Tag Archives: microsoft
Optimizing Vector Similarity Search on Azure Data Explorer – Performance Update
This post is co-authored by @Anshul_Sharma (Senior Program Manager, Microsoft).
This blog is an update of Optimizing Vector Similarity Searches at Scale. We continue to improve the performance of vector similarity search in Azure Data Explorer (Kusto). We present the new functions and policies to maximize performance and the resulting search times.
The following table and chart present the search time for the top 3 most similar vectors to a supplied vector:
# of vectors
Total time
[sec.]
25,000
0.03
50,000
0.035
100,000
0.047
200,000
0.062
400,000
0.094
800,000
0.125
1,600,000
0.14
3,200,000
0.15
6,400,000
0.19
12,800,000
0.35
25,600,000
0.55
51,200,000
1.1
102,400,000
2.3
204,800,000
3.9
409,600,000
7.6
This benchmark was done on a medium size Kusto cluster (containing 29 nodes), searching for the most similar vectors in a table of Azure OpenAI embedding vectors. Each vector was generated using ‘text-embedding-ada-002’ embedding model and contains 1536 coefficients.
These are the steps to achieve the best performance of similarity search:
Use series_cosine_similarity(), the new optimized native function to calculate cosine similarity
Set the encoding of the embeddings column to Vector16, the new 16 bit encoding of the vectors coefficients (instead of the default 64 bit)
Store the embedding vectors table on all nodes with at least one shard per processor. This can be achieved by limiting the number of embedding vectors per shard by altering ShardEngineMaxRowCount of the sharding policy and RowCountUpperBoundForMerge of the merging policy.
Suppose our table contains 1M vectors and our Kusto cluster has 20 nodes each has 16 processors. The table’s shards should contain at most 1000000/(20*16)=3125 rows. These are the KQL commands to create the empty table and set the required policies and encoding:
.create table embedding_vectors(vector_id:long, vector:dynamic) // more columns can be added
.alter-merge table embedding_vectors policy sharding ‘{ “ShardEngineMaxRowCount” : 3125 }’
.alter-merge table embedding_vectors policy merge ‘{ “RowCountUpperBoundForMerge” : 3125 }’
.alter column embedding_vectors.vector policy encoding type = ‘Vector16’
Now we can ingest the vectors into the table.
And here is a typical search query:
let searched_vector = repeat(1536, 0); // to be replaced with real embedding vector.
embedding_vectors
| extend similarity = series_cosine_similarity_fl(vector, searched_vector, 1, 1)
| top 10 by similarity desc
The current semantic search times enable usage of ADX as embedding vectors storage platform for RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) scenarios and beyond,
We continue to improve vector search performance, stay tuned!
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Skilling snack: Windows hardware security introduction
In today’s Zero Trust and chip-to-cloud security efforts, hardware plays an important role. Whether your organization is renewing hardware or hardening the existing one, let’s cover some basics. Even if these concepts are already familiar to you, consider sharing them with your users or those earlier in the career. Otherwise, choose your own adventure among resources on hardware root-of-trust, silicon-assisted security, and secured-core PCs.
Time to learn:132 minutes
READ
Device protection in Windows Security
Windows Security provides built-in security options to help protect your organization’s device from malicious software attacks. Start your security training with Device security. Walk through details and options for core isolation, security processor, secure boot, and different levels of hardware security capability.
(4 mins)
Windows + Device + Security + VBS + TPM + UEFI + Rootkit + Secure Boot + SMM
LEARN
Start here to learn how Zero Trust principles apply from chip to cloud. Complete this beginner 700-XP learning module to learn about infrastructure as one of the components, and how it fits into your overall security strategy.
(12 mins)
Zero Trust + Security + Identity + Endpoints + Applications + Network + Infrastructure + Data
Hardware root-of-trust
READ
How System Guard helps protect Windows (12 mins)
Ensure trustworthiness of your Windows OS firmware and hardware with System Guard. Maintain the integrity of the system against advanced attacks targeting the most foundational layers of a system with Dynamic Root of Trust for Measurement (DRTM) and System Management Mode (SMM) protections. Learn about integrity validation from boot to run time. Finally, review your requirements to use System Guard.
Trusted Platform Module Technology Overview (5 mins)
Let’s define and describe TPM as a measure of access control and authentication. Review requirements for using this feature as well as practical applications. While Windows 11 and Windows 10 systems automatically start the TPM, review considerations for Group Policy settings and device health attestation.
Hardware Root of Trust + System Guard + Integrity + TPM + SRTM + DRTM + UEFI + SMM + Silicon + Group Policy + RSA + SoC + CPU + Firmware
Silicon-assisted security
READ
Virtualization-based Security (VBS) (5 mins)
VBS is an isolated virtual environment that hosts security solutions that are protected from even the most highly privileged malware running on the OS. Follow an example of a VBS solution related to memory integrity or hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI). Review hardware requirements for VBS and nested virtualization support.
Enable memory integrity (12 mins)
Memory integrity is a VBS feature that protects against exploitations of the Windows kernel. Read about its features, enablement guidance, troubleshooting, and deployment in virtual machines. You can use Windows Security settings, Microsoft Intune, Configuration Manager, various policies, or registry keys.
Kernel Direct Memory Access (DMA) Protection (7 mins)
Additional protections are available for drive-by DMA attacks, which happen in the absence of the user. Get an overall understanding of this threat and how Kernel DMA Protection works. Check if you meet compatibility and licensing requirements. This feature will normally be enabled automatically, but you can follow simple steps to check if it is. Browse frequently asked questions for additional details.
VBS + Memory Integrity + HVCI + VM + TPM + Kernel + MDM + Intune + ConfigMgr + Policies + UEFI + Reg + WDAC + PowerShell + DMA
READ
Do you know how Microsoft collaborates with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for built-in hardware security capabilities? The capabilities include baseline Windows security, virtualization-based security, and System Guard. Read about the features and benefits of Secured-core PCs.
(3 mins)
Secured-Core PC + VBS + TPM + Secure Boot + BitLocker + Baseline + HVCI + ESS + Windows Hello + Firmware
LISTEN
Pluton: The New Bedrock for Device Security – Security Unlocked
Curious about Microsoft Pluton security processor? Listen to this podcast to learn about its history and its architecture. Dive deep into some threat factors today and prepare for the future. Furthermore, find practical insights from a Threat Intel Librarian who joins the conversation about tools and platforms for hardware security.
(48 mins)
Pluton + Security + CPU + Secure Boot + SoC + Xbox + Intel
WATCH
Windows 11 Security — Our Hacker-in-Chief Runs Attacks and Shows Solutions
Peek behind the curtain of common remote and in-person attacks. Watch how our security expert uses Virtualization-based Security, Trusted Platform Module, UEFI, Secure Boot, and Trusted Boot to deflect sophisticated malware and attacks at the hardware level.
(17 mins)
Hardware + Security + Attacks + VBS + TPM + UEFI + Secure Boot + Trusted Boot + Windows 11
Bookmark the Windows 11 Security Book for the complete chip-to-cloud story!
Did you find anything particularly fit for your taste? How can we spice it up for you?
Our collection of Windows skilling snacks: bite-sized learning for IT pros is always growing, and we’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas!
Continue the conversation. Find best practices. Bookmark the Windows Tech Community, then follow us @MSWindowsITPro on X/Twitter. Looking for support? Visit Windows on Microsoft Q&A.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Can i setup teams meetings to only show on the teams device tablet in the room and not on the tv ?
I have a request to not show the upcoming meetings on the television connected to the teams device. Is this possible ? They want to show them only on the tablet
I have a request to not show the upcoming meetings on the television connected to the teams device. Is this possible ? They want to show them only on the tablet Read More
Ethical AI: Nurup Naimju’s Vision for Responsible Growth in AI Entrepreneurship
About the series: Build it with AI is a Microsoft Reactor series hosting AI entrepreneurs who share their experiences and learnings in their path of building innovative solutions with AI.
About this episode: Register Now Events | Microsoft Reactor 23rd January 2024
In this episode Nurup Naimju Co Founder of 3-2-1 GoCheck | Background checking made easy
Nurup discusses Responsible AI and ethical AI Decision Making, the potential growth and exciting possibilities in the AI industry today, empowering businesses worldwide and enhancing productivity and digital transformation.
He shares some insights of AI impact in terms of automation and processing and the challenges of an AI entrepreneur in this landscape, together with some tips and tricks on how to face them daily.
Next steps:
– Learn more about 3-2-1 Go Check
– Subscribe to the Build It With AI and watch past episodes on-demand
– Learn about the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub program and start building your AI business today!
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Zero Touch Enrollment of MDE on iOS/iPadOS devices managed by Intune
Introduction
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) is a unified endpoint security platform that helps protect your devices from advanced threats. MDE on iOS/iPadOS devices provides protection against phishing and unsafe network connections. To use MDE on iOS devices, you need to enroll them in Microsoft Intune, a cloud-based service that helps you manage and secure your mobile devices.
This blog post helps you prepare your environment for zero-touch aka silent enrollment of MDE on your Intune managed iOS/iPadOS devices. Zero Touch enrollment is not available for all scenarios, below is a matrix for reference:
In this post, we will discuss the two selected scenarios which support silent onboarding of MDE. This does not include Shared/Kiosk or user-less devices.
Prerequisites
Before you enroll MDE on iOS/iPadOS devices, make sure you have the following:
An Intune enrolled device with a valid user license for MDE. For MAM (Microsoft Application Management) and 3rd party MDM’s there is a separate onboarding process I will discuss in a future blog post.
An iOS/iPadOS version 15 or above.
Tip: You may want to create a Device group for these target devices since the configuration policies below are recommended to be deployed against devices.
Deploy the Defender App
You may choose to deploy the Microsoft Defender App from Intune either via VPP (volume purchasing programs) or the Public App Store. What’s important is to ensure that the App Configuration Policy you will create later targets the same app source (VPP Or Public App Store).
Assign the App to the target User/Device Group for assignment.
Supervised Devices
These are company owned devices enrolled via the Apple Device Enrollment Program (ADE formerly DEP) or using Apple Configurator profiles. When you onboard a Supervised Device into MDE, it does not create a local loopback VPN.
At a high-level, you need an App Configuration Policy and a Device Configuration Policy targeted to these devices.
Step1: App Configuration Policy for Supervised Devices
From the Intune Console create an App Configuration policy of Managed devices type with Microsoft Defender as the target App.
In the Settings page, select Use configuration designer and add issupervised as the key, value type as String, value as {{issupervised}}
Assign the policy to the target Device Group for assignment.
Step2: Device Configuration Profile for Supervised Devices
The next step is to create a Custom Configuration Profile which enables Web Protection without the need for any local loopback VPN.
Download the Configuration file from: https://aka.ms/mdeiosprofilesupervisedzerotouch
Specify a profile name and browse to the location of .mobileconfig file you downloaded from the link above.
Assign the policy to the target Device Group for assignment.
