Tag: Microsoft Ignite

Sharpen your skills and add some new superpowers in the Learning Zone at the all-digital Microsoft Ignite September 22-24. No matter where you are in your journey as a developer, the Learning Zone has something to help you expand your toolkit. And Ignite is perfectly priced for students—it’s free.  

 

Get in the zone 

The Learning Zone is filled with sessions and workshops to help you take your skill set to the next level. Here’s a taste of what’s waiting for you: 

 

Intro to Tech Skills 

Explore key topics to help you kick off a career in tech. We’ll cover a variety of interests, job roles, and Microsoft technologies. 

 

Learn Workshops 

Get hands-on with online workshops hosted by experts who walk you through a Microsoft Learn module. 

 

Cloud Skills Challenge  

Apply and expand your skills through interactive learning modules and earn a free Microsoft Certification exam. You might even win some prizes! 

 

Launch yourself into tech 

You’re considering a career in technology. Exciting! But where do you start? Intro to Tech Skills is your chance to explore different paths and find your way forward. 

Be sure to catch the Careers in Tech panels, where tech professionals from a variety of backgrounds share their own experiences. You’ll get some insight into the areas of tech that might interest you, things to expect along your journey, and what the current state of recruiting looks like, including the roles that companies are hiring for. You’ll also learn more about how Microsoft technologies and learning resources can help you get started. 

Intro to Tech Skills also includes sessions that cover development tools, cloud computing, programming languages, sustainability, and powerful ways to use data. Exploring a career in IT? Join us for sessions on topics like business management, productivity, collaboration with Microsoft Teams, and security with Microsoft 365. 

 

Watch Student Ambassadors in action 

You can even see how Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors help to make Microsoft events unique and inclusive. Many of the Learning Zone sessions will be redelivered by Student Ambassadors in different time zones around the world, in a variety of languages. For example, Ambassadors are redelivering an intro to Python in Spanish and a session on green development in Hindi and French. 

 

Learn, grow, and enter to win 

Show off your skills and aim for a shot at the grand prize. The Microsoft Ignite Cloud Skills Challenge is made up of six individual subject-level challenges, each based on a collection of Microsoft Learn modules. You can participate in as many challenges as you’d like, and each one that you complete earns you more sweepstakes entries. 

After you’ve completed your first challenge, you’ll earn a free Microsoft Certification exam. And if the sweepstakes drawing goes your way, you could win a chance for you and four of your friends to spend time with a key leader at Microsoft! 

Registration for the Cloud Skills Challenge goes live on September 22. To be one of the first to know when the challenge begins, sign up for notifications. 

 

Let’s go! 

Ignite is coming up soon—register now so you don’t miss it! We’ll see you there. 

Because the world is in unchartered territory with COVID-19 impacting people, organizations and economies this year, we’re excited to announce that we’ve pivoted Microsoft Ignite from a week-long, in-person event to two global events that are free, 48-hour digital gatherings. The first event is Sept. 22-24, and registration will open on Sept. 3. We’ll be adding a second Microsoft Ignite in early 2021 to create an additional opportunity to connect with our technical communities, and to share the latest product developments.

We’ve learned from the global digital events we’ve held this year that we now have the opportunity to bring the whole global community together in one place to create a truly worldwide event.  For this reason, we’re not going to be holding Microsoft Ignite Tour events in different cities around the world this year; instead Microsoft Ignite will bring all global participants together and include the opportunity for local community meetups, will have language localization, and participants will also be able to get skill building with Microsoft Learn and certifications.

Finally, I want to clarify that the second Microsoft Ignite event to be held early next year will not replace Microsoft Build. We’ll continue to host Microsoft Build as the forum for our developer communities to come together.

Visit www.microsoft.com/events to stay connected on all Microsoft events.

Tags: Ignite 2020, IT

Millions of engineers across industries such as automotive, aerospace, industrial machinery and medical devices have already built models of the systems they work on using MATLAB or Simulink. This new partnership allows users to bring simulation models built using MATLAB and Simulink to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, enabling unprecedented scalability and making it easier for developers and engineers building autonomous systems.

“Our core interest really comes down to engineering productivity — the ability to succeed at a task in the least amount of time possible,” said Loren Dean, MathWorks senior director of engineering for MATLAB products.  “This partnership allows engineers to stay in a familiar workflow to learn and apply AI without having to do the things that are non-traditional for them, like setting up the infrastructure to run a bunch of simulations at once. They’re shielded from all that.”

