Kategorie: Microsoft Azure

Azure and Informatica team up to remove barriers for cloud analytics migration

Today, we are announcing the most comprehensive and compelling migration offer available in the industry to help customers simplify their cloud analytics journey.

This collaboration between Microsoft and Informatica provides customers an accelerated path for their digital transformation. As customers modernize their analytics systems, it enables them to truly begin integrating emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, into their business. Without migrating analytics workloads to the cloud, it becomes difficult for customers to maximize the potential their data holds.

For customers that have been tuning analytics appliances for years, such as Teradata and Netezza, it can seem overwhelming to start the journey towards the cloud. Customers have invested valuable time, skills, and personnel to achieve optimal performance from their analytics systems, which contain the most sensitive and valuable data for their business. We understand that the idea of migrating these systems to the cloud can seem risky and daunting. This is why we are partnering with Informatica to help customers begin their cloud analytics journey today with an industry-leading offer.

Free evaluation

With this offering, customers can now work with Azure and Informatica to easily understand their current data estate, determine what data is connected to their current data warehouse, and replicate tables without moving any data in order to conduct a robust proof of value.

This enables customers to get an end-to-end view of their data, execute a proof of value without disrupting their existing systems, and quickly see the possibilities of moving to Azure.

Free code conversion

A critical aspect of migrating on-premises appliances to the cloud is converting existing schemas to take advantage of cloud innovation. This conversion can quickly become expensive even in proof of values.

With this joint offering from Azure and Informatica, customers receive free code conversion for both the proof of value phase and when fully migrating to the cloud, as well as a SQL Data Warehouse subscription for the duration of the proof of value (up to 30 days).

Hands-on approach

Both Azure and Informatica are dedicating the personnel and resources to have analytics experts on-site helping customers as they begin migrating to Azure.

Customers that qualify for this offering will have full support from Azure SQL Data Warehouse experts. They will help with the initial assessment, executing the proof of value, and provide best practice guidance during migration.

Everything you need to start your cloud analytics journey

Get started today

Analytics in Azure is up to 14 times faster and costs 94 percent less than other cloud providers, and is the leader in both the TPC-H and TPC-DS industry benchmarks. Now with this joint offer, customers can easily get started on their cloud analytics journey.

Register for the Azure and Informatica webinar to learn more about this offer.
Sign up for a free Informatica: Cloud Data Warehouse Modernization on Azure workshop.

Quelle: Azure

We’re making Azure Archive Storage better with new lower pricing

As part of our commitment to provide the most cost-effective storage offering, we’re excited to share that we have dropped Azure Archive Storage prices by up to 50 percent in some regions. The new pricing is effective immediately.

In 2017 we launched Azure Archive Storage to provide cloud storage for rarely accessed data with flexible latency requirements at an industry leading price point. Since then we’ve seen both small and large customers from all industries utilize Archive Storage to significantly reduce their storage bill, improve data durability, and meet legal compliance. Forrester Consulting interviewed four of these customers and conducted a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study to evaluate the value customers achieved by moving both on-premises and existing data in the cloud to Archive Storage. Below are some of the highlights from that study.

112 percent return-on-investment (ROI). Forrester’s interviews with four existing customers and subsequent financial analysis found that a composite organization based on these interviewed organizations projects expected benefits of $296,941 over projected three years versus costs of $140,376, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $156,565 and an ROI of 112 percent.
Reduced or eliminated more than $173 thousand in operational and hardware expenses over a three-year period. Organizations were able to reduce spending in their on-premises storage environments by transitioning data to the cloud. Moving to the cloud enabled users to eliminate their tape and hard disk backups, while also reducing overall operating expenditures.
Reduced monthly cloud storage costs by 95 percent. Organizations identified infrequently accessed data stored in active cloud storage tiers and transitioned them to the Archive tier, reducing their monthly per gigabyte (GB) storage costs by 95 percent. The Archive tier allowed organizations to augment their existing cloud storage savings. Over a three-year period, this saves an estimated $123,692.

How are customers using Archive Storage?

Toshiba America Business Solutions (TABS) sells digital signage and multifunction printers (MFPs), along with a complete set of maintenance and management services to help customers optimize their digital and paper communications. TABS created two Internet of Things (IoT) analytics solutions, e-BRIDGE™ CloudConnect and CloudConnect Data Services that are based on Microsoft Azure platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings, including Azure SQL Data Warehouse. Using e-BRIDGE, TABS remotely gathers device health data from thousands of installed devices and preemptively dispatches service technicians with the correct parts to perform repairs. With CloudConnect Data Services, TABS analyzes device health and repair history data to continuously improve product design and component choices. These solutions have helped the company improve device uptime and reduce service costs.

The daily configuration updates from printer devices were being stored in hot Blob Storage for four years even though they were rarely accessed. With Archive Blob Storage, Toshiba now moves these files to Archive Storage after 30 days once the probability of them being accessed goes down significantly. At this point, they also don’t need the files immediately available and can wait hours to get the files back. Archive Storage has allowed Toshiba to reduce their storage costs for this data by almost 90 percent.