Screenshot of the custom .mobileconfig file highlighting the silent onboarding configuration.
Onboarding Experience
Since this is a silent enrollment of MDE, the end user would only notice the MDE App installed. They do not need to launch the app for any activation. In the GIF below you will notice before the MDE App is installed, I am able to browse a malicious site (https://smartscreentestratings2.net) and after the deployment and silent configuration of MDE the same site is immediately blocked by Defender.
Unsupervised Devices
These devices are primarily BYOD or Corporate owned devices however not enrolled via Apple ADE/Configurator profiles. These devices are enrolled through App or Web-based Device Enrollment scenario.
Please note that Apple User Enrollment does not support MDE Zero-Touch silent enrollment, refer my previous blog post for deployment guidance: Onboarding Intune Managed iOS User Enrollment Devices to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Microsoft Community Hub
A VPN is created for Web Protection Feature on Unsupervised devices. This is not a regular VPN and is a local/self-looping VPN that does not take traffic outside the device.
VPN FAQ: Will this conflict with my corporate VPN?
Guidance: Use a Per-App VPN profile to allow your Enterprise Apps access to corporate resources while leaving the Defender Device-Wide VPN to protect the device. Alternatively, if you switch to Microsoft Tunnel as your corporate VPN gateway, the Defender App will suffice both the requirements.
Configuration
For these devices all you need is a Configuration Profile of type VPN.
This is a Custom VPN profile, for instructions refer our learn docs here.
Assign the policy to the target Device Group for assignment.
The key differentiator is the Key-value pair highlighted in the screenshot below which enables Silent onboarding of the Defender VPN profile.
Onboarding
The device onboarding experience is like Supervised device as called out in the GIF above. As an end user one would only notice the MDE App installed. They do not need to launch the app for any activation.
Post enrollment the device reports to the Microsoft Defender Security Portal.
The device name in Defender for Endpoint console is of the format <username_iPhone/iPad model>. You can also use Microsoft Entra device ID to identify the device in the Defender for Endpoint console.
Additionally, you will see an active Alert from the suspicious site browsed by the user on that device.
Things to know.
MAM Conditional App launch requirement for Defender App existence will interfere with the zero-touch experience since it requires the user to launch the app.
New devices leveraging JIT Registration or Setup Assistant with Modern Auth may have an initial delay of around 5 minutes before MDE zero touch silent onboarding. This is the time between the Authenticator app registering the device and triggering MDE onboarding.
Thanks,
Arnab Mitra
Special thanks to Michael and Yuji for their valuable inputs in this blog post.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Analyze Videos with Azure Open AI GPT-4V and Data Factory
Azure Open AI’s GPT-4V is revolutionizing how businesses utilize video data. This powerful AI tool, built on Azure’s robust cloud platform, offers scalable video analysis with enterprise-level security. Whether it’s streamlining quality control in manufacturing with precise defect detection, accessing damage of products in transit, detecting a specific image in a video, or summarizing videos, GPT-4V provides a swift and accurate analysis, saving valuable time and resources.
Yet, for those not versed in Python or .Net, tapping into Azure Open AI’s potential can seem daunting. Azure Data Factory (ADF) steps in as a low-code solution to orchestrate Azure Open AI service calls and manage output ingestion. ADF has features that allow for easy configuration, customization and parameterization of prompts and other AOAI inputs as well as data sources. These customizations and parameterization make the pipelines reusable for ingesting from different data sources, such as the storage account that contains the videos for GPT-4V analysis as well as for different prompts and system messages. ADF seamlessly and securely connects with Azure Open AI services and other Azure resources, like Key Vault, Storage Accounts, and databases such as Azure Cosmos DB or Azure SQL. With ADF, data developers can swiftly craft secure, maintainable, and reusable pipelines.
In this blog post, I will cover an ADF solution which loops through a folder of videos and calls a pipeline to create the video retrieval index, ingest the video into the index, call the GPT-4V deployment and store the results in a database.
This solution is ideal for a development/test environment where you can refine the system prompt, user message, and other inputs until you are satisfied with the GPT-4V output. You can then schedule the pipeline for batch processing or change the solution to analyze the video as soon as blob storage event occurs.
Architecture
Land videos in Azure Blob storage with Azure Event Grid, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Functions, other ADF pipelines or other applications.
The ADF pipeline retrieves the Azure AI API endpoints, keys and other configurations from Key Vault.
The blob storage URL for the video file is retrieved.
With Azure Computer Vision, a video retrieval index is created for the file and the video is ingested. Depending on your use case, you could ingest multiple videos to the same index.
Call GPT4-V deployment in Azure Open AI, passing in video URL and the video retrieval index, system message, system prompt and other inputs.
Save the response to Azure Cosmos DB.
If the video processes successfully, move the video to an archive folder.
Resources Used in this Solution
Azure Open AI with a GPT-4V Deployment (Preview)
Check here for available models and regions for deployment
Azure Computer Vision with Image Analysis 4.0 (Preview)
Follow the prerequisites in the above link and note the region availability and supported video formats
Azure Blob Storage and container for your videos
This must be in the same region as your Azure Open AI resource
Azure Blob Storage and container for archiving videos
Azure Cosmos DB Account (NoSQL API), database and container
Security Requirements
The ADF managed identity needs the following access to the following resources:
Key Vault- Key Vault Secrets User role
Cosmos – Contributor
Storage Account that contains videos – Storage Blob Data Reader
Storage Account for archive of videos – Storage Blob Data Contributor
Computer Vision – Cognitive Services Contributor
Store the following Secrets in Azure Key Vault:
Computer Vision Endpoint and Key
A Shared Access Signature Token for the container that has the videos. (This is required for Computer Vision Video Retrieval and Azure OpenAI to access the storage container)
Open AI Endpoint and Key
GPT-4V deployment name. This is really not an input that needs to be secure, but I saved here for ease of use.
ADF Orchestration Pipeline
The ADF orchestration pipeline utilizes parameter inputs and gets secrets from Azure Key Vault, then loops through a Storage Account container, calling another pipeline to ingest the video into a Computer Vision Video Retrieval Index, call GPT-4V, and ingest the results into a Cosmos DB.
Input parameters for pipeline
sys_message – initial instructions to the model about the task GPT-4V is expected to perform
user_prompt – the query to be answered by GPT-4V
storageaccounturl – endpoint for the storage account
storageaccountcontainer – the container that contains the videos
temperature – value between 0 and 2 where 0 is the most accurate and consistent result and 2 is the most creative
top_p – value between 0 and 1 to consider a subset of tokens
Get the secrets from key vault and store them as return variables
Set a variable which contains the name/value pair for temperature. The parameter above for temperature returns “temperature” : 0.5
Set a variable which contains the name/value pair for top_p. The parameter above is not set so it will be blank.
Get the child items (video file name) in the locations specified by the storageaccounturl and storageaccountcontainer values.
For each video, call the pipeline childAnalyzeVideo, passing in the following values for the parameters pipeline parameters:
Video Ingestion/GPT-4V with Pipeline childAnalyzeVideo
The child pipeline will create an index, ingest the video into the index, call GPT-4V to analyze the video, store the results in Cosmos DB, and move the file to the appropriate folder.
Parameters for processing the video file (see previous section, bullet point 6, on parameters and inputs to this pipeline)
Set the indexName variable – the index name must be unique and can only include letters, numbers and hypens
Create an Index Id – this also must be unique
Create the Computer Vision Video Retrieval Index. The next 3 steps for creating the index, ingesting the video, and checking for ingestion completion follow the first 3 steps of this How-To Guide. Here’s the complete Video Retrieval API Reference.
Ingest the video into the index
Call the Computer Vision Video Retrieval API until ingestion is complete or has timed out
If the index has been created and the video successfully ingested …
a. Call GPT-4V with inputs including system message and prompt and store results in Cosmos DB
Copy Data Source properties – REST API Linked Service to GPT-4V Deployment. This article shows a good example of this REST API POST for GPT-4V. Here’s the Chat Completion API Reference.
I also added Additional Columns to the source:
Sink properties is simply the Cosmos DB Container
Set mapping properties including content from GPT-4V return message, prompt_tokens and completion_tokens and additional columns from source
b. Do a Lookup on the Cosmos DB item just added and to get the Damage Probability (See next section on creating results that can easily be queried)
c. If the Damage Probability value is greater than one, set the processedfolder value to “reviewfordamage” otherwise set it to “processed”.
d. Move the video to the folder specified by the processedfolder variable and delete from the source storage location
That’s it! The videos can be analyzed with GPT-4V, without having to worry about environment variables or config files for API Keys and Endpoints! I don’t have to worry about coding in Python and deploying apps to Azure Functions! I could also use this same ADF Pipeline and just change the system message, prompt and storage location to analyze and other videos for each ADF trigger that calls it!
Author comments:
Crafting the system message or user prompt to create data fields
In this solution, I wanted very specific output for analyzing the videos. The videos I have are of vehicles that may or may not have damage. So I composed my system message so GPT-4V would assess the likelihood of any damage, the severity of the damage, the location of the damage as well as the type of vehicle it is viewing in return that information in a specific format. Below is my system message:
Your task is to analyze vehicles for damage. You need to inspect the video closely and describe any damage to the vehicle, such as dents, scratches, broken lights, broken windows, etc. Sometimes duct tape may be used to cover up damage which may be potential damage and should be described as well. You need to pay close attention, especially to distinguish between damage to the vehicles body and glare from the lights in the garage. First provide a summary of the vehicle and the damage or potential damage to the vehicle in the video. Also return a description for what type of vehicle it is in the format of VehicleType[vehicletype] for example VehicleType[Ford F150]. If you can’t identify the exact model type, return what type of vehicle it is such as VehicleType[Sedan] or VehicleType[Truck]. Rank each video on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is the probability of no damage and 10 is a high probability of damage. Describe your reasoning for the rank and output your rank in the format of DamageProbability[rank], for example DamageProbability[4]. If there is damage, along with describing what the damage is, provide a short description of the damage in the format of Damage[damages]. For example Damage[dent] or Damage[dent, scratch]. If there is no damage, return Damage[NA]. Also rank the severity of the damage where a scratch or small dent would be Low; multiple scratches, many scratches, larger dents, broken headlights would be Medium; broken windows, very large dents would be High. Provide the severity ranking in the format of Severity[severityranking]. For example Severity[medium]. If there is no damage, return Severity[NA]. Provide a short description of the location of the damage for example, Location[damagelocation]. For example, Location[hood] or Location[front passenger door, hood]. If there is no damage, return the general location of the portion of the vehicle being examined, for example Location[passenger side low].
I can then query the results in the database:
One video per index? Or many videos per index?
In this solution, I create a separate index for each video. You can also create an index and ingest many videos. I created one index per video because I wanted very specific questions about each video and wanted each video analyzed separately. If I had broader questions about all the videos, such as “count how many blue trucks are being transported”, I would have created an index with many video ingestions.
