Kategorie: Microsoft Azure

Build your own copilot with Microsoft Azure AI Studio  

In the rapidly evolving world of AI technology, Microsoft Azure AI Studio, now generally available, is empowering organizations to create their own AI copilots. With AI Studio, organizations can customize and build their own copilot to meet their unique needs.  

We’re excited to see organizations across various sectors staying competitive, driving innovation, and transforming their operations.  No matter your use case, AI Studio accelerates the generative AI development lifecycle, empowering organizations to build and shape the future with AI.  

Build a copilot to streamline call center operations 

Azure ai services

Built cutting-edge applications

Vodafone used AI Studio to modernize their existing customer service chatbot TOBi, and to develop a new copilot with a conversational AI search interface, called SuperAgent, to support Vodafone’s human agents when responding to complex customer inquiries.  

TOBi serves customers by addressing common questions like account status and simple technical troubleshooting. SuperAgent involves summarizing call center transcripts, which condenses lengthy calls into brief summaries stored in the customer relationship management system (CRM). This allows agents to quickly understand the reason for a customer’s previous call and detect new issues, improving response times and customer satisfaction. The system is fully automated, with calls transcribed and summarized by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service in Azure AI Studio, providing actionable insights for agents. 

Together, Vodafone’s call center is getting impressive results, TOBi manages nearly 45 million customer calls a month, fully resolving 70%. On average, customer call times have been reduced by at least one minute, saving customers and agents’ valuable time.2  

Part of using new technologies is experimentation and the ability to easily collaborate. With Azure AI Studio, you can interact with other people and with projects through a code-first approach to seamlessly explore, build, test, and deploy, using cutting-edge AI tools and machine learning models.” 
—Ahmed Elsayed, CIO UK & Europe Digital Engineering Director, Vodafone Group

Build a copilot to improve customer experiences 

H&R Block built AI Tax Assist, “a generative AI experience that streamlines online tax filing by enabling clients to ask questions during the workflow”, was developed with AI Studio.  

AI Tax Assist addresses individuals’ questions as they prepare and file their taxes and can answer tax theory questions or offer navigation instructions when needed. It can provide answers on tax forms, deductions, and credits to help customers maximize potential refunds and minimize tax liability. AI Tax Assist also answers free-form, tax-related questions, providing dynamic responses to customer questions. 

“Since launching the AI Tax Assist experience, we’ve received positive customer feedback and seen increased usage throughout the 2024 tax season,” says Jody Vanarsdale, Director of Product Management at H&R Block. “We’ve been most pleased to see customers complete the entire filing process quickly and without leaving the app.” 

With Azure AI Studio, our devs can code faster, so they had time to ‘experiment’ to fine-tune features like enabling individuals to ask as many questions as needed conversationally and the ability to revisit previous conversation threads. It’s an approach we’re continuing—to push innovation and deliver the best experiences.” 
—Aditya Thadani, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Platforms, H&R Block 

Build a copilot to boost employee productivity  

Sweco, a leading European architecture and engineering firm, recognized the need for a custom copilot solution to help employees in the flow of their work. They chose AI Studio to build their own copilot, SwecoGPT, which automates document creation and analysis, delivers advanced search, and provides language translation.  

Azure AI Solutions

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Shah Muhammad, Head of AI Innovation at Sweco, appreciates the “one-click deployment of the models in Azure AI Studio and that it makes Microsoft Azure AI offerings transparent and available to the user.”1 Since its deployment, nearly half of Sweco’s employees use SwecoGPT and report increased productivity, giving them more time to focus on creativity and helping customers. 

With Azure AI Studio, [we were] able to rapidly develop a proof of concept (POC) to show how a SwecoGPT could look, operate, and benefit our consultants and our business as a whole. This just showcases the power and scalability of Azure AI.” 
 —David Hunter, Head of AI and Automation, Sweco

Microsoft Azure AI Studio

Develop and deploy generative AI responsibly

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Build on a foundation of trust  

In the journey of AI integration, trust is table stakes. With Azure AI, you can confidently create a copilot knowing your data is always your data. Your data is never used to train the models.  

We owe it to our clients to handle all their information responsibly. Microsoft has shown a lot of leadership in establishing those principles of responsible AI, maintaining clients’ trust, maintaining privacy, and ensuring that any capabilities we deliver are consistent with our promise of expertise.” 
—Aditya Thadani, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Platforms, H&R Block 

Your organizational data is encrypted in your Microsoft Azure subscription and protected by Microsoft’s comprehensive enterprise compliance and security controls.  

We are a company that uses a lot of Microsoft products, and we trust Microsoft for its security, compliance, and leadership in generative AI.”
—David Hunter, Head of AI and Automation, Sweco 

AI Studio is designed with responsible AI principles and practices in mind. Build your copilot with technologies, templates, and best practices to help manage risk, improve accuracy, protect privacy, reinforce transparency, and simplify compliance. Safeguard your copilot with Azure AI Content Safety’s configurable filters and controls. 

Beyond the technology, the Microsoft commitment to responsible AI was a differentiator,” says Garcia. “As we work with new technologies to build the inclusive digital communities of tomorrow, this is a critical foundation.”
—Ignacio Garcia, CIO Italy & Global Director Data Analytics and AI, Vodafone Group 

Build for the future 

Azure AI is where innovators are creating the future, and we’re continuing to invest in our AI Studio platform to provide cutting edge services and tools to our customers. As we look ahead to what’s next for custom copilots, we’re excited about how agents, like Azure OpenAI Assistants application programming interface (API) can accelerate and improve custom copilot development. Using Azure OpenAI models, developers can provide specific instructions to tune AI capabilities and access multiple tools in parallel, including code interpreter and file search, or custom tools built and accessed through function calling.   

We’re excited to see what customers build next.  

I can’t wait to see what we’re doing in six months or a year from now. The potential of Azure AI Studio for us—and what we can do with it for our customers—is infinite.”
—Shah Muhammad, Head of AI Innovation, Sweco 

Get started with Azure AI Studio  

Explore AI Studio.

Watched the recorded session from Build.

Learn about the Azure OpenAI Assistants API.

