New Windows 10 upgrade benefits for Windows Cloud Subscriptions in CSP

By Nic Fillingham as written on blogs.windows.com

We’re excited to announce that customers with Windows subscriptions via the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program can now upgrade their Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs and devices to Windows 10 at no additional cost.

This means customers subscribed to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 as well as Secure Productive Enterprise E3 and E5, can now upgrade their Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs and devices to Windows 10 without the need to purchase separate upgrade licenses.

This is an important benefit addition to Windows cloud subscriptions in CSP as it enables customers who have yet to purchase a new Windows 10 device, or who missed out on the free upgrade to Windows 10 campaign, to take advantage of enterprise-grade security, managed by a trusted partner, for the price of coffee and a donut.

In order to take advantage of this new upgrade benefit, tenant admins for customers with Windows cloud subscriptions can log in to the Office 365 Admin center http://portal.office.com with their Azure Active Directory admin credentials and see options to begin the upgrade on the device they are currently using, share the download link with others in their organization, create installation media or troubleshoot installation.

The Windows 10 upgrade licenses issued as part of this process are perpetual and associated with the device. This means the license will not expire or be revoked if the customer chooses to end their Windows cloud subscription in the CSP program.

The new upgrade benefits are rolling out now and tenant admins with Windows subscriptions in CSP should start to see Windows 10 upgrade options and links in their Office 365 Admin center over the next 48 hours.

We hope these new Windows 10 upgrade benefits will better enable businesses of any size – including those with PCs and devices still on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 – to work with a trusted partner to upgrade to enterprise-grade security and management with flexible, small business pricing from just $7 per user, per month.

Tech Sector Nonprofit Saves 79 Percent, Gains Global Market Access with Cloud Hosting

As written on customers.microsoft.com

Pro Bono Net provides web-based technology services that support law firms, courts, legal aid, and individuals throughout the United States. So when some of its own, on-premises servers reached end of life, what technology did the organization choose to replace them? Windows Azure. The nonprofit reduced annual cost after payback by 79 percent, made its service faster and more reliable, and has access to a global marketplace that was previously out of its reach.

Business Needs

Companies of all sizes are turning increasingly from on-premises IT infrastructures to cloud-based services for obvious reasons: they cost less and make it possible for companies to focus on their core strengths, rather than on commodity IT maintenance. But what do the providers of those services do when they face the same choice as their customers—and should those customers care?

A case in point is Pro Bono Net, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing access to justice through innovative uses of technology and increased volunteer lawyer participation. The organization meets this mission, among other ways, through its Pro Bono Manager™ service, which boosts a law firm’s pro bono program management capacity. Operating as a secure, seamless extension of a law firm’s intranet, Pro Bono Manager integrates content from the public-interest legal community with reporting, knowledge management, and lawyer-and-case matching tools that draw on a firm’s own human resources and time keeping systems.

Pro Bono Manager is a web-based, or software-as-a-service, solution—and the low-cost and minimal management required by the law firms that adopt it has been one of its selling points. But the cloud that hosted the service was a very physical set of servers owned and managed by Pro Bono Net. When those servers reached end-of-life, Pro Bono Net faced the same choice that their customers had answered by choosing Pro Bono Manager: Should Pro Bono Net refresh its hardware installation, or migrate Pro Bono Manager to a cloud platform?

The organization had to consider the economics of its choices, as any enterprise would. But, as a service provider to others, it had additional considerations: Would a move to the cloud affect the prices, availability, reliability, and speed that Pro Bono Net offered its customers and, if so, how?

Solution

Pro Bono Net already had experience with the cloud; some of its other solutions ran on Amazon Web Services. But when it came time to migrate Pro Bono Manager, the organization chose Windows Azure, the Microsoft cloud computing platform.

One reason: Windows Azure was built from the ground up to support the same Microsoft technologies—Microsoft SharePoint Server, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (in the cloud: Windows Azure SQL Reporting), and the Microsoft .NET Framework—that Pro Bono Net already used. Another reason: Microsoft offered Windows Azure Virtual Machines, which provided the flexibility and availability that comes from the use of virtualization technology.