I hope you enjoyed this article! This solution will soon be available in our FTA Github Repo, AI-in-a-Box! Checkout the other Open AI Solutions there that are already there and ready to be deployed into your Azure subscription! Also check out Analytics-in-a-Box for solutions on Data Factory, Synapse and Fabric!
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
.net maui random errors – Bundle Resource ‘.DS_Store’ not found on disk
since I started migrating a xamarin project to MAUI, I’ve been surprised and disappointed by how often a new (or previously working )project suddenly fails with a time-wasting obscure issue (it seems v brittle!)
the latest one I’m experiencing is this:
/usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.iOS.Sdk/16.4.7125/tools/msbuild/iOS/Xamarin.Shared.targets(3,3): Error: Bundle Resource ‘.DS_Store’ not found on disk (should be at ‘/Users/xxx/Documents/2022 onwards/manually copied/_Projects/residence System/tabletUI/MAUI version/maui_respad/respad2023/Resources/.DS_Store’)
(maui_respad)
I don’t know where to begin dealing with this error, if anyone can shed any light on what causes this it would be a big help…?
since I started migrating a xamarin project to MAUI, I’ve been surprised and disappointed by how often a new (or previously working )project suddenly fails with a time-wasting obscure issue (it seems v brittle!) the latest one I’m experiencing is this:/usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.iOS.Sdk/16.4.7125/tools/msbuild/iOS/Xamarin.Shared.targets(3,3): Error: Bundle Resource ‘.DS_Store’ not found on disk (should be at ‘/Users/xxx/Documents/2022 onwards/manually copied/_Projects/residence System/tabletUI/MAUI version/maui_respad/respad2023/Resources/.DS_Store’)(maui_respad) I don’t know where to begin dealing with this error, if anyone can shed any light on what causes this it would be a big help…? Read More
Makeing colums easy
Hello
Can anyone help me to figure out if there is an easy way of doing such column style text without putting every single word into a single column?
HelloCan anyone help me to figure out if there is an easy way of doing such column style text without putting every single word into a single column? Read More
Deploy apps to Azure Container Apps easily with .NET Aspire
The recently announced .NET 8’s Aspire stack for building cloud-native apps is a great match for Azure Container Apps. .NET Aspire was designed to easily manage applications comprised of a series of interdependent microservices. Container Apps is also tailored for microservices and built on cloud native tech which means .NET Aspire integrates to it seamlessly– right out of the box!
Furthermore, the .NET Aspire stack offers a tailored deployment experience for ACA through the Azure Developer CLI (AZD), which lets you create, provision, and deploy the Azure resources for your Aspire solution with a single command.
In this blog post, we discuss the benefits of hosting your apps in ACA versus an unmanaged cluster. We will also show you just how easy it is to get started by walking through sample code.
Why Azure Container Apps?
Azure Container Apps (ACA) is a platform for running container-first applications and microservices. It is powered by Kubernetes but is far simpler to use and manage for the average developer. Teams using ACA can focus on building their applications and getting to production instead of having to learn the intricacies of cluster management just to get started.
It is also a great option if you want flexibility and minimize costs. As a serverless environment, ACA offers both pay-per-use consumption hosting that scales to 0 and dedicated specialized compute hosting with fixed pricing and reliability. With full support for open sources technologies like Dapr and KEDA, ACA allows developers to draw from best practices and tools of the broader microservices ecosystem – all from a single platform!
These features make ACA a great choice for developers who want to build applications for the cloud with minimal overhead and complexity. If you’re curious, read on – we will go through some sample code so you can see for yourself just how fast and easy it is to deploy a .NET Aspire solution to ACA.
Get started with .NET 8 and .NET Aspire
Haven’t had a chance to experience the .NET Aspire stack? To add the workload to your .NET environment, you will need the following:
.NET 8.0
Integrated Developer Environment (IDE) or code editor of your choice, such as:
Visual Studio 2022 Preview version 17.9 or higher
Visual Studio Code
Make sure you have Docker running before starting the example.
There are two ways to set up the .NET Aspire workload, depending on your choice of IDE.
Use the Visual Studio installer
This is the method we will use for our examples to take advantage of additional benefits like built-in templates and easier initial setup configuration.
Open the Visual Studio Installer.
Select Modify next to Visual Studio 2022 Preview.
Select the ASP.NET and web development workload.
On the Installation details panel, select .NET Aspire SDK (Preview).
Select Modify to install the .NET Aspire component.
Use the dotnet workload install aspire command
If you are not using Visual Studio, you can install the .NET Aspire workload from the .NET CLI. Use the command below:
dotnet workload install aspire
Create a new .NET Aspire solution
To create a new .NET Aspire solution, reference this documentation.
Set up the Azure Developer CLI
The Azure Developer CLI (AZD) is a new open-source tool that accelerates deployment to Azure. Not only does AZD let you create, provision, and deploy the Azure resources for your Aspire solution with a single command, it integrates broadly with .NET tools and can be accessed from both Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio.
AZD builds upon the foundation of the Azure CLI and Bicep. In the same way that ACA simplifies Kubernetes, AZD simplifies deployment by providing smart defaults for Aspire solutions. You can further customize the bicep templates pulled in by AZD if required.
You can install AZD using this documentation.
Initialize your project for ACA
Now, let’s create an AZD environment for our .NET Aspire app. Having multiple apps in the same environment allows them to communicate with each other.
Run the following command in /AspireSample/AspireSample.AppHost:
azd init
Within a few seconds, AZD will detect that this is a .NET Aspire app and suggest a deployment to ACA. Confirm and continue.
AZD now shows each of the components of our .NET Aspire solution. You can now choose which ones you want deployed publicly, meaning they will have HTTP ingress open to all internet traffic. In this starter application, there is a frontend and an API. We want the web frontend to be public while the API should be private only to the ACA environment.
To get that set-up, select webfrontend.
Finally, we will set up the environment name – for example, dev and prod and test. Provide the environment name and continue.
AZD then completes the initialization of the app and generates a markdown file that provides details about what the CLI did under the hood.
Deploy your project to ACA
AZD lets you provision and deploy your solution in a single step. First, however, we need to authenticate with Azure AD so we can call the Azure resource management APIs.
To do so, run the following command to launch a browser to authenticate the command-line session:
azd auth login
Now, we will provision and deploy our application:
azd up
You will then be asked for the subscription and location you would like to deploy to.
Note: If you get the error above after running azd up, make sure you have an Admin user on the registry. Open the Azure Portal and navigate to the subscription you deployed to.
Enter the Container registry / Settings / Access keys, and then select the Admin user checkbox. This will generate a username and two passwords for you to access the ACR resource.
You will be prompted for your username and password. Enter the values shown in Azure Portal. For more information, see Enable admin user.
AZD will generate links to the web frontend and API service applications. The final line of the terminal output contains a link to the Azure Portal page that shows all the deployed resources.
The Azure Portal offers a large variety of resources to help you scale and understand your application. Not only are there tools to manage costs, performance, and security, you can set your application to scale depending on incoming demand.
That’s it! To learn more about what AZD is doing under the hood to provision and deploy your app, you can read through this documentation.
Now, we will take a quick look at what the same process looks like if we were deploying to an unmanaged Kubernetes cluster.
Initialize your project for an unmanaged cluster
You cannot use AZD to set up your project for deployment to your own cluster. Instead, you will need to download a community tool called Aspir8. You can find more information on the project by reading the .NET team’s blog post on .NET Aspire Preview 2 and looking through its documentation.
At a high level, you initialize your project through a CLI command with options based on your needs. The tool does not offer much of the AZD functionality we discussed earlier, such as deploying some components of your solution publicly and others privately. In addition, you will need to manually pass in information that is automated in AZD due to its integration with other Azure resources.
Deploy your project to your own cluster
To deploy your project to your own cluster, you will need to first build the projects and containers. That generates a manifest file, which is a YAML or JSON file that manages version configurations alongside your code. Additional manifests will be generated depending on the complexity of your cluster.
Then, you will have to manually apply those manifests to a cluster for deployment. There are a variety of other tasks automated by AZD that you must handle for your own cluster, such as secret management. Instead of having security, observability, and scalability integrated into a single platform, functionality must be pieced together from across the microservices ecosystem by the developer team.
Next Steps
Congratulations, you can now deploy Aspire apps to ACA. You should now have a better understanding of the benefits of deploying your Aspire app to ACA as opposed to unmanaged infra. Thank you for reading!
Want to learn more? You can…
Review the Azure Container Apps docs.
Learn more about pricing details from the Azure Container Apps pricing page.
Reach us directly at any time via our GitHub microsoft/azure-container-apps repo.
Connect with the Azure Container Apps team on Twitter and Discord.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Startup Growth and Tech Community
Haifeng Liu is a Microsoft Azure MVP who has been supporting tech communities in China for more than 13 years. In a recent blog post we published (New Tech & Connections from Asian MVP Communities), we introduced the first Prompt Engineering Conf in Shanghai, China, which he organized.
As a professional, Haifeng’s role involves leveraging his technical knowledge in business to provide solutions that are beneficial to society as an entrepreneur. He expresses his ambition as “my entrepreneurial goal is to empower enterprise growth with AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) technology and create outstanding value” and shares their journey in business and community so far.
At the end of 2022, Haifeng launched ChatU, a BMaaS (Bare metal-as-a-service) platform that integrates multiple large models. These models include the latest AI technologies such as ChatGPT and Azure OpenAI Service. In striving for better product development, close collaboration with Microsoft was a focus. Due to its excellent flexibility and customizability, ChatU rapidly grew into a market leader for AIGC solutions, attracting 1,000 paid enterprise customers and nearly 100,000 end-users in a very short period.
“This integration approach reduces the cost and threshold of using AI products, enabling more people to enjoy the convenience of AI technology. At the same time, ChatU also provides rich APIs and tools to facilitate user secondary development and customization, improving the adaptability and scalability of the solution,” he says.
The growth of Haifeng’s business was backed by Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, aiding entrepreneurs worldwide. He tells us about his experience with the program, stating that with, “enhanced Azure credit and local network’s help, the platform makes more opportunities for my company.”
As a business leader who has been growing in both business and community, Haifeng talks about the business benefits of engaging with communities based on personal experience: “Participating in the technology community can bring more resources and support to enterprises, allowing them to gain more technical knowledge, industry experience, and business opportunities, so as to better grasp market trends and user needs, providing strong support for the development of enterprises. Secondly, it can enhance the brand image and influence of enterprises, attracting more investment and partners, creating more opportunities for the development of enterprises. In addition, it can bring more innovation and competitive advantages to enterprises, allowing them to access more innovative technologies and business models, stimulating their innovation inspiration, and promoting their continuous development.”
Finally, as an experienced entrepreneur, Haifeng shares a message for those looking to start their own business.
“Entrepreneurship is both an adventure and an opportunity for growth. Whether you work in a large company or start your own business, you must always maintain curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, constantly learn, grow, and progress. In the process of entrepreneurship, you will encounter various challenges and difficulties, but as long as you maintain firm belief and determination, constantly work hard, and strive, you will definitely be able to overcome all difficulties and achieve your dreams.”