Sources

1 Microsoft Customer Story-Sweco Group empowers its architects and engineers with a timesaving AI assistant built in Azure AI Studio 

2 Microsoft Customer Story-Vodafone amplifies call center innovation, customer service, and employee inclusion with Azure AI
The post Build your own copilot with Microsoft Azure AI Studio   appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Plans on Microsoft Learn: Your online blueprint for building AI and Azure skills

We get it—you have a mountain of online learning resources available at your fingertips, and with that information overload you can find yourself lost in a maze of unorganized materials. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Plans on Microsoft Learn, a new tool that provides guided learning for top Azure tools and solutions.

This innovative approach provides a structured roadmap for individuals or teams to acquire new skills, offering focused content, clear milestones, and support to speed up the learning process. In this blog we’ll introduce you to Plans on Microsoft Learn and explore a handful of curated Plans to get you started!

Reimaging online learning to keep pace with technology

Developing in-demand technical skills is crucial for career advancement, but finding the right starting point can be overwhelming. Plans on Microsoft Learn helps individuals, teams, and organizations reach their learning goals faster, offering curated content, milestones that you can accomplish in the recommended time or at your own pace, and automated reminders to keep you motivated.

Build new skills with expertly designed learning paths, or create your own Plans tailored to your specific needs. Team leaders can easily manage and track their organization’s progress with the ability to copy and administer existing Plans.

Explore an expansive collection of AI-related Plans

We have a growing library of Plans on Microsoft Learn designed to accelerate your learning journey:

Explore Microsoft Learn Career Paths: Unlock curated Plans for 15 in-demand career tracks.

Dive into Microsoft Learn for Organizations: Access eight Plans focused on the hottest tech topics and team training, including building skills for Microsoft’s powerful AI services.

We are developing more Plans all the time, but let’s go in-depth on a few to show you the full value of this new skilling experience.

Make your data AI ready with Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric is our powerful analytics platform designed to simplify the process of turning data into insights. Unifying data science, real-time analytics, and business intelligence, Fabric offers a seamless end-to-end experience, eliminating the need for businesses to piece together tools from different vendors.

The goal of this Official Plan is to help you use AI to unify your intelligent data and analytics on the Fabric platform, and has learning milestones that include:

Ingest data: Learn various methods for bringing data into Fabric, including shortcuts, pipelines, and dataflows.

Transform data: Transform data using dataflows, procedures, and notebooks.

Store data: Learn how to store processed data in both the Lakehouse and Data Warehouse for efficient retrieval.

Expose data: Discover how to create reusable semantic models in Power BI to make the transformed data accessible for analysis.

Migrate and modernize with Azure cloud-scale databases to enable AI

Migrating and modernizing with Azure helps individuals and organizations seamlessly transition their workloads and applications to the cloud. With step-by-step guidance and tools for migrating on-premises infrastructure and data to Azure, you can update legacy applications and take advantage of Azure’s advanced cloud-native features.

This Official Plan is about migrating and securing Windows Server, SQL Server, and Linux Estate to Azure, with particular focus on:

Cloud-native and Hybrid Solutions: Learn to create and manage data platforms that work effectively in cloud-based and on-premises environments.

SQL Server and Azure SQL Services: Gain hands-on experience with SQL Server, Azure Database for MySQL, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL to build and manage robust database solutions tailored to your application needs.

Azure Arc for Multi-Cloud: Understand how Azure Arc enables SQL Server across different cloud environments.

Performance Optimization: Understand strategies to maximize the speed and efficiency of data platform solutions.

Data for the era of AI: Build intelligent apps with Azure Cosmos DB

The need for intelligent apps is surging as businesses and individuals seek to harness the power of AI and machine learning. These apps offer the ability to deliver personalized experiences, analyze complex data for better decision-making, and streamline workflows for increased efficiency. As AI technology evolves, intelligent apps will become even more indispensable, revolutionizing how we interact with technology in our daily lives.

This Official Plan, focuses on building and modernizing AI-powered intelligent apps, and includes lessons on:

Database selection: Learn to choose the right Azure Cosmos DB option for your AI application.

AI integration: Understand strategies for incorporating AI into your technical or non-technical solutions.

AI Copilot development: Explore how to build an AI-powered assistant using vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB.

Accelerate Developer Productivity with GitHub and Azure for Developers

AI-powered tools offer immense potential to accelerate developer productivity by streamlining coding, automating tasks, and providing intelligent recommendations that save time. By embracing these tools, developers can focus on innovation and strategic problem-solving rather than mundane coding tasks.

With this Official Plan you’ll learn about coding in the cloud with GitHub Copilot, our AI-powered assistant that enables developers to focus on the more creative and strategic aspects of their work:

Coding with GitHub and Azure: Seamlessly integrate these platforms and leverage GitHub Copilot to streamline your development workflow.

DevOps planning: Identify the critical GitHub features to optimize your organization’s enterprise DevOps strategy.

Build communities: Promote collaboration, establish clear guidelines, and uphold security standards within your developer community.

Improve Reliability, Security and Performance on Azure

Building resiliency into your cloud infrastructure is crucial for maximizing efficiency and controlling costs. By carefully aligning resources to match your workload demands, you can eliminate waste and avoid unnecessary expenses for unused capacity.

This Official Plan demonstrates how to optimize your cloud architecture and workloads so your organization can invest in ongoing growth and innovation, and includes teaching on:

Tools and frameworks: Analyze and improve workloads and environments using FinOps Framework, Cloud Adoption Framework, Well Architected Framework, Cloud Center of Excellence, and more.

Landing zones: Leverage best practices from the Cloud Adoption Framework and deploy landing zones to align business and technical strategies for successful cloud adoption.

Resilient workloads: Manage and optimize your environment to maximize business value, cloud security, new workload migration, modernization, and reliability.

Migrate and run VMware in Azure with Azure VMware Solution

Migrating your VMware workloads to the cloud can unlock new levels of flexibility, scalability, and cost optimization. The Azure VMware Solution allows you to seamlessly migrate and run your VMware workloads natively on Azure, leveraging familiar VMware tools and skills.

This official Plan guides you through the process, ensuring a smooth transition and effective management of your VMware environments on Azure, including comprehensive instruction on:

Azure VMware Solution basics: Understand the core concepts, benefits, and architecture of running VMware on Azure.

