Kategorie: Microsoft Azure

Multi-language identification and transcription in Video Indexer

Multi-language speech transcription was recently introduced into Microsoft Video Indexer at the International Broadcasters Conference (IBC). It is available as a preview capability and customers can already start experiencing it in our portal. More details on all our IBC2019 enhancements can be found here.

Multi-language videos are common media assets in the globalization context, global political summits, economic forums, and sport press conferences are examples of venues where speakers use their native language to convey their own statements. Those videos pose a unique challenge for companies that need to provide automatic transcription for video archives of large volumes. Automatic transcription technologies expect users to explicitly determine the video language in advance to convert speech to text. This manual step becomes a scalability obstacle when transcribing multi-language content as one would have to manually tag audio segments with the appropriate language.

Microsoft Video Indexer provides a unique capability of automatic spoken language identification for multi-language content. This solution allows users to easily transcribe multi-language content without going through tedious manual preparation steps before triggering it. By that, it can save anyone with large archive of videos both time and money, and enable discoverability and accessibility scenarios.

Multi-language audio transcription in Video Indexer

The multi-language transcription capability is available as part of the Video Indexer portal. Currently, it supports four languages including English, French, German and Spanish, while expecting up to three different languages in an input media asset. While uploading a new media asset you can select the “Auto-detect multi-language” option as shown below.

Our application programming interface (API) supports this capability as well by enabling users to specify 'multi' as the language in the upload API. Once the indexing process is completed, the index JavaScript object notation (JSON) will include the underlying languages. Refer to our documentation for more details.

Additionally, each instance in the transcription section will include the language in which it was transcribed.

Customers can view the transcript and identified languages by time, jump to the specific places in the video for each language, and even see the multi-language transcription as video captions. The result transcription is also available as closed caption files (VTT, TTML, SRT, TXT, and CSV).

Methodology

Language identification from an audio signal is a complex task. Acoustic environment, speaker gender, and speaker age are among a variety of factors that affect this process. We represent audio signal using a visual representation, such as spectrograms, assuming that, different languages induce unique visual patterns which can be learned using deep neural networks.

Our solution has two main stages to determine the languages used in multi-language media content. First, it employs a deep neural network to classify audio segments with very high granularity, in other words, very few seconds. While a good model will successfully identify the underlying language, it can still miss-identify some segments due to similarities between languages. Therefore, we apply a second stage for examining these misses and smooth the results accordingly.

Next steps

We introduced a differentiated capability for multi-language speech transcription. With this unique capability in Video Indexer, you can become more effective about the content of your videos as it allows you to immediately start searching across videos for different language segments. During the coming few months, we will be improving this capability by adding support for more languages and improving the model’s accuracy.

For more information, visit Video Indexer’s portal or the Video Indexer developer portal, and try this new capability. Read more about the new multi-language option and how to use it in our documentation.

Please use our UserVoice to share feedback and help us prioritize features or email visupport@microsoft.com with any questions.
Quelle: Azure

Azure Backup support for SQL Server 2019 and Restore as files

As SQL Server 2019 continues to push the boundaries of availability, performance, and data intelligence, a centrally managed, enterprise-scale backup solution is imperative to ensure the protection of all that data. This is especially true if you are running the SQL Server in the cloud to leverage the benefits of dynamic scale and don't want to continue using the legacy backup methods that are tedious, infrastructure-heavy, and difficult to scale.

We are excited to share native backup for SQL Server 2019 running in Azure Virtual Machine. This is a key addition to the general availability of Azure Backup for SQL Server Virtual Machine, announced earlier this year.  Azure Backup is a zero-infrastructure solution that protects standalone SQL Server and SQL AlwaysOn configurations in Azure Virtual Machine without the need to deploy and manage any backup infrastructure. While it offers long-term retention and central monitoring capabilities to help IT admins govern and meet their compliance requirements, it lets SQL Admin continue to exercise the power of self-service backup and restore for operational recoveries.

