The document discusses options for running SQL Server in hybrid cloud environments, including both public and private clouds. In a public cloud, SQL Server can run in either Windows Azure Virtual Machines, which provides full feature parity with on-premises SQL Server, or Windows Azure SQL Database, which offers scalability to millions of users but less control over the operating system. A hybrid approach allows organizations to deploy applications across on-premises and cloud environments to realize the benefits of each.
Microsoft SQL Azure - Agility in the New Economy Partner Technical DatasheetMicrosoft Private Cloud
SQL Azure is a cloud-based relational database platform built on Microsoft® SQL Server® technologies. With SQL Azure, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud.
CLOUD COMPUTING: SECURITY ISSUES AND CHALLENGESP singh
Cloud storage is defined as "the storage of data online in the cloud," wherein a company's data is stored in and accessible from multiple distributed and connected resources that comprise a cloud. Although cloud service providers implement the best security standards and industry certifications, storing data and important files on external service providers always opens up risks. Using cloud-powered technologies means you need to provide your service provider with access to important business data. Meanwhile, being a public service opens up cloud service providers to security challenges on a routine basis. The ease in procuring and accessing cloud services can also give nefarious users the ability to scan, identify and exploit loopholes and vulnerabilities within a system. For instance, in a multi-tenant cloud architecture where multiple users are hosted on the same server, a hacker might try to break into the data of other users hosted and stored on the same server. The following paper deals with the service models of cloud computing along with types of cloud computing & characteristics of cloud. Further challenges and security issues in cloud computing is also discussed and at last conclusion and future demand for research in the field of cloud computing.
SQL Azure is a cloud-based relational database platform built on Microsoft® SQL Server® technologies. With SQL Azure, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud. Trends in Data Management Organizations are seeing a proliferation of data as requirements to access and manage information increase
Microsoft SQL Azure - Agility in the New Economy Partner Technical DatasheetMicrosoft Private Cloud
SQL Azure is a cloud-based relational database platform built on Microsoft® SQL Server® technologies. With SQL Azure, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud.
CLOUD COMPUTING: SECURITY ISSUES AND CHALLENGESP singh
Cloud storage is defined as "the storage of data online in the cloud," wherein a company's data is stored in and accessible from multiple distributed and connected resources that comprise a cloud. Although cloud service providers implement the best security standards and industry certifications, storing data and important files on external service providers always opens up risks. Using cloud-powered technologies means you need to provide your service provider with access to important business data. Meanwhile, being a public service opens up cloud service providers to security challenges on a routine basis. The ease in procuring and accessing cloud services can also give nefarious users the ability to scan, identify and exploit loopholes and vulnerabilities within a system. For instance, in a multi-tenant cloud architecture where multiple users are hosted on the same server, a hacker might try to break into the data of other users hosted and stored on the same server. The following paper deals with the service models of cloud computing along with types of cloud computing & characteristics of cloud. Further challenges and security issues in cloud computing is also discussed and at last conclusion and future demand for research in the field of cloud computing.
SQL Azure is a cloud-based relational database platform built on Microsoft® SQL Server® technologies. With SQL Azure, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud. Trends in Data Management Organizations are seeing a proliferation of data as requirements to access and manage information increase
Dell EMC XtremIO & Stratoscale White PaperItzik Reich
o improve competitiveness in a fast-paced world, organizations are embracing software as a prime differentiator. A software-driven business is more agile and efficient, innovates faster, and responds dynamically to changing market and customer demands. Increasingly, gaining these compelling advantages requires adopting cloud-native applications.
Building and maintaining a proper cloud platform (for example, life-cycle management, troubleshooting issues, etc.) on premises, by yourself can be capital-intensive and difficult, as most organizations do not have the required skills. Going to a public cloud is an option for some, but those with sensitive data, or compliance and performance requirements, may not want to take the risk. In either case, you need to devote special attention to ensuring high availability of your cloud-native applications, which requires a specialized set of skills.
Hybrid cloud solutions have historically focused on bridging infrastructure aspects of the enterprise data center with public clouds. By stretching compute, storage, and networking layers between the two, the notion of hybrid cloud has enabled new use cases, requiring better redundancy, elasticity and security.
The public cloud has since pressed forward to offer a wider and wider range of cloud (platform) services, ranging from container orchestration to analytics, and big data processing to managed database services.
In order for businesses to maximize the effectiveness of their cloud strategies, hybrid cloud solutions must evolve to something beyond simply infrastructure. Hybrid cloud solutions must now encompass the same types of cloud services as those powering applications that are born in the public cloud.
In this white paper, we present a solution that provides the robust capabilities and built-in high availability that you need for cloud-native applications; the combination of Dell EMC XtremIO X2 all-flash storage platform and Stratoscale’s hybrid cloud solution.
The paper details the features of this integrated solution around high availability and scalability for the applications and the platforms. Therefore, you can take your most critical cloud-native applications from development to production using this solution, with complete confidence.
With this proven cloud platform, organizations can accelerate their digital business objectives via cloud-native applications, from development through testing and into production, on a single platform, with ease and agility. Most importantly, eliminating the risk of application downtime preserves critical revenue streams, helps ensure customer satisfaction and strengthens your competitive advantage
Unified Mobile Application to Integrate SalesForce, Oracle EBS, Taleo, Outloo...RapidValue
In the last couple of years, enterprises have understood that mobile applications can help them, reduce the infrastructure costs, boost productivity and facilitate flexibility of millennial employees. As a result, we now observe a plethora of enterprise mobile applications in the market.
Employers and employees both find it challenging to manage and economically maintain multiple applications catering to different use cases.
This paper is a continuation of the previous whitepaper on Approach to Unified Mobile Application Implementation for Multisystem Integration. It discusses solution to the abovementioned problem by describing a sample integrated implementation which manages various important use cases from different legacy systems.
A unified mobile application acts as a one-stop solution for the sales team as it will mobilize use cases right from recruitment of sales team to submitting and approving their expense reports/purchase requisitions to managing opportunities
and contacts along with respective follow-ups. This includes integration of various on-premise and cloud-based systems like Oracle EBS, Salesforce, Oracle Taleo,Kofax and MS Outlook. The entire design of the unified mobile application is scalable and
modularized for ensuring flexibility and easy configuration.
The Unified Mobile App solution mentioned in the whitepaper provides an intuitive UI and also, a highly customizable and scalable solution. This paves the way for future integrations. Mobilizing legacy systems with Unified Mobile App has several advantages. You can seamlessly, share data where it’s needed to automate business processes.
It provides users a 360-degree view of business-critical information.
This paper explains how to build a Unified Mobile Application to Integrate SalesForce.com (SFDC), Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), Taleo, Outlook and Kofax
Modules.
In 1999, Salesforce.com started delivering of applications to users using a simple website. The applications were delivered to enterprises over the Internet, and this way the dream of computing sold as utility were true.
In 2002, Amazon started Amazon Web Services, providing services like storage, computation and even human intelligence. However, only starting with the launch of the Elastic Compute Cloud in 2006 a truly commercial service open to everybody existed.
In 2009, Google Apps also started to provide cloud computing enterprise applications.
Though service-oriented architecture advocates "everything as a service" (with the acronyms EaaS or XaaS,[62] or simply aas), cloud-computing providers offer their "services" according to different models, of which the three standard models per NIST are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).[61] These models offer increasing abstraction; they are thus often portrayed as a layers in a stack: infrastructure-, platform- and software-as-a-service, but these need not be related.
