Ampere Altra-based Arm-based Azure Virtual Machines
It’s not brand-new; Azure virtual machines (VMs) powered by Ampere Altra CPUs went available. It was nonetheless significant enough to be mentioned in the keynote. This is an important product offering that gives web services, databases, microservices, and more a high price-to-performance ratio. These VMs can be added to Kubernetes clusters and controlled by Azure Kubernetes Service because they were created for scaled-out, cloud-native applications.
Storage for Azure Premium SSD version 2
According to Microsoft, the Azure Premium SSD v2 disk storage is intended for workloads that are performance-critical and need low latency and high input-output operation throughput. It’s perfect for boosting storage efficiency without raising storage capacity. Microsoft featured Oracle and SQL Servers and other database and analytics workloads as some of the use cases for this new service.
Ampere Altra-based Arm-based Azure Virtual Machines
PostgreSQL and MongoDB are now supported by Azure Cosmos DB.
With the addition of distributed PostgreSQL support, Microsoft’s managed NoSQL database Azure Cosmos DB can now provide a faster and more scalable solution for open-source relational databases. Furthermore, it raises MongoDB’s largest document support size to 16MB
Microsoft Elastic SAN
A storage area network called Azure Elastic SAN is a cloud-native service that offers hosts immediate data access. Customers may migrate their SAN workloads to the cloud without changing their provisioning and management approach because it can link to a range of Azure computing services. It is also more scalable because it is a cloud-native solution. Framework for the Azure Managed Confidential Consortium
The Confidential Consortium Framework (CCF) open-source software development kit can now be used by developers without them having to manage and maintain their infrastructure to support CCF-based services. CCF enables the use of multi-party apps on protected networks.
PyTorch container for Azure
The Azure Container for PyTorch, which is currently in preview, combines Microsoft technology with curated environments and customized images to facilitate the deployment and support of PyTorch model training that is optimized.
Two new machine learning-related enhancements to Azure Synapse are available:
1.Key library management features for the R language are now available in the preview. Data scientists will be able to create machine learning models and handle data using the R language, which is the industry standard.
2.The SynapseML library is now accessible in a new version. Built on Apache Spark, SynapseML is a scalable machine-learning toolkit that aims to make building machine-learning pipelines easier. The updated version adds support for .NET, MLflow integration, and integration with Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) language models.
Visual Studio 2022’s most recent version is currently available
New productivity features, a new toolkit for developing Microsoft Teams apps, efficiency improvements for C++ programming, and tools for .NET Multi-platform App UI are all included in the most recent version of Visual Studio 2022, which is now available (v17.3) (MAUI). Using a single codebase, this technology enables customers to create and distribute .NET client programs for Windows, Android, iOS, and Mac.
Users can upgrade their workloads and innovate faster, thanks to new Azure App Service features. Organizations may run their most popular apps on Azure App Service, providing a quicker time to market by utilizing the most recent Azure Cloud capabilities. This includes support for the newest versions of .NET 7, Python 3.10 and 3.11, PHP 8.1, PHP 8.2, and Node 18.
Dall⋅E 2, a model that enables users to create personalized images using text or images, will be accessible through Azure OpenAI Service, which will be offered with restricted access in the preview.
Customers of Azure OpenAI Service will have access to a wider range of use cases with the addition of the Dall⋅E 2 model. Users can produce material, graphics, and code from selected clients to increase productivity while carrying out mission-critical operations.
Azure Cognitive Service for Language expands natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language generation (NLG) capabilities, improves summarization, and broadens language support across language skills, enabling customers to implement business apps for scenarios involving document and conversation digitalization.
Access to Language Studio as well as improved contact center AI capabilities and expanded language support are now generally available.
Soon after its general release, the Responsible AI dashboard in Azure Machine Learning will enable users to implement Responsible AI by debugging machine learning models and coming to wise data-driven decisions.
Customers who use no-code or low-code can now create reports for their model’s thanks to the Responsible AI scorecard’s on-demand UI experience for generating PDF scorecards.