In addition to this, we are also sharing Azure Backup general availability for:

 SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 migrating to Azure as SQL Server running in virtual machines.
SQL Server running on Windows 2019

Restore as files:

Adding to the list of enhancements is the key capability of Restore as Files, now restore anywhere by recovering the backed-up data as .bak files. Move these backup files across subscriptions, regions, or even to on-premises SQL Servers and trigger database restore wherever you want. Besides aiding cross-subscription and cross-region restore scenarios, this feature helps users stay compliant by giving them greater control over storing and recovering backup data to any destination of their choice.

Getting started:

Under the Restore operation, you will see a newly introduced option of Restore as files. Specify the destination server (this server should be SQL Server Virtual Machine registered to the vault) and path on that server. The service will dump all the .bak files specific to the recovery point you have chosen to this path. Typically, a network share path or path of a mounted Azure File share when specified as the destination enables easier access to these files by other machines in the same network or with the same Azure File share mounted on them.

Once the restore operation is completed, you can move these files to any machine across subscriptions or locations and restore them as a database using SQL Server Management Studio. Learn more.

Additional resources

Watch the getting started video.
Want more details about this feature? Review the Azure Backup for SQL Server documentation.
Get the Azure Backup pricing details for this feature.

Quelle: Azure

How AI can supercharge content understanding for businesses

Organizations face challenges when it comes to extracting insights, finding meaning, and uncovering new opportunities in the vast troves of content at their disposal. In fact, 82 percent of organizations surveyed in the latest Harvard Business Review (HBR) Analytic Services report say that exploring and understanding their content in a timely manner is a significant challenge. This is exacerbated because content is not only spread over multiple systems but also in multiple formats such as PDF, JPEG, spreadsheets, and audio files.

The first wave of artificial intelligence (AI) was designed for narrow applications, training a single model to address a specific task such as handwriting recognition. What’s been challenging, however, is that these models individually can’t capture all the different attributes hidden in various types of content. This means developers must painfully stitch together disparate components to fully understand their content.

Instead, organizations need a solution that spans vision, speech, and language to fully unlock insights from all content types. We are heavily investing in this new category of AI, called knowledge mining, to enable organizations to maximize the value of their content.

Knowledge mining with Azure Cognitive Search

Organizations can take advantage of knowledge mining today with Azure Cognitive Search. Organizations can now easily glean insights from all their content through web applications, bots, and Power BI visualizations. With Azure Cognitive Search, organizations can not only benefit from the industry’s most comprehensive domain-specific models but also integrate their own custom models. What used to take months to accomplish can be realized in mere hours without needing data science expertise.

Delivering real business impact

The same Harvard Business Review report describes how our customers across industries are benefiting from knowledge mining in ways that were previously unimaginable.

 Financial Services: “The return on investment (ROI) for knowledge mining at a small fund with one or two analysts is 30 percent to 58 percent. For much larger funds, with 50 or more analysts, it is over 500 percent.”—Subra Bose, CEO of Financial Fabric.
 Healthcare: “A reliable knowledge mining platform can drive roughly a third of the costs out of the medical claims process.” —Ram Swaminathan, CEO at BUDDI Health.
 Manufacturing: “Unlocking this potential will significantly change the way we do business with our customers and how we service their equipment.” —Chris van Ravenswaay, global business solutions manager for Howden.
 Legal: “AI tells you what is inside the contract. It also tells you what the relationship of the contract is with the outside world.” —Monish Darda, CTO of Icertis.

And we’re just getting started. You can expect even deeper integration and more great knowledge mining experiences built with Azure Cognitive Search as we continue this journey. I encourage you to take a look at Harvard Business Review’s survey and findings and hear their perspective on the landscape of knowledge mining.

Getting started

Read the Harvard Business Review Analytics Services report, Knowledge Mining: The Next Wave of Artificial Intelligence-Led Transformation.
Learn more about Azure Cognitive Search.