Oceaneering uses remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to capture video of operations and inspection work. The increase in overall video quality over the last few years has predicated the use of more efficient storage capabilities provided by the Azure platform. The satellite links provided onboard the vessels provide limited bandwidth to stream the video, so the traditional transport of media such as Data Box sometimes requires manual transport. The large amount of data per inspection, 2 TB a day in some instances, is maintained on Azure Storage. For the larger library of historical video, Azure Archive Storage is used to provide the most cost-effective solution for our customers who access the video via the Oceaneering Media Vault (OMV). Oceaneering has experienced 60 percent savings utilizing Azure Archive capabilities.

Regional availability

Archive Storage is currently available in a total of 29 regions worldwide, and we’re continuing to expand that list. Over the past year we have added support for Archive Storage in Australia East, Australia Southeast, East Asia, Southeast Asia, UK West, UK South, Japan East, Japan West, Canada Central, Canada East, US Gov Virginia, US Gov Texas, US Gov Arizona, China East 2, and China North 2.

Additional information

Azure Archive Storage provides an extremely cost-effective alternative to on-premises storage for cold data as highlighted in the Forrester TEI study. Customers can significantly reduce operational and hardware expenses to realize an ROI of up to 112 percent over three years by moving their data to the Archive tier.

Archive exists alongside the Hot and Cool access tiers. All archive operations are consistent with the other tiers so you can seamlessly move your data among tiers programmatically or using lifecycle management policies. Archive is supported by a broad and diverse set of storage partners.

For more information on Archive Storage features and capabilities, please visit our product page. For more information on Archive Storage pricing, please visit the Azure Block Blob Pricing page. If you have any further questions or feedback, please reach out to us at archivefeedback@microsoft.com.
Quelle: Azure

Improved developer experience for Azure Blockchain development kit

As digital transformation expands beyond the walls of one company and into processes shared across organizations, businesses are looking to blockchain as a way to share workflow data and logic.

This spring we introduced Azure Blockchain Service, a fully-managed blockchain service that simplifies the formation, management, and governance of consortium blockchain networks. With a few simple clicks, users can create and deploy a permissioned blockchain network and manage consortium membership using an intuitive interface in the Azure portal.

To help developers building applications on the service, we also introduced our Azure Blockchain development kit for Ethereum. Delivered via Visual Studio Code, the dev kit runs on all major operating systems, and brings together the best of Microsoft and open source blockchain tooling, including deep integration with leading OSS tools from Truffle. These integrations enable developers to create, compile, test, and manage smart contract code before deploying it to a managed network in Azure.

We’re constantly looking and listening to feedback for areas where we can lean in and help developers go further, faster. This week for TruffleCon, we’re releasing some exciting new features that make it easier than ever to build blockchain applications:

Interactive debugger: Debugging of Ethereum smart contracts, has been so far, a challenging effort. While there are some great command line tools (e.g., Truffle Debugger), these tools aren’t integrated into integrated development environments (IDE) like Visual Studio Code. Native integration of the Truffle Debugger into Visual Studio Code brings all the standard debugging features developers have come to rely on (e.g, breakpoints, step in/over/out, call stacks, watch windows, and Intellisense pop ups) that let developers quickly identify, debug, and resolve issues.
Auto-generated prototype UI: The dev kit now generates a UI that is rendered and activated inside of Visual Studio Code. This allows developers to interact with their deployed contracts, directly in the IDE environment without having to build other UI or custom software simply to test out basic functionality of their contracts. Having a simple, graphical user interface (GUI) driven interface that allows developers to interact and test out basic functionality of their contracts inside the IDE, without writing code, is a huge improvement in productivity.

With the addition of these new debugger capabilities, we are bringing all the major components of software development, including build, debug, test, and deploy, for Smart Contracts into the popular Visual Studio Code developer environment.

If you’re in Redmond, Washington this weekend, August 2-4, 2019, come by TruffleCon to meet the team or head to the Visual Studio Marketplace to try these new features today!
Quelle: Azure

Introducing Azure Dedicated Host

We are excited to announce the preview of Azure Dedicated Host, a new Azure service that enables you to run your organization’s Linux and Windows virtual machines on single-tenant physical servers. Azure Dedicated Hosts provide you with visibility and control to help address corporate compliance and regulatory requirements. We are extending Azure Hybrid Benefit to Azure Dedicated Hosts, so you can save money by using on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses. Azure Dedicated Host is in preview in most Azure regions starting today.

You can use the Azure portal to create an Azure Dedicated Host, host groups (a collection of hosts), and to assign Azure Virtual Machines to hosts during the virtual machine (VM) creation process. 