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet.
Whitepaper: Choose the cloud platform that beats the competition - Citrix Clo...Citrix
Server virtualization introduced the concepts of automation and agility to servers and applications. Now, as enterprises seek to achieve ever-higher levels of business agility, IT efficiency and cost control, they are exploring private clouds as a way to extend those benefits to the entire datacenter. There are many private cloud platforms in the market today, yet most fail to address key cloud design requirements that are critical to success, notably compatibility, scalability and flexibility. When choosing a private cloud platform, enterprises should carefully consider these and other private cloud attributes.
In this paper, the SMB Group examines different cloud computing models and the types of requirements that each can best address, and discusses what midmarket businesses should look for in a cloud solutions provider.
Comparison of Several IaaS Cloud Computing Platformsijsrd.com
Today, the question is less about whether or not to use Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), but rather which providers to use. Cloud infrastructure services, known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), are self-service models for accessing, monitoring, and managing remote data center infrastructures, such as compute, storage, networking, and networking services. Instead of having to purchase hardware outright, users can purchase Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) based on consumption, similar to electricity or other utility billing. Most providers offer the core services of server instances, storage and load balancing. When choosing and evaluating a service, it is important to look at issues around location, resiliency and security as well as the features and cost. In order to evaluate which provider best suits requirements.
The availability of high-capacity networks, low-cost computers and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented architecture and autonomic and utility computing has led to growth in cloud computing.By 2019, Linux was the most used type of operating systems used, including in Microsoft's offering and thus described as dominant.
In this presentation we present SQL Azure under the hood, we explore the internal componentes and process involved in the SQL Azure Platform.
Regards
Ing. Eduardo Castro, SQL Server MVP
http://comunidadwindows.org
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
Dell EMC XtremIO & Stratoscale White PaperItzik Reich
o improve competitiveness in a fast-paced world, organizations are embracing software as a prime differentiator. A software-driven business is more agile and efficient, innovates faster, and responds dynamically to changing market and customer demands. Increasingly, gaining these compelling advantages requires adopting cloud-native applications.
Building and maintaining a proper cloud platform (for example, life-cycle management, troubleshooting issues, etc.) on premises, by yourself can be capital-intensive and difficult, as most organizations do not have the required skills. Going to a public cloud is an option for some, but those with sensitive data, or compliance and performance requirements, may not want to take the risk. In either case, you need to devote special attention to ensuring high availability of your cloud-native applications, which requires a specialized set of skills.
Hybrid cloud solutions have historically focused on bridging infrastructure aspects of the enterprise data center with public clouds. By stretching compute, storage, and networking layers between the two, the notion of hybrid cloud has enabled new use cases, requiring better redundancy, elasticity and security.
The public cloud has since pressed forward to offer a wider and wider range of cloud (platform) services, ranging from container orchestration to analytics, and big data processing to managed database services.
In order for businesses to maximize the effectiveness of their cloud strategies, hybrid cloud solutions must evolve to something beyond simply infrastructure. Hybrid cloud solutions must now encompass the same types of cloud services as those powering applications that are born in the public cloud.
In this white paper, we present a solution that provides the robust capabilities and built-in high availability that you need for cloud-native applications; the combination of Dell EMC XtremIO X2 all-flash storage platform and Stratoscale’s hybrid cloud solution.
The paper details the features of this integrated solution around high availability and scalability for the applications and the platforms. Therefore, you can take your most critical cloud-native applications from development to production using this solution, with complete confidence.
With this proven cloud platform, organizations can accelerate their digital business objectives via cloud-native applications, from development through testing and into production, on a single platform, with ease and agility. Most importantly, eliminating the risk of application downtime preserves critical revenue streams, helps ensure customer satisfaction and strengthens your competitive advantage
Unified Mobile Application to Integrate SalesForce, Oracle EBS, Taleo, Outloo...RapidValue
In the last couple of years, enterprises have understood that mobile applications can help them, reduce the infrastructure costs, boost productivity and facilitate flexibility of millennial employees. As a result, we now observe a plethora of enterprise mobile applications in the market.
Employers and employees both find it challenging to manage and economically maintain multiple applications catering to different use cases.
This paper is a continuation of the previous whitepaper on Approach to Unified Mobile Application Implementation for Multisystem Integration. It discusses solution to the abovementioned problem by describing a sample integrated implementation which manages various important use cases from different legacy systems.
A unified mobile application acts as a one-stop solution for the sales team as it will mobilize use cases right from recruitment of sales team to submitting and approving their expense reports/purchase requisitions to managing opportunities
and contacts along with respective follow-ups. This includes integration of various on-premise and cloud-based systems like Oracle EBS, Salesforce, Oracle Taleo,Kofax and MS Outlook. The entire design of the unified mobile application is scalable and
modularized for ensuring flexibility and easy configuration.
The Unified Mobile App solution mentioned in the whitepaper provides an intuitive UI and also, a highly customizable and scalable solution. This paves the way for future integrations. Mobilizing legacy systems with Unified Mobile App has several advantages. You can seamlessly, share data where it’s needed to automate business processes.
It provides users a 360-degree view of business-critical information.
This paper explains how to build a Unified Mobile Application to Integrate SalesForce.com (SFDC), Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), Taleo, Outlook and Kofax
Modules.
In 1999, Salesforce.com started delivering of applications to users using a simple website. The applications were delivered to enterprises over the Internet, and this way the dream of computing sold as utility were true.
In 2002, Amazon started Amazon Web Services, providing services like storage, computation and even human intelligence. However, only starting with the launch of the Elastic Compute Cloud in 2006 a truly commercial service open to everybody existed.
In 2009, Google Apps also started to provide cloud computing enterprise applications.
Though service-oriented architecture advocates "everything as a service" (with the acronyms EaaS or XaaS,[62] or simply aas), cloud-computing providers offer their "services" according to different models, of which the three standard models per NIST are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).[61] These models offer increasing abstraction; they are thus often portrayed as a layers in a stack: infrastructure-, platform- and software-as-a-service, but these need not be related.
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet.
Whitepaper: Choose the cloud platform that beats the competition - Citrix Clo...Citrix
Server virtualization introduced the concepts of automation and agility to servers and applications. Now, as enterprises seek to achieve ever-higher levels of business agility, IT efficiency and cost control, they are exploring private clouds as a way to extend those benefits to the entire datacenter. There are many private cloud platforms in the market today, yet most fail to address key cloud design requirements that are critical to success, notably compatibility, scalability and flexibility. When choosing a private cloud platform, enterprises should carefully consider these and other private cloud attributes.
In this paper, the SMB Group examines different cloud computing models and the types of requirements that each can best address, and discusses what midmarket businesses should look for in a cloud solutions provider.
Comparison of Several IaaS Cloud Computing Platformsijsrd.com
Today, the question is less about whether or not to use Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), but rather which providers to use. Cloud infrastructure services, known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), are self-service models for accessing, monitoring, and managing remote data center infrastructures, such as compute, storage, networking, and networking services. Instead of having to purchase hardware outright, users can purchase Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) based on consumption, similar to electricity or other utility billing. Most providers offer the core services of server instances, storage and load balancing. When choosing and evaluating a service, it is important to look at issues around location, resiliency and security as well as the features and cost. In order to evaluate which provider best suits requirements.
