Unmatched scalability & uptime. As your company grows so do the demands on the database that support core business functions.
Better Performance: Are your applications keeping up with your business? With physical and operational security built in Azure, SQL Database can help you meet the most stringent regulatory compliance.
Intelligent Cloud Database
Industry-first enterprise-class cloud data warehouse that can grow, shrink, and pause in seconds
SQL Data Warehouse independently scales compute and storage, so you pay for query performance only when you need it. Unlike other cloud data warehouses that require hours or days to resize, SQL Data Warehouse lets you grow or shrink compute power in minutes. Take full advantage of storage at cloud scale, and apply query compute based on changing performance needs. When compute is paused, you pay only for storage, leveraging our market-leading on-demand price per terabyte.
Deploy secure infrastructure quickly with no maintenance costs:
SQL Data Warehouse is easy to deploy in seconds.
The service is a fully managed offering which removes you from the hassle of spending time on software updates and maintenance. SQL Data Warehouse has built-in database backups to support self-service restore; the service automatically backs up your data to Azure storage as it snapshots database restore points.
Make sure your apps are keeping up with the speed of your business with SQL Server:
Relational Database that Learns and Adapts
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Managed Solution’s Team has the experience and expertise to architect SQL database and reporting systems tailored for your environment. Contact us for more information 800-307-0296
Ford Motor Co. is moving to automatically update its cars’ infotainment systems using Microsoft’s Azure cloud service.
The U.S. auto maker will begin selling some cars later this year with a computer system that can be automatically updated anytime the car connects to a Wi-Fi network. The cloud-based system is expected to be available in all of Ford’s cars by the end of 2016, according to Don Butler, Ford’s executive director of Connected Vehicle and Services.
The system — the Ford Service Delivery Network — will enable car owners to more easily get new services, even if their car is as much as 10 years old.
Ford is using cloud computing, data analytics and in-car software to change the consumer experience. Now a car’s navigation, entertainment and communication systems will be refreshable.
Previously, Ford’s infotainment system could be updated — but only by bringing the vehicle into a dealership or via a USB stick.
With a cloud-based system, updates to the car’s navigation system, contacts, audio system and center touch screen will be easier.
The updates should download seamlessly, without the driver being distracted – or even aware – of it happening.
“We couldn’t do this without the cloud,” Butler told Computerworld. “It’s really the only way to do it. Otherwise, we’d still need people to make a physical connection either at the dealer or through a stick.”
Other auto companies, including Tesla Motors, will be using over-the-air updates and cloud services to upgrade car owners’ infotainment, safety and powertrains.
Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with ZK Research, said car owners rarely update their in-car systems when they have to drive to the dealer or get a USB stick. The cloud-based service should make it easier for systems requiring updates to work.
“I think it will be something that’s expected eventually,” he said. “Using the cloud is smart as it’s the only scalable way to do real time, over-the-air updates.”
To make this work, Ford is using a hybrid cloud system, which combines the features of a private and public cloud system.
Customer-sensitive data, such as the owner’s name and address, the vehicle’s mileage, its location and how well it’s running, will be stored on a private, on-premise cloud network that was built by Ford’s IT department.
For the public cloud, Ford is using Microsoft Azure, which the company uses for software updates.
Microsoft also is supplying the connection between Ford’s private cloud and the Azure public cloud.
“It’s a flexible solution that lets us tailor it to our needs,” Butler said. “Azure allows us the ability to flex between our own data centers and public data centers. And it’s global.”
That flexibility is the reason Ford’s IT executives chose Azure, instead of another cloud provider, like IBM, Google or Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“We wouldn’t have had that kind of flexibility with AWS or Google,” Butler noted. “You use their cloud as they constructed them. With Azure, we’ve constructed and architected our own service delivery network, and Azure is a component of that network. It gives us the ability to have a solution that bridges their public cloud and our own private cloud. Azure is the plumbing that connects the two clouds.”
Ford also had already worked with Microsoft on its in-vehicle software, so the Redmond, Wash., company came to the cloud job with an understanding of the automaker’s vision and needs.
“It’s important to work with a partner that understands the environment you’re trying to operate in,” Butler said. “Microsoft had that.”
Kerravala said he’s a little surprised that Ford selected Microsoft. “I think Azure versus AWS versus Google is really in the preference of the customer,” he added. “I think most people think of Amazon as being the de facto standard of the cloud, but Azure is a solid choice, too. Azure has Microsoft support behind it and may prove to be easier to grow long term because of that.”
Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said it makes sense for Ford to stick with Microsoft since they have a history of working together.
“As far as picking Microsoft, Ford and Microsoft have been collaborating for a long time,” he noted. “And Azure is a good platform for managing digital assets on a network. Here, it’s really two things — the Azure fabric, which is a software services platform, and the Azure service, which is Microsoft’s hosted version of the platform. Both make sense here.”
Hybrid Infrastructure Automation with #Azure Resource Manager Templates
If you've ever had to set up a test or production environment for something like SharePoint, you know there are several pieces to set up - like Active Directory, SQL for your backend data, and then your SharePoint servers. While it's possible to automate this with advanced scripting or level 400 task sequencer skills, imagine just choosing a template or manifest file and clicking go to spin up a dozen or so VMs all wired together and talking to each other. That is effectively what Azure Resource Manager templates do and what Corey Sanders lead engineer for Azure compute, demonstrates on the show. He also steps back to illustrate how they work as a unified resource automation model for both Microsoft Azure Cloud resources and on premises with the upcoming Azure Stack.
In many places around the world, legal systems are turning to video footage to record trials and other court proceedings for record-keeping purposes. Moreover, many judges are allowing witnesses to testify via teleconference to create a more inclusive justice system.
Take Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois, for example. The court recently allowed a man bedridden from a stroke to testify via Skype. The man was seeking the extension of a protection order against his estranged wife, but felt too weak to get out of bed.
Likewise, the Ontario Superior Court recently allowed a witness from Denmark to testify via Skype in a child custody case. “Skype is now in HD and has an internal automatic checking system,” explains Family Lawyer Phil, who persuaded the judge to allow the testimony. “You can see people in the courtroom and they can see you. This is clearly the way of the future.”
As video conferencing in the courtroom becomes mainstream, it is improving courtroom efficiency in a variety of ways. It’s expediting the issuance of search warrants. It’s speeding up arraignments, pre-trial conferences, and other court hearings. It’s allowing foreign and out-of-state witnesses to testify while avoiding the cost of travel. And it’s reducing the cost of transporting prisoners to the courtroom.
Yet as courtrooms increasingly turn to video technology to improve their proceedings, managing this new way of doing things can quickly turn into an administrative burden. Video-conferencing technology can be unreliable. Video storage can be expensive. And accessing the exact content needed can involve hundreds of hours sifting through vast amounts of video footage.
The good news is that Microsoft provides the advanced technology needed to help judicial systems overcome all these hurdles. Consider the following:
•Capturing video: Increasingly, legal systems are turning to Skype for Business for reliable, high-quality video conferencing. Skype for Business protects conversations through strong authentication and encryption features. It offers built-in compliance for strict security requirements such as the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) standard in some U.S. versions. And it can be used even in situations in which the person appearing remotely is not on Skype for Business. All that person needs is a phone or Internet connection.
•Storing video: Microsoft Azure Storage offers the durability and scalability to store large amounts of video footage at low cost. Data stored within Azure Storage is automatically replicated to guard against hardware failure. And in situations where justice systems prefer to keep their video files on-premises, Azure Storage can be used as a backup to ensure a judicial system’s video footage is always available.
•Managing video: Microsoft Azure Media Services enables legal professionals to access the exact video content they need through Azure Media Indexer, a feature that uses state-of-the-art machine learning to convert spoken language in video files into a searchable text format. Thanks to this feature, legal professionals can conduct keyword searches for specific comments that were made during the conversation and obtain the exact time those words were spoken, making it easy to find those moments in the video.
As judicial systems incorporate video technology into their courtrooms, Microsoft is leading the way, helping them to reliably capture, store, and manage all this data. To learn more about our state-of-the-art solutions for the public safety arena, please see our State & Local Government webpage.
Microsoft Azure Stack Technical Preview is now available for download
The first Technical Preview of Azure Stack is now available for download!
This Technical Preview includes these fundamental capabilities to help you deliver Azure services in your datacenter:
Developer and IT professional experiences: Azure portal experiences for application developers and service administrators
Unified application model: Azure Resource Manager
Foundational services: Compute (Virtual Machines and Virtual Machine Extensions), Networking (Virtual Network, Software Load Balancer, Distributed Firewall) and Storage (Blobs and Tables)
Core services: Subscription management (identity and quotas), role-based access control, metering and audit
Application components: Curated Azure Resource Manager templates and Azure-consistent VM extensions (such as Desired State Configuration and Docker/Linux integration) to help you jumpstart your Azure Stack efforts
RREAL strives to alleviate fuel poverty by installing solar panels on low-income family homes. To ensure they serve more people cost effectively, RREAL chose to manufacture the solar panels they install. They needed robust client management and accounting tools to manage the growing intricacies of the business. By adopting Microsoft Dynamics GP on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, RREAL has a single streamlined process, helping reduce installation time by more than 50%.
Read customer success stories to learn how Managed Solution helps businesses implement technology productivity solutions.
Did you know 25% of VMs running on Azure are Linux? Microsoft Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that adds value to the open source solutions you already know and trust. We collaborate with the open source ecosystem to support a growing number of open source applications, frameworks and languages so you can run virtually any application, for any device, in any operating system with any data source.
Cortana Analytics Gallery - a scalable community site built on Azure DocumentDB
By Andrew Hoh Program Manager, Azure DocumentDB as written on azure.microsoft.com . Co-authored with Elena Apreutesei, Principal Software Engineer, Azure Machine Learning.
The Cortana Analytics Gallery is a community driven website used to discover, share, and learn about solutions built from the Cortana Analytics Suite. The Gallery hosts a wide range of solutions; everything from a Retail Forecasting experiment to the ever popular Face APIs used in the How old do I look? app. Machine Learning enthusiasts can share their own experiments using the Azure Machine Learning Studio, a private space focused on Machine Learning experimentation and model creation.
The Cortana Analytics Gallery follows a micro service architecture with single purpose components working together to deliver reliable and durable functionality. This post focuses on the Gallery Catalog API, which is used as the data master within the Gallery user experience.
Gallery Catalog API
Every Gallery entity has a JSON metadata document stored in Azure DocumentDB and all CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations are against DocumentDB. As a micro service, the Gallery Catalog API provides REST APIs and supports OData; both of which were built through the ASP.NET library WebApi. Generally, the Catalog API pushes the query filters provided through ODATA directly down to the DocumentDB LINQ provider as an ExpressionTree, where it gets executed at the database.
The Gallery Catalog service exposes GET / POST / PATCH / DELETE operations on standard WebAPI routes, such as the generic route /entities/{entityId} and the specialized routes /experiments/{entityId}, /collections/{entityId}, /tutorials/{entityId}, etc.
The JSON objects in the REST API payload are simply the serialized form of the Catalog entity data contracts, derived from a common class EntityBase which provides the flexibility to store other entities.
