Sunday, May 14, 2017

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

If you're in this sphere, I am pretty sure you've also been either attending on-site, virtually attending or at least heard about what Build 2017 from Microsoft had to offer last week.

With this post I simply want to emphasize on some of the features and announcements that Microsoft did recently that I really liked. There was a lot more happening, but these are my key takeaways. Enjoy.

Azure Cloud Shell

A while ago I tweeted about a nice way Microsoft implemented a feature-teaser in the Azure Portal:

Well, at Build 2017 they kept their promise and disclosed - and opened up - the functionality of the Azure Cloud Shell.

It offers a quick and easy way to communicate with Azure and run commands through the bash interface, which also has the Azure CLI and PowerShell cmdlets available right there at the fingertips.

Best of all? You're already signed in and authenticated, so no need for any of those things either. (Which should give you a slight chill down your spine, not to jump into production and accidentally delete all of your data clusters...)

Check it out here:
Azure Cloud Shell

Azure Snapshot Debugging

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

Now this is a pretty cool thing. Take a snapshot of your production environment, then you debug the snapshot instead of debugging your production environment. Mind blown.

Read more:
Introducing the Snapshot Debugger preview for Azure

Production debugging your cloud has never been so simple - http://ift.tt/2rgdlHt

Session video: Snapshot debugging and profiling in Microsoft Azure: Next generation diagnostics for your in-production cloud apps

Azure Cosmos DB (formerly DocumentDB)

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

This is the successor to DocumentDB, if you've tried that.
Azure Cosmos DB is a globally distributed, multi-model database which supports many models including key-value, documents, graphs, columns and a bunch of API's etc.

Learn more: Welcome to Azure Cosmos DB

Fluent Design System

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

Fluent Design is a revamp of Microsoft Design Language 2 that will include guidelines for the designs and interactions used within software designed for all Windows 10 devices and platforms. The system is based on five key components: Light, Depth, Motion, Material, and Scale. - Source: http://ift.tt/2rgt3lW

Check it out: Microsoft Fluent Design System

OneDrive Files On-Demand

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

One of the most popular UserVoice suggestions for OneDrive was submitted in July 15,2015. It has finally been heard and with the announcements at Build 2017, it appears we're finally getting selective sync or files on-demand.

Read the announcement: http://ift.tt/2pC1LEm

Azure Batch AI Training

Microsoft Build 2017 - My Favorite Highlights and Announcements

Azure Batch AI Training helps you experiment in parallel with your AI models using any framework and then train them at scale across clustered GPUs. Simply describe your job requirements and configuration to run, and we’ll handle the rest.

What can I say. I love things that scale, and I love building clusters of processing power - and making the applications better at the same time. If this is your type of thing, you should check out the Azure Batch AI Training. They're throwing it all into some Docker containers for easy virtualization and then off you go, because they also take care of any plumbing required.

In other words; Train your AI and Machine learning products and don't worry about any hardware - just do the fun stuff and Microsoft has your back on the rest!

Watch the Sessions for Free

In their continued awesome fashion, Microsoft is releasing most (if not all) recordings from the Build conference. They're available on Channel 9 for everyone to freely enjoy.

Check them out here:

http://ift.tt/2oYijLy


by Tobias Zimmergren via Zimmergren's thoughts on tech

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