The availability of high-capacity networks, low-cost computers and storage devices as well as the widespread adoption of hardware virtualization, service-oriented architecture and autonomic and utility computing has led to growth in cloud computing.By 2019, Linux was the most used type of operating systems used, including in Microsoft's offering and thus described as dominant.
In this presentation we present SQL Azure under the hood, we explore the internal componentes and process involved in the SQL Azure Platform.
Regards
Ing. Eduardo Castro, SQL Server MVP
http://comunidadwindows.org
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
Introduction to SQL Server Cloud Storage AzureEduardo Castro
If you find an issue with the presentation output, click here. We'll get back to you within the next 48 hours. introduction to sql storage and azure storage Edit Update ClosePublic View Post to : URL :
Presentation Description Edit Less In this presentation we cover all the basic concepts about SQL Storage and Azure Storage. We present SQL Azure and ..
In this presentation we cover all the basic concepts about SQL Storage and Azure Storage. We present SQL Azure and Windows Azure Tables.
Regards,
Dr. Eduardo Castro Martinez
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
http://comunidadwindows.org
In this presentation we introduce the basic concepts around SQL Server Azure: the database in the cloud.
Regards,
Ing. Eduardo Castro, PhD
http://ecastrom.blogspot.com
http://comunidadwindows.org
CLOUD ANALYTICS: AN INSIGHT ON DATA AND STORAGE SERVICES IN MICROSOFT AZUREJournal For Research
The growing demand of cloud adoption in the organizations has made IT business to refine their existing strategy. It is important to leverage the existing infrastructure and move the data to cloud which has a competitive edge in terms of operational cost. The adaptability to change is the key and with the agility through cloud, highly scalable and data availability with minimal downtime at enterprise is established. Microsoft Azure is one of the leading cloud vendors in the market and their capabilities in Analytics, Data and Storage services helps the organizations to move their data to cloud with ease. They provide hybrid cloud model with related services which enable flexibility to meet any specific business needs with instant scalability and flexible architectural patterns. There are catalog of services offered by Microsoft Azure to have the data on cloud and build an integrated solution. In this paper, Azure cloud data and storage services are discussed along with other essential capabilities providing value to business.
After knowing the above reasons, I am sure you need the azure SQL database for your business. If you are looking for a cost-effective solution, you are just at the right place. With DirectDeals, you can access special deals to get the Azure service and SQL Server software at competitive prices. We also help setup them up for different industries like- Financial Services, Healthcare, Government, Manufacturing, Telecommunications, Education, Nonprofit, IoT specific industry solutions. So, if you are in the following core industries, you can contact us to take AZURE services. Shop Here: - https://www.directdeals.com/
Lecture #6 - ET-3010
Cloud Computing - Overview and Examples
Connected Services and Cloud Computing
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics SEEI / STEI
Institut Teknologi Bandung ITB
Update April 2017
Seminar_report on Microsoft Azure ServiceANAND PRAKASH
Executing applications in the clouds offer many advantages over the traditional way of running programs. Firstly, using cloud computing allows rapid service deployment and massive savings upfront because not having to invest in infrastructure. Secondly, cloud computing model allows computing power and storage to scale up with business growth. In addition to this, it’s also easy to dynamically adjust computing power up or down. As a customer, you end up paying for the actual usage of resources. The advantages of using the Azure cloud platform relate to the fact that Microsoft has tried to minimize the changes involved in migrating applications to the cloud. Effort required from developers already familiar with Microsoft’s technologies to utilize the Azure is minimal. In addition to this, upcoming releases of Azure are going to support applications written in languages such as Python and PHP. Another advantage in Microsoft’s solution is that the services provided can be used in a very flexible fashion. Not only are Azure services available to cloud applications, but also traditional on-premises applications are free to exploit them. What’s even better, Microsoft seems to be improving in terms of interoperability. Because all of the services are accessible via industry standard protocols, it is guaranteed exploiting them doesn’t force customers to use Microsoft’s operating systems on-premises. Although there are many advantages in cloud computing, there are also disadvantages that shouldn’t be ignored. The first and most obvious disadvantage is the fact that by running applications in the cloud you have to hand over your private data. Privacy and security concerns are direct consequences of this. Secondly, although cloud computing relieves customers from the burden of infrastructure management, it also takes away the possibility to be in total control of that infrastructure. In addition to loosing control on hardware, using compute clouds also ties the customer very tightly to the cloud service provider. Data, for example, is usually stored in a proprietary format which makes porting applications to competitors’ systems hard. As customers are locked in, they are also at the mercy of that certain service provider’s future pricing strategy.
The cloud is all the rage. Does it live up to its hype? What are the benefits of the cloud? Join me as I discuss the reasons so many companies are moving to the cloud and demo how to get up and running with a VM (IaaS) and a database (PaaS) in Azure. See why the ability to scale easily, the quickness that you can create a VM, and the built-in redundancy are just some of the reasons that moving to the cloud a “no brainer”. And if you have an on-prem datacenter, learn how to get out of the air-conditioning business!
Cloud Technology and Virtualization
"Project Deliverable 4: Cloud Technology and Virtualization"
Christopher Nevels
Dr. Darcel Ford
CIS 590
11-24-13
Cloud Technology and Virtualization
There are many reasons companies and organizations are investing in server virtualization. Some of the reasons are financially motivated, while others address technical concerns. Server virtualization conserves space through consolidation. It's common practice to dedicate each server to a single application. If several applications only use a small amount of processing power, the network administrator can consolidate several machines into one server running multiple virtual environments. For companies that have hundreds or thousands of servers, the need for physical space can decrease significantly. Server virtualization provides a way for companies to practice redundancy without purchasing additional hardware. Redundancy refers to running the same application on multiple servers. It's a safety measure -- if a server fails for any reason, another server running the same application can take its place. This minimizes any interruption in service. It wouldn't make sense to build two virtual servers performing the same application on the same physical server. If the physical server were to crash, both virtual servers would also fail. In most cases, network administrators will create redundant virtual servers on different physical machines. Virtual servers offer programmers isolated, independent systems in which they can test new applications or operating systems. Rather than buying a dedicated physical machine, the network administrator can create a virtual server on an existing machine. Because each virtual server is independent in relation to all the other servers, programmers can run software without worrying about affecting other applications (Strickland 2013).
Cloud computing is ideal for small companies, as it’s cost-effective, saves time and energy, and it allows for a high level of customization. According to Forbes, a 2009 study found that cloud computing could save up to 67% of the lifecycle cost for server deployment on a large scale. Another study found that using cloud solutions generally results in higher investment returns (when compared to an on-site system). There are further cost saving benefits, such as less need for expensive hardware and software, and no need for physical networks or IT maintenance. Also, cloud systems are usually ‘pay-as-you-go’, so you only pay for what you use. There are no upfront investments, and IT requirements can be easily budgeted for. Also, various cloud services can either be added or scaled back, depending on where your business is, and how much growth is taking place. The cloud is also highly customizable: you can select what platform you want, which payroll software to use, and what email marketing tools you require – all from different vendors, and all individually configurable (K2 SEO 2013).
The c.
Build your private cloud with paa s using linuxz cover story enterprise tech ...Elena Nanos
This article has been published as a cover story of Enterprise Tech Journal Jun 2013 issue, at - http://enterprisesystemsmedia.com/article/build-your-private-cloud-with-paas-using-linux-on-system-z.