Migration strategies: Explore various approaches, tools, and best practices to ensure a smooth transition of your VMware workloads to Azure VMware Solution—including both live and cold migrations—to minimize downtime and disruption.

Deployment and configuration: Get detailed guidance on setting up and managing your Azure VMware Solution environment, including networking, storage, and security to ensure optimal performance.

Begin your AI learning journey today

You and your team deserve better tools to get skilled and stay competitive in today’s fast-moving market. Visit our AI learning hub for resources to help your team understand the potential of AI, develop AI skills, and successfully adopt AI solutions. There you’ll also find eight current AI-related Plans and complete guidance on how to get started!

Microsoft learn: Spark possibility
See all you can do with documentation, hands-on training, and certifications to help you get the most from Microsoft products

Start today

The post Plans on Microsoft Learn: Your online blueprint for building AI and Azure skills appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

8 key VMware questions answered at the Azure VMware Solution digital event

The 2023 changeups in the VMware landscape have created uncertainty and spurred discussions about long-term strategy—your company may be wondering what the future holds for the VMware workloads running in your datacenter. Over the past 25 years, many organizations like yours have built their on-premises IT foundation on VMware—and today the cost of remaining on-premises is higher than ever.

Your competitors are likely shifting their investments to the cloud—and positioning themselves to take advantage of the increasingly mainstream adoption of AI. As you consider pivoting your strategy, it’s crucial to find a way to maximize your existing investments while also choosing a platform that can support your future business needs and applications.

How can you find a path forward for your VMWare workloads that won’t subject you to massive price increases or business disruption? Can you rehost your VMware workloads without compromising on security, control, or budget? Can you use this moment to future-proof your IT platform so you are ready to support the technology changes that will arise over the next 25 years?

You’re not alone in this dilemma. These questions are top of mind for many leaders and practitioners facing similar challenges as they try to navigate the changing landscape of VMware and the cloud. I’m excited to announce that my team will be hosting a free digital event on Tuesday, July 16, 2024 from 9:00 AM–11:00 AM PDT around Azure VMware Solution. I hope you’ll join us to get answers to your questions and learn all the options available for your VMware workloads.

Register now for The Future of VMware Is in Azure to explore strategies and solutions for VMware workloads and learn about Azure VMware Solution—a fully managed VMware environment operated and supported by Microsoft. Azure VMware Solution offers price protection and is designed to help your organization quickly migrate using existing VMware skills while learning new Azure skills.

Azure VMware Solution
Move or extend on-premises VMware environments to Azure without refactoring.

Discover more

Join me on July 16 as we discuss the top-of-mind questions that many VMware customers are asking:

How do we avoid big price increases—is there a way to get price protection? Attend the keynote to hear about limited-time offers to secure predictable pricing and cost savings with Azure VMware Solution. Learn about price protection—with lock-in pricing for up to five years with reserved instances, and why Azure is the most cost-effective destination for the Windows Server and SQL Server workloads that you may be running on VMware.

How can we migrate faster while reducing costs? Learn about tailored programs such as VMware license portability benefits, and how the VMware Rapid Migration Plan can help reduce the cost and time it takes for organizations to migrate to Azure VMware Solution.

How do we find a long-term solution for our VMware workloads? Learn how you can set your organization up for success with Azure VMware Solution—offering the fastest path to the cloud with the cost savings, flexibility, scalability, and performance of Azure.

What are our options to get to the cloud with minimal disruption? Learn how to move VMware workloads to Azure “as is” with minimal need for refactoring. Streamline your migration and equip your practitioners to continue using familiar skills and technologies while adopting new cloud competencies.

How can we give developers access to cutting-edge tools for innovation? Learn how making a strategic shift to Azure VMware Solution eliminates routine maintenance and minimizes administrative tasks, while giving developers proximity to the latest data and AI services—allowing your IT teams to redirect focus toward initiatives that directly contribute to business value.

Where can we see real-world use cases and get practical advice from companies that have successfully migrated? Join Brett Tanzer’s fireside chat with the Deputy CIO of the State of Alaska and get insights from their large-scale cloud migration project. Also, watch a demo deployment and ask product experts your specific questions in the live chat Q&A.

What if we have workloads that need to stay on-premises? Learn about hybrid cloud options for VMware workloads. For workloads that cannot be migrated, learn about solutions that function effectively at the edge, bringing Azure cloud services to your on-premises environment.

How can we empower IT practitioners to make the move to Azure? Attend technical sessions and see demos on networking configurations, business continuity plans, and integration with Azure’s extensive portfolio of over 200 services. Also, hear about the newest learning resources, including the Azure VMware Solution Microsoft Learn Challenge.

The Future of VMware Is in Azure
Join us for talks from industry experts, technical sessions, and a live Qu0026amp;A.

Register now

Here’s a preview of the sessions on July 16:

Keynote address—The Future of VMware Is in Azure

Join Microsoft Vice President of Azure Solutions and Ecosystem, Brett Tanzer, and myself for an overview of all the options for your VMware workloads. Learn migration strategies, hear insights and advice from a Microsoft customer, watch an Azure VMware Solution deployment demo, and ask your questions at the live Q&A. Stay for deep-dive technical sessions with topics tailored for VMware administrators.

Speakers: Brent Tanzer and Liam Sosinsky

Technical sessions—After the keynote, fireside chat, and demo, stay for sessions with detailed technical aspects of migrating VMware workloads, networking configurations, business continuity plans, and integration with an extensive portfolio of over 200 cloud services from Azure.

Securing your future: Migrate applications and data to Azure VMware Solution. Learn the strategic benefits of moving apps and data to Azure VMware Solution. See a migration demo and hear customer evidence and details on implementing a Zero Trust security model and role-based access control (RBAC) within Azure VMware Solution.

Speakers: Scott Gruenemeier and Joe Sarabia

Building end-to-end networking with Azure VMware Solution. Get an understanding of the Azure VMware Solution networking architecture and see a demo of key connectivity patterns from your software-defined data center (SDDC) in Azure VMware Solution to your on-premises environment. This session also covers default NSX-T topology, native security capabilities offered by Azure VMware Solution, integrations with other services, and design best practices for workload security.