Haifeng continues, “entrepreneurship is not only about making money, but also about realizing one’s own value and dreams. As long as you love your career and devote yourself wholeheartedly to it, you will definitely be able to create your own value in life. Wishing all those who are considering starting their own businesses a speedy realization of their dreams!”
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Viva People Science Industry Trends: Retail
Welcome to the fourth edition of Microsoft Viva People Science industry trends, where the Viva People Science team share learnings from customers across a range of different industries. Drawing on data spanning over 150 countries, 10 million employees, and millions of survey comments, we uncover the unique employee experience challenges and best practices for each industry.
In this blog, @Jamie_Cunningham and I share our insights on the state of employee engagement in the retail industry. You can also access the recording from our recent live webinar, where we discussed this topic in depth.
Let’s first look at what’s impacting the retail industry today. In summary, we are hearing about market volatility, supply chain constraints, changing consumer behavior, technological advancements, labor pressures, and rising costs. According to the Deloitte Retail Trends 2023 report, the top-of-mind issues for retail leaders are:
Growth versus sustainability: Retailers need to balance the short-term pressures of profitability and cash flow with the long-term goals of environmental and social responsibility.
Consumer confidence and retail sales: Retailers need to cope with the uncertain and volatile consumer demand, which is influenced by factors such as inflation, health concerns, and government policies.
Leadership quality and brand strength: Retailers need to demonstrate strong and visionary leadership, as well as to build and maintain a distinctive and trusted brand identity.
Technological innovation: Retailers need to leverage technology and data to create personalized, seamless, and omnichannel customer experiences, as well as to optimize their operations and supply chains.
These issues require retailers to be agile, resilient, and innovative in their employee experience strategies and execution. The retail industry also faces some specific challenges in attracting and retaining talent, such as:
Rewards: Retail jobs often pay comparatively lower wages and benefits to other industries and can lack recognition and rewards for employees’ hard work.
Wellbeing: Retail employees often deal with high-stress, low-flexibility, and high-risk work environments, which can affect their physical and mental health.
Growth: Retail employees often perceive limited opportunities for career advancement, skill development, and learning, which can lead to disengagement and attrition.
According to Glint benchmark data (2023), employee engagement in retail has declined by two points between 2021 and 2022. It’s clear that retailers need to invest in improving the employee experience, especially for the frontline workers, who are the face of the brand and the key to customer loyalty. So, how do they do this? Here are three examples of how retailers we’ve worked with have addressed the needs of their employees with the support of Microsoft Viva:
1. Create a compelling future
We worked with the leadership team of a MENA (Middle East and North Africa) based retailer to recognize that there was a connection between their ability to communicate the future of the direction of the organization effectively, and the degree to which employees saw a future for themselves in the organization. The team committed to clarifying how the business initiatives they were rolling out connected to future work opportunities for their teams.
2. Build bridges with frontline employees
According to the Microsoft Work Trend Report (2022), sixty-three percent of all frontline workers say messages from leadership don’t make it to them. A global fashion brand recognised after several years of employee listening that the actions being taken by leadership were not being felt on the shop floor. We worked with them to adopt a simplified action taking model with one clear commitment from leaders, that was efficient and effective in terms of communication and adoption. They also increased their investment in manager enablement to support better conversations within teams, when results from Viva Glint were released. This simplified approach led to improved perceptions of the listening process, and greater clarity at all levels on where to focus for a positive employee experience.
3. One internal team, one goal
Through an Executive Consultation with leaders of a UK retailer, it was identified that wellbeing was a risk for the business that unless addressed, would severely impact their priorities. With that in mind, the team created internal alignment – to prioritise wellbeing through both training investment and policy changes, resulting in a thirteen-point improvement in the wellbeing score year over year.
Conclusions
To succeed in this dynamic and competitive market, retailers need to focus on their most valuable asset: their employees. By investing in the employee experience, especially for the frontline workers, retailers can boost their employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and business performance.
A downloadable one-page summary is also available with this blog for you to share with your colleagues and leaders.
Leave a comment below to let us know if this resonates with what you are seeing with your employees in this industry.
References:
Deloitte retail trends report (2023)
Microsoft Work Trend Index special report (2022)
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All my rdp clients are up to date. Any idea?
I’ve started getting annoying popup message:we noticed you are connecting from an older client ({0}). for better experience and reliable connection, please update to the latest clientAll my rdp clients are up to date. Any idea? Read More
10 Essential Tips for Using OneDrive at Work or School
These days, many of us are trying to do more in less time. When it comes to working with your files, you probably know that OneDrive keeps your files protected and easily accessible across your devices. But there are also many features that you can use in OneDrive to keep your work or school day running smoothly. Here are ten tips that will help you get the most out of OneDrive:
1. Use OneDrive’s new views to find shared files quickly
OneDrive has been completely redesigned to make it faster and simpler to get to all your personal, shared, and team files. The new OneDrive for Web let’s you:
• See your recent and most relevant files in the For you and Recent sections
• Find all the files you have shared and that have been shared with you in Shared view
• See your meeting recordings and all files shared in meetings in the Meetings view
• View your files organized by the people you collaborate with in the People view
Try it -> Login into OneDrive for Web or go to office.com and navigate to OneDrive. See the OneDrive quick start guide for more details.
2. Protect your files and get anywhere access with Folder Backup
Have you ever experienced the dreaded blue screen, lost your laptop, or needed a file from your PC or Mac when you only have your phone or tablet on hand? If you said yes to any of these questions, then you know how important it is to have a copy of your files in the cloud. OneDrive’s Folder Backup (also known as Known Folder Move) automatically syncs your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to the cloud, so you can access them from anywhere and protect them from loss.
Try it -> To turn on folder backup, select the OneDrive cloud icon in your system tray, select the Settings icon, and then select Settings. In the Settings dialog, select Sync and back up, and then select Manage back up. Use the toggles to choose the folders you want to back up, and then select Start backup. Learn more: Folder backup for PCs and Folder backup for Mac.
3. Access all your OneDrive files in Microsoft Teams
If you spend your day working in Microsoft Teams, chatting, meeting, and collaborating with colleagues, you can save time and stay in the context of your work by accessing your OneDrive files directly through the OneDrive app in Teams.
Try it-> In Teams, select Files or OneDrive on the left sidebar. This opens your OneDrive, giving you easy access to your files. Learn more.
4. Restore previous file versions
Collaboration is a huge part of modern work, but sometimes collaborators make changes that don’t work. Or, maybe a client tells you they liked an earlier version of your work better. Whatever the reason, you can use version history to restore any OneDrive file to a previous point in time, up to 30 days after the file was modified. This works on Microsoft 365 files, PDFs, CAD files, photos, videos, and more.
Try it -> Open OneDrive for Web or File Explorer then right-click the file you want to restore. Select Version history. Click the ellipses (…) next the version of the file you want to revert to, and then select Restore. Learn more about restoring files in OneDrive.
5. Turn on auto-save for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files
When you store your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files in OneDrive, AutoSave is enabled by default in Microsoft 365. This means you have up-to-the-second versions of your files saved in the cloud, so if your computer crashes or your battery dies, you won’t have to worry about losing all your hard work!
Try it-> Open or create a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file. In the upper left you’ll see an AutoSave toggle. Turn it to “on” and your file will be stored in OneDrive, autosaved and protected. Learn more about AutoSave in Microsoft 365.
6. Access your files anywhere with the OneDrive mobile app
Sometimes you need to access files when you don’t have your PC or Mac. With the OneDrive mobile app you can open, edit, and share files on the go. Bonus: The app also includes a scanning feature, so you can convert paper documents into PDFs. You can even scan multiple pages and combine them in a single PDF, plus you can sign docs after you scan them with just your finger.
Try it -> Download the OneDrive mobile app on your phone or tablet and sign in to your Microsoft account. Learn more about accessing files in the OneDrive mobile app.
Bonus: To scan documents tap the camera icon, then point your camera at a document, whiteboard, business cards or whatever you want to scan. Tap the white circle to scan. If you need to sign or mark up a document, simply select more then the pen icon, and you can mark up or sign the PDF with your finger. Learn more about scanning.
7. Favorite your important files
When you mark a file or folder as a favorite anywhere in Microsoft 365 it allows you to easily find and access the file in OneDrive or in Office.com.
Try it -> To favorite a file simply tap the star icon next to file in Office, OneDrive or anywhere else your files appear in Microsoft 365. Sometimes the star icon is in the file menu which can be accessed by tapping the ellipses (…) near the file name. To access your favorites go to OneDrive for Web or office.com and. Learn more.
8. Customize the color of your folders
Did you know that you can change the color of a folder in your OneDrive? Adding color to folders gives you at-a-glance signals to locate your content while adding a touch of personality to your OneDrive.
Try it-> Right-click on a folder within a SharePoint Document Library or OneDrive and choose Folder Color. Select one of the 16 different available colors.
9. Use file and folder shortcuts
Shortcuts in OneDrive let you keep shared files alongside your own content in OneDrive, making it easy to get back to shared files. You can add a shortcut to a file, folder or an entire document library.
Try it-> In OneDrive for Web right-click on any shared file or folder, and then select Add shortcut. Shortcuts are badged with an arrow icon (in OneDrive) and a link icon (in File Explorer) to help differentiate them from other folders. Learn more.
10. Adjust your Files On-Demand setting
Depending on your needs, you may want all your OneDrive files saved locally, all your files in the cloud only, or a mix of both. You can adjust those settings using Files On-Demand. Note: All your cloud-only files will still appear in your folders and in File Explorer, but you’ll need to be connected to the internet to open them.
Getting Started -> To use Files On-Demand, select the OneDrive cloud icon in your system tray, select the Settings icon, and then select Settings, then select advanced settings. From here you can select Free up disk space or Download all files. Learn more.
From staying organized to collaborating with others, these tips can help you optimize your file storage so you save time and stay productive. Want to learn more about what’s new in OneDrive? Download the OneDrive quick start guide or sign up for the OneDrive newsletter.
Paul Diamond is the product marketing manager for Microsoft OneDrive and Stream. He’s an award-winning short story writer, and he launched many Kindle features, such as Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Singles, over a decade ago when we worked at Amazon. His side-hustles include driving his kids to sports practice, walking his dogs, and vacuuming pet hair from the floor daily.
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Documentation for pktmon is incomplete
When running `pktmon start help` I get a list of options which doesn’t include the –etw flag. And yet that flag is operational. I’m using Windows 10 build 19045.3930, pktmon version is 10.0.19041.3636.
Why would this flag be missing from `pktmon start help`?
When running `pktmon start help` I get a list of options which doesn’t include the –etw flag. And yet that flag is operational. I’m using Windows 10 build 19045.3930, pktmon version is 10.0.19041.3636. Why would this flag be missing from `pktmon start help`? Read More
What’s New in Microsoft EDU – Bett 2024 Edition
Welcome to our update for Microsoft Education and our special Bett 2024 edition! The Bett conference takes place in London during the week of January 24th – January 26th, and Microsoft Education has a bunch of exciting updates to share! For our full Bett 2024 schedule of sessions and live classroom events, please visit and download our Microsoft Bett 2024 schedule PDF.
