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ANNOUNCING THE PREVIEW OF AZURE DATA SHARE<\/h4>\n
It\u2019s become a common practice to share data outside of organisational boundaries however sharing this data in a simple and governed way can be challenging. To enable enterprise collaboration Microsoft have unveiled Azure Data Share Preview<\/a>, a new data service for safely sharing big data with external organisations in Azure Blob Storage<\/a> and Azure Data Lake Storage<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can have a read of the opportunities Azure Data Share opens up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Azure Data Share. Source: Microsoft<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n In July Microsoft announced that Azure database target readiness recommendations have now been enabled<\/a>. What does this mean? It means migrating your SQL Server instances and databases to Azure SQL Database has never been easier. The new feature allows you to identify the servers and databases that are fully ready for migration, or require minimal effort to prepare for migration, easing and accelerating your efforts.<\/p>\n Azure ‘Assessed Database’ view. Source: Microsoft<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework<\/a> for Azure provides end-to-end guidance, best practices, documentation, and tools that cloud architects, IT professionals, and business decision makers need to successfully achieve their objectives. Using the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure best practices, organisations can better align their business and technology strategies to ensure success.\u00a0<\/p>\n Using this framework, you\u2019ll be able to:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Described as \u2018a hub for your migration needs\u2019, Azure Migrate has evolved<\/a> to provide a streamlined, comprehensive portfolio of Microsoft and partner tools to meet migration needs in one place. Some of the new features include:<\/p>\n Integrated application, server and database migration. Source: Microsoft<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In July Microsoft announced the general availability of Azure Database Migration Service<\/a> support for online<\/a> and offline<\/a> migrations of MongoDB to Cosmos DB. With online migrations, businesses can migrate their databases to Azure while the databases continue to be operational. This means that migrations can be completed with minimum downtime for critical applications, limiting the impact to service level availability and inconvenience to end customers.<\/p>\n According to an announcement from Microsoft, 81% of successful cyber attacks begin with a compromised username and password. As a result, Microsoft have been working on more effective security mechanisms and last month they announced the public preview of FIDO2 security keys support<\/a> for seamless, secure, and passwordless access to all your Azure AD connected apps and services. To help you get started on your passwordless journey Microsoft have rolled out a ton of public preview capabilities, including:<\/p>\n Using FIDO2 security keys to authenticate Azure AD-joined Windows 10 devices. Source: Microsoft<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Following requests to funnel Prometheus<\/a> (a popular open source metric monitoring solution) data into Azure Monitor Microsoft have announced that Prometheus integration with Azure Monitor for containers is now in preview<\/a>, bringing together the best of both worlds. Get started here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1 RC1<\/a><\/p>\n Introducing proximity placement groups<\/a><\/p>\n Update to Azure SQL Database serverless provides even greater price optimisation<\/a><\/p>\n Azure IoT Edge Jenkins plugin is now generally available<\/a><\/p>\n Large storage for Azure Database for PostgreSQL now in preview<\/a><\/p>\n Large storage for Azure Database for MySQL now in preview<\/a><\/p>\n PostgreSQL 11 is now generally available in Azure Database for PostgreSQL<\/a><\/p>\n Azure Data Box Heavy is now generally available<\/a><\/p>\n Microsoft sinks $1B into OpenAI to build ‘supercomputer AI’ for Azure<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” width=”80%” max_width=”1080px”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ custom_padding__hover=”|||” custom_padding=”|||”][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.19.18″ src=”http:\/\/content.n4stack.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Skydive_Orchid.jpg” align=”center” max_width=”70%” url=”https:\/\/www.justgiving.com\/fundraising\/node4-committee1″ url_new_window=”on” align_last_edited=”on|desktop” align_tablet=”center” \/][et_pb_divider _builder_version=”3.12.2″ background_color=”#e05206″ color=”#e05206″ height=”4px” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.18″ text_font_size=”17px” header_4_text_color=”#e05206″ header_3_text_color=”#e05206″ module_id=”Chat”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you enjoyed the latest edition of CloudStack{d} pop your details into the form below and we’ll send you future editions<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.18″]<\/p>\n \n[123-contact-form i1243466]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ custom_padding__hover=”|||” custom_padding=”|||”][et_pb_divider _builder_version=”3.12.2″ background_color=”#e05206″ color=”#e05206″ height=”4px” \/][et_pb_team_member _builder_version=”3.17.6″ name=”Izzi Fuller” position=”Digital Marketer” linkedin_url=”https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/isobel-fuller-5070b880\/” image_url=”http:\/\/content.n4stack.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Izzi-Fuller_GW.png” saved_tabs=”all” global_module=”54024″]<\/p>\n Izzi heads up the N4Stack Marketing function and loves getting stuck into writing – whether its a blog, collateral or website content.<\/p>\n She took a leap into the world of Data, DevOps and Cloud\u00a0after previously working with SaaS in the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare prior to that.<\/p>\n Get to know more about Izzi here<\/a>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_team_member][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0MICROSOFT AZURE\u00a0SUPPORT FOR MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2008\/R2 COMES TO AN ENDJuly 9th\u00a0marked the last day of SQL Server 2008\/R2 support. In an ideal world we would all migrate our server applications to Azure, however there are options for those users that need to remain on SQL Server 2008\/R2, including an additional 3 years of Extended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":55657,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" \u00a0<\/em><\/p> For the first time ever, Microsoft\u2019s Azure revenue has exceeded AWS revenue after jumping a whopping 89 percent in the last financial quarter! In terms of market share however, AWS is still very much in the lead, commanding 33% of public cloud market with Azure following in 2nd<\/sup> place with 13%.