Speaker: Kenyon Hensler

Implementing a robust business continuity and disaster recovery plan. In this session, you’ll learn how to implement your business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy with Azure VMware Solution. Get tips and best practices for business continuity and disaster recovery and take a deeper dive into common scenarios, such as BCDR strategies when moving to Azure as well as strategies for BCDR within Azure.

Speaker: Melissa Palmer

Unlocking Azure cloud services with Azure VMware solution. See demos of how to use services on the Azure platform to expand the capabilities of your applications on Azure VMware Solution—without changes to your existing app architecture. Learn about your options for Azure platform as a service (PaaS), as well as options to access to AI capabilities and a wide variety of cloud services using Azure VMware Solution.

Speaker: Joe Sarabia

Hybrid cloud options for VMware workloads. Explore hybrid cloud solutions as a complement to the public cloud. This session will show you how to combine Azure Arc, Azure Stack HCI, and Arc-enabled vSphere with Azure VMware Solution to create a seamless, adaptive cloud experience. Learn when and how to implement these innovative technologies to optimize your cloud strategy and stay ahead of the curve.

Speaker: Shriram Natarajan

The Future of VMware Is in Azure

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

9:00 AM–11:00 AM PDT

Register now

The post 8 key VMware questions answered at the Azure VMware Solution digital event appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Build exciting career opportunities with new Azure skilling options 

Microsoft Build is more than just a tech conference—it’s a celebration of innovation, a catalyst for growth, and a gateway to unlocking your professional potential through skilling opportunities on Microsoft Learn. In this blog, we’ll look back at some of the most exciting Microsoft Azure tools that were featured at Build 2024 and put you on the path to attain proficiency.  

Start your skilling journey today on Microsoft Learn

Build intelligent apps with AI and cloud-native technologies

Learn more

Jump to a section: 

Unleash the power of AI by mastering intelligent app development 

Empower your developers to achieve unprecedented productivity 

Accelerate your cloud journey with seamless Azure migration 

Master cloud-scale data analysis for powerful business insights 

Unlock maximum cloud efficiency and savings with Azure 

Unleash the power of AI by mastering intelligent app development 

Azure provides a comprehensive ecosystem of services, tools, and infrastructure tailored for the entire AI lifecycle. At Build we highlighted how your team can efficiently develop, scale, and optimize intelligent solutions that use cutting-edge technologies. 

This year at Build, Microsoft announced the general availability for developers to build and customize models in Microsoft Azure AI Studio. We recently dropped an Azure Enablement Show episode that guides viewers through building their own Copilot using Studio. Watch a demonstration of how to use prompt flow to create a custom Copilot, how to chat with the AI model, and then deploy it as an endpoint. 

Another episode focuses on new Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB developer guides for Node.js and Python, as well as a learning path for building AI chatbots using Azure Cosmos DB and Microsoft Azure Open AI. You’ll learn how to set up, migrate, manage, and utilize V Core-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB to create generative AI apps, culminating in a live demo of an AI chatbot. 

If that Azure Enablement Show episode piques your interest to learn more about Azure Cosmos DB, check out the Microsoft Developers AI Learning Hackathon, where you’ll further explore the world of AI and how to build innovative apps using Azure Cosmos DB, plus get the chance to win prizes! To help you prepare for the hackathon, we have a two-part series to guide you through building AI apps with Azure Cosmos DB, which includes deep-dives into AI fundamentals, Azure Open AI API, vector search, and more.  

You can also review our official collection of Azure Cosmos DB learning resources, which includes lessons, technical documentation, and reference sample codes.  

Looking for a more structured lesson plan? Our newly launched Plans on Microsoft Learn now provides guided learning for top Azure tools and solutions, including Azure Cosmos DB. Think of it as a structured roadmap for you or your team to acquire new skills, offering focused content, clear milestones, and support to speed up the learning process. Watch for more official Plans on Microsoft Learn over the coming months! 

There’s even more to learn about building intelligent AI apps with other exciting Azure tools, with two official collections on Azure Kubernetes Service—Build Intelligent Apps with AI and cloud-native technologies and Taking Azure Kubernetes Service out of the Cloud and into your World—and Build AI Apps with Azure Database for PostgreSQL.  

Empower your developers to achieve improved productivity 

Accelerating developer productivity isn’t just about coding faster; it’s about unlocking innovation, reducing costs, and delivering high-quality software that drives business growth. Azure developer tools and services empowers you to streamline processes, automate workflows, and use advanced technologies like AI and machine learning. 

Join another fun episode of the Azure Enablement Show to discover Microsoft’s skilling resources and tools to help make Python coding more efficient. Learn how to build intelligent apps with Azure’s cloud, AI, and data capabilities and follow along with hands-on modules covering Python web app deployment and machine learning model building on Azure. 

We also have three official collections of learning resources that tackle different aspects of developer productivity:  

Microsoft Developer Tools @ Build 2024: With cutting-edge developer tools and insights, we’ll show you how to create the next generation of modern, intelligent apps. Learn how you can build, test, and deploy apps from the cloud with Microsoft Dev Box, Microsoft Visual Studio, and how Microsoft Azure Load Testing and Microsoft Playwright Testing make it easy to test modern apps.  

Accelerate Developer Productivity with GitHub and Azure for Developers: Continue unlocking the full coding potential in the cloud with GitHub Copilot. Through a series of videos, articles, and activities, you’ll see how GitHub Copilot can assist you and speed up your productivity across a variety of programming languages and projects.  

Secure Developer Platforms with GitHub and Azure: Learn how to elevate your code security with GitHub Advanced Security, an add-on to GitHub Enterprise. Safeguard your private repositories at every development stage with advanced features like secret scanning, code scanning, and dependency management. 

Accelerate your cloud journey with seamless Azure migration

Migrating to Azure empowers organizations to unlock a world of opportunities. At Build we demonstrated how, by using the robust and scalable Azure cloud platform, businesses can modernize their legacy systems, enhance security and compliance, and integrate with AI.  

Looking to get more hands-on with Azure migration tools? Check out our lineup of Microsoft Azure Virtual Training Days. These free, two-day, four-hour sessions are packed with practical knowledge and hands-on exercises for in-demand skills.  

