Microsoft covers containers, IoT in newest product release

“Microsoft Azure IoT Suite helps enterprises capture and analyze untapped data to create new intelligence”, said Barb Edson, general manager, Data Platform and Internet of Things, Microsoft.

Azure services are available in India today, with Office 365 services slated for availability in October, and Dynamics CRM Online services to follow in the first half of 2016.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has jumped on the container bandwagon given its involvement in the Open Container Initiative and similar projects.

“We see a convergence path, where Azure Container Service will be able to use a lot of our DCOS Enterprise Edition features that we believe will be valuable to Microsoft customers”, according to Mesosphere.

Microsoft filled in the details of its application container strategy with the unveiling of its Azure Container Service based on partnerships with Docker and datacenter OS and container orchestration specialist Mesosphere. In a few respects, the upcoming Mesos-powered container management offering is emblematic of Docker’s growing popularity on Azure.

The news comes out of Microsoft’s Azurecon, a virtual “conference” where the company is sharing all kinds of news pertaining to the future of Microsoft Azure. “Microsoft cloud users will find this solution delivers an unbeatable combination of security, resiliency, application performance, simplicity and efficiency, while enabling a wide range of applications and use cases”. In August, Mesosphere and Microsoft announced a deal to bring Mesos and DCOS to Windows Server.

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services plans to open its Indian region to the public in 2016, while Google Cloud Platform hasn’t announced any India-specific plans.

At AzureCon today, Microsoft also is announcing that its Azure Internet of Things (IoT) suite is generally available and purchasable by customers, as of today. “The issue of code update and deployment for Linux devices has been a blind spot for IoT platforms until now”, said Alexandros Marinos, Founder & CEO of Resin.io. Microsoft is the first hyper-scale provider to announce VMs featuring NVIDIA Grid 2.0 technology and the industry-leading Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform for professional graphics applications, deep learning, high-performance computing and more.

Microsoft also is readying a new Azure Security Center service that it says will give customers more visibility into the security of their Azure resources. Available later this year, Azure Security Center also “integrates with a number of partner solutions, like Trend Micro and Cisco”, Schutz said, allowing companies to extend their existing security investments. With this new offer, customers who pre-purchase Azure compute for one year can realize cost savings of up to 63 percent. This new program will go into effect December 1. This service will be available by the end of the year.

Questions about today’s update?

“Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect is fast becoming the premier choice for enterprises that are shifting workloads into the cloud”, said Shawn Hakl, vice president of enterprise networking and innovation for Verizon. Feel free to get them in now and come back at 10:45 a.m. for the Q&A (and please, you don’t need to remind him how your aunt made $5932 by working from home – I promise you he already knows).