Monat: Februar 2022

The intersection of edge computing, telecommunications networks, and the cloud

It’s been 12-plus years since we embarked on the paradigm-shifting edge computing story, which brings the cloud closer to the source of data generation and consumption. Nowadays, the cloud provides resource-rich compute and storage capabilities, remote management, and new applications and services as latency continues to be reduced. Edge computing has gone mainstream, as evidenced by numerous conferences and workshops; thousands of research papers, mainstream media articles, Ph.D. theses; and many products, including those from Microsoft.

Years ago, an article we wrote stated that the killer application for edge computing was video analytics. The article, as published by IEEE, envisioned cameras and video located everywhere, increased ability to understand these video streams, and improved ability to react appropriately, stemming from real-time video analysis at the edge. Microsoft continues to believe that edge video analytics will be the dominant service for edge computing, just as we noted many years ago. Since then, we have evolved to an edge fabric, enabling ubiquitous computing. Here, the computing fabric is all around us in many different settings—working for us, improving efficiency, protecting us from problems, and entertaining us.

In this article, we focus on what’s next, including the topic of edge computing for telecommunications, which has been evolving into the next wave of innovation, and one we must embrace. Microsoft believes the telecom edge is the catalyst creating a new world where the telecom and cloud industries join forces to eliminate duplication while creating a new era of latency-sensitive applications and services.

Enabling private 5G Networks with Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC)

A private 5G network is a local-area mobile network; technically, it is the same as a public wide-area 5G network. This next-generation network enables advanced use cases not supported by current mainstream Wi-Fi technologies. For example, private 5G networks can unify connectivity and support a variety of enterprise-specific secure IoT services and applications.

In June 2021, Microsoft unveiled a new product category for the telecom industry when we announced our Azure private multi-access edge compute (Azure PMEC) managed solution. Azure private MEC is a solution for modernizing enterprise networks, comprised of Azure Stack Edge, Azure Network Function Manager, first and third-party network functions, and manageability via Azure Arc. With it, carriers and ecosystem partners can easily and rapidly deploy and manage network functions like 5G mobile cores, radio access networking (RAN) solutions, and Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) products directly from Azure Marketplace. Our open platform solution empowers operators and system integrators (SIs) to unlock the private 5G opportunity by delivering managed, curated solutions to enterprises with the flexibility of first and third-party offerings, including their choice of RAN and latency-sensitive applications.

Many of us in the IT and telecom industries accept edge computing as a game-changing architectural innovation, reducing the time needed to process the packet after it is generated at the source. All edge computing products that exist today provide this, but Azure private MEC enables even more. With the emergence of novel software-only 5G implementations, edge computing is evolving to become an exciting part of the packet creation infrastructure.

Conflation of Virtual Radio Access Networks and edge computing

The figure below illustrates the shift away from specialized, monolithic network infrastructure to programmable, virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) elements. Virtualized RAN offers a cost-efficient solution for running the 5G RAN as a virtualized network function (VNF) on commodity hardware. To implement vRAN, telcos need a low-latency connection between their signal acquisition and computing hardware, necessitating edge computing to make vRAN possible.

It is possible to implement vRAN over a hierarchy of edge installations. In 3GPP RAN parlance, the distributed units (DU) that implement the near-real-time functionality of the RAN, which include physical layer processing (often referred to as L1) and medium access control (often referred to as L2/L3), are implemented at the “Far Edge.” The rest of the RAN stack, along with the network core, is implemented at the “Near Edge.” We have been working on providing this edge infrastructure to operators as part of Microsoft’s core offering.

Figure 1: RAN architectural evolution and innovations in 5G networks.

Despite this evolution in 5G networks, there is still more to do. When implementing RAN functionality at the Far and Near Edges, one has to decide how many server cores are needed to support a given number of cell sites. This type of problem is easy to solve. Microsoft computer scientists are able to determine the number of cores needed to serve the client device, and have further invented and developed algorithms and techniques to allow scaling, energy management, fault tolerance, and feature deployment in running systems. Note that server cores can be provisioned to both assist with packet generation and running applications and services.

In ACM SIGCOMM 2021, we published a paper entitled, Concordia: Teaching the 5G vRAN to Share Compute. As noted in this publication, one reason why vRAN is more efficient than traditional RANs is because it multiplexes several base station workloads on the same computer hardware. Although this multiplexing provides efficiency gains, more than 50 percent of the CPU cycles in typical vRAN settings still remain unused.