Do you know that according to Gartner poll, Private Cloud project deployments are increasing significantly in 2013 and nearly 90% of customers are looking at Private Cloud implementation and are either in the planning or early deployment stages? Is your shop currently looking into Private Platform as a Service (PaaS) Cloud implementation? Have you looked into what zEnterprise has to offer in this space?
This article gives insight on Private Cloud Implementation on zEnterprise and can help you learn how your organization can benefit from implementing a Dev/Test private cloud using PaaS with Linux on System z and why WebSphere Application Server (WAS) may be a perfect fit for a Dev/Test Private Cloud.
Learn how your organization can cut IT costs by deploying “self-service” for developers, using Dev/Test Private Cloud.
This article goes over what Applications are a good fit for Dev/Test Private Cloud and the benefits of this implementation, such as :
• Reduce the number of Dev/Test WAS environments using dedicated resources
• Reduce hardware and software license costs
• Improve speed of upgrades
• Standardize procedures and software levels
• Let developers set up and use new environments in minutes instead of days or weeks
• Simplify WAS infrastructure management
Article also goes over the key differences in managing cloud infrastructure on distributed platforms vs. mainframes and shows how Linux on System z plays a critical role in creating PaaS clouds.
• Mainframes can scale vertically, while distributed servers can scale horizontally.
• Linux on System z has much higher densities of virtual machines per processor core compared to distributed servers.
• Cloud implementation on zEnterprise can dynamically allocate workloads to available pooled resources.
• Linux on System z leverages z/VM’s ability to virtualize CPUs and memory, as well as share those resources among many Linux guests. One IFL can run the equivalent of many distributed servers.
• Consolidation of Linux workloads on a single physical hardware server allows multiple Linux images to run on z/VM IFLs without affecting IBM software charges for existing System z general processors.
Creating private cloud to host dev/test environments can save your company money and increase efficiency. Start small, but think big; create a cloud strategy and roadmap that involves getting leadership buy in, building business cases and presenting them in stages within your organization, standardizing procedures and using a fit-for-purpose approach to select pilot applications.
Connect with author of this article, Elena Nanos, on Linkedin at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/elena-nanos/1/a47/70a
In a cloud computing architecture, cloud infrastructure refers to the back-end technology elements found within most enterprise data centers -- servers, persistent storage and networking equipment -- but on a much greater scale. Some large cloud providers, including hyperscale cloud companies, such as Microsoft and Amazon, form partnerships with vendors to design custom infrastructure components that are optimized for specific needs, such as power efficiency or workloads that include big data and AI.
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet
Caserta Concepts, Datameer and Microsoft shared their combined knowledge and a use case on big data, the cloud and deep analytics. Attendes learned how a global leader in the test, measurement and control systems market reduced their big data implementations from 18 months to just a few.
Speakers shared how to provide a business user-friendly, self-service environment for data discovery and analytics, and focus on how to extend and optimize Hadoop based analytics, highlighting the advantages and practical applications of deploying on the cloud for enhanced performance, scalability and lower TCO.
Agenda included:
- Pizza and Networking
- Joe Caserta, President, Caserta Concepts - Why are we here?
- Nikhil Kumar, Sr. Solutions Engineer, Datameer - Solution use cases and technical demonstration
- Stefan Groschupf, CEO & Chairman, Datameer - The evolving Hadoop-based analytics trends and the role of cloud computing
- James Serra, Data Platform Solution Architect, Microsoft, Benefits of the Azure Cloud Service
- Q&A, Networking
For more information on Caserta Concepts, visit our website: http://casertaconcepts.com/
Short Economic EssayPlease answer MINIMUM 400 word I need this.docxbudabrooks46239
Short Economic Essay
Please answer MINIMUM 400 word
I need this maximum in 2,5 hour because now I’m doing the online final exam and the clock is ticking.
Question:
What is the purpose of the term sheet and why is it important? Be sure to write a detailed long essay to this question. Think about who the term sheet is written for, why it is written, and what does it need to convey.
Cloud Computing: Virtualization and Resiliency for
Data Center Computing
Valentina Salapura
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
Yorktown Heights, NY, USA
[email protected]
Index Terms — Cloud computing, data center management,
data center optimization, virtualization, Infrastructure as a
service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), Software as a service
(SaaS), high availability, disaster recovery, virtual appliance.
INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is being rapidly adopted across the IT
industry, driven by the need to reduce the total cost of
ownership of increasingly more demanding workloads. Within
companies, private clouds are offering a more efficient way to
manage and use private data centers. In the broader
marketplace, public clouds offer the promise of buying
computing capabilities based on a utility model. This utility
model enables IT consumers to purchase compute resources on
demand to fit current business needs and scale expenses
associated with computing resources. Thus, cloud computing
offers IT to be treated as an ongoing variable operating expense
billed by usage rather than requiring capital expenditures that
must be planned years in advance. Advantageously, operating
expenses can be charged against the revenue generated by these
expenses directly. In contrast, capital expenses incurred by the
purchase of a system need to be paid at the time of purchase,
but can only be depreciated to reduce the taxable income over
the lifetime of the system.
THE MAIN ATTRIBUTES OF CLOUD COMPUTING
The main attributes of cloud computing are scalable,
shared, on-demand computing resources delivered over the
network, and pay-per-use pricing. This offers flexibility in
using as few or as many IT resources as needed at any point in
time. Thus, users do not need to predict future resources they
might need, and to commit to capital investment in hardware.
This is especially advantageous for start-ups, and small and
medium businesses which might otherwise not be able to afford
the IT infrastructure they need to support their growing
business. At the same time, redirecting capital investment from
IT infrastructure to the core business is attractive even for large
and financially strong businesses.
From a technical perspective, cloud computing brings the
benefits of virtualization and multi-tenancy to scale-out
systems. Virtualization techniques allow multiple system
images to share the same hardware resources: CPU
virtualization techniques create multiple virtual hardware
systems, while network virtualization .
Microsoft Teams Phone
Stay connected with voice and video calling using Microsoft Teams Phone on your computer, tablet, mobile device, or desk phone.
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Make and receive voice and video calls directly in Microsoft Teams. Stay in touch and get more done anywhere.
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Work smarter with an all-in-one app that brings together calling, chat, meetings, and collaboration.
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Benefit from a wide portfolio of devices for any business need and get flexible financing options.
Simple set up and management
Easily add, monitor, and manage voice and video calling from the Teams admin center.
Microsoft Teams Phone with Calling Plan includes:
Cloud-based phone system with advanced features including call transfer, multilevel auto attendants, and call queues.
A domestic calling plan with 3,000 minutes2 per user, per month within the US and Canada.
Call from anywhere, on any device through the Microsoft Teams app on desktop, mobile, web, and desk phones.
Around-the-clock customer support seven days a week, backed by Microsoft.
Teams Phone with Calling Plan requires a Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams
Built for hybrid work
Feel seen and heard no matter where you are and do your best work, your way.
Empower people and teams in a hybrid work world
Flexible work is here to stay, and embracing it is critical to your future success. The latest tools from Microsoft empower hybrid work environments and enable flexible work beyond organizational boundaries.
Whats New in Microsoft Teams Hybrid Meetings November 2021David J Rosenthal
Microsoft Teams
Built for hybrid work
Feel seen and heard no matter where you are and do your best work, your way.
Empower people and teams in a hybrid work world
Flexible work is here to stay, and embracing it is critical to your future success. The latest tools from Microsoft empower hybrid work environments and enable flexible work beyond organizational boundaries.
Microsoft Viva Connections
A curated, company-branded experience that brings together relevant news, conversations, and resources in the apps and devices you use every day. Viva Connections is included in all Microsoft 365 plans with SharePoint Online.
Create connection
Encourage meaningful connections across the organization in a hybrid workplace.
Drive alignment
Rally the entire organization around your vision, mission, and strategic priorities.
Empower contribution
Foster a culture of inclusion by empowering every employee to contribute ideas and share feedback.
Built on Microsoft 365
Deploy and manage Viva Connections through your existing infrastructure.
Protect your hybrid workforce across the attack chainDavid J Rosenthal
Security is one of the most important considerations for SMBs. In fact, 77% of SMBs in a recent survey consider security a top feature when purchasing new PCs.1
Last year alone, 67% of SMBs experienced a security breach that cost, on average, 3.3% of their revenue.1 That’s a big risk to both profitability and reputation, and it shows how critical strong security protections are for businesses.
The good news is that 69% of SMBs in a recent survey agreed that new Windows 10 Pro devices offered better security and data protection than older devices.1
Research shows that modern devices help business owners by preventing identity attacks, minimizing phishing, and reducing the risk of malware attacks. These are all common ways that bad actors steal business data, steal personal information, or hold our devices hostage in exchange for huge amounts of ransom money.
And with modern PCs, most security functions can happen in the cloud, without interrupting worker productivity.
Connections is a company branded employee app in Teams. It is a gateway to your employee experience, with personalized news, communications, tasks, people and resources. It provides a single curated employee destination that can be configured for specific roles like frontline workers. So, leaders can communicate and engage their employees, and employees can get easy access to the tools and resources they need from one place.. Connections builds on existing capabilities in Microsoft 365 like SharePoint and Yammer. And it pulls your communications together into a pre-configured app in Teams, designed for both desktop and mobile workers. It also acts as a launching pad to the other 3 Viva modules
Insights brings together Workplace Analytics, MyAnalytics and Glint into a unified insights app in Teams to provide data-driven and privacy-protected insights for individuals, managers and leaders. For example, employees get personalized insights, only they can see, that help them protect their time for breaks, focused work, and learning in order to promote improved productivity and wellbeing.
Topics focuses on knowledge and expertise. Topics applies AI to identify knowledge and experts and organize them into shared topics. AI automatically creates a topic page for each topic. It’s like Wikipedia for the enterprise where AI does the first draft. And these topic pages are surfaced as Topic Cards right in the flow of work in Office and Teams.
Finally, Learning allows employees to easily discover informal and formal learning in the flow of work. It aggregates content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and 3rd party training content and your own organizations content – all in one place. Along with providing aggregation and recommendations, it also allows managers to assign and track training, as well as report on training within and across teams.
Connections is a company branded employee app in Teams. It is a gateway to your employee experience, with personalized news, communications, tasks, people and resources. It provides a single curated employee destination that can be configured for specific roles like frontline workers. So, leaders can communicate and engage their employees, and employees can get easy access to the tools and resources they need from one place.. Connections builds on existing capabilities in Microsoft 365 like SharePoint and Yammer. And it pulls your communications together into a pre-configured app in Teams, designed for both desktop and mobile workers. It also acts as a launching pad to the other 3 Viva modules
Insights brings together Workplace Analytics, MyAnalytics and Glint into a unified insights app in Teams to provide data-driven and privacy-protected insights for individuals, managers and leaders. For example, employees get personalized insights, only they can see, that help them protect their time for breaks, focused work, and learning in order to promote improved productivity and wellbeing.
Topics focuses on knowledge and expertise. Topics applies AI to identify knowledge and experts and organize them into shared topics. AI automatically creates a topic page for each topic. It’s like Wikipedia for the enterprise where AI does the first draft. And these topic pages are surfaced as Topic Cards right in the flow of work in Office and Teams.
Finally, Learning allows employees to easily discover informal and formal learning in the flow of work. It aggregates content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and 3rd party training content and your own organizations content – all in one place. Along with providing aggregation and recommendations, it also allows managers to assign and track training, as well as report on training within and across teams.
Connections is a company branded employee app in Teams. It is a gateway to your employee experience, with personalized news, communications, tasks, people and resources. It provides a single curated employee destination that can be configured for specific roles like frontline workers. So, leaders can communicate and engage their employees, and employees can get easy access to the tools and resources they need from one place.. Connections builds on existing capabilities in Microsoft 365 like SharePoint and Yammer. And it pulls your communications together into a pre-configured app in Teams, designed for both desktop and mobile workers. It also acts as a launching pad to the other 3 Viva modules
Insights brings together Workplace Analytics, MyAnalytics and Glint into a unified insights app in Teams to provide data-driven and privacy-protected insights for individuals, managers and leaders. For example, employees get personalized insights, only they can see, that help them protect their time for breaks, focused work, and learning in order to promote improved productivity and wellbeing.
Topics focuses on knowledge and expertise. Topics applies AI to identify knowledge and experts and organize them into shared topics. AI automatically creates a topic page for each topic. It’s like Wikipedia for the enterprise where AI does the first draft. And these topic pages are surfaced as Topic Cards right in the flow of work in Office and Teams.
Finally, Learning allows employees to easily discover informal and formal learning in the flow of work. It aggregates content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and 3rd party training content and your own organizations content – all in one place. Along with providing aggregation and recommendations, it also allows managers to assign and track training, as well as report on training within and across teams.
Our end-to-end, integrated portfolio of cloud solutions across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure is built on a foundation of security and privacy and helps every organization in every industry build resilience and improve the bottom line.
Azure Arc offers simplified management, faster app development, and consistent Azure services. Easily organize, govern, and secure Windows, Linux, SQL Server, and Kubernetes clusters across data centers, the edge, and multicloud environments right from Azure. Architect, design, and build cloud-native apps anywhere without sacrificing central visibility and control. Get Azure innovation and cloud benefits by deploying consistent Azure data, application, and machine learning services on any infrastructure.
Gain central visibility, operations, and compliance
Centrally manage a wide range of resources including Windows and Linux servers, SQL server, Kubernetes clusters, and Azure services.
Establish central visibility in the Azure portal and enable multi-environment search with Azure Resource Graph.
Meet governance and compliance standards for apps, infrastructure, and data with Azure Policy.
Delegate access and manage security policies for resources using role-based access control (RBAC) and Azure Lighthouse.
Organize and inventory assets through a variety of Azure scopes, such as management groups, subscriptions, resource groups, and tags.
Learn more about hybrid and multicloud management in the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure.
Windows Server 2022 is now in preview, the next release in our Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), which will be generally available later this calendar year. It builds on Windows Server 2019, our fastest adopted Windows Server ever. This release includes advanced multi-layer security, hybrid capabilities with Azure, and a flexible platform to modernize applications with containers.
Windows 365 also creates a new hybrid personal computing category called Cloud PC, which uses both the power of the cloud and the capabilities of the device to provide a full, personalized Windows experience. This new Windows experience comes as organizations around the world grapple with the best ways to facilitate hybrid work models where employees are both on-site and distributed across the globe.
The Windows 365 Cloud PC experience is:
Versatile, familiar and productive by delivering users their personalized content, settings, and applications
Simple to deploy and manage from a single console, easy for anyone to use
Secure by design, leaving no data on the device
Available on any device and optimized for the best experience on a Windows PC at a predictable price
And lastly, it’s scalable and resilient to support changing workforce needs and new business scenarios
Designed for hybrid work
Productive
Improve employee productivity and focus with a simple, powerful user experience.
Collaborative
Discover a smarter way to collaborate with Microsoft Teams integration.
Secure
Protect data and secure access with a Zero Trust-ready operating system.
Consistent
Make adoption easy with app compatibility and cloud management.
Productive and collaborative
Reach your individual and team goals with built-in assistance features in Windows 11.
Simple, modern visuals
Snap assist
Personalized widgets
Intelligent video conferencing
Share a window while presenting
Meet now in Microsoft Teams
The Microsoft Teams call and chat function in the taskbar of Windows 11.
Meet now in Microsoft Teams
Connect with anyone on any platform with fast, easy-to-use calling and chat right from the taskbar.
The most secure Windows yet
Increase security with hardware-based integrity protection in Windows 11, from the silicon to the cloud.
Go passwordless
Get secure, multifactor single sign-on from devices to the cloud and apps with Windows Hello for Business.
Perfect for remote work
Ship employees a corporate-owned device secured by company policy and easily provisioned by them.
Microsoft Scheduler for M365 - Personal Digital AssistantDavid J Rosenthal
An assistant for everyone
Enjoy the speed of a virtual assistant augmented with human understanding.
Easy scheduling
Save time by handing off the time-consuming task of scheduling using your own words.
Works 24/7
Request a meeting at any time. Cortana works around the clock even when you are offline or busy.
You control your data
Scheduler works within your Microsoft 365 compliance boundaries and keeps the data inside your organization. You control your data.
Smart technology with human assistance
Increased reliability that will always complete your request by using human assistance to resolve ambiguities and context.
Grows with your needs
Available 24/7 and capable of handling thousands of requests at the same time.
What is New in Teams Meetings and Meeting Rooms July 2021David J Rosenthal
Chat
Share your opinion, and your personality. Send gifs, stickers, and emojis in a group chat or in one-to-one messages.
Instant messaging
Meet
Instantly go from group chat to video conference with the touch of a button. Teams of 2 or 10,000 can meet in one place, no matter how many places they’re in.
Online meetings
Call
Make and receive calls with internal and external groups using Microsoft Teams Phone, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing.
Voice calling
Collaborate
Easily find, share, and edit files in real time using familiar apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel in Teams.
Video conferencing
Make meetings more personal and increase your productivity by collaborating in real time.
Screen sharing
Keep everyone on the same page by sharing your screen so they can see the same content.
Custom backgrounds
Create the perfect virtual setting by choosing, uploading, or blurring your background.
Together mode
Digitally sit in a shared background, making it feel like you’re in the same room with everyone else.1
File sharing
Co-author files in real time. Securely store, access, share, and collaborate on files from anywhere.
Apps and workflows
Streamline tasks and critical business processes by integrating apps and workflows.
Market availability
Available in 53 languages and 181 markets. Connect across Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
Privacy and security
Meet regulatory, legal, and organizational needs with industry-leading compliance offerings.
The Java ecosystem is very broad, with different technologies including Java SE, Java EE/Jakarta EE, Spring, numerous application servers, and other frameworks. Wherever you are in Java, Azure supports your workload and process with an abundance of choice – from IaaS to fully managed services. You can run any application architecture, from monoliths, to containerized monoliths, all the way to completely microservices based apps.
We see three broad patterns for running Java applications in the cloud, depending on how much control or productivity you need.
The first is lift and shift with Virtual Machines:
Virtual machines provide the most flexibility, control and visibility while moving to the cloud, especially for initial lift and shift of Java workloads. Azure provides a variety of Java focused VM images and solutions templates in the Azure Marketplace to get you up and running quickly.
The second is modernization using containers:
Containers provide portability, flexibility, scalability, manageability, repeatability, and predictability.
Azure provides best of breed support for Docker and Kubernetes, especially through the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Red Hat OpenShift.
Finally, Azure has the most managed hosting options for Java applications of any major cloud platform with fully managed PaaS for Spring, Tomcat, and JBoss EAP:
Managed services offer ease-of-use, ease-of-management, productivity, and lower total cost of ownership.
You can focus on building your applications, not managing infrastructure.
All of this is supported by managed databases and DevOps tooling:
Use fully managed SQL and NoSQL databases, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Cosmos DB, and SQL.
Keep using the tools you love, with plugins for IntelliJ and Eclipse, integrations with a variety of DevOps tools like Maven, Gradle, Jenkins, and GitHub.
Get comprehensive protection across all your platforms and clouds
Protect your organization from threats across devices, identities, apps, data and clouds. Get unmatched visibility into your multiplatform environment that unifies Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Simplify your security stack with Azure Sentinel and Microsoft Defender.
Protect your business with a universal identity platform
The Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) enterprise identity service provides single sign-on and multi-factor authentication to help protect your users from 99.9 percent of cybersecurity attacks.
Gartner named Microsoft a leader in Magic Quadrant 2020 for Access Management
Single sign-on simplifies access to your apps from anywhere
Conditional Access and multi-factor authentication help protect and govern access
A single identity platform lets you engage with internal and external users more securely
Developer tools make it easy to integrate identity into your apps and services
Connect your workforce
Whether people are on-site or remote, give them seamless access to all their apps so they can stay productive from anywhere. Automate workflows for user lifecycle and provisioning. Save time and resources with self-service management.
Choose from thousands of SaaS apps
Simplify single sign-on. Azure AD supports thousands of pre-integrated software as a service (SaaS) applications.
Protect and govern access
Safeguard user credentials by enforcing strong authentication and conditional access policies. Efficiently manage your identities by ensuring that the right people have the right access to the right resources.
Engage with your customers and partners
Secure and manage customers and partners beyond your organizational boundaries, with one identity solution. Customize user journeys and simplify authentication with social identity and more.
Integrate identity into your apps
Accelerate adoption of your application in the enterprise by supporting single sign-on and user provisioning. Reduce sign-in friction and automate the creation, removal, and maintenance of user accounts.
The Nintex Platform is Easy-to-use, Powerful and Complete to manage, automate and optimize your processes.
Manage processes by discovering, mapping and sharing across process participants and owners.
This often leads to opportunities for process automation. Many processes involve the capture of information and our forms capability provides an ease-to-use, responsive design experience, often eliminating paper forms. With advanced workflow capabilities you can quickly design powerful applications using advanced logic and rules to eliminate manual work. Nintex RPA drives speed by automating those mundane, repetitive tasks. Since many processes involve the need to generate a document we have a DocGen offering to automatically create documents from both unstructured and structured data sources. With Nintex Sign powered by Adobe Sign you can easily integrate eSign into your signature-based workflows for total automation.
Once you have been managing and automating processes, imagine the amount of information available on how your business is operating. Leveraging Nintex Analytics you are able to get process intelligence allowing you to monitor, analyze and improve your business.
With the Nintex platform our customers and partners value our extensibility, using pre-built connecters as well as leveraging our Xtensions to build powerful bi-directional connectors to orchestrate processes across any systems in your organization.
Combining the power of Nintex with our customer success and vast partner network it is easy to see why our customers are so successful.
Microsoft Power BI is a unified self-service and enterprise business intelligence platform that combines an intuitive user experience with intelligent data visualizations to provide greater depth of data insight. Reports can be shared within Microsoft tools like Teams, SharePoint, PowerPoint, or within other productivity products.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
FIDO Alliance Osaka Seminar: The WebAuthn API and Discoverable Credentials.pdf
Sql Server 2014 Platform for Hybrid Cloud Technical Decision Maker White Paper
1. Platform for Hybrid Cloud
Technical White Paper
Published: September 2013 (updated)
Applies to: SQL Server and Windows Azure
Summary: Cloud computing brings a new paradigm shift in computing and organizations continue to
realize the potential cost benefits of running their database applications in the cloud with greater scale
and flexibility. Microsoft SQL Server runs very well in the cloud environment—your organization can
deploy SQL Server in a private cloud, hybrid cloud, or public cloud easily and can experience familiar
tools for development and management. In the public cloud, you can choose to run SQL Server in
Windows Azure Virtual Machine or Windows Azure SQL Database. Microsoft SQL Server in a Windows
Azure Virtual Machine provides full feature parity with on-premises SQL Server. Windows Azure
SQL Database offers a strong foundation for building cloud-based relational database applications that
scale out to millions of users.
3. Page 3
Contents
Hybrid cloud: Your database virtually anywhere ......................................................................... 4
A portfolio view of database applications.....................................................................................................................4
Traditional bare-metal deployment......................................................................................................................................5
Cloud deployment: Public cloud and private cloud........................................................................................................5
The Microsoft Public Cloud and SQL Server ...................................................................................8
Why and when cloud deployment makes sense .........................................................................................................9
SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine ............................................................................................................9
Windows Azure SQL Database..............................................................................................................................................11
Delivering functionality in common cloud scenarios ................................................................14
SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machine scenarios ......................................................................................14
Move Existing SQL Server Applications.............................................................................................................................14
Support Development and Test...........................................................................................................................................19
Backup On-Prem Databases to the Cloud ...................................................................................................................... 20
Extend On-Prem Applications to Azure Virtual Machine........................................................................................... 23
Windows Azure SQL Database scenarios .................................................................................................................... 24
Develop New Cloud-Designed Applications.................................................................................................................. 24
Extend On-Prem Applications to Windows Azure SQL Database............................................................................27
Hybrid scenarios ................................................................................................................................................................. 28
Code-far apps: A simple path to an enterprise-class data tier ................................................................................ 28
Apps occasionally connected with SQL Data Sync....................................................................................................... 28
SQL Database plus SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines—in a single app................................... 29
SQL Server Data and Log Files in Windows Azure Storage ...................................................................................... 30
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................................30
For more information: .........................................................................................................................31
4. Page 4
Hybrid cloud: Your database virtually anywhere
Take almost any application scenario, from the largest public websites to small departmental applications,
and you will find the vast majority rely on a database management system of some description. In some
respects, developers and IT professionals have become desensitized to the ubiquity of the relational
database—it is simply part of the stack for a modern application. As organizations look to take advantage
of cloud computing, the availability of cloud-enabled database systems will be critical to their success.
This white paper sets out the Microsoft vision of relational database management systems in the context
of cloud computing. It is a hybrid IT vision that gains leverage from the industry-standard Microsoft SQL
Server technology set and makes it available across the spectrum of deployment approaches
organizations can take today (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Modern IT departments can meet business needs through a combination of on-premises and cloud-hosted
delivery
A portfolio view of database applications
The concept of hybrid cloud recognizes that organizations typically have a portfolio of different
applications deployed across their business and a breadth of environments that have unique
requirements. Some applications require detailed and complex hardware configurations that defy
deployment into the type of commoditized, “one size fits all” environment offered by cloud computing.
Equally, there are workloads in many businesses that are extremely compelling for massive-scale public
clouds—it can be economically infeasible to provision sufficient levels of hardware for applications that
have massive peaks and troughs in demand. The Microsoft goal for hybrid cloud is to offer organizations
breadth of choice in how and where they run their applications, while at the same ensuring they can use a
common set of server products, tools, and expertise across a portfolio of solutions (Figure 2).
5. Page 5
Figure 2: Each approach to database deployment brings unique benefits and challenges—organizations increasingly
are moving workloads to the cloud
Traditional bare-metal deployment
Despite massive improvements in virtualization technology in the past 10 years, the fact remains that
there is still a significant performance penalty for virtualizing certain workloads. Large, complex, and
mission-critical online transactional processing systems (OLTP) remain the province of massive,
dedicated servers that have the operating system and database platform installed directly “on the metal.”
Non-virtualized, dedicated hardware
For most workloads, virtualization is an ideal approach because it delivers significant benefits in total cost
of ownership. However, in situations where the ability to scale up matters—where organizations need to
extract the most performance possible out of, in many cases, some of the largest server machines money
can buy—and where every little bit of extra performance counts, organizations need to run workloads “on
the metal.”
A corollary of this requirement to run in a non-virtualized fashion is that applications typically have specific
server hardware dedicated to their operation.
Physical tuning
A key benefit of running significant dedicated hardware resources is that there are many opportunities for
advanced physical tuning. The most significant area for a database deployment such as SQL Server is
the physical configuration of the storage subsystem. The ability to perform physical tuning is something
organizations lose when they move to a cloud environment.
Cloud deployment: Public cloud and private cloud
While a private cloud may have all the characteristics of a public cloud, that does not necessarily mean it
must have all of those characteristics. For example, many private clouds do not implement a full charge-
back accounting mechanism. Nevertheless, as organizations mature their private cloud strategy, the
service and service levels offered by private clouds begin to align more closely with those offered by
public cloud providers.
6. Page 6
Pooled and virtualized resources
Server virtualization underpins both private and public cloud environments. However, a cloud-based
approach to computing requires more than just the mere virtualization of workloads. Many on-premises
virtualization environments have specific application targets. Though the environment is virtualized,
applications must run on specific, dedicated server hosts. In some cases this is by technical necessity; in
others, because a particular department “owns” that node. A cloud environment is predicated on the
pooling of hardware resources and while virtualization is a key to pooling capacity, in and of itself it is not
enough.
Pooling is the mechanism by which resources are aggregated and then made available as a homogenous
pool of capacity capable of running any workload. Workloads that run in a pooled cloud environment are
agnostic as to the physical hardware on which they are actually deployed.
Because of the advanced physical tuning required, the Tier-1 workloads discussed above are a pooling
anti-pattern. For example, a SQL Server workload that requires a particular approach to physical tuning
and certain hard drive spindle layouts could be virtualized but does not lend itself to the use of pooled
resources because it has unique resource demands that are unlikely to be demanded by other
applications. Put those specific spindle configurations into a pool, and chances are nobody else will want
to use them.
Elasticity
Elasticity refers to the ability of the cloud to respond to peaks and troughs in demand. Many business
processes have a seasonal characteristic. The agrarian analogy of annual hay-making is an example;
most farmers bring in outside contractors with their associated machinery to make hay because it is
uneconomic to have the requisite large tractors and hay balers lying idle for most of the year. Information
technology workloads also are highly seasonal, yet the machinery deployed to support them is typically
purchased in sufficient capacity to meet the peak load and “stored in the shed” for the remaining time.
A typical example of a seasonal workload is the sale of tickets for sporting and cultural events. When a
large event goes on sale the number of customers seeking tickets can, in many cases, outstrip supply.
Historically, customers would camp all night outside the ticketing office to obtain their tickets. In the online
world, this natural queuing mechanism breaks down and instead prospective event-goers swarm the
virtual ticketing office, often overloading it.
Because cloud resources are both generic and pooled, it is easy to justify having spare capacity “sitting
around.” Cloud providers, whether public or private, typically try to have a portion of their capacity
available at all times to deal with peaks. Public clouds are at a distinct advantage here. Because public
clouds operate at massive scale, with thousands of customers accessing their pooled resources, they are
able to maintain significantly more absolute headroom than a smaller private cloud: one percent of a 100-
server cloud does not permit much of a spike in load, whereas one percent of a 10,000-server cloud
does. Elasticity is the hardest cloud characteristic to achieve in a private data center because it requires
an organization to have capacity lying idle; and avoiding idleness is usually a key justification for cloud-
based deployment in the first place.
Some workloads such as the ticketing example above are not feasible in a private cloud environment. A
good test of the caliber of a cloud is to ask the question “how many times more capacity does the cloud
have deployed than my expected elastic demand?” Capacity should be measured in orders of magnitude
and not just mere multiples; if you expect to need tens of servers on a burst basis, then look for a cloud
that has at least thousands of nodes.
7. Page 7
Self-service
Self-service in cloud computing serves two complementary goals. First, it helps to further drive down the
costs of providing the service by reducing or eliminating the labor typically required to provision
resources. Second, if done well, it is a measure that benefits users by providing self-service capability.
Cloud consumers are empowered to directly access resources. There is no complicated approval
process, nor need to wait for the request to become a business priority for IT administrators.
A cloud environment gives users delegated rights to provision resources on demand from the pool. It
ensures that users’ workloads can’t interfere with other workloads and that users may only provision
resources up to the capacity level to which they’re entitled (or in the case of a public cloud, the limit their
credit limit extends to). Self-service drives business agility by allowing organizations to try new things and
reach new markets quickly. Whether in a private cloud inside the enterprise or out in Windows Azure,
applications can be taken from development to production much more quickly than other through
deployment approaches.
Usage-based models
Most shared IT environments suffer from the “tragedy of the commons1”—if IT capacity is “free” at the
margin, then there is no incentive for conservation by any one consumer despite this being in the interest
of all consumers collectively. Consumers are used to paying on a per-unit basis for other resources such
as water, gas, and electricity. The pay-per-use model offered by cloud computing provides incentives to
turn off capacity that is not being used.
Public cloud vendors need to charge for their services, so those environments will always be metered and
billed. In private clouds the situation varies; implementing a charge-back model is complex, particularly if
the business does not have existing accounting systems in place to support it, but there are significant
benefits. The goal of pay-per-use in a private cloud environment is to drive user behavior and to ensure
that cloud resources are treated as scarce and conserved where possible. Quotas and other resource
allocation mechanisms may be more appropriate for some private cloud environments.
One challenge for public and private cloud operators alike is “which meter to use.” What should be
counted to determine charges? The metric needs to be well correlated to the actual cost of providing the
service but also remain sufficiently simple so that cloud consumers can understand it. It makes little sense
to measure “query hours” if cloud consumers do not know how the expected number of required query
hours can be derived for their particular application.
The charging model is the mechanism by which a cloud provider signals efficiency. In a cloud
environment, where every real resource is obscured by layers of virtualization, organizations should
architect their applications to be cost-optimized as a primary consideration.
Compliance
Some application scenarios require compliance with specific enterprise or industry standard policies.
These policies typically relate to security, systems management, and legal matters. Policies range from
simple things such as which antivirus software to install on servers, to complex Information Security
Management Systems standards such as ISO/IEC 27001.
The more control an organization has over the entire systems stack, the more amenable that system is to
compliance with all imaginable policies and requirements. An enterprise policy requiring air-gap
1 "The Tragedy of the Commons." Science 162 (3859): 1243–1248. 1968. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/162/3859/1243.pdf
8. Page 8
deployment is unsuitable for deployment in a public cloud and, equally, an isolated private cloud cannot
coexist on pooled hardware with a private cloud connected to the Internet. The more onerous the
compliance requirements, the more likely they are to require a dedicated environment running within the
complete control of the enterprise that deploys them.
The major public cloud vendors have moved quickly to audit and certify their systems against industry-
standard frameworks. For many small and midsized organizations, achieving compliance can be too
costly. For these smaller organizations, public cloud computing actually presents new opportunities to
deploy applications into a certified environment without the cost of implementing those standards within
their own data centers.
Some compliance challenges remain insurmountable to public cloud computing. Organizations that
require complete jurisdiction over their systems often need to ensure that data is located only within a
certain country and that systems are accessible only by their own staff. For these organizations, the use
of dedicated systems or private cloud environments remains the only feasible solution.
For more information about the compliance of Windows Azure with various industry standards, see
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/trust-center/compliance/.
SQL Server, for example, has gone through rigorous compliance exercises since SQL Server 2005 to
achieve Common Criteria certification. This certification is formally recognized by the governments of 26
countries that have signed the Common Criteria Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) and by as
many as 40 more governments on a product-by-product basis. The Common Criteria is more than just the
concise definitions of security functionalities and assurance requirements. It also is a precise evaluation
process defined in the Common Evaluation Methodology document. In addition, it is a formal and
approved evaluation scheme for each nation performing Common Criteria evaluations—and it is a
government certification based on government working with a private evaluation lab certified in that
country. For more information about the compliance of SQL Server, see http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/sqlserver/common-criteria.aspx#tab1.
The Microsoft Public Cloud and SQL Server
Windows Azure provides two broad options to enable the use of SQL Server databases:
Microsoft SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine: This approach is similar to an on-
premises deployment. Organizations have complete control over both the operating system and the
installed applications and can achieve almost complete compatibility with on-premises SQL Server.
Organizations purchase Windows Azure Virtual Machine time at a few cents per hour with the option
to either bring their own SQL Server license or rent the SQL Server license by the hour. SQL Server
in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine is ideal for organizations looking to move existing applications to
the cloud.
Windows Azure SQL Database: SQL Database is a true platform-as-a-service in the cloud.
Organizations purchase this service on a database-by-database basis and Microsoft manages the
service all the way to the database level, meaning that organizations do not need to take
responsibility for the operating system or even patching the database server software. This service is
most suited to organizations building new applications and it provides additional benefits such as high
availability and scale-out that are complex to achieve in either the virtual machine approach or on-
premises.
9. Page 9
Figure 3: The Microsoft public cloud offers two distinct approaches to SQL Server
Why and when cloud deployment makes sense
SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine
Organizations that use Windows Azure Virtual Machine can create a server in the cloud that they run and
manage. These servers can run Windows Server 2008 R2 or later, or a number of different Linux
distributions. Organizations have complete control over their server; they can install applications and run
almost any workload in the Windows Azure cloud. Installing and running SQL Server in a Windows Azure
Virtual Machine is a key scenario that Microsoft delivers and supports.
From a compatibility point of view, running SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine is the same
as running SQL Server hosted in a virtual machine on-premises. Typically, organizations can move
applications to the cloud without making any code changes.
Organizations can create a cloud server by using prebuilt virtual machine images from the Windows
Azure Image Gallery (Microsoft provides several images configured with SQL Server Web, Standard, or
Enterprise). After they create and start the server, they can move the database onto the server by using
one of the common SQL Server database migration techniques—including backup and restore or file
detach and attach. