Microsoft Inspire, Microsoft’s largest annual event for its partners, was scheduled for July 14-15 this week. Microsoft partners can attend a combination of live and on-demand sessions at the online event, in which Microsoft provides a full update on the latest developments. As a partner of Microsoft, these developments will help us to optimize the support we offer you in your digital transformation and the challenges you’re facing.
Following on from latest’s post, here’s another sample of the most interesting and exciting announcements.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, COO Judson Althof, President Brad Smith and other speakers will talk you through the latest news at Microsoft Inspire. These include developments in Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service, Dynamics 365, Windows, and more. The following announcements and news really stood out:
New Partner Center in Azure Synapse
Partners who have their own solutions within the Azure Synapse ecosystem can now offer these solutions through the Synapse Studio. Azure Synapse is an analytics service that gives companies faster access to insights into data warehouses and big data systems. Synapse Studio’s capabilities include data preparation, data management, data exploration, data warehousing, big data, and AI tasks. Azure Synapse customers can go to the ‘Browser partners’ page and easily find partner-proposed solutions that have been verified for Azure Synapse.
More information is available here.
Integration of Azure API Management into Azure Event Grid
We posted yesterday about the integration of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) into Event Grid. There are many benefits to this, including that users can receive notifications in Event Grid if a new version of Kubernetes or a node image is available. Another point of interest is the integration of Azure API Management into Azure Event Grid. Customers can have Azure API Management generate notifications in Event Grid as soon as a new user or new subscription is created for an API Management resource.
New collaboration apps in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft is joining forces with several software vendors, including Atlassian Confluence, Salesforce, SAP Cloud for Customers (C4C), ServiceNow and Workday, to add a number of new collaboration apps to Microsoft Teams. This integration enables users to access structured business processes and data while collaborating through Teams.
The apps are available through Microsoft Viva, an Employee Experience Platform by Microsoft, which brings together communication, knowledge, learning opportunities, resources, and insights into an integrated employee experience based on Microsoft Teams. Learn more about the new collaboration apps here.
Two new Azure specializations
Microsoft is launching two new specializations for its Azure cloud platform, Hybrid Operations and Management with Microsoft Azure Arc, so that partners can leverage Azure Arc for scaled at scale and DevOps operations in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure Stack HCI specialization means partners can demonstrate their ability to deploy Azure Stack HCI in their roll-out of hyperconverged infrastructure in an on-premises environment. This gives you – the customer – even more certainty of our ability to provide optimal support for your organization’s needs.
Read more about the new specializations here.
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability
The new Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability solution helps organizations to achieve their CO2 reduction and sustainability goals by recording and reporting emissions as well as supporting carbon reduction efforts. The platform therefore supports organizations on their journey towards becoming a zero-emission organization.
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability accelerates this journey by supporting investments in sustainable practices: the platform helps companies to partner with experts and gain support in reducing CO2 and achieving their sustainability goals.
Microsoft itself is committed to sustainability: in January 2020, the US IT giant set itself the goal of having 100% of its operations powered by renewable energy by 2025. By 2025, the company also wants to obtain renewable energy power purchase agreements for 100% of the energy it uses. Company figures show that Microsoft purchased 5.8 gigawatts of renewable energy in ten different countries in the last twelve months. As a result, energy projects that the company undertakes itself or in which Microsoft participates generate a total of 7.8 gigawatts of renewable energy on an annual basis. The company works with several renewable energy suppliers, including AEP Energy, BP, Invenergy, Shell, and Volt Energy.
Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability will be available later this year. More information can be found here.