Microsoft Project Bonsai expands the platfrom’s AI
capabilities
Microsoft Project Bonsai is a low-code industrial AI development platform that allows engineers to construct AI-powered automation without having to have strong expertise in data science.
Businesses are using Project Bonsai to enhance the effectiveness and quality of their products.
1.Support for action masking, which limits the actions the AI system can perform based on the system’s present state, will help to ensure correct behavior and speed up training. For instance, training a system to avoid routing work to a piece of equipment that is down for maintenance is now simpler.
2.Customers will be able to create AI systems that regulate or optimize a process using OfflineRL’s training from data feature, providing a recorded dataset of states and actions from a historian, Internet of Things (IoT) system, or another record.
3.The possibility to employ models to speed up training for slower simulations will be made available by model-based training acceleration. As a result, training a control policy on a crucial customer use case will take less time and money.
4.Assessment 2.0 will provide customers with robust analytical tools to assess automation performance and apply the learnings to improve AI systems. Users will be able to compare performance across various AI systems, dive down into underperforming events, and explore policy trajectories using the tools.
5.The Azure Marketplace has bonsai samples available. These simulation models and examples are a starting point for machine learning.
6.Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is now a partner in Project Bonsai. Through Project Bonsai, TCS will assist businesses in developing simulation-based intelligent industrial control systems and AI-powered automation to increase production efficiency and decrease downtime without data science.
New AI features are added to Microsoft 365 by Microsoft Editor
The following features are now available in preview as part of Microsoft Editor’s ongoing efforts to improve the cognitive capabilities of Microsoft 365 experiences:
1.Users can utilize tone suggestions to guide their choice of how a message is conveyed in emails, chats, and documents.
2.With the touch of a button, Microsoft Editor’s summary feature will use intelligence to generate a succinct and fluid summary of a lengthy text document, facilitating users’ faster assimilation of pertinent information.
3.Word for the Web’s concision feature will use intelligence to spot wordy or protracted sentences and suggest a different, more concise version.
Azure Cosmos DB now offers distributed PostgreSQL support
With the addition of distributed PostgreSQL support, Azure Cosmos DB now provides open-source relational data with a quick, adaptable, and scalable service.
The new Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL, which is based on the Hyperscale (Citus) engine, delivers everything developers love about PostgreSQL and the potent Citus extension to Microsoft’s quick and scalable database for building cloud-native apps.
Now, programmers may use the same well-known database service to create apps that use both relational and non-relational (NoSQL) data.
The developer interface for open-source technologies has been enhanced in Azure Cosmos DB. Now that Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB supports documents up to 16 MB, MongoDB developers can store larger documents. The majority of these modifications are accessible.
The Azure Database for MySQL now has a preview of the autoscale IO capability
There is no longer a requirement to pre-provision a specific amount of input/output (IO) per second with Azure Database for MySQL, a managed and scalable MySQL database service.
Customers can utilize Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server without worrying about IO management because the server will scale input/output operations per second (IOPS) up or down based on workload requirements.
Customers of Azure Database for MySQL no longer need to prepare and pay for resources they are not utilizing because of the Autoscale IO preview, which saves both time and money. Customers now only pay for the IO they consume.
Mission-critical Tier 1 app can also maintain performance by making more IO available to the task. For users of Azure Database for MySQL, autoscale IO eliminates the administration necessary to deliver the highest performance at the lowest cost.
The availability of new cloud-like features for Azure Arc-enabled Server SQL
utilizing Azure Arc Customers can benefit from a cloud-like experience thanks to several new features that are now available for SQL Server, including
1.An Azure Active Directory-integrated single sign-on method (Azure AD). Through a single integrated login process, customers can manage all of their SQL environments and Azure resources.
2.With Microsoft Defender’s enhanced security and monitoring capabilities, businesses can evaluate and secure SQL Server estates across multi-cloud, hybrid environments.