Quelle: Azure

Bringing confidential computing to Kubernetes

Historically, data has been protected at rest through encryption in data stores, and in transit using network technologies, however as soon as that data is processed in the CPU of a computer it is decrypted and in plain text. New confidential computing technologies are game changing as they provide data protection, even when the code is running on the CPU, with secure hardware enclaves. Today, we are announcing that we are bringing confidential computing to Kubernetes workloads.

Confidential computing with Azure

Azure is the first major cloud platform to support confidential computing building on Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX). Last year, we announced the preview of the DC-series of virtual machines that run on Intel® Xeon® processors and are confidential computing ready.

This confidential computing capability also provides an additional layer of protection even from potentially malicious insiders at a cloud provider, reduces the chances of data leaks and may help address some regulatory compliance needs.

Confidential computing enables several previously not possible use-cases. Customers in regulated industries can now collaborate together using sensitive partner or customers data to detect fraud scenarios without giving the other party visibility into that data. In another example customers can perform mission critical payment processing in secure enclaves.

How it works for Kubernetes

With confidential computing for Kubernetes, customers can now get this additional layer of data protection for their Kubernetes workloads with the code running on the CPU with secure hardware enclaves. Use the open enclave SDK for confidential computing in code. Create a Kubernetes cluster on hardware that supports Intel SGX, such as the DC-series virtual machines running Ubuntu 16.04 or Ubuntu 18.04 and install the confidential computing device plugin into those virtual machines. The device plugin (running as a DaemonSet) surfaces the usage of the Encrypted Page Cache (EPC) RAM as a schedulable resource for Kubernetes. Kubernetes users can then schedule pods and containers that use the Open Enclave SDK onto hardware which supports Trusted Execution Environments (TEE).

The following pod specification demonstrates how you would schedule a pod to have access to a TEE by defining a limit on the specific EPC memory that is advertised to the Kubernetes scheduler by the device plugin available in preview.

Now the pods in these clusters can run containers using secure enclaves and take advantage of confidential computing. There is no additional fee for running Kubernetes containers on top of the base DC-series cost.

The Open Enclave SDK was recently open sourced by Microsoft and made available to the Confidential Computing Consortium, under the Linux Foundation for standardization to create a single uniform API to use with a variety of hardware components and software runtimes across the industry landscape.

Try out confidential computing for Kubernetes with Azure today. Let us know what you think in our survey or on GitHub.
Quelle: Azure

Microsoft cloud in Norway opens with availability of Microsoft Azure

Today, we’re announcing the availability of Microsoft Azure from our new cloud datacenter regions in Norway, marking a major milestone as the first global cloud provider to deliver enterprise-grade services in country. These new regions demonstrate our ongoing investment to help enable digital transformation and advance intelligent cloud and intelligent edge computing technologies across both commercial and public sectors.

DNB, Equinor, Lånekassen, and Posten are just a few of the customers and partners leveraging our cloud services to accelerate innovation and increase computing resources. This new offering of Microsoft Azure delivers scalable, highly available, and resilient cloud services to Norwegian companies and organizations while meeting data residency, security, and compliance needs.

Our President, Brad Smith, recently visited Norway to celebrate this important launch and to discuss how vital trust is for those we serve, not only to help bring forth innovation but to ensure our customers are protected.

“Our customers have entrusted us to protect, operate, and develop our platform in a way that keeps their data private and secure. This is an immense responsibility that we can’t just claim, but a responsibility that we must earn every single day.” – Brad Smith, President, Microsoft

Accelerating digital transformation in Norway

As we further our expansion commitment, we consider the demand for locally delivered cloud services and the opportunity for digital transformation in the market. Azure enables our customers and partners to increase their utilization of public cloud services and accelerate investments into private and hybrid cloud solutions. Norwegian organizations can now embrace these benefits to further innovation and build digital businesses at scale. Below are just a few of the customers and partners embracing Microsoft Azure in Norway.