Here, co-locating the vRAN functionality with general-purpose workloads not only improves CPU utilization, but it also allows us to service low-latency applications on the same hardware. This is important since vRAN tasks have sub-millisecond latency requirements that have to be met 99.999 percent of the time—difficult to accomplish with existing systems.

Microsoft has also built a user space deadline scheduling framework for the vRAN. Our system includes prediction models using quantile decision trees to outline worst-case execution times of vRAN signal processing tasks. Running every 20 microseconds, the ultra-fast scheduler delivers accurate prediction models, enabling the system to reserve a minimum number of cores required for vRAN tasks while leaving the rest for general-purpose workloads. Evaluated on a commercial-grade reference vRAN platform, our design meets the 99.999 percent reliability requirements and reclaims more than 70 percent of idle CPU cycles without affecting RAN performance.

Looking ahead

Edge computing was created jointly by Microsoft and our academic colleagues. Edge computing products have evolved, as we fine-tune solutions to new sets of problems we are solving. Beyond implementing 5G infrastructure on commodity hardware, our software takes advantage of the latest discoveries we’ve made in applying machine learning techniques to improve the performance of our edge nodes. We continue to work closely with our academic colleagues, and serve on the advisory board of two National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Edge AI research centers (The Institute for Future Edge Networks and Distributed Intelligence and The Institute for Edge Computing Leveraging Next Generation Networks). Both research institutes focus on developing AI technologies as part of edge computing that leverages next-generation communications networks to provide previously impossible services.

The future is bright because we are on the right track with Azure private MEC. The architecture we are developing and the products we are delivering will make edge computing indispensable, as every packet in the mobile network will be processed by an edge node, leading to a large ubiquitous processing fabric, the likes of which we have never enjoyed before.

Learn more

To learn more about our Azure for Operators strategy, refer to the Azure for Operators e-book.
Quelle: Azure

Azure Cost Management and Billing updates – January 2022

Whether you're a new student, a thriving startup, or the largest enterprise, you have financial constraints, and you need to know what you're spending, where you're spending it, and how to plan for the future. Nobody wants a surprise when it comes to the bill, and this is where Azure Cost Management and Billing comes in.

We're always looking for ways to learn more about your challenges and how Azure Cost Management and Billing can help you better understand where you're accruing costs in the cloud, identify and prevent bad spending patterns, and optimize costs to empower you to do more with less. Here are a few of the latest improvements and updates based on your feedback:

Cost Management is now available in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.
Multitasking in the cost analysis preview.
Help shape the future of cost reporting.
What's new in Cost Management Labs.
New ways to save money with Azure.
New videos and learning opportunities.
Documentation updates.
Join the Azure Cost Management and Billing team.

Let's dig into the details.

 

Cost Management available in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center

In October, we added support for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and other seat-based offers in Cost Management. While we started with a small set of offers available via the Cloud Solution Provider program, you can expect to see new offers and support for the broader Microsoft Customer Agreement audience added over time. The next phase began its rollout in January with new offers, as well as the addition of Cost Management to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

If you have any of the new seat-based offers, you’ll find a new Billing > Cost Management menu item in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. This will give you a lightweight cost analysis experience with the ability to create budgets. This is only the beginning and there’s a lot more coming, but we’re excited to be able to give you a peek at things to come.

For those paying close attention, you may notice the similarities here with the cost analysis preview in the Azure portal. Expect to see full alignment across portals with an even broader scope of capabilities coming throughout the year. Please let us know what you’d like to see next.

 

Multitasking in the cost analysis preview

Starting a new year is always exciting. Starting a new year with an exciting usability update is even better! We’ve been testing a new tabbed experience in the cost analysis preview for a couple months. You may have seen it already. You start with a list of the built-in views and can open multiple tabs to explore different aspects of your costs simultaneously.

Here are the views available in the cost analysis preview:

Subscriptions is available for billing accounts and management groups to break costs down by subscription and resource group.
Resource groups gives you a breakdown of each resource group within your subscription, management group, or billing account, with nested resources.
Resources shows a list of all resources you have (or used to have, in the case of deleted resources). Some of you may be familiar with the Cost by resource view in classic cost analysis. Resources improves on that basic design with improved performance and a better grouping of related costs (such as Azure and Marketplace costs are grouped together in preview).
Services shows a list of the services and products you use. This view is similar to the Invoice details view in classic cost analysis. The main difference is that rows are grouped by service, making it simpler to see your total cost at a service level and also break it down by the individual products you're using within each service. This view is only available in preview but will be released to everyone soon.
Reservations provides a breakdown of your amortized reservation costs, allowing you to see which resources are consuming each reservation. This is something that isn't possible without a lot of adding and removing filters in classic cost analysis.