Pro Bono Net used Windows Azure Virtual Machines for persistent virtualization in support of SharePoint Server, which serves as the foundation for Pro Bono Manager. If the organization had been moving between more consistent platforms—say, two virtual platforms, one managed on-premises and one in the cloud—it would have been easier to estimate cost. Going from a physical/on-premises platform to a virtual/cloud platform required some experimentation in preproduction environments, which the organization and Microsoft completed successfully.

Pro Bono Net eventually decided on a high-availability infrastructure that replicated domain controllers, front ends, application servers, and Windows Azure SQL Database instances on virtual machines. It also adopted Windows Azure availability sets to further mitigate risk and promote reliability. And as its use of Windows Azure grows, the organization expects to adopt geo-colocation features that will further increase fault tolerance and business continuity.

Benefits

By using Windows Azure, Pro Bono Net gains lower cost, greater reliability, faster performance, and new business opportunities. The organization plans to move its Amazon-based sites to the Microsoft cloud platform, too.

Avoids 79 Percent Cost of On-Premises Solution

Cost was a key factor for Pro Bono Net in deciding between an on-premises and cloud-based platform for Pro Bono Manager. By choosing Windows Azure, the organization avoided a US$25,000 investment in production hardware and services, plus $8,300 in maintenance and system administration. It also avoids another $25,000 investment to replicate the environment for the sake of business continuity.

For its specific configuration on Windows Azure, Pro Bono Net spends $11,000 annually—and saves 79 percent over comparable cost for an on-premises infrastructure and support, after a 1.4-year payback period.

Uptime Rises to 3 “9s,” Users See 20 Percent Faster Loads

Pro Bono Net now pays less to support Pro Bono Manager while gaining more, particularly more reliability. Since the move to Windows
Azure, uptime for the application has increased from 99 percent to 99.9 percent. “That’s a significant increase for us,” says Alec Rosin, Consulting Engineer for Pro Bono Net. “On-premises, if we had a disaster, we could be out for a week. We don’t anticipate that happening on Windows Azure.”
Pages and reports now load about 20 percent faster on Windows Azure, creating a more natural user experience.

Gives National Organization the Tools to Go Global

Pro Bono Net expected lower cost and better service from Windows Azure. What it didn’t expect was new business opportunities—but it now has them, too. Many countries or regions require that sensitive data, including legal data, remain within their borders. Pro Bono Net, with its US-based data center, couldn’t go after this business before.
Now, using Windows Azure’s global data centers and Content Delivery Network, it can. “We can go from being a national service organization to a global service organization, by using Windows Azure,” says Adam Licht, Director of Product Management at Pro Bono Net.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Public vs private? Hybrid gives the biggest gains

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Microsoft’s Excel API, which lets developers access data stored in spreadsheets, hits general availability

By Frederic Lardinois as written on techcrunch.com

After a relatively short beta, Microsoft today announced that the Excel API — a way for developers to programmatically use Excel for Office 365 for doing calculations, building dashboards and more — is now generally available.

Microsoft first announced the API last November and then detailed its plans for turning Office 365 into more of a platform for developers at it Build conference in March. Like all of Microsoft’s Office 365 APIs, the new Excel one will be available through the Microsoft Graph, the company’s unified API endpoint for all of its cloud services.

Implicitly, the Excel API acknowledges that most businesses use (and abuse) Excel to store lots of data. Using the service, developers will be able to perform calculations based on this data — and data from their apps outside of Office 365. The can also call on data and calculations from Excel sheets for building reports and dashboards.

Microsoft has partnered with two third-party services to make accessing this API easier. Zapier users, for example, can now build integrations with Excel for Office 365, and Sage, which offers business management service for small and medium businesses, is integrating it with its accounting solution.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="10968" img_size="full"][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]

By Alice Rison as written on azure.microsoft.com

We are happy to announce Microsoft Azure obtained the ISO/IEC 27017:2015 certification, an international standard that aligns with and complements the ISO/IEC 27002:2013 with an emphasis on cloud-specific threats and risks.