Visibility and control

Azure Dedicated Hosts can help address compliance requirements organizations may have in terms of physical security, data integrity, and monitoring. This is accomplished by giving you the ability to place Azure VMs on a specific and dedicated physical server. This offering also meets the needs of IT organizations seeking host-level isolation.

Azure Dedicated Hosts provide visibility over the server infrastructure running your Azure Virtual Machines. They allow you to gain further control over:

The underlying hardware infrastructure (host type)
Processor brand, capabilities, and more 
Number of cores
Type and size of the Azure Virtual Machines you want to deploy

You can mix and match different Azure Virtual Machine sizes within the same virtual machine series on a given host.

With an Azure Dedicated Host, you can control all host-level platform maintenance initiated by Azure (e.g., host OS updates). An Azure Dedicated Host gives you the option to defer host maintenance operations and apply them within a defined maintenance window, 35 days. During this self-maintenance window, you can apply maintenance to your hosts at your convenience, thus gaining full control over the sequence and velocity of the maintenance process.

Licensing cost savings

We now offer Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server and SQL Server on Azure Dedicated Hosts, making it the most cost-effective dedicated cloud service for Microsoft workloads.

Azure Hybrid Benefit allows you to use existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance, or qualifying subscription licenses, to pay a reduced rate on Azure services. Learn more by referring to the Azure Hybrid Benefit FAQ.
We are also expanding Azure Hybrid Benefit so you can take advantage of unlimited virtualization for Windows Server and SQL Server with Azure Dedicated Hosts. Customers with Windows Server Datacenter licenses and Software Assurance can use unlimited virtualization rights in Azure Dedicated Hosts. In other words, you can deploy as many Windows Server virtual machines as you like on the host, subject only to the physical capacity of the underlying server. Similarly, customers with SQL Server Enterprise Edition licenses and Software Assurance can use unlimited virtualization rights for SQL Server on their Azure Dedicated Hosts.
Consistent with other Azure services, customers will get free Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2008/R2 and SQL Server 2008/R2 on Azure Dedicated Host. Learn more about how to prepare for SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 end of support.

Azure Dedicated Hosts allow you to use other existing software licenses, such as SUSE or RedHat Linux. Check with your vendors for detailed license terms.

With the introduction of Azure Dedicated Hosts, we’re updating the outsourcing terms for Microsoft on-premises licenses to clarify the distinction between on-premises/traditional outsourcing and cloud services. For more details about these changes, read the blog “Updated Microsoft licensing terms for dedicated hosted cloud services.” If you have any additional questions, please reach out to your Microsoft account team or partner.

Getting started

The preview is available now. Get started with your first Azure Dedicated Host.

You can deploy Azure Dedicated Hosts with an ARM template or using CLI, PowerShell, and the Azure portal. For a more detailed overview, please refer to our website and the documentation for both Windows and Linux.

Frequently asked questions

Q: Which Azure Virtual Machines can I run on Azure Dedicated Host?

A: During the preview period you will be able to deploy Dsv3 and Esv3 Azure Virtual Machine series. Support for Fsv2 virtual machines is coming soon. Any virtual machine size from a given virtual machine series can be deployed on an Azure Dedicated Host instance, subject to the physical capacity of the host. For additional information please refer to the documentation.

Q: Which Azure Disk Storage solutions are available to Azure Virtual Machines running on an Azure Dedicated Host?

A: Azure Standard HDDs, Standard SSDs, and Premium SSDs are all supported during the preview program. Learn more about Azure Disk Storage.

Q: Where can I find pricing and more details about the new Azure Dedicated Host service?

A: You can find more details about the new Azure Dedicated Host service on our pricing page.

Q: Can I use Azure Hybrid Benefit for Windows Server/SQL Server licenses with my Azure Dedicated Host?

A: Yes, you can lower your costs by taking advantage of Azure Hybrid Benefit for your existing Windows Server and SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licenses. With Windows Server Datacenter and SQL Server Enterprise Editions, you get unlimited virtualization when you license the entire host and use Azure Hybrid Benefit. As a result, you can deploy as many Windows Server virtual machines as you like on the host, subject to the physical capacity of the underlying server. All Windows Server and SQL Server workloads in Azure Dedicated Hosts are also eligible for free Extended Security Updates for Windows Server and SQL Server 2008/R2.

Q: Can I use my Windows Server/SQL Server licenses with dedicated cloud services?

A: In order to make software licenses consistent across multitenant and dedicated cloud services, we are updating licensing terms for Windows Server, SQL Server, and other Microsoft software products for dedicated cloud services. Beginning October 1, 2019, new licenses purchased without Software Assurance and mobility rights cannot be used in dedicated hosting environments in Azure and certain other cloud service providers. This is consistent with our policy for multitenant hosting environments. However, SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance can continue to use their licenses on dedicated hosts with any cloud service provider via License Mobility, even if licenses were purchased after October 1, 2019. Customers may use on-premises licenses purchased before October 1, 2019 on dedicated cloud services. For more details regarding licensing, please read the blog “Updated Microsoft licensing terms for dedicated hosted cloud services.”

