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How Microsoft Azure Helps Drive Agility and Optimisation for Your Business

Updated: Jul 26


Microsoft Ignite extends a warm welcome to this global community! Recognition is given to the community's remarkable resilience and skill in guiding their organizations through recent significant changes.


The current business environment pressures leaders to achieve more with fewer resources. In response, organizations across all sizes and industries are increasingly turning to cloud technologies. These technologies are a crucial path toward fostering digital and business resilience.


Opportunities for dialogue with customers about their business needs and challenges were recently undertaken. This valuable feedback has informed the design of Microsoft Ignite. The core focus is on empowering customers through the power of cloud technology. This empowerment allows the organization to dedicate its efforts to its core competencies: creating, innovating, and differentiating themselves within the market.


Microsoft aspires to become the world's leading provider of computing solutions and the most trusted cloud partner for organizations of all sizes and across all workload types. The company's expertise, capabilities, and cloud platform are designed to assist customers at any stage of their cloud adoption journey. This assistance fosters increased agility, optimizes technology investments, and creates data-driven experiences.


In furtherance of these objectives, Microsoft is pleased to announce several new developments. These advancements are intended to empower customers to optimize their existing resources and maximize the value derived from their technology investments.



Microsoft Azure revolutionises cloud computing with many innovations.


Performance, scale, mission-critical capabilities: Azure plays a critical role in enabling business efficiency and resilience


The increasing customer focus on digital capabilities with a foundation in robust cloud infrastructure necessitates a clear understanding of the optimal migration strategies for mission-critical workloads.


Microsoft fosters strong collaboration with existing technology vendors to ensure a seamless transition to Azure for modernizing on-premises applications. This commitment is further solidified by the announcement of several new capabilities specifically designed to support this migration process:


  • Nutanix Cloud Clusters on Microsoft Azure is now available, facilitating the effortless extension or migration of existing on-premises Nutanix workloads. This offering delivers a consistent environment, eliminating the need for modifications or retooling.


  • Updates have been made to Azure VMware Solution (AVS). In a preview stage starting today, stretched clusters are now available within this native VMware environment. This enhancement enables 99.99% up-time for mission-critical applications requiring the highest availability. Additionally, Customer Managed Keys are offered, granting maximum control over access to encrypted data.


  • A collaborative SAP ERP solution is now in preview, fostering increased user productivity and focus. This solution integrates workflows across SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Office, enabling seamless collaboration without application or context switching.


  • Azure Center for SAP solutions, designed to provide an end-to-end deployment and management experience for running SAP on Azure, has received updates. These updates include the ability to register Windows-based systems and install SAP S/4HANA 2020/2021 in preview. Furthermore, cost transparency is enhanced through integration with the cost analysis feature, and additional quality checks are now implemented.



The National Basketball Association (NBA) exemplifies a successful organization that migrated its SAP solutions and other IT resources to Microsoft Azure. This migration empowered the NBA to streamline operational processes and elevate fan engagement.


Microsoft Azure reduces time spent on technology management, enabling organizations like the NBA to dedicate greater resources towards developing compelling fan-centric experiences. These experiences leverage a unified view of business, game, and fan data, ultimately enriching the interactive experience for NBA fans.


It is recognized that optimizing investments fosters the allocation of resources towards initiatives that generate the most significant value for your customers.


Microsoft is delighted to announce a series of advancements designed to deliver unprecedented levels of price performance, mission-critical capabilities, and security enhancements. These advancements are targeted towards increasing operational efficiency and ensuring unwavering business resilience:


  • The expansion of the Azure Disk Storage portfolio with the general availability of Premium SSD v2 signifies Microsoft's commitment to providing greater flexibility in managing performance and costs.

  • A system-level approach to infrastructure modernization is underscored by recent investments. The introduction of new Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Kubernetes Service featuring Ampere Altra Arm-based processors exemplifies this commitment, delivering exceptional price performance for running scale-out Linux workloads.


  • Azure Elastic SAN, a novel, cloud-native, fully managed, and massively scalable storage area network service, is now available exclusively on Azure.


  • A new foundational Azure confidential computing service has been introduced to safeguard data. Moreover, confidential computing capabilities have been incorporated into services such as Azure Virtual Desktop and SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines.



Data-driven experiences: More time, more value


Microsoft Azure undergoes continuous enhancements to strengthen integration across infrastructure and data services. This focus empowers businesses to maintain operational efficiency and unwavering resilience.


In furtherance of this objective, the Microsoft Intelligent Data platform was launched in May. This platform integrates best-in-class database, analytics, and data governance products, facilitating a seamless user experience.