The Norwegian banking industry is recognized for its rapid technology adoption, digitalizing the services that build the best products for customers. As Norway’s largest financial services group, DNB Group is a major operator in several industries, for which they also have a Nordic or international strategy. With Microsoft Azure, DNB will be able to migrate to the cloud in accordance with Norwegian data handling regulations to modernize, gain operational efficiency, and secure the best experience for its customers. 

“The possibility of data residency was a decisive factor in choosing Microsoft’s datacenter regions. Now we are looking forward to using the cloud to modernize and achieve efficiency and agility in order to ensure the best experience for our customers.” – Alf Otterstad, Executive Vice President, Group IT, DNB

Equinor, a broad energy company developing oil, gas, wind, and solar energy in more than 30 countries worldwide, has chosen Microsoft Azure to enable its digital transformation journey through a seven-year consumption and development agreement. With this strategic partnership, anchored in cloud-enabled innovation, and by moving its whole system portfolio to Azure, Equinor is aiming to achieve a more cost-efficient, safer, and more reliable operation. Equinor will utilize a variety of cloud services like machine learning and advanced analytics to improve performance, decrease costs, and increase safety. Through the partnership with Microsoft and leveraging capabilities within Azure, Equinor seeks to be a leader in the transformation of the energy industry worldwide and a growing force in renewables.

“Equinor’s ambition is to become a global digital leader within our industry. We have a long history of innovation and technology development. The strategic partnership will, through cloud services, involve development of the next-generation IT workplace, extended business application platforms, and mixed-reality solutions.” – Åshild Hanne Larsen, CIO and SVP, Corporate IT Equinor

Lånekassen, the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund, has over 1.1 million customers, composed of former and current students. By moving to Azure, it seeks to develop new and transformative citizen services, based on cognitive and analytical technologies. Lånekassen’s purpose is to make education possible, and to provide the Norwegian workforce with relevant competences. It aims to strengthen student funding as well as maintain and increase the already high level of automatized customer services and application processes.

“It has been a priority for Lånekassen to focus on how we can utilize new technology to deliver an even better service for our students and manage our student financing schemes even more efficiently. As we move our core solutions into the cloud, it will give us increased opportunities to innovate. We have already had great success with using machine learning, and we are now looking forward to optimizing our operations further.” – Nina Schanke Funnemark, CEO, Lånekassen

Posten Norge AS has chosen to use the Microsoft Azure platform to meet ever-changing market demands by modernizing some of its existing applications estate and creating new services for its customers and partners. Posten’s next-generation logistics system will provide its workforce with new digital toolsets to deliver even better customer experiences.

“Posten’s vision is to make everyday life simpler and the world smaller. With this vision, we aim to simplify and increase the value of trade and communication for people and businesses in the Nordic region. With the opening of Norwegian datacenter regions, we hope to accelerate and fuel our vision further.” – Arne Erik Berntzen, CIO, Posten AS

Bringing the complete cloud to Norway

The new cloud regions in Norway connect with Microsoft’s 54 regions via our global network, one of the largest and most innovative on the planet, spanning more than 130,000 miles of terrestrial fiber and subsea cable systems to deliver services to customers. Microsoft brings the global cloud closer to home for Norwegian organizations and citizens through our transatlantic system Marea, the highest-capacity subsea cable to cross the Atlantic.

The new cloud regions in Norway are targeted to expand in 2020 with Office 365, one of the world’s leading cloud-based productivity solutions, and Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, the next generation of intelligent business applications and tools.

Learn more about the new cloud services in Norway and the availability of Azure regions and services across the globe.
Quelle: Azure

Introducing Azure Cost Management for partners

As a partner, you play a critical role in successful planning and managing long-term cloud implementations for your customers. While the cloud grants the flexibility to scale the cloud infrastructure to the changing needs, it does become challenging to control the spend when cloud costs can fluctuate dramatically with demand. This is where Azure Cost Management comes in to help you track and control cloud cost, prevent overspending and increase predictability for your cloud costs

Announcing general availability of Azure Cost Management for all cloud solution partners (CSPs) who have onboarded their customers to the new Microsoft Customer agreement. With this update, partners and their customers can take advantage of Azure Cost Management tools available to manage cloud spend, similar to the cost management capabilities available for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and enterprise customers today.