For additional information, please refer to the Azure Dedicated Host website and the Azure Hybrid Benefit page.
Quelle: Azure

Moving your VMware resources to Azure is easier than ever

Back in April we announced the Azure VMware Solution to deliver a comprehensive VMware environment allowing you to run native VMware-based workloads on Azure. It’s a fully managed platform as a service (PaaS) that includes vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, NSX-T, and corresponding tools.

The VMware environment runs natively on Azure’s bare metal infrastructure, so there’s no nested virtualization and you can continue using your existing VMware tools. There’s no need to worry about operating, scaling, or patching the VMware physical infrastructure or re-platforming your virtual machines. The other benefit of this solution is that you can stretch your on-premises subnets into Azure. It’s like connecting another location to your VMware environment, only that location happens to be in Azure.

We’ve recently published a new episode of Microsoft Mechanics featuring Markus Hain, Senior Program Manager from the Azure engineering team. In this episode, Markus walks through the experience of coming from an on-premises VMware vSphere environment, provisioning an Azure VMware Solution private cloud, getting both environments to communicate, and what you can do once the service is up and running.

Beyond building out and configuring the environment, Markus explains how the hybrid networking works to connect VMware sites and how the service translates bidirectional traffic between virtual networks used in Azure with virtual LANs (VLANs) used in VMware.

Once the services are running, it’s easy to vMotion as you normally would between VMware sites. We show a simple vMotion migration to move virtual machine workloads into Azure. As your VMware workloads start to run in Azure you can take advantage of integrating Azure services seamlessly to existing VMware workloads. For example, your developers can create new VMware virtual machines inside the Azure portal leveraging the same VMware templates from the on-premises environment, and ultimately running those virtual machines in your VMware private cloud in Azure.

Virtual machines created in the Azure portal will be visible, accessible, and run in the VMware vSphere environment. You have the flexibility to manage those resources as you normally would in vSphere, Azure, or both. The environments are deeply integrated at the API level to ensure that what you see in either experience is synchronized. This enables hybrid management, as well as allowing your developers to manage both Azure and VMware resources using a single Azure Resource Manager template.

What’s more, you can monitor those virtual machines like you would Azure infrastructure as a service (IaaS) virtual machines and connect them to the broad set of resources across data, compute, networking, storage, and more. In fact, Markus shows how you can configure an application gateway running in Azure to load balance inbound traffic to your virtual machines running in the Azure VMware Solution. Since this is a truly hybrid and deeply integrated set of services, there’s really no limit to how you architect your apps and solutions, and like a native cloud service, you can benefit from the elasticity of the number of VMware nodes you’ll need to match seasonal or otherwise variable demand.

Right now, the Azure VMware Solution by CloudSimple is available in East US and West US regions. Western Europe is coming next, and we’ll add more regions over the coming months. To get started, just search for “vmware” while signed into the Azure portal and provision the service, nodes, and virtual machines. You’ll then be on your way to running your own private cloud in Azure!

For more information, check out our Azure VMware Solution site.

Quelle: Azure

Azure Cost Management updates – July 2019

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

We're always looking for ways to learn more about your challenges and how Azure Cost Management 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:

Azure Cost Management for partners
Marketplace usage for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) subscriptions
Cost Management Labs
Save and share customized views directly in cost analysis
Viewing costs in different currencies
Manage EA accounts from the Azure portal
Expanded availability of resource tags in cost reporting
Tag your resources with up to 50 tags
Documentation updates

Let's dig into the details.

 

Azure Cost Management for partners

Partners play a critical role in successful planning, implementation, and long-term cloud operations for organizations, big and small. Whether you're a partner who sells to or manages Azure on behalf of another organization or you're working with a partner to help keep you focused on your core mission instead of managing infrastructure, you need a way to understand, control, and optimize your cloud costs. This is where Azure Cost Management comes in!

In June, we announced new capabilities in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program coming in October 2019. With this update, CSP partners can onboard customers using the same Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) platform used across Azure. CSP partners and customers will see product alignment, which includes common Azure Cost Management tools, available at the same time they're available for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and enterprise customers.

Azure Cost Management capabilities optimized for partners and their customers will be released over time, starting with the ability to enable Azure Cost Management for MCA customers. You'll see periodic updates throughout Q4 2019 and 2020, including support for customers who do not transition to MCA. Once enabled, partners and customers will have the full benefits of Azure Cost Management.

If you're a managed service provider, be sure to check out Azure Lighthouse, which enables partners to more efficiently manage resources at scale across customers and directories. Help your customers manage their Azure and AWS costs in a single place with Azure Cost Management!

Stay tuned for more updates in October 2019. We're eager to bring much-anticipated Azure Cost Management capabilities to partners and their customers!

 

Marketplace usage for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) subscriptions

Last month, we talked about how effective cost management starts by getting all your costs into a single place with a single taxonomy. Now, with the addition of Azure Marketplace usage for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) subscriptions, you have a more complete picture of your costs.

