA andGeneral release of Azure Virtual Machines with Ampere Altra Arm confirmed
Microsoft has announced the general availability of Azure Virtual Machines fitted with Ampere Altra Arm-based processers, available as of September 1st. Customers have the option of launching across 10 Azure regions and in multiple availability zones the world over, with the Arm-based virtual machines able to be included in Kubernetes clusters managed by Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS).
“These new virtual machines have been engineered to efficiently run scale-out, cloud-native workloads,” commented Paul Nash, Vice President for the Azure Compute Platform. “All Azure customers can deploy these new virtual machines using the Azure portal, SDKs, API, PowerShell, and the command-line interface (CLI).”