<\/p> After receiving feedback<\/a> that the current Azure exams are \u2018too broad, covering a range of skills that very few individuals, even experts in the area, would have\u2019 Microsoft have taken it upon themselves to take another look at their certifications. The result? They\u2019ll be assessing the skills you actually need to be successful \u2013 we think that\u2019s an excellent idea!<\/p> Microsoft are even offering an 80% discount on their Azure Administrator beta exams for the first 300 people who register! 3\u20262\u20261\u2026go!<\/p> Microsoft\u2019s Azure Dev Spaces<\/a> is now in public review. The cloud-native development experience can be used with Azure Kubernetes Services<\/a> (AKS) and is designed to help developers work with cloud native code \u2013 making it easier to make the jump into container development.<\/p> To get started click here<\/a>.<\/p> Microsoft recently announced<\/a> that Azure SQL Data Warehouse customers will benefit from \u2018at least 2x faster query performance from their workloads, cementing it as the fastest data warehouse in the cloud\u2019. In the announcement they explained the speed boost was made real by brand spanking new instant data movement capabilities<\/a> which makes the movement between data warehouse computer notes more efficient than ever before. Well, it\u2019s certainly peaked our interest!<\/p> Looking for visibility into the security of your cloud platform? Great news \u2013 Azure Security Center is now available in public preview and has been integrated into the subscription package so that customers can assess the security state of resources and ensure data is protected and not vulnerable to attacks.<\/p> Find out more here<\/a>.<\/p> In July Microsoft announced<\/a> the release of their Azure Service Fabric Mesh to public preview. The fully-managed service supports both Windows and Linux containers and is designed to enable developers to \u2018deploy and operate containerised applications without having to manage VMs, storage or networking configuration\u2019.<\/p> You can get started with it here<\/a>.<\/p> In May 2017, Microsoft announced its new database service, Azure Cosmos DB<\/a>, designed to deliver high performance for large scale applications. This month Microsoft announced that Cosmos DB is getting an upgrade. Introducing the new and improved Cosmos DB Explorer<\/a>, described by Microsoft as \u2018a full screen standalone web-based version of the Data Explorer many of you already use in Azure Portal for Cosmos DB\u2019.<\/p> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p> \u00a0<\/em><\/p> Following the success of AWS Greengrass<\/a> in 2017, Amazon has added more edge computing capabilities to its AWS services. Not only will this allow customers to analyse and move data at the site where its created, the introduction of their Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances to their Snowball Edge<\/a> system, cuts down processing delays and reduces the amount of data customers need to store in the cloud.<\/p> Take a look at Amazon\u2019s announcement here<\/a>.<\/p> A political autodial company has come under fire after exposing the personal data of 2,600 voters in the US after failing to properly secure their AWS S3 bucket. Unfortunately, this is becoming a pretty common issue despite Amazon offering up a solution<\/a> in November 2017 with the introduction of five new encryption and security features, including dashboard warning lights.<\/p>![\"Azure](\"http:\/\/content.n4stack.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Azure-Data-Share-1024x555.png\")
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ASSESS THE READINESS OF SQL SERVER DATA ESTATES MIGRATING TO AZURE SQL DATABASE<\/h4>\n
![\"Azure](\"http:\/\/content.n4stack.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Azure-Assessed-Database_Database-Target-Readiness-1024x326.png\")
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INTRODUCING THE MICROSOFT CLOUD ADOPTION FRAMEWORK FOR AZURE<\/h4>\n
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INTRODUCING THE NEW AZURE MIGRATE<\/h4>\n
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![\"Azure](\"http:\/\/content.n4stack.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Azure-Migrate-1024x629.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMONGODB TO COSMOS DB ONLINE AND OFFLINE MIGRATIONS NOW GENERALLY AVAILABLE<\/h4>\n
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NEW AZURE AD CAPABILITIES HELP YOU ELIMINATE PASSWORDS AT WORK<\/h4>\n
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![\"Azure](\"http:\/\/content.n4stack.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Azure-FIDO2-Security-Keys.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAZURE MONITOR FOR CONTAINERS WITH PROMETHEUS NOW IN PREVIEW<\/h4>\n
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IN OTHER NEWS:<\/h4>\n
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Get CloudStack{d} straight to your inbox<\/h3>\n
MICROSOFT AZURE<\/strong><\/h1>
Microsoft has had a busy month releasing new tools and services into public review. They\u2019ve also improved their Azure certifications AND for the first time ever have exceeded Amazon\u2019s AWS cloud revenue! Well done to Microsoft Azure.<\/em><\/h4>
MICROSOFT<\/strong> EXCEEDS AMAZON\u2019S CLOUD REVENUE<\/strong><\/h2>
AZURE CERTIFICATIONS RECONSIDERED<\/strong><\/h2>
MICROSOFT ADDS KUBERNETES TOOLS TO AZURE<\/strong><\/h2>
AZURE SQL DATA WAREHOUSE GETS A SPEED BOOST<\/strong><\/h2>
MICROSOFT INTEGRATES AZURE SECURITY CENTER INTO SUBSCRIPTION EXPERIENCE<\/strong><\/h2>
AZURE SERVICE FABRIC MESH NOW AVAILABLE AS PUBLIC PREVIEW<\/strong><\/h2>
AZURE COSMOS DB GETS AN UPGRADE<\/strong><\/h2>
AMAZON WEB SERVICES<\/strong><\/h1>
July was a big month for Amazon Web Services. They introduced a couple of new instances and even found themselves some Greek gods!<\/em><\/h4>
AMAZON INTRODUCES EC2 INSTANCES TO THEIR AWS SNOWBALL EDGE SYSTEM<\/strong><\/h2>
2,600 PERSONAL DATA FILES EXPOSED DUE TO OPEN AWS S3 BUCKET<\/strong><\/h2>
AWS ANNOUNCES THREE NEW INSTANCES\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>