Azure and Marketplace charges have different billing cycles. To investigate and reconcile billed charges, select the appropriate Azure or Marketplace invoice period in date picker. To view all charges together, select calendar months and group by publisher type to see a breakdown of your Azure and Marketplace costs.

 

Cost Management Labs

Cost Management Labs are the way to get the latest cost management features and enhancements! It is the same great service you're used to, but with a few extra features we're testing and looking for feedback on as we finalize before releasing to the world. This is your chance to drive the direction and impact the future of Azure Cost Management.

Participating in Cost Management Labs is as easy as opening the Azure preview portal and selecting Cost Management from Azure Home. On the Cost Management overview, you'll see the preview features available for testing and have links to share new ideas or report any bugs that may pop up. Reporting a bug is a direct line back to the Azure Cost Management engineering team, where we'll work with you to understand and resolve the issue.

Here's what you'll see in Cost Management Labs today:

Save and share customized views directly within cost analysis
Download your customized view in cost analysis as an image
Several small bug fixes and improvements, like minor design changes within cost analysis

Of course, that's not all! There's more coming and we're very eager to hear your thoughts and understand what you'd like to see next. What are you waiting for? Try Cost Management Labs today!

 

Save and share customized views in cost analysis

Customizing a view in cost analysis is easy. Just pick the date range you need, group the data to see a breakdown, choose the right visualization, and you're good to go! Pin your view to a dashboard for one-click access, then share the dashboard with your team so everyone can track cost from a single place.

You can also share a direct link to your customized view so others can copy and personalize it for themselves:

Both sharing options offer flexibility, but you need something more convenient. You need to save customized views and share them with others, directly from within cost analysis. Now you can!

People with Cost Management Contributor (or greater) access can create shared views. You can create up to 50 shared views per scope.

Anyone can save up to 50 private views, even if they only have read access. These views cannot be shared with others directly in cost analysis, but they can be pinned to a dashboard or shared via URL so others can save a copy.

All views are accessible from the view menu. You'll see your private views first, then those shared across the scope, and lastly the built-in views which are always available.

Need to share your view outside of the portal? Simply download the charts as an image and copy it into an email or presentation, as an example, to share it with your team. You'll see a slightly redesigned Export menu which now offers a PNG option when viewing charts. The table view cannot be downloaded as an image.

You'll also see a few small design changes to the filter bar in the preview:

The scope pill shows more of the scope name for added clarity
The view menu has been restyled based on its growing importance with saved views
The granularity and group by pickers are closer to the main chart to address confusion about what they apply to

This is just the first step. There's more to come. Try the preview today and let us know what you'd like to see next! We're excited to hear your ideas!

 

Viewing costs in different currencies

Every organization has its own unique setup and challenges. You may get a single Azure invoice or perhaps you need separate invoices per department. You may even be in a multi-national organization with multiple billing accounts in different currencies. Or perhaps you simply moved subscriptions between billing accounts in different currencies. Regardless of how you ended up with multiple currencies, you haven't had a way to view costs in the portal. Now you can!

When cost analysis detects multiple currencies, you'll have an option to switch between them, viewing costs in each currency individually. Today, this only shows charges for the selected currency – cost analysis is not converting currencies. For example, if you have two charges, one for $1 and another for £1, you can see either USD only ($1) or GBP only (£1). You cannot see $1+£1 in USD or GBP today. In the future, Azure Cost Management will convert costs into a single currency to show everything in USD (e.g. $2.27 in this case) and eventually in a currency you select (e.g. ¥243.43).

 

Manage EA departments and policies from the Azure portal

If you manage an Enterprise Agreement (EA), you're all too familiar with the Enterprise portal, which lets you to keep an eye on your usage, monetary commitment credits, and additional charges each month. Did you know you can also do this in the Azure portal? With richer reporting in cost analysis and finer-grained control with budgets, the Azure portal delivers even more capabilities to understand and control your costs.

Now, you can also create and manage your departments and policy settings from the Azure portal. Departments allow you to organize subscriptions and delegate access to manage account owners and policy settings allow you to enable or disable reservations, Azure Marketplace purchases, and Azure Cost Management for your organization. To ensure everyone in the organization can see and manage costs, make sure you enable account owners to view charges.

Enabling account owners to view charges also ensures subscription users with RBAC access have visibility into their costs throughout the lifetime of their resources, can control spending with budgets, and can optimize their spending with cost-saving recommendations. Enabling cost visibility is critical to driving accountability throughout your organization. Once enabled, you can manage finer-grained access with the Cost Management Reader and Cost Management Contributor roles on any resource group, subscription, or management group. We recommend Cost Management Contributor to ensure everyone can create and share Azure Cost Management views and budgets across the resources and costs they have visibility to.

