Microsoft Going Big With The Cloud

At its annual TechEd conference in Barcelona this week, Microsoft took the covers off two sets of upgrades to its core cloud services that together bring CEO Satya Nadella’s vision of a cloud-first product strategy a historic step forward. The first concerns the company’s infrastructure-as-a-service platform, which is now better equipped to host traditional enterprise applications.

Accommodating the old and strengthening the new

Much of that is due to a new service that incorporates technology Microsoft obtained with the acquisition of New Zealand-based startup Greenbutton Ltd. earlier this year that makes it possible to move an existing piece of software into the cloud without having to rearchitect it for rapid scalability. Using the newly released Azure Batch, users just need to specify how an application’s data should be handled with a few straightforward commands and the tool does the rest, Microsoft claims.

Equally notable is Azure Operational Insights, another new service that in turn represents the Redmond giant’s attempt to cash in on the tremendous success of Splunk Inc., the recently funded Loggly Inc. and other log management vendors. Microsoft is touting native integration with other Azure services and System Center as the main differentiation point of the tool, meaning that it’s likely to be appealing mainly to current Windows shops and is not an overt effort to dethrone Splunk.

Also introduced at TechEd was Azure Automation, a tool that promises to take the hassle out of time-consuming administrative tasks such as configuring and monitoring instances. It’s joined by a fourth, free service that promises to defend instances against cyberthreats and complementary enhancements such as the ability to more tightly regulate network traffic.

Embracing developers

Microsoft also moved to strengthen its Office 365 application suite with new administration and development features. The company is opening up the cloud-based productivity suite for developers to extend with custom code and to integrate into third party applications.

For admins, Microsoft is releasing free features for centrally managing installations of the mobile Office 365 applications along with data loss prevention functions that will be added to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. The latter update is set to roll out over the coming months in conjunction with a new active directory similar to the one Amazon launched last week that allows organizations to tap into their existing on-premise repositories for authentication.

Not leaving the end-users out of the loop, Microsoft also unveiled a launcher for Office 365 that aims to serve as a portal where workers can immediately access their most apps. Additionally, Visual Studio Online customers in Europe can now store their projects closer to home on the Azure Amsterdam Region.