By running hundreds or thousands of simulations in parallel in Azure and learning from massive amounts of data at once, deep reinforcement learning algorithms can find optimal solutions to chaotic, real-world control problems that other types of AI still struggle to solve.

It turns out these problems are everywhere, said Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Business AI. Microsoft received three times more interest than it expected after opening its autonomous systems limited preview program in May.

The companies who have applied to work with Microsoft’s autonomous systems team and partners are looking to develop control systems to intelligently stitch fabric, optimize chemical engineering processes, manufacture durable consumer goods and even process food. The potential goes far beyond robotics or autonomous vehicles, Microsoft says.

“These are the kinds of diverse use cases for autonomous systems that we’re starting to see emerge,” Pall said.  “As customers learn about the capabilities of our toolchain, we’re seeing them apply it in really interesting ways because these control problems exist almost everywhere you look.”

Most customer use cases Microsoft has seen so far involve helping existing employees do their jobs more efficiently, safely or with higher quality, said Mark Hammond, Microsoft general manager for Business AI and the former CEO of the startup Bonsai, which Microsoft acquired last year. As sensors in modern workplaces collect ever more data, it can become difficult for any one operator — such as someone who is guiding a drill bit or calibrating expensive equipment — to track it all. AI tools can process that data and bring the most relevant patterns to that operator’s attention, enabling them to make more informed decisions.

“The journey from automated to autonomous systems is a spectrum of solutions, and very few of the engagements we’re seeing are in that fully autonomous with no humans in the loop zone,” Hammond said. “The vast majority are assistive technologies that work with people.”

Training AI systems in virtual worlds

Traditionally, AI models have often relied on labor-intensive labeled data for training, which works well for many problems but not for those that lack real-world data. Now, Microsoft and partners like MathWorks are expanding the use of AI into more areas such as those that require learning from the three-dimensional physical world around them — through the power of reinforcement learning and simulation.

Engineers have long used simulations to mathematically model the systems they work with in the real world. This allows them to estimate how a particular change in a chemical, manufacturing or industrial process may affect performance, without having to worry about slowing production or putting people or equipment at risk.

Now, those same simulations can be used to train reinforcement learning algorithms to find optimal solutions, Dean said.

“The AI is really augmenting how these traditional systems have worked — it just gives you greater confidence in your design and gives you additional capabilities that either had to be done manually before or were difficult to solve,” Dean said.

Imagine a building engineer whose job is to calibrate all the heating and cooling systems in a large commercial building to keep each room at a comfortable temperature as people stream in and out for meetings and outside weather fluctuates — while using as little energy as possible. That could involve tuning dozens of different parameters and might take many cycles of modeling and measuring changes for that engineer to find the best balance of controls.

With the new Microsoft and MathWorks partnership, that engineering expert could use machine teaching tools to help an AI system focus on the most important dimensions of the problem, set safety limits and figure out how to reward success as the algorithms learn. This allows for greater transparency and trust in how the AI system is making decisions and also helps it work more efficiently than randomly exploring all possibilities.

The engineer could train the AI using models that he or she already developed in MATLAB or Simulink. The simulations can be automatically scaled up in the Azure cloud — which means the engineer doesn’t have to worry about learning how to host and manage computing clusters.

The end result is the building engineer uses AI to zero in on promising solutions much faster — but still uses his or her judgment to decide what works best.

“This partnership really marries the best of MathWorks’ capabilities for modeling and simulation with the best of Microsoft’s capabilities for cloud computing and AI,” Microsoft’s Hammond said.

As we continue our momentum and investments in Microsoft business applications, I’m excited to highlight some of the new capabilities in the October 2018 release of Dynamics 365 and the Power platform at Ignite 2018 today.

In my keynote at the event with Alysa Taylor, we are featuring two customers, Polaris Industries and Northwell Health. These customers exemplify companies that are using Dynamics 365 and the Power platform to fundamentally reimagine how they engage with their customers, use data to optimize their operations, empower their employees and transform their products.

You’ll see how Polaris is transforming their customer engagement processes and manufacturing operations through connected products, using Dynamics 365. And we’ll show some pretty amazing applications of mixed reality as we demonstrate HoloLens used in a field service engagement.

You’ll also hear from Northwell Health about how they are changing patient engagement with Dynamics 365, the Power platform, Office 365 and Azure. One of my favorite parts of their story is about a PowerApp which gives physicians and nurses visibility into each other’s teams – developed by one of their doctors! These business applications are helping teams at Northwell collaborate more effectively and provide even better patient care that is truly transformational.