If you're still using the enterprise portal on a regular basis, we encourage you to give the Azure portal a shot. Simply go to the portal and click Cost Management + Billing in the list of favorites on the left.

And don't forget to plan your move from the key-based EA APIs (such as consumption.azure.com) to the latest UsageDetails API (version 2019-04-01-preview or newer). The key-based APIs will not be supported after your next EA renewal into Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) and switching to the UsageDetails API now will streamline this transition and minimize future migration work.

 

Expanded availability of resource tags in cost reporting

Tagging is the best way to organize and categorize your resources outside of the built-in management group, subscription, and resource group hierarchy. Add your own metadata and build custom reports using cost analysis. While most Azure resources support tags, some resource types do not. Here are the latest resource types which now support tags:

VPN gateways

Remember tags are a part of every usage record and are only available in Azure Cost Management reporting after the tag is applied. Historical costs are not tagged. Update your resources today for the best cost reporting.

 

Tag your resources with up to 50 tags

To effectively manage costs in a large organization, you need to map costs to reporting entities. Whether you're breaking down cost by organization, application, environment, or some other construct, resource tags are a great way to add that metadata and reuse it for cost, health, security, and compliance tracking and enforcement. But as your reporting needs change over time, you may have hit the 15 tag limit on resources. No more! You can now apply up to 50 tags to each resource!

To learn more about tag management and the benefits of tags, see "Use tags to organize your Azure resources".

 

Documentation updates

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

Updated Marketplace usage status for PAYG in "Understand Cost Management data"
Updated PAYG usage terminology in "Understand the terms in your Azure usage and charges file"
Added forecast to "Explore and analyze costs with cost analysis"
Expanded details about viewing reservations in cost analysis in "Get Enterprise Agreement reservation costs and usage"
Added resource group scoping to multiple docs for reservations
Created new "How to buy" and "How the discount is applied" docs for Azure DataBricks reservations
Added instance size flexibility to the "How to buy" and "How the discount is applied" virtual machine reservation docs
Added steps on how to rename your Azure subscriptions to "Change the profile information for your Azure account"
Lots of updates across multiple docs for Microsoft Customer Agreements

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

 

What's next?

These are just a few of the big updates from the last month. 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! And, as always, share your ideas and vote up others in the Azure Cost Management feedback forum.
Quelle: Azure

Understanding and leveraging Azure SQL Database’s SLA

When data is the lifeblood of your business, you want to ensure your databases are reliable, secure, and available when called upon to perform. Service level agreements (SLA) set an expectation for uptime and performance, and are a key input for designing systems to meet business needs. We recently published a new version of the SQL Database SLA, guaranteeing the highest availability among relational database services as well as introducing the industry’s first business continuity SLA. These updates further cement our commitment to ensuring your data is safe and the apps and processes your business relies upon continue running in the face of a disruptive event.

As we indicated in the recent service update, we made two major changes in the SLA. First, Azure SQL Database now offers a 99.995% availability SLA for zone redundant databases in its business critical tier. This is the highest SLA in the industry among all relational database services. It is also backed by up to a 100% monthly cost credit for when the SLA is not maintained. Second, we offer a business continuity SLA for databases in the business critical tier that are geo-replicated between two different Azure regions. That SLA comes with very strong guarantees of a five second recovery point objective (RPO) and a 30 second recovery time objective (RTO), including a 100% monthly cost credit when the SLA is not maintained. Azure SQL Database is the only relational database service in the industry offering a business continuity SLA.

The following table provides a quick side by side comparison of different cloud vendors’ SLAs.

Platform
Availability
Business continuity

Uptime
Max Credit
RTO
Max Credit
RPO
Max Credit

Azure SQL Database
99.995%
100%
30 seconds
100%
5 seconds
100%

AWS RDS
99.95%
100%
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

GCP Cloud SQL
99.95%
50%
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

Alibaba ApsaraDB
99.9%
25%
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

Oracle cloud
99.99%
25%
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a

Data current as of July 18, 2019 and subject to change without notice.

Understanding availability SLA

The availability SLA reflects SQL Database’s ability to automatically handle disruptive events that periodically occur in every region. It relies on the in-region redundancy of the compute and storage resources, constant health monitoring and self-healing operations using automatic failover within the region. These operations rely on synchronously replicated data and incur zero data loss. Therefore, uptime is the most important metric for availability. Azure SQL Database will continue to offer a baseline 99.99% availability SLA across all of its service tiers, but is now providing a higher 99.995% SLA for the business critical or premium tiers in the regions that support availability zones. The business critical tier, as the name suggests, is designed for the most demanding applications, both in terms of performance and reliability. By integrating this service tier with Azure availability zones (AZ), we leverage the additional fault tolerance and isolation that AZs provide, which in turn allows us to offer a higher availability guarantee using the compute and storage redundancy across AZs and the same self-healing operations. Because the compute and storage redundancy is built in for business critical databases and elastic pools, using availability zones comes at no additional cost to you. Our documentation, “High-availability and Azure SQL Database” provides more details of how the business critical service tier leverages availability zones. You can also find the list of regions that support AZs in our documentation, “What are Availability Zones in Azure.”