January Bett Topics:
2. Teams EDU updates, including AI
3. Loop
5. Reflect
6. OneNote EDU
1. Reading Coach
Reading Coach in Microsoft Teams was already providing learners with personalized reading practice, and instant feedback about pronunciation and fluency, while also giving insights back to educators. Today, we are announcing Reading Coach as a standalone app that also provides personalized, engaging, consistent, and independent reading fluency practice. It is available for free as a Windows application and a web app to use in the classroom or at home with a Microsoft account.
Available now for use at home: Reading Coach is now available in public preview to use at home. To get started, sign-up at https://coach.microsoft.com
Reading Coach allows learners to create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection of options. The AI generated story is moderated for content quality, safety and age appropriateness following Microsoft’s Responsible AI guidelines. Learners read the story in the Immersive Reader accessible reading surface that has been shown to especially support struggling readers.
As learners read the story out aloud, speech-to-text artificial intelligence analyzes their reading fluency, detects words they find challenging, and records the readers’ accuracy, speed and time spent reading. Readers get to choose what happens in each story chapter, charting their own reading journey through the story. Words they found challenging in the previous chapter are automatically included in the next chapter. This makes the practice immediately adaptive. Readers also get fluency coaching on the words they found challenging after each story chapter. Effort-focused badges, unlocking new characters and settings for the next story keeps learner engaged in the flow of reading motivating even reluctant readers.
Available in February 2024 for use in school: IT Administrators can sign-up for public preview at https://aka.ms/readingcoachschoolsignup. Educators can sign-up for the Reading Coach educator community at https://aka.ms/readingcoach-educatorcommunity.
Learn more about how Reading Coach works on the support documentation pages.
2. Microsoft Teams for Education updates
Using generative AI to create rubrics in Assignments
Rubrics are a useful tool to communicate the expectations for the assignments to the students, and to provide an easy and effective way for the educator to grade and give specific feedback to the students. However, creating detailed rubrics can take a lot of time. With generative AI integrated into Assignments, you just need to enter what you want the rubric to assess, and Assignments will suggest criteria for you and complete the rubric for you. You have the control as the educator, and you can add more levels or criteria and let AI fill out a first draft for you.
When: Private Preview targeted for Jan
Using generative AI to create instructions in Assignments
We have been working on ways to save time for educators by improving our products with AI. We are doing this first for Classwork, Assignments and Reading Progress. These features are all designed to fit the needs of the educators, save time for educators, and always let the educator decide on the final content. For Assignments Instructions, we are examining the information and giving multiple suggestions for how to enrich the content, such as adding more details, adding learning objectives, emphasizing key concept and even making your assignments more interesting. The educator always has the choice and can generate different options, and after the content is created, can always make further edits and updates to the content.
When: Private Preview targeted for Jan
Using generative AI to create modules in Classwork
Classwork is a new app in Teams that helps you manage your curriculum and lets educators create and organize class resources such as Assignments, Files, Links, Channels, Class Notebook pages, and more. With AI enabled Classwork module generation, educators can get assistance creating a course outline and drafting modules and descriptions based on the subject, student grade level, and class learning objectives. The educator is always in the driver’s seat and can choose to edit, delete, or regenerate modules before adding them to Classwork.
When: Private Preview targeted for Feb
Admin Controls for generative AI features
The IT Administrators can control the educators’ access to these generative AI features. A new control will be available in the Institute settings tab under Education Section of the Teams admin center.
Check-in with students using Reflect as they complete their assignment
Educators want to know how students feel about the work they do. They may have different emotions, such as stress, happiness, or engagement when they deal with schoolwork. We have now introduced a feature that lets educators enable Reflect Check-in on an assignment. So, when students submit their work, they will be automatically asked how they felt about the assignments. The educator can see the students’ responses directly inside the Assignments Grading experience, to track the changes over time for a student and how the whole class felt about the assignment in the together view.
When: Rolling out in January
Reuse of Modules
Available now, you can now reuse your modules between Class Teams. Whether you are looking to teach the same class again, are teaching multiple instances of a class, or want to hand off curriculum to another educator, Classwork will allow you to reuse content including Assignments, Files, and Links easily. Simply make sure you are the owner of the Class Team the content is coming from, and then click “Reuse from existing” in the new Team.
Note: Support for Class Notebook and Channel resources is coming soon. Learn more at https://aka.ms/ClassworkReuseSupport.
When: Available now
3. Loop App availability for Education customers
Microsoft Loop is a flexible, AI-powered collaboration app that can help you think, plan, and create together! We’re excited to share that Loop will be included in Microsoft 365 A3 and A5 plans, including Student Use Benefit users in early March. Office 365 A1 customers can create Loop workspaces and pages until June 30th, 2024. After this date, they will still have access to these existing workspaces and pages, however will need M365 A3/A5 license to create new ones.
Loop is made up of three key parts:
Loop components: Portable pieces of content (like tables, checklists, or paragraphs) that sync across all the places they are shared. For example, you can start a list in a Loop component to gather student project ideas for the next unit. Share the component in an Outlook email, Teams chat or channel, Whiteboard, and Word for the web document. The list stays up to date wherever it has been shared! Watch this video to see components in action.
Loop pages: Flexible canvases in the Loop app where you can bring together people and all your components, links, tasks, and data. Start a planning page for your next field trip where you can track schedules and to-dos. Easily share the page across apps with your fellow teachers to capture their ideas too. Check out this video on Loop pages and workspaces.
Loop workspaces: Shared spaces that allow teachers and students to track everything important to a class project in one place. Students can work together on a class project, creating pages for each phase. They can include document links, record video of themselves, and co-author in real-time.
With Copilot in Loop you have a new classroom assistant that works side by side with you. It can save you time and energy by doing things like finding relevant documents for your Loop workspace, helping you generate and refine ideas, and keeping you focused and on track with automatically generated summaries of your class projects.
Watch this video to learn more about Microsoft Loop and try Loop today!
4. Microsoft Copilot expanded availability in Education
We’re thrilled to announce several expansions for education audiences. Microsoft Copilot with commercial data protection will be available to all faculty and higher education students ages 18 and above. Microsoft Copilot is also now powered by GPT-4 Turbo and is available on both iOS and Android devices. And, Copilot for Microsoft 365 eligibility will now include Microsoft and Office 365 A3 or A5 education faculty and staff with no seat minimum requirement.
Our efforts are guided by our AI principles and Responsible AI Standard and build on decades of research on grounding and privacy-preserving machine learning. Additionally, our Customer Copyright Commitment means education customers can be confident using our services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims. We look forward to exploring the potential for these offers in education, iterating and improving, and supporting all education organizations in the era of AI.
5. Reflect updates
Integrate Reflect with your LMS
We are happy to share that you can now seamlessly integrate Reflect with your Learning Management System (LMS) to create impactful check-ins, gain wellbeing insights, and build a happier, healthier learning community. Reflect LMS integrations are free and designed in compliance with the latest Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standards, ensuring robust security and simple installation within your district or institutional environment of Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, and Blackboard Learn.
Learn more and get step-by-step instructions for setting up this integration with your LMS.
When: available now.
Unlock powerful wellbeing insights
We are thrilled to introduce a new dashboard for tracking Reflect data over time. This capability allows you to monitor when learners feel pleasant and motivated, as well as identify times and areas where attention may be needed. The check-in creator can follow trends over time, filter for specific dates and questions, and explore data at both the class and course levels, as well as the individual student level. This enables targeted personal support based on their wellbeing needs.
When: available now.
6. OneNote
Built-in Class Notebook Toolbar for OneNote Desktop 365
To support educators in their transition from the OneNote Windows 10 app to the M365 Desktop version of OneNote, starting in February, the Class Notebook toolbar can be enabled through the in-app settings experience so educators will no longer need to go through the process of downloading and installing the Class Notebook add-in.
This improvement will bring all of the features that educators have come to love in the Class Notebook toolbar experience in the Windows 10 app over to the M365 Desktop version.
When: These changes will reach the monthly update channel during the month of March 2024 and will reach the semi annual update channel in July.
We are thrilled to announce that OneNote will join the M365 ecosystem of apps to host Loop components! Just as you’ve seen with Teams, Outlook, and Word, we will be bringing the ability to add Loop components into your OneNote notebook.
In addition, you’ll be able to create and insert Loop components directly from the Insert menu in OneNote!
When: Rolling out to Microsoft 365 Insiders in the coming weeks
And finally, just to recap all the news we have for you this month, here’s a quick review of all the features that are generally available or are rolling out now:
Reading Coach stand-alone app
Teams for Education updates
• Rubric generation AI – private preview
• Assignment Instructions generation AI – private preview
• Classwork module generation AI – private preview
• Teams Admin controls for generative AI features
• Classwork Reuse globally available
• Reflect in Assignments globally available
Loop app availability announcement for EDU (March)
Microsoft Copilot
• Copilot with Data Protection available for faculty and students 18+
• Copilot for iOS and Android availability
• Copilot for Windows 11 availability
• Copilot for Microsoft 365 availability for Faculty
Reflect updates
• LMS updates
• Well-being Insights
OneNote updates
• Class Notebook toolbar built-in to OneNote Desktop 365
• Loop component creation and embed
Have any feedback to share with us? As always, we’d love to hear it!
Mike Tholfsen
Group Product Manager
Microsoft Education
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
New on Microsoft AppSource: January 1-11, 2024
We continue to expand the Microsoft AppSource ecosystem. For this volume, 220 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:
Get it now in our marketplace
Analytics 365 – Teams Call Analytics: This solution from Tollring provides insights into customer communications on Microsoft Teams Phone, helping organizations manage call center and customer-facing teams. Web-based delivery offers an intuitive dashboard with multiple views, comprehensive metrics, and the ability to create wallboards. Customers can set targets and KPIs for contextual insight, visualize end-to-end call journeys, and sync with Microsoft 365.
Battle Road Atom Engine: This offer from Carahsoft is a cloud game engine that can simulate scenarios as large as a planet or as small as a single vehicle. It allows teams to collaborate, plan, and operate their scenarios in real time via a shared persistent world user experience. The platform runs completely in the cloud, eliminating the need for local software or expensive hardware.
Beat: Our artificial intelligence (AI) tutors in Microsoft Teams and provides personalized training in AI fundamentals, guiding students based on their preferences. We offer flexible course settings and can explore advanced topics beyond the basic curriculum. TeraTeams’ goal is to spark potential and help clients master AI-related knowledge with firm decision-making and leadership.
BeesWall License: BeesWall offers a digital knowledge library that makes it simple to access and organize your files and information, providing seamless data governance for efficient organization and deep focus. It saves time for data scientists and custodians by cleaning and organizing information on-premises or on the cloud, especially for digital marketing.