This certification provides guidance on 37 controls in ISO/IEC 27002 and features seven new controls not addressed in ISO/IEC 27002. Both cloud service providers and cloud service customers can leverage this guidance to effectively design and implement cloud computing information security controls. Customers can download the ISO/IEC 27017 certificate which demonstrates Microsoft’s continuous commitment to providing a secure and compliant cloud environment for our customers.

Microsoft Azure helps customers meet their compliance requirements across a broad range of regulated industries and markets including financial services, healthcare, life sciences, media and entertainment, worldwide public sector, and US federal, state and local government.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

The SwimTrain exergame makes swim workouts fun again

By Miran Lee as written on blogs.msdn.microsoft.com

To many who swim for exercise, workouts come down to the monotony of doing laps—swimming back and forth in a pool. Over and over. Unlike other exercisers, who can make their routines less of a chore by adding a social component—working out with friends, family, or in groups—swimmers really haven’t had many options, because coordinating a group of swimmers is difficult. The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) are happy to report that with SwimTrain, their new cooperative “exergame” research project, you’ll never have to swim alone again.

SwimTrain is the result of a research collaboration between KAIST and MSRA. The project targets something we can all relate to: exercise boredom. Swimming, while one of the best ways to get fit, can be tedious. The SwimTrain team thinks they have a way to make swimming a lot more exciting.

How does SwimTrain work? First, you slip your phone into a waterproof case and plug in some waterproof headphones. Then, you jump in. Players get matched up as a team to form a virtual “train,” with each player controlling the speed of a single train compartment. Go too fast or too slow, and the game warns you of bumping into other compartments. Featuring narration, vibration feedback, spatialized sound effects, and background music, the immersive experience takes players through different modes of gameplay based on an interval training workout plan.

Each SwimTrain round consists of three phases:

Phase 1: Compartment ordering

Compartments race against other compartments. A compartment is ranked based on a swimmer’s average stroke speed during the race.

Phase 2: Train running

Compartments are placed along the same track and run in a circle (like a merry-go-round). To earn points, each swimmer must maintain their current stroke rate with the target stroke rate established in the previous phase. A compartment shifts with the movement of the current stroke rate relative to the target stroke rate, and it should travel without crashing into adjacent compartments.

Phase 3: Train stop

The virtual train stops. Every swimmer takes a short rest. The game narrates the final ranking of the current round and information for the next round, such as the duration of each phase and recommended stroke types.

SwimTrain accomplishes immersive gameplay by relying on advanced tech packed into a mobile phone. The barometer, accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer track swimming activities, determining swimming periods, stroke, style, speed, and other events. This information is fed to a Network Manager based on the Microsoft Azure cloud, and is then delivered back to the game as rank and round data, determining the status of the player in relation to the train. It’s also passed to a Feedback Manager, which provides the auditory and sensory feedback that make SwimTrain unique.

Preliminary feedback from users is positive—SwimTrain makes you feel like you’re not alone in the pool. According to one test user, “Although [SwimTrain] didn’t provide any visual feedback, I felt like I was swimming with others.” Feedback is also indicating that SwimTrain is providing an immersive and enjoyable experience that’s intense workout, too.

The project team’s research is getting noticed in the world of human-computer interaction (HCI). CHI 2016, the world’s top conference for HCI, has accepted the team’s research for inclusion in the CHI 2016 Notes and Papers Program.

This collaboration with KAIST is a great example of how Microsoft values symbiotic relationships with partners in academia. “Not only do we have the ability to shape the future of Microsoft products, we have the chance to support and learn from some of the top professors in computer science,” said Darren Edge, lead researcher at MSRA. Many of these collaborations lead to internships. “When a student makes a particularly promising contribution to a joint project, we can also invite them to spend time at Microsoft as a research intern. Everybody wins from such internships: we get some of the brightest PhD students to work on our projects, and the students develop new expertise and skills that they can apply to their university work with their professor.”

Darren explains that this recently happened as a result of his ongoing collaboration with Professor Uichin Lee at KAIST. Following the completion of work on SwimTrain, Professor Lee’s PhD student Jeungmin Oh joined Darren at MSRA for a six-month internship, working in another area. “We are all now collaborating on multiple projects in parallel. If any of them are as successful as SwimTrain, which won the third place award at the recent Microsoft Korea and Japan Day and has two accepted papers pending publication, I will be very happy indeed,” he states.