99.99% availability means that for any database, including those in the business critical tier, the downtime should not exceed 52.56 minutes per year. Zone redundancy increases availability to 99.995%, which means a maximum downtime of only 26.28 minutes per year or a 50% reduction. A minute of downtime is defined as the period during which all attempts to establish a connection failed. To achieve this level of availability, all you need to do is select zone redundant configuration when creating a business critical database or elastic pool. You can do so programmatically using a create or update database API, or in Azure portal as illustrated in the following diagram.

We recommend using the Gen5 compute generation because the zone redundant capacity is based on Gen5 in most regions. The conversion to a zone redundant configuration is an asynchronous online process, similar to what happens when you change the service tier or compute size of the database. It does not require acquiescing or taking your application offline. As long as your connectivity logic is properly implemented, your application will not be interrupted during this transition.

Understanding business continuity SLA

Business continuity is the ability of a service to quickly recover and continue to function during catastrophic events with an impact that cannot be mitigated by the in-region self-healing operations. While these types of unplanned events are rare, their impact can be dramatic. Business continuity is implemented by provisioning stand-by replicas of your databases in two or more geographically separated locations. Because of the long distances between those locations, asynchronous data replication is used to avoid performance impact from network latency. The main trade-off of using asynchronous replication is the potential for data loss. The active geo-replication feature in SQL Database is designed to enable business continuity by creating and managing geographically redundant databases. It’s been in production for several years and we have plenty of telemetry to support very aggressive guarantees.

There are two common metrics used to measure the impact of business continuity events. Recovery time objective (RTO) measures how quickly the availability of the application can be restored. Recovery point objective (RPO) measures the maximum expected data loss after the availability is restored. Not only do we provide SLAs of five seconds for RPO and 30 seconds for RTO, but we also offer an industry first, 100% service credit if these SLAs are not met. That means if any of your database failover requests do not complete within 30 seconds or any time the replication lag exceeds five seconds in 99th percentile within an hour, you are eligible for a service credit for 100% of the monthly cost of the secondary database in question. To qualify for the service credit, the secondary database must have the same compute size as the primary. Note however, these metrics should not be interpreted as a guarantee of automatic recovery from a catastrophic outage. They reflect the Azure SQL’s reliability and performance when synchronizing your data and the speed of the failover when your application requests it. If you prefer a fully automated recovery process, you should consider auto-failover groups with automatic failover policy, which has a one hour RTO.

To measure the duration of the failover request, i.e. the RTO compliance, you can use the following query against the sys.dm_operation_status in master database on the secondary server. Please be aware that the operation status information is only kept for 24 hours.

SELECT datediff(s, start_time, last_modify_time) as [Failover time in seconds] FROM sys.dm_operation_status WHERE major_resource_id = '<my_secondary_db_name>', operation=’ALTER DATABASE FORCE FAILOVER ALLOW DATA LOSS ’, state=2 ORDER BY start_time DESC;

The following query against sys.dm_replication_link_status in the primary database will show replication lag in seconds, i.e. the RPO compliance, for the secondary database created on partner_server. You should run the same query every 30 seconds or less to have a statistically significant set of measurements per hour.

SELECT link_guid, partner_server, replication_lag_sec FROM sys.dm_replication_link_status

Combining availability and business continuity to build mission critical applications

What does the updated SLA mean to you in practical terms? Our goal is enabling you to build highly resilient and reliable services on Azure, backed by SQL Database. But for some mission critical applications, even 26 minutes of downtime per year may not be acceptable. Combining a zone redundant database configuration with a business continuity design creates an opportunity to further increase availability for the application. This SLA release is the first step toward realizing that opportunity.
Quelle: Azure

Run Windows Server and SQL Server workloads seamlessly across your hybrid environments

In recent weeks, we’ve been talking about the many reasons why Windows Server and SQL Server customers choose Azure. Security is a major concern when moving to the cloud, and Azure gives you the tools and resources you need to address those concerns. Innovation in data can open new doors as you move to the cloud, and Azure offers the easiest cloud transition, especially for customers running on SQL Server 2008 or 2008 R2 with concerns about end of support. Today we’re going to look at another critical decision point for customers as they move to the cloud. How easy is it to combine new cloud resources with what you already have on-premises? Many Windows Server and SQL Server customers choose Azure for its industry leading hybrid capabilities.

Microsoft is committed to enabling a hybrid approach to cloud adoption. Our commitment and passion stems from a deep understanding of our customers and their businesses over the past several decades. We understand that customers have business imperatives to keep certain workloads and data on premises, and our goal is to meet them where they are and prepare them for the future by providing the right technologies for every step along the way. That’s why we designed and built Azure to be hybrid from the beginning and have been delivering continuous innovation to help customers operate their hybrid environments seamlessly across on-premises, cloud and edge. Enterprise customers are choosing Azure for their Windows Server and SQL Server workloads. In fact, in a 2019 Microsoft survey of 500 enterprise customers, when those customers were asked about their migration plans for Windows Sever, they were 30 percent more likely to choose Azure.