Data Fundamentals: In this foundational-level course, you’ll learn core data concepts and skills in Azure cloud data services. Find out the difference between relational and non-relational databases, explore Azure offerings like Azure Cosmos DB, Microsoft Azure Storage, and gain insights into large-scale analytics solutions such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics and Microsoft Azure Databricks.  

Migrate and Secure Windows Server and SQL Server Workloads: This comprehensive look at migrating and securing on-premises Windows Server and SQL Server workloads to Azure offers insights into assessing workloads, selecting appropriate migration options, and using Azure flexibility, scalability, and cost-saving features.  

Microsoft Azure SQL is an intelligent, scalable, and secure cloud database service that simplifies your operations and unlocks valuable insights for your business. The curated learning paths in our official Azure SQL collection will enable you to focus on the domain-specific database administration and optimization activities that are critical for your business. 

For an even more structured learning experience, there’s our official Plans on Microsoft Learn offering, Migrate and Modernize with Azure Cloud-Scale Database to Enable AI.  Designed to equip you with the expertise needed to harness the full potential of Azure SQL, Microsoft Azure Database for MySQL, Microsoft Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Microsoft SQL Server enabled by Microsoft Azure Arc for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, this plan will immerse you in the latest capabilities and best practices.  

Master cloud-scale data analysis for insightful decision making 

Cloud-scale analytics help businesses gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions at an unprecedented speed. Our unified analytics platform, Microsoft Fabric, simplifies data integration, enables seamless collaboration, and democratizes access to AI-powered insights, all within a single, integrated environment. 

Looking to take the Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate certification exam? Get ready with Microsoft Fabric Learn Together, a series of live, expert-led sessions designed to help you build proficiency in tools such as Apache Spark and Data Factory and understand concepts from medallion architecture design to lakehouses.   

There’s still time to register for our Virtual Training Day session, Implementing a Data Lakehouse with Microsoft Fabric, which aims to supply data pros with technical experience how to unify data analytics using AI and extract critical insights. Key objectives include identifying Fabric core workloads to deliver insights faster and setting up a data lakehouse foundation for ingestion, transformation, modeling, and visualization.  

And of course, don’t miss out on our official collection of learning resources for Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks, featuring modules on implementing a Data Lakehouse and using Copilot in Fabric, and workshops on building retrieval augmented generation (RAG) Applications and Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB vCore. For a more curated experience, our Plans on Microsoft Learn collection will get started on how to ingest data with shortcuts, pipelines, or dataflows, how to transform data with dataflows, procedures, and notebooks, and how to store data in the Lakehouse and Data Warehouse.  

Unlock maximum cloud efficiency and savings with Azure 

Promoting resiliency on Azure is a strategic approach to managing your cloud resources efficiently, ensuring optimal performance while minimizing costs. By right-sizing virtual machines (VMs), utilizing reserved instances or savings plans, and taking advantage of automation tools like Microsoft Azure Advisor, you can maximize the value of your Azure investment. 

On another fun episode of our Azure Enablement Show, we explore the Learn Live resources available to help you optimize your cloud adoption journey. Confident cloud operations require an understanding of how to manage cost efficiency, reliability, security, and sustainability. Whether you’re an IT pro or just testing the waters, this two-part episode will point you to the learning resources you need.  

There’s always more to explore at Microsoft Learn 

Like every year, Microsoft Build delivered exciting new products and advancements in Azure technology. Don’t get left behind! Start your skilling journey today at Microsoft Learn.  
The post Build exciting career opportunities with new Azure skilling options  appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure

Azure OpenAI Service: Transforming legal practices with generative AI solutions

In today’s fast-paced legal environment, the ability to efficiently manage and analyze vast amounts of data is crucial. And the field of law is no exception. In fact, a 2023 research paper claimed that of all the industries affected by new AI, the legal field was most exposed.1 AI is increasingly being leveraged to meet this need, enhancing the capabilities of legal professionals, and improving outcomes for clients. A recent Thomson Reuters survey reported that 82% of law firm lawyers said they believe that ChatGPT and generative AI could be readily applied to legal work.2 Another research report, by economists at Goldman Sachs, estimated that 44% of legal work could be automated.3

Over the past several years, the data landscape has exploded, presenting legal teams with the challenge of managing not only increasing volumes of data but also a variety of new data types. Traditional sources like emails and documents are now accompanied by more complex sources such as collaboration platforms, chat data, text messages, and video recordings. Given the potential relevance of all this information in legal matters, modern legal teams must be prepared to identify, collect, and analyze vast amounts of data—often under tight deadlines. A number of law firms and legal service providers are using AI to streamline processes, reduce risks, and increase efficiency. Notably, companies like Icertis, Relativity, and Clifford Chance are pioneering the integration of AI into their workflows, demonstrating the transformative power of Azure AI Services in the legal field.

Azure OpenAI Service

Support better legal services

Explore our capabilities

Key benefits and applications at work

The following AI applications can help teams throughout the legal field manage contracts more efficiently, reduce risk, ensure compliance, and drive better legal business:

Enhanced document review: Uses natural language processing to analyze documents, providing relevant insights for legal cases.

Accelerated e-discovery: Quickly identifies, collects, and analyzes large volumes of data from various sources.

Improved efficiency: Reduces the time and resources needed for document review. 

Identification of key information: Uncovers critical terms and conditions buried within documents.

Risk management: Assist legal users to consider problematic terms and ensure compliance.

Cognitive translation: Implements AI-driven translation to improve communication across languages.

Accessible contracts: Natural language processing capabilities help users navigate and understand complex legal language.

Enhanced decision-making: Provides insights for more informed strategic decisions.

Below we look at three companies who have adopted Azure OpenAI Service to support their legal practices, illustrating the profound impact and potential of these technologies in reshaping the industry.

Revolutionizing contract life cycle management with generative AI and AzureContracts can be crucial in business, but managing them often remains disjointed across departments, and may lead to inefficiencies and risks. Icertis, used by 30% of Fortune 100 companies, has partnered with Microsoft to enhance contract management using AI. Their platform, Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI), now incorporates generative AI through ICI Copilots, which streamlines contract reviews and uncovers hidden terms, thereby reducing risks and increasing efficiency. Icertis natively interoperates with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure AI to empower users to create, view, manage, and collaborate on contracts in the tools and applications they use every day. This collaboration helps customers achieve considerable time savings and better risk management. The partnership emphasizes continuous innovation and customer value, enhancing contract management capabilities and solidifying both companies’ market positions.