These announcements equip Microsoft Azure customers to achieve more with less. These advancements enable the incorporation of intelligence into applications, the unlocking of predictive insights, and the implementation of data governance across diverse environments.


  • Developers are empowered to leverage their existing skill sets through advancements in cloud-native distributed data and open-source technologies. This is exemplified by the expansion of Azure Cosmos DB beyond NoSQL to support distributed PostgreSQL. This integration brings familiar and well-regarded features of PostgreSQL to the Azure Cosmos DB platform.

  • Enhanced data analysis capabilities are available to customers through the general availability of the SAP Change Capture Data Connector in Azure Data Factory. This connector facilitates the seamless integration of SAP data for advanced analytics purposes. Another advancement in Azure Data Factory is the introduction of the Microsoft Graph Data Connector for Microsoft 365 datasets. This connector allows for the effortless migration of office data into the Azure environment, enabling the extraction of valuable insights related to collaboration and productivity. Frictionless user experiences are further fostered by the ability to share Power BI datasets across tenants via Power BI B2B data sharing.


  • Microsoft Purview offers a comprehensive solution that combines unified data governance with risk and compliance management capabilities. Business Workflows, now generally available, and Business Metamodel, currently in preview, streamline the process of maximizing the business value of data and driving effective cross-functional data governance.


The establishment of a new Partner Ecosystem facilitates the development of solutions by Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) leveraging the open and governed Microsoft Intelligent Data platform. This collaboration empowers ISVs to deliver enriched and cost-optimized experiences tailored to the specific needs of customers across diverse industry segments.




Image depicting business agility.



Azure: Your global partner for business transformation


Microsoft prioritizes customer agility and flexibility when extending Azure to hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge environments. This commitment is reflected in Azure Arc, a solution that bridges the gap between on-premises, edge, and multi-cloud deployments. Azure Arc empowers customers to leverage the full potential of Azure by seamlessly integrating their existing infrastructure with Azure's global reach.


A prime example of this flexibility is Wells Fargo's utilization of Azure Arc. They established a scalable compute platform across on-premises and cloud environments, further extending Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on-premises for a fully managed, cloud-native experience. This approach grants Wells Fargo the adaptability to navigate evolving regulations and compliance needs while deploying AKS wherever required. Ultimately, this agility enables them to expedite product and service launches, fostering customer satisfaction.


Building upon this commitment, we are delighted to announce new Azure Arc capabilities designed to optimize costs and unlock further innovation for our customers.


  • The Azure Hybrid Benefit now encompasses Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), enabling cost-effective deployment of AKS on Azure Stack HCI or Windows Server within your data centers or edge environments. This expansion fosters a consistent and managed Kubernetes experience across cloud and edge deployments, supporting both Windows and Linux containers.


  • Furthermore, Azure Automanage is now generally available for Azure Virtual Machines and Arc-enabled servers. This offering streamlines server configuration by automatically applying best-practice Azure services within minutes. This "point-and-click" experience simplifies management for Windows, Linux, and servers located in Azure, on-premises, or even other cloud environments.



Do more with less: migrate, optimize, reinvest


Microsoft prioritizes customer value by continuously seeking solutions to optimize cloud investments across all stages of the business journey. Existing pricing benefits and offerings, such as the Azure Hybrid Benefit, demonstrate this commitment by facilitating cost savings during Azure adoption and operation. Recognizing the need for additional support during hybrid deployments, Microsoft Ignite will unveil enhancements and benefits designed to simplify security and protection for migrating workloads.


  • The Azure Migration and Modernization Program (AMMP) has been enhanced to encompass cloud security planning and deployment during the migration process. This includes support for industry-leading solutions like Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Microsoft Sentinel. Additionally, AMMP facilitates the utilization of Azure innovation across hybrid environments through support for Azure Arc deployment of workloads requiring on-premises residency.


  • A new Azure savings plan for computing has been introduced, offering significant cost reductions of up to 65% compared to pay-as-you-go pricing on select computing services.


For customers at advanced stages of cloud adoption, Microsoft prioritizes the optimization of existing cloud investments. Tools like Microsoft Cost Management and Azure Advisor empower users to gain a deeper understanding of their cloud spend and facilitate improved management through best practice guidance and personalized insights.


These cost savings are envisioned as a valuable resource for reinvestment in critical areas such as crisis management, security, and intelligent cloud-native solutions. Such investments can enhance business resilience, growth, and value creation.



Azure's Promise


Microsoft is dedicated to supporting customers throughout their entire cloud journey, regardless of their current stage. Whether initiating migration efforts, optimizing existing investments, or reinvesting savings to drive innovation through cloud-native technologies, comprehensive support is available. This commitment empowers customers to enhance business agility, optimize operations, and create data-driven experiences.


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