And this all comes on top up some phenomenal feedback we received from the market following our introduction of new Dynamics 365 AI and Mixed Reality applications last week. And we are incredibly excited to build on all this momentum with the announcement from Satya today on the Open Data Initiative with Adobe and SAP, which represents the next step in our journey to deliver unmatched value to our customers.

In addition, the October release is packed with hundreds of new capabilities across all Dynamics 365 applications and the Power platform, including new connected field service capabilities and deeper integrations with Office 365, Teams, and LinkedIn. Get the full details of this release through our release notes.

And watch my keynote at Ignite, here.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

We are going through a technology transformation that is unlocking new scenarios that were simply not possible before. Smart sensors and connected devices are breathing new life into industrial equipment from factories to farms, smart cities to homes, while new devices are increasingly cloud connected by default – whether it’s a car or a refrigerator.

Simultaneously, hybrid cloud is evolving from being the integration of a datacenter with the public cloud, to becoming units of computing available at even the world’s most remote destinations working in connection with public cloud.

Bring these two realities together, with AI running across all systems, and we enter the era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge.

The intelligent cloud is ubiquitous computing enabled by the public cloud and powered with AI. In this way, we refer to Azure as the world’s computer, powering every type of intelligent application and system our customers envision.

The intelligent edge is the continually expanding set of connected systems and devices that gather and analyze information close to the physical world where data resides, to deliver real-time insights and immersive experiences that are highly responsive and contextually aware.

Enabling intelligent cloud and intelligent edge solutions requires a new class of distributed, connected applications and will ultimately deliver break-through business outcomes. These cloud/edge applications are built as a single solution yet run in a distributed fashion – optimized to take advantage of both robust cloud capabilities and edge locality. At the edge, the application is contextually aware and can run in both connected and disconnected states.

While the era of intelligent cloud and intelligent edge is new, the approach to building and running solutions that take advantage of this architecture is based on enduring principles. Fundamentally, a cloud/edge application must be developed and run as a single environment from the application services to AI to security and management.  

Today, I’d like to share with you how we’re building Azure cloud/edge capabilities aligned with these enduring principles while uniquely delivering consistency across the cloud and the edge:

• Consistent app platform across cloud and edge. We’ve built Azure to provide consistency in programming models, data services, AI, and DevOps to simplify cloud/edge app development and ensure on-going app management is efficient. For example, you can develop an event-based application with Azure Functions that runs on Azure, on Azure Stack and on any device with Azure IoT Edge.
• Holistic security. To provide security across the cloud/edge application, Azure Security Center provides unified security management and advanced threat protection for systems running in cloud and on the edge. We also recognize that cloud and edge environments have different security risks, so we have built additional protections including Azure Sphere’s ground-breaking security for MCU-based edge devices.
• Single identity management. Providing single identity controls across the cloud/edge application is necessary to secure and manage applications wherever they reside. Azure Active Directory provides unified identity management and conditional access across the cloud and edge, providing protection from unauthorized access to apps and data wherever it resides.  
• Consistent cloud and edge management. With an app distributed across different edge solutions, manageability of the devices and the code they run becomes an important consideration. Azure management tools for monitoring, running updates, backup, and disaster recovery span cloud resources in Azure and the app and devices running at the edge environment.
• Artificial Intelligence. Tapping into the contextual insight from the edge provides Machine Learning models more robust data and thus better results. Azure enables you to combine data in the cloud and from the edge to develop ML models. Then, the same ML models developed and tested in Azure can be distributed to run across a massive set of certified devices running with Azure IoT Edge.
• Comprehensive intelligent edge portfolio to meet every need. While Azure provides a robust set of cloud services and edge devices, we know the diversity at the edge will only grow. This is why we are equally investing with the ecosystem of ISVs, SIs, and solution providers to ensure you have the right edge solution for your unique business. Azure will continue to push the boundaries of the market as we’ve done with Azure Stack that is both cloud and edge, and Azure Sphere that provides unparalleled security for MCU based devices.

Other cloud vendors claim support for cloud/edge computing with servers that run VMs or containers. However, this approach doesn’t recognize the massive diversity of edge devices and use cases, nor provides the consistent approach across app model, management, and security that enterprise solutions require. 

To further enable the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge approach, we are announcing a number of new Azure capabilities today.