Relativity and Microsoft partner to deliver generative AI to litigatorsIn the realm of e-discovery, efficiently organizing and analyzing vast amounts of unstructured data is critical. Relativity, partnering with Microsoft, provides AI-powered solutions to address this challenge. Relativity leverages Microsoft Azure and GPT-4 to enhance document review processes. They developed Relativity aiR for Review on top of Azure OpenAI Service to deliver a streamlined experience directly in RelativityOne. Relativity aiR for Review, uses natural language processing to analyze documents and assists with legal reviews and investigations. This partnership promotes security, interoperability, and global reach—enabling legal teams to manage growing data volumes and diverse data types effectively.The collaboration focuses on responsible AI, aiming to deliver innovative, secure, and efficient tools for legal professionals. Relativity and Microsoft’s joint efforts aim to continue advancing AI capabilities in e-discovery and offer tools to assist with complex data challenges.

Clifford Chance trailblazes Microsoft responsible AI to improve services for its legal clientsClifford Chance, a leading British multinational law firm, leveraged advanced technologies like Azure, Azure OpenAI Service, and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to enhance their legal services. Early implementations, such as cognitive translation, have quickly become some of their fastest-growing products, significantly improving their ability to handle sensitive, text-based information efficiently. Additionally, the firm benefits from intelligent recap and enhanced data security features through Microsoft Teams Premium, resulting in substantial cost savings and improved protection of client data. By integrating AI-powered solutions, Clifford Chance aims to free up their professionals’ time for strategic tasks and provide innovative, efficient services to their clients. The firm is excited about the potential of large language models (LLMs) and other AI tools to further transform their operations, making them more responsive and effective in a highly competitive and time-pressured environment.

Azure OpenAI Service: Impact

The integration of Azure AI Services is assisting legal professionals in managing data, conducting reviews, and offering services. Companies like Icertis, Relativity, and Clifford Chance are leveraging AI to boost operational efficiency and foster a more innovative and responsive legal system. As AI technologies continue to advance, their impact on the legal industry will grow, driving greater efficiencies and yielding better outcomes for all stakeholders.

Our commitment to responsible AI

Organizations across industries are leveraging Azure OpenAI Service and copilot services and capabilities to drive growth, increase productivity, and create value-added experiences. From advancing medical breakthroughs to streamlining manufacturing operations, our customers trust that their data is protected by robust privacy protections and data governance practices. As our customers continue to expand their use of our AI solutions, they can be confident that their valuable data is safeguarded by industry-leading data governance and privacy practices in the most trusted cloud on the market today.  

At Microsoft, we have a long-standing practice of protecting our customers’ information. Our approach to responsible AI is built on a foundation of privacy, and we remain dedicated to upholding core values of privacy, security, and safety in all our generative AI products and solutions.

Get started with Azure OpenAI Service 

Apply for access to Azure OpenAI Service by completing this form. 

Learn about Azure OpenAI Service and the latest enhancements. 

Get started with GPT-4 in Azure OpenAI Service in Microsoft Learn. 

Read our partner announcement blog, empowering partners to develop AI-powered apps and experiences with ChatGPT in Azure OpenAI Service. 

Learn how to use the new Chat Completions API (in preview) and model versions for ChatGPT and GPT-4 models in Azure OpenAI Service.

Learn more about Microsoft Azure AI Content Safety.

1 How will Language Modelers like ChatGPT Affect Occupations and Industries? Ed Felten, Manav Raj, and Robert Seamans, March 18, 2023.

2 Thomson Reuters, ChatGPT & Generative AI in Law Firms: New Report Shows Opportunities Abound, April 19, 2023.

3 Goldman Sachs, Global Economics Analyst: The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth, Jan Hatzius, Joseph Briggs, Devesh Kodnani, and Giovanni Pierdomenico, March 26, 2023.
The post Azure OpenAI Service: Transforming legal practices with generative AI solutions appeared first on Azure Blog.
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Unlock new potential for your SAP workloads on Azure with these learning paths

SAP, a leading provider of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, is a mission-critical consideration for companies migrating to Azure. Microsoft and SAP have a strong partnership centered on helping customers successfully migrate their SAP workloads to Azure, offering solutions that can be seamlessly integrated with Azure’s cloud infrastructure:

Accelerated cloud savings: As the leading provider for SAP workloads, let us manage your infrastructure as you streamline your cloud spending. 

AI intelligence built-in: Harness the power of AI-powered insights to make data-driven decisions that drive your business forward. 

Boost productivity and innovation: Integrated apps streamline your team’s workflow and automate repetitive business processes.

Enhanced protection: Our multi-layered cloud security ensures your SAP workloads run smoothly, backed by integrated Azure recovery services.

Together, SAP and Microsoft are not just providing tools and services but are also creating ecosystems that foster innovation and transformation, enabling businesses to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. To help you and your team better take advantage of these benefits, we’ve created an array of learning materials and interactive events—from self-guided courses to Virtual Training Days, certifications to conferences—that build your cloud expertise.

Chart your course to expertise with personalized Learning Paths 

Our Microsoft Learn Learning Paths are curated collections of free, online modules and resources designed to help you build specific skills or gain knowledge in a particular technology or subject area. We have a full range of paths related to migrating SAP workloads, including:

Explore Azure for SAP Workloads: Streamline your SAP operations and maximize ROI with our comprehensive Azure training. Empower your team to seamlessly migrate, manage, and optimize SAP workloads on Azure, leveraging its robust infrastructure and specialized tools. This comprehensive training will enhance your SAP performance, drive efficiency, and unlock innovation within your existing environment. 

Deploy SAP on Azure: To boost your SAP efficiency and reliability, your team will master the deployment of SAP solutions on Azure, including single-instance SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver high availability configurations. This expertise will streamline migrations, optimize performance, and ensure smooth operations, ultimately reducing costs and maximizing the value of your SAP investment. 