Data Lake Connector: Intelligent Plant’s Industrial App Store Data Lake Connector transfers data from your real-time historian to Microsoft Azure Event Hub, making it easily accessible for storage in your data lake. Once within the Event Hub, data becomes accessible for effortless storage within your designated data lake. The streamlined process ensures efficient management and utilization of valuable data resources.
Engage: From Udyamo, Engage is an app that streamlines employee recognition and communication within an organization. It allows for easy shout-outs, increased transparency, and improved company culture. The app provides managers with data on employee recognition and progress tracking.
Extra360: This platform from Extra Loyalty Solutions enhances customer engagement and loyalty through promotions, integrated digital wallet solutions, data-driven decisions, omni-channel engagement, gamification techniques, and scalability. It offers bespoke solutions to cater to unique business needs and has a proven track record of effectiveness in the marketplace. The platform is versatile and adaptable, catering to a diverse range of sectors.
Imperium Sales CPQ: This offer from Imperium Dynamics is a quote management solution for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales. It offers easy product configuration, swift quoting, and efficient order creation. The intuitive customer-facing portal empowers businesses to create a comprehensive product catalog that allows customers to conveniently request quotes. It reduces errors, empowers upselling and co-selling, and elevates customer experience.
Label Printer: This app from System Solutions allows for easy label creation and customization directly from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Labels can include text, numbers, and barcodes for item pricing and tracking. Labels can be printed based on price changes, sales orders, purchase orders, and unit of measure. Available in English for Canada and the United States.
LawToolBox AI: This offer from LawToolBox.com enhances the core LawToolBox for Microsoft 365 with advanced deadline and appointment extraction and rules-based calendaring in Microsoft Teams and Outlook. It extracts deadlines from emails and attachments, maps deadlines from links to civil rules and other documents, and summarizes emails and attachments.
MarketServe: MarketServe simplifies the process of publishing applications on Azure Marketplace. This Cloudserve Systems product offers an intuitive interface, efficient submission process, optimization assistance, comprehensive guidance, faster time-to-market, and increased visibility. It’s a strategic partner for success on Azure Marketplace.
OLS360 Platform (Essential and Advanced): This no-code platform from One Logic Solutions offers cost-effective solutions for growth and innovation. It provides data mart integration, multi-level security, customized SLAs, and task scheduling. The platform has essential and advanced plans, with dynamic menus and customized intranet pages. OLS360 combines advanced technology with practical applicability for efficient and productive management.
Processifier Process Mining: This process mining visual from Processifier simplifies achieving actionable insights for confident decision-making in Microsoft Power BI without complex data integration projects. Try the trial version and upgrade to the full version. Aso, check out the feature-rich Power BI application for graph visualization, conformance checking, variant analysis, and advanced process discovery.
Repairs and Refurbishment: ReverseLogix simplifies the management of returns, repairs, and parts replacement. It helps recover more value from every unit, reduces environmental impact, and identifies consistent trends or problematic product issues faster. The centralized, cloud-based platform enables seamless coordination of in-warranty and out-of-warranty repairs, and provides total visibility at every step in the process.
Returns Initiation: ReverseLogix’s Returns Initiation module streamlines the returns process with a branded portal, RMA initiation, image and document capture, shipping labels, and notifications. The platform also handles repairs, refurbishments, and tax calculations, making it a comprehensive solution for managing returns.
Returns Processing: ReverseLogix offers an end-to-end reverse logistics management platform to optimize returns processing, improve efficiency, and standardize decision-making. The platform centralizes operations, provides real-time data, and enables effective communication with customers. Enhanced returns processing ensures products are restocked, repaired, and recommerced efficiently.
Customer Engagement for Dynamics 365: Solgari’s Microsoft AI customer engagement solution connects customers to the right people quickly, allowing communication through any preferred channel. The app offers advanced self-service options and skills-based routing, with real-time conversation summary and sentiment analysis. Supervisors can monitor and mentor agents mid-call, while business leaders are protected by industry-specific regulations.
Think Open AI Offer: This solution from Think AI uses large language models to automate document processing and data extraction with up to 100% accuracy without requiring machine learning training. It can be customized for various industries and departments, and can extract structured and intelligent information from documents for further data analytics. The solution also includes a Chrome or Microsoft Edge extension for real-time chat and report generation.
Vimheslo: From European Code Factory, Vimheslo is a password management app that allows you to store and share passwords with team members. It generates strong passwords that comply with the Cyber Security Act. The free version allows up to five passwords, while the unlimited version requires contacting Vimheslo.
Go further with workshops, proofs of concept, and implementations
Accessibility: 1- to 2-Day Workshop: Nexer Group offers practical and strategic consultancy to guide organizations on using Microsoft 365 to build inclusive workplaces, products, and services. It addresses challenges, embeds the European Accessibility Act and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines expertise, and ties into the Microsoft Horizon strategy for inclusive digital infrastructure, Accessibility as a Service, and improved productivity and efficiency.
Consultancy for Microsoft 365: Imperium Dynamics offers comprehensive consulting services for Microsoft 365, including seamless transition, integration with existing systems, efficient implementation, ongoing support, and training. Its team develops customized solutions and provides comprehensive training sessions to empower users. ID also offers dedicated support to optimize the benefits of Microsoft 365 as businesses evolve and grow.
Copilot Countdown – AI Adoption Journey: Advania provides support for organizations to leverage the Microsoft Copilot suite and AI tools. The service is driven in phases to ensure good governance in adapting AI tools, including identifying opportunities, understanding risks, piloting and deploying, and managing change. The service offers personalized plans, security recommendations, and training seminars.
Copilot Countdown – AI Opportunity Workshop: This Advania service helps organizations create personalized plans for using AI solutions, including Copilot for Microsoft 365. The plan includes deployment recommendations and an estimated timeline. The workshop covers the current state of AI, large language models, and Copilot’s capabilities and benefits. Gain insight into AI’s potential for improving employee experience and productivity.
Copilot Countdown – AI Pilot and Deploy Consulting: This Advania service helps organizations prepare for the integration of Copilot for Microsoft 365 by ensuring a secure IT environment, successful deployment, and understanding of benefits and challenges. It accelerates AI journeys, enhances employee experience and productivity, ensures security and compliance, and provides expert guidance.
Copilot Countdown – AI Rollout and Scale Consulting: This Advania service helps organizations adopt Copilot through training seminars, support workshops, and a tailored playbook. It accelerates adoption of Copilot for Microsoft 365 and other AI solutions, empowers employees to use it effectively and responsibly, and measures outcomes and benefits. It also provides guidelines for discovering new use cases.
Copilot Countdown – AI Security Workshop: This Advania service helps organizations prepare for the deployment of Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Azure OpenAI solutions. It provides recommendations for immediate security and policy actions, risk analysis, and understanding of Copilot standards. The workshop covers technical requirements, risks and challenges of AI solutions, risk analysis, and environment assessment.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 Extensibility FastStart: 4-Week Implementation: Copilot for Microsoft 365 can streamline processes and provide fast access to data held in other platforms, transforming the employee experience. Advania’s expertise in developing Copilot plugins and integrations can unlock its potential as a unifying layer across company systems, allowing employees to complete tasks without leaving the Copilot interface.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 Workshop: This Copilot for Microsoft 365 Workshop from Netrix Global is a three-phase engagement that helps customers assess needs, understand Copilot’s capabilities, identify persona-based scenarios, and define an actionable roadmap. The workshop includes a self-guided assessment, presentations and demos, and a plan development phase based on real personas in the organization.
Copilot Launchpad Training Package: Advania offers an AI kickstart training package to help businesses improve employee experience and productivity with AI and automation solutions. The package includes familiarizing with Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Azure OpenAI, examining readiness, managing security, and successfully deploying Copilot products.
Data Adoption Roadmap: The EpicData Data Adoption Roadmap is a program that assesses an organization’s data adoption level and provides tailored training on skills such data ingestion and modeling. It emphasizes building a data community within the organization and promotes a culture of continuous learning. The program’s transparent pricing makes it accessible to all.
Data#3 Copilot for Microsoft 365: Extension: Data#3 offers extension services for Copilot for Microsoft 365, including developing a business case, performing a readiness assessment, change management, and training. It also provides advice on extending Copilot, integrating third-party solutions, and implementing Microsoft 365 with third-party solutions.
Data#3 Copilot for Microsoft 365: Implementation: Data#3 offers implementation services for Copilot for Microsoft 365, including developing a business case, performing a readiness assessment, and providing training services. It works with organizations to understand their technical landscape and ensure the deployment is aligned with the planned rollout.
Data#3 Copilot for Microsoft 365: Organizational Change Management: Data#3 helps organizations implement Copilot for Microsoft 365. Its services include developing a business case, performing a readiness assessment, training staff, and extending Copilot. The structured approach can improve adoption, reduce the risk of failure, and increase employee engagement. Data#3 also helps organizations prepare, manage, and sustain the adoption of Copilot.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service Consulting: Imperium Dynamics offers customized Microsoft 365 Customer Service consulting solutions to meet specific business requirements. It conducts a thorough evaluation and provides tailored training and ongoing support to ensure efficient implementation. ID’s experts help identify customer service needs and choose the right features for seamless integration.
Dynamics 365 Sales Elevate: Imperium Dynamics offers tools and expertise to transform sales processes, enhance productivity, and drive growth. It provides customized packages with comprehensive features, training, and support to maximize the value of Microsoft 365 Sales. The package is recommended for enterprise-level businesses seeking unparalleled sales performance.
Dynamics 365 Sales Ignite: Imperium Dynamics offers tools and expertise to transform sales processes, enhance productivity, and drive growth. It provides customized packages designed to meet the unique needs of each organization, with comprehensive training and support. It also offers improved forecasting, 360-degree customer view, and scalability.
Dynamics_365_Sales_Transform: Imperium Dynamics offers customized solutions for businesses seeking to enhance sales processes and drive growth. With Dynamics Sales Hub, businesses can capture leads from various sources, gain access to advanced sales tools, and improve forecasting. The solution is scalable and provides real-time data and analytics for accurate sales forecasts. Recommended for growing businesses seeking an integrated sales solution.
Evo-Soft Consultancy Offer: BCN Group’s ERP assessment and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation consultancy provides an overview of how your business operates with your existing business applications, identifying gaps, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies in processes. From this information, BCN will recommend how it can help you transition to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Globalization LATAM Chile Implementation: This AW offer for Chile includes tax determination, electronic invoicing, tax reporting, bank payments, and commercial documents. AW’s team of more than 100 professionals provides ongoing support and additional solutions for a complete and personalized experience.
Globalization LATAM Costa Rica Implementation: This AW offer for Costa Rica includes tax determination, electronic invoicing, tax reporting, bank payments, and commercial documents. AW’s team of more than 100 professionals provides ongoing support and additional solutions for a personalized experience.
Globalization LATAM Nicaragua Implementation: This AW offer for Nicaragua includes tax determination, electronic invoicing, tax reporting, bank payments, and commercial documents. AW’s team of more than 100 professionals provides ongoing support and additional solutions for a personalized experience.