From the new tab, select the view you need, and you're back to the traditional preview experience you're used to. If you have a question and need to drill into some other data, simply open a new tab and go! It's that simple.

That's about it! If you're new to the cost analysis preview, here are some of the other things you'll see:

Simpler and more flexible custom date range selection with support for relative periods.
Customize the download to exclude nested details (such as resources without meters in the Resources view).
Smart insights to help you better understand your data, like subscription cost anomalies.
Quick access to help set up Power BI for your EA or MCA billing account or billing profile.
Additional troubleshooting details are available to help streamline your support experience.

There's still a lot in the backlog. Stay tuned for summarized totals, charts, filtering, and improved drill down. Let us know what you'd like to see next.

 

Help shape the future of cost reporting

Do you use Azure Cost Management and Billing to manage your cloud spending? Are you familiar with Azure cost analysis? We're exploring new and updated designs for the cost analysis tool and will be running a usability study to gather feedback on these changes to understand how they can better meet your needs and expectations.

If you or someone you know has experience with cost analysis, we would love to get your feedback. If you are interested in participating, please contact our research team.

 

What's new in Cost Management Labs

With Cost Management Labs, you get a sneak peek at what's coming in Azure Cost Management and can engage directly with us to share feedback and help us better understand how you use the service, so we can deliver more tuned and optimized experiences.

Here are a few features you can see in Cost Management Labs:

Update: Multitasking in the cost analysis preview—now available in the Azure portal

Introducing a new tabbed experience in the cost analysis preview. Start with a list of the built-in views and open multiple tabs to explore different aspects of your costs simultaneously. Let us know what you think. We're looking for explicit feedback here.

Subscription cost anomalies

Identify subscription cost anomalies with insights in the cost analysis preview. You can enable the cost anomaly preview using Try preview. If you don't see anomaly details in insights after enabling the preview, check back after 24 hours. Note that anomaly detection is only available when viewing cost for a subscription scope.

View cost for your resources

The cost for your resources is one click away from the resource overview in the preview portal. Just click View cost to quickly jump to the cost of that particular resource.

Change scope from the menu

Change scope from the menu for quicker navigation. You can opt-in using Try preview.

Of course, that's not all. Every change in Azure Cost Management is available in Cost Management Labs a week before it's in the full Azure portal. We're eager to hear your thoughts and understand what you'd like to see next. What are you waiting for? Try Cost Management Labs today.

 

New ways to save money with Azure

There have been lots of cost optimization improvements over the past couple of months! Here are seven new and updated offers you might be interested in:

Reduced price: DCsv2 and DCsv3 virtual machine pricing reduced by up to 33 percent, effective January 1, 2022.
General availability: Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server.
General availability: Microsoft Azure is available from the new cloud region in Sweden.
Preview: Stop your Azure Spring Cloud applications to reduce charges.
Preview: Windows Server guest licensing offer for Azure Stack HCI—free while in preview.
Preview: DCasv5 and ECasv5 confidential, hardware-encrypted virtual machines.
Preview: DCv3 virtual machines are now available in Europe West and Europe North.

 

New videos and learning opportunities

Here are a few videos you might be interested in:

Improve the price-performance of your apps with the latest Azure virtual machines (25 minutes).
10 things you can implement to save costs in your Azure environment (14 minutes).
Managing EA enrollments in the Azure portal (3 minutes).
Managing EA departments in the Azure portal (3 minutes).
Managing EA enrollment accounts in the Azure portal (3 minutes).
Managing EA enrollment account subscriptions in the Azure portal (2 minutes).

Follow the Azure Cost Management and Billing YouTube channel to stay in the loop with new videos as they’re released and let us know what you'd like to see next.

Want a more guided experience? Start with Control Azure spending and manage bills with Azure Cost Management and Billing.

 

Documentation updates

Here are a few documentation updates you might be interested in:

Get started with reporting.
Save and share customized views.
Simplified the cost analysis quickstart tutorial.
Added videos to the Azure portal administration for direct enterprise agreements.

Want to keep an eye on all of the documentation updates? Check out the Cost Management and Billing documentation change history in the azure-docs repository on GitHub. If you see something missing, select Edit at the top of the document and submit a quick pull request.

 

Join the Azure Cost Management and Billing team

Are you excited about helping customers and partners better manage and optimize costs? We're looking for passionate, dedicated, and exceptional people to help build best in class cloud platforms and experiences to enable exactly that. If you have experience with big data infrastructure, reliable and scalable APIs, or rich and engaging user experiences, you'll find no better challenge than serving every Microsoft customer and partner in one of the most critical areas for driving cloud success.

Join our team.

What's next?

These are just a few of the big updates from last month. Don't forget to check out the previous Azure Cost Management and Billing updates. We're always listening and making constant improvements based on your feedback, so please keep the feedback coming.

Follow @AzureCostMgmt on Twitter and subscribe to the YouTube channel for updates, tips, and tricks. You can also share ideas and vote up others in the Cost Management feedback forum or join the research panel to participate in a future study and help shape the future of Azure Cost Management and Billing.

We know these are trying times for everyone. Best wishes from the Azure Cost Management and Billing team. Stay safe and stay healthy.
Quelle: Azure

Improve your security defenses for ransomware attacks with Azure Firewall

To ensure customers running on Azure are protected against ransomware attacks, Microsoft has invested heavily in Azure security and has provided customers with the security controls needed to protect their Azure cloud workloads.

A comprehensive overview of best practices and recommendations can be found in the "Azure Defenses for Ransomware Attack" e-book.

Here, we would like to zoom into network security and understand how Azure Firewall can assist you with protecting against ransomware.

Ransomware is basically a type of malicious software designed to block access to your computer system until a sum of money is paid. The attacker usually exploits an existing vulnerability in your system to penetrate your network and execute the malicious software on the target host.

Ransomware is often spread through phishing emails that contain malicious attachments or through drive-by downloading. Drive-by downloading occurs when a user unknowingly visits an infected website and then malware is downloaded and installed without the user’s knowledge.

Here Azure Firewall Premium comes into help. With its intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) capability, every packet will be inspected thoroughly, including all its headers and payload to identify malicious activity and to prevent it from penetrating your network. IDPS allows you to monitor your network for malicious activity, log information about this activity, report it, and optionally attempt to block it.

The IDPS signatures are applicable for both application and network-level traffic (Layers 4-7), they are fully managed and contain more than 65,000 signatures in over 50 different categories to keep them up to date with the dynamic ever-changing attack landscape:

Azure Firewall is getting early access to vulnerability information from Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) and Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).
Azure Firewall is releasing 30 to 50 new signatures each day.

Nowadays, modern encryption, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS), is used globally to secure internet traffic. Attackers are using encryption to carry their malicious software into the victim network. Therefore, customers must inspect their encrypted traffic just like any other traffic.

Azure Firewall Premium IDPS allows you to detect attacks in all ports and protocols for non-encrypted traffic. However, when HTTPS traffic needs to be inspected, Azure Firewall can use its TLS inspection capability to decrypt the traffic and accurately detect malicious activities.

After the ransomware is installed on the target machine, it may try to encrypt the machine’s data, therefore it requires using an encryption key and may use the Command and Control (C&C) to get the encryption key from the C&C server hosted by the attacker. CryptoLocker, WannaCry, TeslaCrypt, Cerber, and Locky are some of the ransomware using C&C to fetch the required encryption keys.

Azure Firewall Premium has hundreds of signatures that are designed to detect C&C connectivity and block it to prevent the attacker from encrypting customers’ data.

Figure 1: Firewall protection against ransomware attack using command and control channel

Taking a comprehensive approach to fend off ransomware attacks

Taking a holistic approach to fend off ransomware attacks is recommended. Azure Firewall operates in a default deny mode and will block access unless explicitly allowed by the administrator. Enabling Threat Intelligence (TI) feature in alert/deny mode will block access to known malicious IPs and domains. Microsoft Threat Intel feed is updated continuously based on new and emerging threats.

Firewall policy can be used for the centralized configuration of firewalls. This helps with responding to threats rapidly. Customers can enable Threat Intel and IDPS across multiple firewalls with just a few clicks. Web categories let administrators allow or deny user access to web categories such as gambling websites, social media websites, and others. URL filtering provides scoped access to external sites and can cut down risk even further. In other words, Azure Firewall has everything necessary for companies to defend comprehensively against malware and ransomware.

Detection is equally important as prevention. Azure Firewall solution for Microsoft Sentinel gets you both detection and prevention in the form of an easy-to-deploy solution. Combining prevention and detection allows you to ensure that you both prevent sophisticated threats when you can, while also maintaining an “assume breach mentality” to detect and quickly respond to cyberattacks.

Learn more about Azure Firewall Premium and ransomware protection

Learn more about Azure Firewall Premium features from Microsoft documentation.
Download our e-book, "Azure Defenses for Ransomware Attack."
Read more about how to optimize security with Azure Firewall solution for Microsoft Sentinel.

Quelle: Azure