This is the first of the periodic updates to enable cost management support for partners that enables partners to understand, analyze, dissect and manage cost across all their customers and invoices.

With this update, CSPs use Azure Cost Management to:

Understand invoiced costs and associate the costs to the customer, subscriptions, resource groups, and services.
Get an intuitive view of Azure costs in cost analysis with capabilities to analyze costs by customer, subscription, resource group, resource, meter, service, and many other dimensions.
View resource costs that have Partner Earned Credit (PEC) applied in Cost Analysis.
Set up notifications and automation using programmatic budgets and alerts when costs exceed budgets.
Enable the Azure Resource Manager policy that provides customer access to Cost Management data. Customers can then view consumption cost data for their subscriptions using pay-as-you-go rates.

For more information see, Get Started with Azure Cost Management as a Partner.

Analyze costs by customer, subscription, tags, resource group or resource using cost analysis

Using cost analysis, partners can group by and filter costs by customer, subscription, tags, resource group, resource, and reseller Microsoft partner Network identifier (MP NID), and have increased visibility into costs for better cost control. Partners can also view and manage the costs in the billing currency and in US dollars for billing scopes.

Reconcile cost to an invoice

Partners can reconcile costs by invoice across their customers and their subscriptions to understand the pre-tax costs that contributed to the invoice.

You can analyze azure spend for the customers you support and their subscriptions and resources. With this enhanced visibility into the costs of your customers, you can use spending patterns to enforce cost control mechanisms, like budgets and alerts to manage costs with continued and increased accountability.

Enable cost management at retail rates for your customers

In this update, a partner can also enable cost management features, initially at pay-as-you-go rates for your customers and resellers who have access to the subscriptions in the customer’s tenant. As a partner, if you decide to enable cost management for the users with access to the subscription, they will have the same capabilities to analyze the services they consume and set budgets to control costs that are computed at pay-as-you-go prices for Azure consumed services. This is just the first of the updates and we have features planned in the first half of 2020 to enable cost management for customers at prices that partner can set by applying a markup on the pay-as-you-go prices.

Partners can set a policy to enable cost management for users with access to an Azure subscription to view costs at retail rates for a specific customer.

If the policy is enabled for subscriptions in the customer’s tenant, users with role-based access control (RBAC) access to the subscription can now manage Azure consumption costs at retail prices.

Set up programmatic budgets and alerts to automate and notify when costs exceed threshold

As a partner, you can set up budgets and alerts to send notifications to specified email recipients when the cost threshold is exceeded. In the partner tenant, you can set up budgets for costs as invoiced to the partner. You can also set up monthly, quarterly, or annual budgets across all your customers, or for a specific customer, and filter by subscription, resource, reseller MPN ID, or resource group.

Any user with RBAC access to a subscription or resource group can also set up budgets and alerts for Azure consumption costs at retail rates in the customer tenant if the policy for cost visibility has been enabled for the customer.

When a budget is created for a subscription or resource group in the customer tenant, you can also configure it to call an action group. The action group can perform a variety of different actions when your budget threshold is met. For more information about action groups, see Create and manage action groups in the Azure portal. For more information about using budget-based automation with action groups, see Manage costs with Azure budgets.

All the experiences that we provide in Azure Cost Management natively are also available as REST APIs for enabling automated cost management experiences.

Coming soon

We will be enabling cost recommendation and optimization suggestions, for better savings and efficiency in managing Azure costs.
We will launch Azure Cost Management at retail rates for customers who are not on the Microsoft Customer Agreement and are supported by CSP partners.
Showback features that enable partners to charge a markup on consumption costs are also being planned for 2020.

Try Azure Cost Management for partners today! It is natively available in the Azure portal for all partners who have onboarded customers to the new Microsoft Customer Agreement.
Quelle: Azure