Globalization LATAM Panama Implementation: This AW offer for Panama includes tax determination, electronic invoicing, tax reporting, bank payments, and commercial documents. The AW team of more than 100 professionals provides ongoing support and additional solutions for a personalized experience.
Hyperautomation Consulting: Hiberus offers tailored services for organizational transformation, leveraging Microsoft technologies to connect people and processes. Solutions include automated contract and procurement workflows, enhanced security and scalability, real-time business insights, and ongoing support and maintenance. Hiberus specializes in optimizing global digital transformation journeys for enterprise and government organizations.
Improve Organizational Efficiencies: 4-Week Assessment and Proof of Concept: CongruentX is a technology consulting firm that helps businesses increase efficiency, decrease costs, and boost revenue by analyzing processes and aligning technology with people and processes. CongruentX uses design thinking to simplify technology for users and has a track record of success with satisfied clients.
MC4N Gift Aid Add-on: 30-Day Implementation: Kerv Digital’s accelerator for fundraising and engagement automates and streamlines claims submission to HMRC. It requires Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit (MC4N) with Fundraising and Engagement, and offers customizable processes, real-time tracking, and compliance with HMRC guidelines. The solution reduces manual efforts and enhances accuracy in claims processing.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Adoption: 4-Week Deployment: Talan’s Copilot AI tool revolutionizes business processes. Talan offers a three-step approach to help teams understand and adopt the tool, including acculturation to generative AI, training on how to speak to Copilot, and deep dives to identify use cases for specific job functions.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Consulting and Training Service: Este Bilisim explains the highlights and use cases of Microsoft 365 Copilot, showcasing its potential through live demos. This service features hands-on scenarios for Microsoft PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, and Loop.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Workshop: Microsoft Copilot, integrated into Microsoft 365, streamlines tasks and enhances collaboration with AI. Quisitive’s Microsoft 365 Copilot Workshop offers a three-phase engagement to assess needs, prioritize scenarios, and define an actionable roadmap. Benefits include understanding Copilot, built-in AI-powered tools, and access to AI and productivity experts.
Microsoft 365 Evergreen Lifecycle: This Atos International offer helps manage feature changes, reducing risk of confusion and loss of productivity. It covers Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, Yammer, Viva Suite, Windows 11, Apps for Enterprise, Azure Active Directory, Defender, and more. Presentations by an expert and license review with feedback are included.
Microsoft 365 Mergers and Acquisitions: 4-Week Implementation: This Spyglass implementation migrates data to its desired destination across Microsoft 365, Azure, and third-party solutions. Security and compliance are ensured for data and users affected by migration activities. The implementation includes data discovery, security assessment, migration, testing, and training. Price is based on specific needs of the customer.
Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit Direct Debit Add-on: 30-Day Implementation: This implementation from Kerv Digital automates and streamlines regular donation collection via direct debit for non-profit organizations. It includes features such as effortless setup, campaign integration, and comprehensive BACS report processing. The package enhances fundraising efficiency and reliability while ensuring compliance and accuracy.
Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit Fundraising Foundation: 3-Month Implementation: Kerv Digital’s packaged service helps charities migrate to Microsoft’s fundraising app. It offers pre-built templates to migrate data and on-demand training to ensure a seamless transition. The service includes comprehensive insight into fundraising architecture, streamlined management of stakeholder data, and efficient handling of donation inflows.
Microsoft Copilot for Edge and Windows (Bing Chat Enterprise) Adoption: 4-Week Implementation: Long View Systems’ Microsoft Copilot for Edge and Windows adoption offer includes discovery workshops to develop personas and use cases, a governance workshop to review guidelines, an adoption plan with communication and training, and technical coordination for enabling Copilot.
Microsoft Teams Room Lifecycle Planning: Microsoft Teams offers integrated video, voice, and data for businesses. AVI-SPL’s Lifecycle Planning service prepares organizations for a scalable, secure, and easy-to-use collaboration environment. The service includes a consultant-led workshop, documented findings, and recommendations for long-term success.
Migrate Email to Microsoft 365: 3- to 8-Week Implementation: This implementation plan from Provisions Group helps migrate on-premises Microsoft Exchange Servers to Microsoft 365. It includes assessing the current environment, designing a migration plan, setting up and running test migration, and testing and cutover. The plan provides recommendations for tools, approach, timeline, and team approach.
Email Migration via IMAP: Migrating IMAP files to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 can offer improved access, security, collaboration, and productivity. The migration project from Lattine Group includes email history migration up to 35MB, but not contacts or calendars. The scope covers assessment, implementation, and validation, with actions required from both the client and Lattine.
Office 365 Proof of Concept/Pilot: 5-Day Consulting Service: IT Partner offers a pilot project to help with the successful rollout of Microsoft 365, providing resources, tools, and experts to drive adoption and customize services. The project includes tenant creation, user account setup, and reviewing Microsoft 365 ROI. Client responsibilities include providing necessary data and access to servers.
Power Apps Scoping: 1-Week Workshop: Microsoft Power Apps can automate business processes, track implementations, and roll out enterprise applications. Fractal Analytics offers expert consulting in a workshop format to help teams develop apps. The workshop includes stakeholder calls, interviews, application design, scoping, and project planning. Deliverables include a project plan and statement of work for application build-out.
Power BI Consultancy: Imperium Dynamics offers specialized consulting services to help businesses unlock the full potential of Microsoft Power BI. Its experts streamline implementation, facilitate seamless integration with existing systems, assist in data management and integration, and provide ongoing support and training. ID works with clients to develop customized solutions and offer comprehensive training sessions to empower users.
Proof of Concept Solution – Microsoft 365 Copilot: KPCS CZ provides a personalized exploration of Copilot’s capabilities within a business context. The service aims to enhance productivity, creativity, and security while providing valuable insights and expert guidance. Customers can witness firsthand how Copilot streamlines processes and receive a strategic roadmap for full-scale implementation.
SharePoint Online – Migration with Metadata: 3-Week Consulting Service: Managed Metadata in Microsoft SharePoint allows for efficient organization and migration of files and folders, preserving metadata when transitioning from other platforms. IT Partner ensures compatibility, effective structuring, and secure migration, with additional services available. A comprehensive project closeout report is provided.
SharePoint Online and Office 365 Apps Customization: 3-Day Consulting Service: IT Partner helps businesses optimize and customize their Microsoft 365 environment. It provides expert assistance in deployment, configuration, and customization, empowering clients to explore and utilize advanced features. IT Partner services extend beyond the basics, allowing clients to customize the look and feel of Microsoft Cloud Services.
Strategic Power BI Dashboards for Driving Your Business: Data Mind offers dynamic, interactive, and real-time data visualizations that are easy to understand and act upon. Its expert team develops dashboards that reflect critical business metrics, integrating data from various sources into a consolidated, interactive visual experience. The dashboards provide clarity, drive decision-making, and move your business toward its aims.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 Adoption Pack: TDG offers a three-step program for digital transformation: diagnosis, immersion experience, proof of concept. The program includes a comprehensive analysis of the IT infrastructure, training on Microsoft 365 services, and testing of data security measures. The proof-of-concept phase evaluates the collaboration solution and establishes a zero-trust Copilot environment.
Training – Power BI DAX Bootcamp: This EpicData course delves into the technical aspects of DAX in Microsoft Power BI, teaching various use cases and best practices for writing performant formulas for common and advanced business scenarios. It aims to provide a deeper understanding of DAX.
Training – Power BI Fundamentals: This EpicData course for Microsoft Power BI covers everything from tool introduction to hands-on data visualization and storytelling techniques. It also includes guidance on transforming and connecting data to various sources, as well as DAX and M code. The course combines theory, demonstrations, and exercises to prepare you for your data journey.
Windows 365: 10-Day Pilot Service: This Ultima Business Solutions service is a comprehensive engagement that helps evaluate the potential of Microsoft Windows 365. It covers planning, deployment, and training stages, and provides expert guidance and best practices. The service offers insights into hybrid work end-user computing goals and objectives and delivers a detailed report with findings and next steps.
Contact our partners
6clicks SaaS-Based GRC Platform
Acceler8: Planning Workshop for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Cloud Implementations
Accessibility and Inclusion Awareness Session
AI Readiness and Analytics Health Check – Gold
AI Readiness and Analytics Health Check – Platinum
AI Readiness and Analytics Health Check – Silver
Allsop Platform – Order Automation
Amazon to Dynamics 365 Business Central with Burq.io
Amazon to Dynamics 365 Finance with Burq.io
Aptean Pricing Matrix for Food and Beverage
Barcode Scanning Add-On for D365
BI Reporting – AOVPN Reporting
Bonuses and Accruals Extension PL
Bridgit Properia Preventative Maintenance
Copilot for Microsoft 365 Security and Readiness Assessment
Copilot for Microsoft 365 Technical Readiness: 2-Week Assessment
CPQ/Contract Management for Microsoft Dynamics 365
Czech Language for LS Central (Czechia)
Data Quality App for Dynamics 365 and Power Apps for Nonprofit Organizations
Data#3 Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Business Case
Database Query with Generative AI
Dynaway EAM Analytics for Business Central
Ecommerce Suite – Solution with PIM, B2B, B2C, CMS, DAM, and Template Builder
ESG Materiality Assessment for Microsoft Sustainability Manager: 6-Week Assessment
Fintech Enablement Platform Release V1.0
Gift Registry for Dynamics 365
Gurusoft Integration with Plugins
Implementation for Microsoft Synapse – Unified Data Estate
Information Governance Pre-Study
insighto for Digital Stakeholder Insights
Intune Secure Score: 1-Week Assessment
LSM Macedonian Language for Dynamics 365 Business Central
Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Assessment
Microsoft 365 Copilot: 1-Day Assessment
Microsoft ERP AIM Assessment for Dynamics On-Premises Customers
Microsoft Licensing Cost Optimization: 3-Day Assessment
Order Staging Pebblestone Feature
OutOnSite – Field Service Management Software
Power BI User Experience (UX) Review: 5-Day Assessment
Quality Requirements and Specifications
Readiness Assessment for Microsoft 365 Copilot
Red Maple Advanced Credit Cards for Business Central
Sales Commission Based on Cash Receipt
Security Copilot Readiness Assessment
SMART Payroll and SMART HCM and LMS Connector
Synoptek Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM): 3-Week Assessment
TASK: End-to-End Transaction Management Platform
tegossuite – NA for Electronic Asset Disposition
VisualSP In-App Training for Dynamics 365 Business Central
This content was generated by Microsoft Azure OpenAI and then revised by human editors.
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Agentless malware scanning for servers with Defender for Cloud
In the past year, we have been progressively enhancing our CNAPP solution with additional agentless security capabilities. It started with the capability to review installed software and identify vulnerabilities. We then expanded the platform to secret scanning to mitigate the risk of lateral movement.