The MSRA HCI group has in fact had a longstanding collaboration with academia: In recent years, MSRA has supported principal investigators for projects published at CHI 2014, CSCW 2015, and CHI 2016.

In the future, SwimTrain will focus on measuring more data, such as heart rate and maximal oxygen uptake, to determine the exertion level of a player’s swimming. Also, the method might be applied to other group exercises, such as group jogging and group cycling. We look forward with anticipation to what SwimTrain might inspire.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Aiming to Deliver New Drugs Faster at Less Cost in the Cloud

Researchers from Molplex, a small drug discovery company; Newcastle University; and Microsoft Research Connections are working together to help scientists around the world deliver new medicines more quickly and at lower cost. This partnership has helped Molplex develop Clouds Against Disease, an offering of high-quality drug discovery services based on a new molecular discovery platform that draws its power from cloud computing with Windows Azure.

Rethinking Drug Discovery
David Leahy, co-founder and chief executive officer of Molplex, envisions a way to help pharmaceutical researchers anywhere in the world form effective drug discovery teams without large investments in technology or fixed running costs. "It takes massive computing resources to search through chemical and biological databases looking for new drug candidates. Our Clouds Against Disease solution dramatically reduces the time and cost of doing that by providing computation and chemical analysis services on demand," Leahy says.

Molplex regards drug discovery as a big data and search optimization problem. Clouds Against Disease uses its computational molecular discovery platform to automate decision making that is traditionally the scientists’ task.

"Instead of having teams of scientists scanning chemical information, our software searches for structures that have multiple properties matching the search criteria," explains Leahy. "When we integrate that with highly automated chemical synthesis and screening, it becomes a much more efficient and productive way of doing drug discovery."

Data Manipulation on a Larger Scale
In a recent pre-clinical study, the company applied its computational platform to more than 10,000 chemical structure and biological activity data sets. This action generated 750,000 predictive relationships between chemical structure and biological effect. After generating numerous possible outcomes, Molplex then used the same validation criteria that scientists would use to narrow down the 750,000 relationships to just 23,000 models covering 1,000 biological and physico-chemical properties, a relatively small data set that humans could then manage. "It would have taken hundreds of scientists several years to do this the conventional way," Leahy

Windows Azure was critical to the success of Clouds Against Disease. Molplex can access 100 or more Windows Azure nodes—in effect, virtual servers—to process data rapidly. The physical-world alternative would be to source, purchase, provision, and then manage 100 physical servers, which represents a significant investment in up-front costs. Before they could begin drug research, scientists taking this traditional approach would have to raise millions of dollars, but Windows Azure helps eliminate start-up costs by allowing new companies to pay for only what they use in computing resources.

Vladimir J. Sykora, co-founder and chief operating officer for Molplex, explains that the Molplex computational platform runs algorithms his company developed to calculate the numerical properties of molecules rapidly. Consequently, Molplex has been able to produce drug discovery results on a much larger scale than what was previously feasible. "We would not have been able to predict so many compounds without the cloud computing resources enabled by Windows Azure," asserts Sykora. "The speed and high level of detail provided by Windows Azure allow us to explore far beyond what would have been possible with traditional hardware resources."

Fighting Tropical Diseases
Molplex is embarking on a new collaboration with the Malaysian government to search for drugs that fight tropical diseases. This search has always been a lower priority for drug companies because the market is smaller, making it a less desirable commercial prospect. The traditional drug discovery program is geared to $1 billion a year blockbuster drugs; however, there are fewer opportunities today for drugs with that level of commercial potential.

Increasingly, scientists are researching tropical diseases that affect smaller populations; radically reducing the cost of drug discovery makes it feasible for scientists to tackle them. "Unlocking drug discovery technology from a physical location with the cloud has tremendous potential to help researchers work on curing these diseases faster and at less cost," asserts Leahy, "wherever they are in the world."

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]