Customers trust Azure to power their hybrid environments

Take Komatsu as an example. Komatsu achieved 49 percent cost reduction and nearly 30 percent performance gain by moving on-premises applications to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance and building a holistic data management and analytics solutions across their hybrid infrastructure.

Operating a $15 billion enterprise, Smithfield Foods slashed datacenter costs by 60 percent and accelerated application delivery from two months to one day using a hybrid cloud model built on Azure. Smithfield has factories and warehouses often in rural areas that have less than ideal internet bandwidth. It relies on Azure ExpressRoute to connect their major office locations globally to Azure to gain the flexibility and speed needed.

The government of Malta built a complete hybrid cloud eco-system powered by Azure and Azure Stack to modernize its infrastructure. This hybrid architecture, combined with a robust billing platform and integrated self-service backup, brings new level of flexibility and agility to the Maltese government operations, while also providing citizens and businesses more efficient services that they can access whenever they want.

Let’s look at some of Azure’s unique built-in hybrid capabilities.

Bringing the cloud to local datacenters with Azure Stack

Azure Stack, our unparalleled hybrid offering, lets customers build and run cloud-native applications with Azure services in their local datacenters or in disconnected locations. Today, it’s available in 92 countries and customers like Airbus Defense & Space, iMOKO, and KPMG Norway are using Azure Stack to bring cloud benefits on-premises.

We recently introduced Azure Stack HCI solutions so customers can run virtualized applications on-premises in a familiar way and enjoy easy access to off-the-shelf Azure management services such as backup and disaster recovery.

With Azure, Azure Stack, and Azure Stack HCI, Microsoft is the only cloud provider in the market that offers a comprehensive set of hybrid solutions.

Modernizing server management with Windows Admin Center

Windows Admin Center, a modern browser-based application free of charge, allows customers to manage Windows Servers on-premises, in Azure, or in other clouds. With Windows Admin Center, customers can easily access Azure management services to perform tasks such as disaster recovery, backup, patching, and monitoring. Since its launch just over a year ago, Windows Admin Center has seen tremendous momentum, managing more than 2.5 million server nodes each month.

Easily migrating on-premises SQL Server to Azure

Azure SQL Database is a fully managed and intelligent database service.  SQL Database is evergreen, so it’s always up to date: no more worry about patching, upgrades or End of Support. Azure SQL Database Managed Instance has the full surface area the of SQL Server database engine in Azure.  Customers use  Managed Instance to migrate SQL Server to Azure without changing the application code. Because the service is consistent with on-premises SQL Server, customers can continue using familiar features, tools and resources in Azure.

With SQL Database Managed Instance, customers like Komatsu, Carlsberg Group, and AllScripts were able to quickly migrate SQL databases to Azure with minimal downtime and benefit from built-in PaaS capabilities such as automatic patching, backup, and high availability.

Connecting hybrid environments with fast and secure networking services

Customers build extremely fast private connections between Azure and local infrastructure, allowing both to and through access using Azure ExpressRoute at bandwidths up to 100 Gbps. Azure Virtual WAN makes it possible to quickly add and connect thousands of branch sites by automating configuration and connectivity to Azure and for global transit across customer sites, using the Microsoft global network.

Customers are also taking full advantage of services like Azure Firewall, Azure DDoS Protection, and Azure Front Door Service to secure virtual networks and deliver the best application performance experience to users.

Managing anywhere access with a single identity platform

Over 90 percent of enterprise customers use Active Directory on-premises. With Azure, customers can easily connect on-premises Active Directory with Azure Active Directory to provide seamless directory services for all Office 365 and Azure services. Azure Active Directory gives users a single sign-on experience across cloud, mobile and on-premises applications, and secures data from unauthorized access without compromising productivity.

Innovating continuously at the edge

Customers are extending their hybrid environments to the edge so they can take on new business opportunities. Microsoft has been leading the innovation in this space. The following are some examples.

Azure Data Box Edge provides a cloud managed compute platform for containers at the edge, enabling customers to process data at the edge and accelerate machine learning workloads. Data Box Edge also enables customers to transfer data over the internet to Azure in real-time for deeper analytics, model re-training at cloud scale or long-term storage.

At Microsoft Build 2019, we announced Azure SQL Database Edge as available in preview, to bring SQL engine to the edge. Developers will now be able to adopt a consistent programming surface area to develop on a SQL database and run the same code on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge.

Get started – Integrate your hybrid environments with Azure

Check out the resources on Azure hybrid such as overviews, videos, and demos so you can learn more about how to use Azure to run Windows Server and SQL Server workloads successfully across your hybrid environments.
Quelle: Azure