So another great Ignite Conference has just ended and there have been lots of announcements. Hard to keep up with them all, but here is a summary of the key Hybrid Cloud related announcements that I spotted:

• Azure Compute new offerings :
  • L-series (storage optimised), and H-series (compute intensive / fast). These expand upon the recently released N-series offering best-in-class GPU compute VMs https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/h-series-instances-for-azure-virtual-machines-now-available/
  • General availability of special-purpose large instances for SAP HANA. They accommodate SAP HANA OLTP scenarios for up to 3 TB, and for large scale-out OLAP deployments for up to 32 TB of RAM.
• Azure Networking new capabilities: https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/azure-networking-announcements-for-ignite-2016/
  • Accelerated Networking for VM’s – up to 25Gbps of throughput
  • VNet peering
  • IPV6 support
  • Active-Active VPN Gateway for Higher Availability
  • Azure DNS GA announced
  • Application Gateway – Web Application Firewall and End-to-End SSL
  • Improved Network Monitoring
• Compliance portfolio expansion :
  • ISO 22301 Certification : https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/iso22301/
  • EU-US Privacy Shield Framework : https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-cloud-is-first-csp-behind-the-privacy-shield/
  • IT-Grundschutz Workbook https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-publishes-compliance-guidelines-for-the-german-cloud/
• Windows Server 2016
  • GA announced : https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2016/09/26/announcing-the-launch-of-windows-server-2016/
  • Multi-layer security capabilities for other virtualisation platforms: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsserver/2016/09/29/enabling-windows-server-2016-and-hyper-v-virtualization-based-security-features-on-other-platforms/
  • Commercially Supported Docker Engine no additional cost : https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2016/09/26/microsoft-and-docker-offer-supported-docker-engine-to-windows-server-2016-customers/
• System Center 2016 : https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2016/09/26/announcing-the-launch-of-system-center-2016-and-new-services-for-operations-management-suite/
  • GA announced
  • New licenses model for Operations Management Suite (OMS)
  • New OMS solutions
  • Application Insights Connector for OMS Log Analytics https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/omssolutionforappinsightspublicpreview/
• Service Fabric Announcements
  • GA on Windows – https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/azure-service-fabric-for-windows-server-now-ga/
  • Available on Linux – https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/service-fabric-on-linux-support-available-this-month/
• Azure Stack
  • Tech Preview v2 made available: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/hybridcloud/2016/09/26/new-ideas-new-solutions-new-technical-preview-of-azure-stack/
• Azure Monitor
  • Public preview : https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/announcing-the-public-preview-of-azure-monitor/
• Azure Security Center
  • New preview features : https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/strengthen-your-cloud-security-posture-with-new-capabilities-from-azure-security-center/
• Azure Key Vault
  • Support for certificates – https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/azure-key-vault-certificates-helps-simplify-and-automate-tasks-for-ssl-tls-certificates/
• Data encryption
  • Storage Service Encryption for Azure Storage https://azure.microsoft.com/updates/generally-available-storage-service-encryption-for-azure-storage/
  • Azure Disk encryption GA for Windows and Linux for Standard & Premium IaaS virtual machine disks : https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/azuresecurity/2016/09/26/azure-disk-encryption-for-linux-vms-and-vms-with-premium-storage-reaches-general-availability/

And a date for the diary – Ignite 2017 will be September 25–29 in Orlando,

Mark Harrison [Microsoft]