Explore the foundations of IaaS for SAP on Azure: Unlock the power of Azure’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for your SAP workloads. Our comprehensive training equips your team with the expertise to design and deploy scalable, high-performing SAP solutions on Azure. By mastering essential Azure resources like virtual machines, virtual networks, storage accounts, and Microsoft Entra ID, you’ll optimize your infrastructure for efficiency and resilience, ultimately driving business growth. 

Explore SAP HANA on Azure (Large Instances): Optimize your SAP HANA investment as this program equips your team with the expertise to architect, deploy, and manage SAP HANA on Azure (Large Instances) effectively. By mastering key concepts like high availability, disaster recovery, security, and cost optimization, your business can ensure a resilient, secure, and cost-effective SAP HANA environment in the cloud. 

Microsoft Sentinelu003cbru003e

Build next-generation security operations powered by the cloud and AI

Plan to deploy the Microsoft Sentinel solution for SAP: This standalone learning module provides an overview of Microsoft Sentinel’s comprehensive security solution for SAP environments. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of the team members involved in designing, deploying, and implementing this solution.

Improve SAP seller productivity with Microsoft Teams and Power Platform: Streamline your sales and service processes with our SAP and Microsoft 365 integration training. Your team will master integrating Teams with SAP Sales and Service Core, enabling seamless collaboration. Additionally, they’ll learn to automate tasks using Power Automate, enhancing productivity and efficiency for your SAP sellers. 

Planning and deploying SAP on Azure: Unlock the power of Azure to optimize your SAP operations. Our comprehensive course teaches you to efficiently deploy, configure, and manage SAP workloads in the cloud. Gain expertise in migrating and operating SAP solutions, mastering essential Azure resources like VMs, storage, and networking. Enhance scalability, performance, and security while reducing costs.

Migrate and Modernize SAP in the Microsoft Cloud: Accelerate your SAP deployment on Azure with our one-day course for experienced SAP professionals. Gain hands-on expertise in setting up Azure infrastructure specifically for SAP, including virtual machines, networking, storage, and identity management. Learn best practices for backup, disaster recovery, and monitoring to ensure optimal performance and reliability of your SAP environment in the cloud. 

Microsoft Azure

Get started with Azure now with pay-as-you-go pricing

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Learn from the pros with live, interactive Virtual Training Days 

Virtual Training Days are instructor-led classes designed to equip individuals and teams with in-demand skills related to cloud migration, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies. We offer Virtual Training Days to help you migrate SAP to Azure, optimizing your performance, reliability, and scalability while reducing costs. In this session, Migrate and Modernize SAP on the Microsoft Cloud, you’ll find out how to secure and monitor SAP workloads on Azure. Come explore how this move enhances productivity, fosters secure collaboration, and gives you AI-powered insights for greater efficiency. Register for our next session here.

Showcase your accomplishments with Certifications 

Microsoft Certifications are the official badges that prove you’ve got the skills, whether it’s Azure, Microsoft 365, or other technologies. Getting certified isn’t just a pat on the back; it’s a ticket to career opportunities and industry recognition. Plus, it keeps you on top of the latest tech trends. So, if you want your IT game strong, Microsoft Certifications are the way to go.

Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads: To qualify for this certification, you need in-depth knowledge of SAP systems and industry standards for migration, integration, and long-term operation on Azure. Professionals in this career collaborate with cloud administrators, database administrators, and clients to implement solutions, recommending services and adjusting resources for optimal performance and resilience.

Connect and learn: Network with industry leaders at the SAP Sapphire conference 

SAP Sapphire 2024 was a series of global events that brought together SAP experts, partners, and customers to explore the latest innovations and strategies in business technology. With a focus on empowering businesses to turn their visions into reality, SAP Sapphire blended in-person and virtual experiences to share valuable insights, practical knowledge, and networking opportunities to help you drive digital transformation and achieve your business goals. 

Azure experts were on hand to share their expertise and discuss developments related to the cloud and AI. Both sessions are available on-demand for viewing:

Unlock innovation with AI on the Microsoft Cloud: We discussed how integrating AI with Azure and SAP solutions can help your organization learn valuable insights, automate processes, and optimize efficiency for your most critical business operations. This session showed participants how to make AI a reality for their organizations, boosting productivity and creating new opportunities for growth. 

Accenture’s RISE with SAP journey with Microsoft and generative AI: Discover how Accenture, a global IT services and consulting firm, successfully migrated to the RISE with SAP solution on Microsoft Cloud, leveraging Microsoft AI solutions for enhanced innovation and efficiency. This collaborative effort among Accenture, Microsoft, and SAP resulted in a transformed enterprise system, delivering greater insights, agility, and operational efficiency.

Explore more SAP sessions delivered at Sapphire here.
The post Unlock new potential for your SAP workloads on Azure with these learning paths appeared first on Azure Blog.
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Get the best value in your cloud journey with Azure pricing offers and resources

A guide for businesses to align their pricing needs with their cloud journey 

Cloud computing continues to transform the way businesses operate, innovate, and compete. And whether you’re just moving to the cloud or already have an established cloud footprint, you may have questions about how to pay for the services you need, estimate your costs, or optimize your spending. To help answer these questions, Azure provides a variety of resources and offers to help you get the best value at every stage of your cloud journey.  

This blog post will show you how to approach and think about pricing throughout your cloud adoption journey. We will also give an example of how a hypothetical digital media company would approach their Azure pricing needs as they transition from evaluating and planning to setting up and running their cloud solutions. After reading this post, you will know more about how to select the best Azure pricing option for your business objectives and cloud needs.

Find guidance and resources to navigate Azure pricing options   

If you are new to Azure or cloud computing in general, you may want to learn the basics of how cloud services are priced, and what options you have for paying for them. Azure offers a variety of pricing options to suit different needs and scenarios, from free tier and pay-as-you-go to commitment and benefits. Here’s a brief overview of each option: 

Free tier: You can get started with Azure for free, and access over 25 services for 12 months, plus $200 credit to use in your first 30 days. You can also use some services for free, such as Azure App Service, Azure Functions, and Azure DevOps, with certain limits and conditions. The free tier is a great way to explore Azure and learn how it works, without any upfront costs or commitments. 

Pay-as-you-go: You can pay only for the services you use or consume, based on the measured usage and the unit prices of each service. For example, you can pay for the number of virtual machine (VMs) hours, the amount of storage space, or the volume of data transferred. Pay-as-you-go is a flexible and scalable option that lets you adjust your usage and costs according to your changing needs and demands. 