• Azure Digital Twins. This brand-new Azure service enables you to create a comprehensive digital model of any physical environment. This includes a model of people, places, and things as well as the relationships and processes that bind them. And, this digital model isn’t just a static experience. Azure Digital Twins connects the digital model directly with the devices and sensors in the physical world to keep the digital model always up-to-date. This enables two additional ground-breaking capabilities:
  
  • The ability for digital model changes to trigger business logic and workflows to the physical environment, through an event driven, workflow approach. For a simple example, when everyone has vacated a conference room you can instantly turn off the lights and lower the air conditioning.
  • Azure Digital Twins integrates seamlessly with Azure data and analytics services so you can track all past activities, run simulations, and predict the future of your digital model and physical environment.

• Azure IoT Edge extended offline. To address the ever-expanding use cases at the edge, we are adding the capability for IoT devices to operate disconnected from the internet for extended periods with the public preview of Azure IoT Edge extended offline capability.
• Azure IoT Central. Today, Azure IoT Central moves into general availability. Azure IoT Central is a fully managed global IoT SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution that makes it easy to connect, monitor, and manage your IoT assets at scale. This means you can bring your connected products to market faster and provide new value add services to your connection solution.
• Azure Sphere preview. In February 2018, we announced Azure Sphere, a new solution for creating highly-secured, internet-connected microcontroller (MCU) devices running on the edge. Today, we are excited to announce broad availability of the first Azure Sphere dev kit and public preview of the Azure Sphere OS, Azure Sphere Security Service, and developer tools.
• Azure Data Box Edge. Today we are announcing Azure Data Box Edge is available in preview. Azure Data Box Edge enables you to pre-process data at the edge and also move data to Azure efficiently. Azure Data Box Edge uses advanced FPGA hardware natively integrated into the appliance to run machine learning inference algorithms at the edge efficiently. The size and portability allow you to run Azure Data Box Edge as close to users, apps and data as needed.
• Azure Stack. We began shipping our first Azure Stack systems a year ago and we have seen amazing solutions built by our customers to address disconnected and compliance use-cases. We have regularly released new services to run on Azure Stack and today, I’m excited to share that Azure Event Hubs will also be coming to Azure Stack. With Azure Event Hubs on Azure Stack, customers can run cloud-style telemetry ingestion from websites, apps, and any streams of data. We are also expanding capacity for Azure Stack systems enabling customers to use Azure Stack in even more scenarios.

We are also excited to see how customers and partners are solving real-world problems using intelligent cloud and intelligent edge solutions with Azure.

Schneider Electric is gaining a lot more business insight by proactively identifying pump problems real-time through predictive edge analytics. They can shut down pumps before damages occur, protecting machinery and preventing potential environmental damage. “In some critical systems—whether at an oil pump or in a manufacturing plant—you may have to make a decision in a matter of milliseconds,” says Matt Boujonnier, Analytics Application Architect for Schneider Electric. “By building machine learning algorithms into our applications and deploying analytics at the edge, we reduce any communication latency to the cloud or a central system, and that critical decision can happen right away.”

Cree, an innovator of power and radio frequency semiconductors, turned to Azure Data Box Edge to archive the millions of quality-control photos from their manufacturing processes to Azure. They also make use of the edge computing capabilities to package the images into a single file as part of the upload, which leads to easy  retrieval and management of the archived data later. This approach helps Cree manage their continued growth of storage without hampering the business. Cree also plans to use Azure Machine Learning to train a model in the cloud and  run it  on Data Box Edge to detect bad parts as they come off the production line, which enables Cree to easily scale their processes.

iMOKO, a digital health charity, wanted to make sure that the children and communities in remote areas, often without connectivity, have access to healthcare services. “Since using Microsoft Azure Stack, we’ve had a significant improvement in the performance of the iMOKO application. It runs really fast and well, even in rural and remote areas. The key reason for choosing the Azure Stack with Revera was around the reliability and trustworthiness in the healthcare setting,” said Jodi Mitchell, CEO for iMOKO. By using technology at the edge, iMOKO can place health services within an arm’s reach of everyone who needs it no matter where they are in New Zealand.

The intelligent cloud and intelligent edge make it possible to provide consistent power to critical institutions like hospitals and schools, manage precious resources like energy, food and water, as well as create devices that help people who have disabilities or diseases live more comfortably and connect with loved ones, and much more.

We look forward to welcoming you at Ignite 2018 where you will learn more about customers and partners using Azure solutions across the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge, the next wave of computing.