Today, we’re excited to announce our latest addition: agentless malware scanning for servers. This marks an important step in our trajectory towards hybrid VM security, where we combine agent-based and agentless protection to ensure comprehensive coverage across Azure, AWS, and GCP environments. Agentless malware scanning seamlessly incorporates into our agentless scanning platform, now also leveraging Microsoft Defender Antivirus (MDAV), Microsoft’s powerful anti-malware engine to detect threats and malicious files, generating security alerts for further investigation.
Why agentless malware scanning?
While traditional Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) agents offer unparalleled depth in threat prevention, detection, and response, achieving (and maintaining) complete coverage can be challenging, and sophisticated attackers can leverage temporary and persistent blind spots to launch a successful attack. Complementing your fundamental agent-based coverage, agentless malware scanning provides a second effective layer of threat detection, particularly in situations like:
VMs unprotected by EDR – In rapidly changing cloud environments, maintaining agent coverage across all VMs is a continuous effort, and it’s not uncommon for servers to be unprotected due to operational challenges or oversight. Agentless malware scanning ensures that these servers don’t remain complete blind spots; it is capable of detecting threats lurking on VMs where an EDR agent is absent and provides essential leads for investigations.
EDR posture and configuration issues – VMs with EDR might still be partially vulnerable due to issues like outdated configurations or mismanaged exclusions. Misuse or overuse of file and path exclusions, often aimed at optimizing performance, can inadvertently open security loopholes. This is particularly risky as certain threat actors exploit these blind spots. Agentless malware scanning, as an out-of-band scan of the VM, provides full coverage of the server filesystem and consistently utilizes Microsoft’s latest models, signatures, and feeds.
Ultimately, it provides an additional safety net against those risks, without added complexity or performance impact on your servers.
How does it work?
This latest addition extends Defender for Cloud’s agentless scanning for VMs capability, already assessing your Azure, AWS and GCP VMs for security issues without relying on running agents or network connectivity. We have also recently published a technical deep dive on the technology.
Until today, agentless scanning continuously conducted periodic inspections of your VM filesystems to surface posture issues, and now extending to threat detection as well, it harnesses the power of MDAV engine to detect malicious files on VMs. Onboarded VMs undergo a daily inspection, with MDAV scans combining signature-based with heuristic methods to assess files. Each scan utilizes our latest signatures and threat intelligence feeds to detect threats early on.
When malicious files are detected, Defender for Cloud generates detailed alerts with context, enabling you to conduct further investigations into the threat.
Enablement
Agentless malware scanning is included with Defender for Servers P2 and becomes an integral part for VMs already enabled for agentless scanning. If you are using both – no action is needed, the new capability is already covering your VMs.
As a reminder, agentless scanning for VMs is automatically enabled with new onboardings to Defender for Servers P2. However, if you wish to validate or enable it, you can take these steps. To monitor your coverage, you can also use the built-in coverage workbook which provides insights about the plan enabled on a subscription and whether agentless scanning is active.
Alert investigation
As soon as malware has been detected on a machine, a corresponding security alert will be created.
Alerts will be flagged as “alertname (agentless)” to indicate that agentless malware scanning created the individual security alert. Additionally, there might be several alerts with the same name on a machine. This indicates the same family of malware was detected in various files or file paths.
When selecting an alert, Defender for Cloud will display an alert summary and allow you to view full details, including information about the affected resource, detected malware, file paths, and more.
Lastly, at Microsoft Ignite 2023, we announced the new Defender for Cloud alerts integration with Microsoft Defender XDR. The new integration already includes alerts created by agentless malware scanning.
To learn how to create a test alert for agentless malware scanning in your environment, please read this documentation.
Summary
By combining agentless and agent-based solutions, Defender for Cloud enhances your threat detection coverage. While agent-based anti-malware provides unmatched detection and prevention capacities and real-time protection, agentless malware scanning serves as a valuable complement, addressing potential blind spots without imposing performance impact or leaving a footprint on the machine.
With this latest addition, we enhance Defender for Cloud’s native server protection capabilities within Defender for Servers Plan 2, covering virtual machines across Azure, AWS, and GCP cloud environments.
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Did any one using MDE that setup control devices control through GPO successful?
Hi All,
I’ll been working with support for 2 months now but still didn’t successful whitelisting specific USB devices by MDE Devices Control.
I’ll seen this problem on reddit last week too.
Following the official instructions doesn’t work at all and after a few investigation we “learn” need to config the correct “AssessMask” to whitelisting. However, All the network printer blocked by Devices Control.
Anyone have the same issue?
Hi All, I’ll been working with support for 2 months now but still didn’t successful whitelisting specific USB devices by MDE Devices Control. I’ll seen this problem on reddit last week too.Reddit – Dive into anything Following the official instructions doesn’t work at all and after a few investigation we “learn” need to config the correct “AssessMask” to whitelisting. However, All the network printer blocked by Devices Control. Anyone have the same issue? Read More
Save up to 50% on your compute costs: SQL MI Business Critical improved its storage-to-vCore ratio
Many database workloads require a significant data volume, but do not need a large number of vCores. For such workloads, migration to Azure SQL Managed Instance was often prohibitively expensive since the storage-to-vCore ratio had been a blocker. Customers sometimes had to buy more vCores than their workloads required to be able to unlock the required amount of storage. Microsoft is constantly improving the SQL MI service and allowing you to migrate more of your mission-critical workloads to SQL MI. We are excited to tell you that in SQL MI Business Critical you are now getting up to twice as much storage for the same number of vCores!
What is new?
Business Critical
Before
Now (New in blue)
Max instance storage size (reserved)
Premium-series:
– 1 TB for 4, 8 vCores
– 2 TB for 16, 24 vCores
– 4 TB for 32 vCores
– 5.5 TB for 40, 64, 80 vCores
Memory optimized premium-series:
– 1 TB for 4, 8 vCores
– 2 TB for 16, 24 vCores
– 4 TB for 32 vCores
– 5.5 TB for 40 vCores
– 16 TB for 64 vCores
Premium-series:
– 1 TB for 4, 6 vCores
– 2 TB for 8, 10, 12 vCores
– 4 TB for 16, 20 vCores
– 5.5 TB for 24, 32, 40, (64, 80, 96, 128 vCores)
– 16 TB for 64, 80, 96 and 128 vCores (in certain regions, see blog)
Memory optimized premium-series:
– 1 TB for 4, 6 vCores
– 2 TB for 8, 10, 12 vCores
– 4 TB for 16, 20 vCores
– 5.5 TB for 24 vCores
– 8 TB for 32, 40 vCores
– 12 TB for 48 and 56 vCores
– 16 TB for 64, 80, 96 and 128 vCores
Why is improved Storage-to-vCore Ratio important?
Improved storage-to-vCore ratio means that you have access to up to three times the storage per vCore as before (details in the table above). This brings the following benefits:
Improved Scalability: With more storage at your disposal, your instance can effortlessly scale to meet growing data demands. Whether it is a sudden influx of customer data or expanding analytics, your instance will not skip a beat.
Cost-Effective Growth: While your storage capacity is doubling, your vCore count does not have to increase at the same rate. In SQL MI, you got used to vCore-based purchasing model (What is Azure SQL Managed Instance? – Azure SQL Managed Instance | Microsoft Learn) and this improvement can lead to significant cost savings as you are using fewer vCores. Additionally, with a smaller number of vCores, you need a smaller number of SQL Licenses. It is also cost saving mechanism as you can pay less or reuse licenses that you now have free for some other workload.
Seamless Data Management: If you are dealing with large datasets or heavy transactional workloads, you now have more room to breathe. Complex queries and extensive data sets will feel right at home in your upgraded database environment.
This enhancement is not just about numbers; it is about empowering your business to do more. Whether you are running a global e-commerce platform, handling massive customer databases, or driving real-time analytics, this storage upgrade is designed to support your ambitious data-driven projects.
How to save up to 50% on your database compute costs
STEP 1: Check on your CPU and storage usage.
You can find this on Azure Portal, here is an example:
STEP 2: Explore if the new storage-to-vCore limits allow you to downsize your instance.
In our example, we ran our 32 vCore instance since we needed more than 2 TB of storage, but our CPU usage was less than 50% all the time (32% maximum). With new storage-to-vCore limits, we can downsize our instance to 16 vCores and thereby save 50% on our database compute costs.
STEP 3: Scale your managed instance.
You can scale your managed instance from Azure portal, PowerShell, Azure CLI or ARM templates. You can also utilize ‘online scaling’ with minimal downtime. See Scale resources – Azure SQL Database & Azure SQL Managed Instance | Microsoft Learn.
Summary
If you are already using Azure SQL Managed Instance Business Critical, now is the time to explore how this storage boost can improve your database performance and lower your costs. And if you’re in the market for a high-performance, scalable, and reliable database solution, look no further, now is a great time to get started and take Azure SQL Managed Instance for a spin. Thank you for reading and enjoy better storage-to-vCore limits of SQL Managed Instance Business Critical service tier.
Next steps:
Get started with SQL Managed Instance with our Quick Start reference guide.
Learn more about the latest innovation in Azure SQL Managed Instance
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AI Chat App Hack: A Guide for Technical Students
Dive into the AI Chat App Hack: A Guide for Technical Students
Hello, tech enthusiasts! If you’re interested in AI and chat apps, there’s an exciting opportunity you won’t want to miss: the AI Chat App Hack .
This blog post will guide you through what it is, why you should participate, and how to get started.
What is the AI Chat App Hack?
The AI Chat App Hack is a virtual hackathon hosted by Microsoft. It’s designed to help developers learn how to build their own Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) chat apps using Python . The hackathon runs from January 29th to February 12th.
What is RAG?
This allows developers to ask questions of their own data and get answers that are relevant to the context of the question here are the most popular RAG chat sample repository.
RAG Resources
Tutorial: Get started with the Python enterprise chat sample using RAG
GitHub Universe: Quickly build and deploy OpenAI apps on Azure, infused with your own data
Azure AI resources for Python developers
Using Llamaindex with Azure AI Search
AI Discord community
Why Participate?
Participating in the AI Chat App Hack is a fantastic way to expand your technical skills, particularly in the field of AI. You’ll have the opportunity to:
Learn how to build a RAG Chat App using Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, and Python.
Extend the app for your own data sources.
Collaborate with other developers from around the world.
Win exciting prizes.
How to Get Started
Getting started with the AI Chat App Hack is simple. Here are the steps you need to follow:
Visit the AI Chat App Hack page and register.
Introduce yourself to the community.
Apply for Azure OpenAI access.
Start hacking on January 29th.
Join live sessions for learning and inspiration.
Remember, you can either team up (max 3 team members) or fly solo to join the hacking .
Make sure to register for Hack Together before starting to build your project .
Conclusion
The AI Chat App Hack is a unique opportunity to dive into the world of AI and chat apps. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, this event offers valuable learning experiences and the chance to connect with a global community of tech enthusiasts. So why wait? Register today and start your AI journey!
For more information, visit the AI Chat App Hack page. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Happy hacking!
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