Read more about how Azure pricing works here. 

Estimate Azure project costs 

If you have a new project to migrate to or build in Azure, you need an accurate and realistic estimate of your project costs to make an informed decision about moving forward. To help with this decision, Azure provides several tools and resources, such as: 

TCO calculator: You can use the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator to estimate how much you can save by migrating your on-premises workloads to Azure. You can input your current infrastructure details, such as servers, storage, and network, and see a detailed comparison of the costs of running them on-premises versus on Azure. 

Azure Migrate: You can use Azure Migrate to assess and plan your migration to Azure. You can discover and evaluate your on-premises servers, databases, and applications, and get recommendations on the best Azure services and sizing options for them. You can also get estimated costs and savings for your migration scenario and track your progress and readiness. 

Azure Architecture Center: You can get guidance for architecting solutions on Azure using established patterns and practices such as OpenAI Chatbots, Windows VM Deployment, and  Analytics end-to-end with Azure Synapse with cost factors included. 

Read more about estimating project costs here. 

Calculate costs of Azure products and services 

If you are ready to deploy specific Azure services and you want to budget for them, you may want to consider the different pricing options and offers that are available for each service. Azure provides resources and guidance on how to budget for specific Azure services, such as: 

Azure pricing calculator: Estimate your monthly costs based on your expected usage and configuration such as region or virtual machine series. 

Product pricing details pages: Find detailed pricing information for each Azure service on its pricing details page. You can see the pricing model, the unit prices, the service tiers, and the regional availability.  

Azure savings plan for compute: An easy and flexible way to save up to 65% on select compute services, compared to pay-as-you-go prices. The savings plan unlocks lower prices on compute services when you commit to spend a fixed hourly amount for one or three years. You choose whether to pay all upfront or monthly at no extra cost. 

Azure reservations: Reserve Azure resources, such as VMs, SQL Database, or Cosmos DB, for one or three years and save up to 72% on your cloud costs. Improve budgeting and forecasting with a single upfront payment that makes it easy to calculate your investments. Or lower your upfront cash outflow with a monthly payment option at no additional cost. 

Azure Hybrid Benefit: Apply your existing Windows Server, SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance or subscriptions to Azure Hybrid Benefit to achieve cost savings. Save up to 85% compared to standard pay-as-you-go rates and achieve the lowest cost of ownership when you combine Azure Hybrid Benefit, reservations savings, and Extended Security Updates. You can also apply your active Linux subscription to Azure Hybrid Benefit. 

Read more about budgeting for Azure products and services here. 

Manage and optimize your Azure investments 

If you are already using Azure and you want to optimize your spend for your current Azure workloads, you may want to review your usage and costs, and look for ways to enhance your investments. Azure provides several tools and resources to help you with this process, such as: 

Microsoft Cost Management: You can use Microsoft Cost Management with Copilot to monitor and analyze your Azure spending, and to create and manage budgets and alerts. You can see your current and forecasted costs, your cost trends and anomalies, and your cost breakdown by service, resource group, or subscription. You can also get recommendations on how to optimize your costs. 

Azure Advisor: You can use Azure Advisor to get personalized and actionable recommendations on how to improve the performance, security, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of your Azure resources. You can see the potential savings and benefits of each recommendation and apply them with a few clicks. 

FinOps on Azure: You can leverage FinOps best practices on Azure to empower your organization by fostering a culture of data-driven decision-making, accountability, and cross-team collaboration. This approach will help you maximize investments and accelerate business growth through improved organizational alignment 

Read more about managing and optimizing spend here. 

An example of a company’s cloud journey and pricing needs 

To illustrate how a customer can choose the best pricing option and resources for their cloud journey, let’s look at an example. Contoso, a hypothetical digital media company, wants to migrate their infrastructure and build a new OpenAI Chatbot application in Azure. Here’s how they would think about their Azure pricing needs at each stage of their journey: 

Considering Azure: Contoso wants to understand how Azure pricing works. They use the free tier to try out some Azure services to test functionality. They also leverage the pay-as-you-go model to explore how some services are billed. 

Assess and plan Azure projects: Contoso needs to estimate their project costs. To compare the costs of running on-premises versus on Azure they input their on-premises server infrastructure in the TCO calculator. They also use the Azure Architecture Center to learn how to develop an OpenAI chatbot with best practices.  

Deployment in Azure: Contoso is ready to migrate their environment and deploy their company’s chatbot app and wants to budget for the specific Azure services needed. They leverage the product specific pricing pages and the pricing calculator to estimate their monthly costs based on their expected usage and configuration. They purchase Reservations for their stable and predictable VMs and Azure Database usage. They already have on-premise Windows Server licenses, so they enroll in Software Assurance to get a credit for those licenses with the Azure Hybrid Benefit when deploying their VMs to save on operating costs.  

Post-deployment optimization in Azure: After running their environment on Azure for a few months, Contoso wants to review and optimize their workloads. They use Azure Advisor to get personalized and actionable recommendations on how to enhance their cost-effectiveness. Leveraging these recommendations, they purchase Azure savings plan for compute for their dynamic compute workloads that may change regions or scope and right-size their VMs.  

Learn more about Azure pricing

We hope this blog post has helped you understand how to consider Azure pricing in your cloud journey. Whether you are just getting started, ready to deploy, or looking for ways to optimize, Azure has pricing resources that suit your needs and goals. To learn more about Azure pricing, visit the Azure pricing overview page, where you can find more explanatory content, tools, and resources.  

Azure pricing

Get the best value at every stage of your cloud journey

Additional resources: 

Azure Enablement Show | Understand Azure pricing & resources

Azure Enablement Show | Learn to budget & optimize in Azure

Blog: Azure pricing | How to navigate Azure pricing options and resources

Blog: Azure pricing | How to estimate Azure project costs

Blog: Azure pricing | How to calculate costs of Azure products and services

Blog: Azure pricing | How to optimize costs for your Azure workloads

Azure pricing skilling content collection 
The post Get the best value in your cloud journey with Azure pricing offers and resources appeared first on Azure Blog.
Quelle: Azure