Monday, at an event in San Francisco, Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya
Nadella outlined how Microsoft is using Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and
Microsoft Dynamics to deliver the industry’s most complete cloud — for
every business, every industry and every geography. Furthering this
commitment, Microsoft announced several enhancements to its hyper-scale,
enterprise-grade, hybrid cloud platform, including the new Azure
G-series of virtual machines and Premium Storage; the general
availability of the Microsoft Cloud Platform System, powered by Dell;
partnerships with Cloudera Inc. and CoreOS; and a new Azure Marketplace.
“The enterprises of today and tomorrow demand a cloud platform that
is reliable, scalable and flexible,” Nadella said. “With more than 80
percent of the Fortune 500 on the Microsoft cloud, we are delivering the
industry’s most complete cloud — for every business, every industry and
every geography.”
A hyper-scale, enterprise-grade and hybrid cloud infrastructure
Worldwide demand for cloud computing continues to accelerate, and
Microsoft is investing to meet this demand. Monday the company announced
the latest milestone in the global expansion of Azure, with general
availability of Azure in the Australia region next week. By the end of
2014, Microsoft Azure will be operational in 19 regions around the world
— at least double the number of any other public cloud provider.
Microsoft also announced the G-series of virtual machines and premium
storage for Microsoft Azure. Powered by the latest Intel Xeon
processors, the G-series will be the largest virtual machines available
in the public cloud to date, while Azure Premium Storage will provide
incredible performance per virtual machine. Together they will deliver
the enterprise-grade scale and performance that enterprises and
developers need to run the most demanding workloads in the cloud.
As enterprises accelerate their adoption of cloud computing, the
demand for security enhanced, scalable and reliable hybrid cloud
solutions is on the rise. The Microsoft Cloud Platform System (CPS),
powered by Dell, brings together Azure, Windows Server and Microsoft
System Center to deliver an “Azure-consistent cloud in a box.” With
pre-integrated hardware from Dell and software from Microsoft, CPS
delivers learnings from Azure to customers and partners with the control
of an on-premises appliance. CPS will be available for purchase on Nov.
3.
Enterprise + startups and ISVs = accelerated cloud adoption and innovation
With more than 40 percent of Azure revenue coming from startups and
ISVs, the new Azure Marketplace will connect this important ecosystem
with enterprise customers everywhere. Now Azure customers will be able
to search for and deploy their favorite operating system, service or
application with just a couple of clicks. Monday, two new partners join Docker Inc., Oracle and hundreds of others in the Azure Marketplace:
- Cloudera, a leader in enterprise analytics and data management,
will be Azure certified by the end of 2014. This will provide a quick
and easy way to deploy Cloudera Enterprise, connect to Microsoft Power
BI and discover new insights, in minutes.
- CoreOS, the popular container-based Linux operating system, is now
available to all Azure customers. Customers can deploy CoreOS images
directly from the Azure Marketplace starting Monday. This broadens
Microsoft’s first-class support for Linux on Azure.
“Our ecosystem is the backbone of our cloud platform, and our embrace
of open source technologies is at the heart,” said Scott Guthrie,
executive vice president of Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft. “By
helping to create an open platform powered by choice and flexibility, we
are enabling the enterprises and developers of today and tomorrow to
connect with each other and create new business opportunities in the
mobile-first, cloud-first world.”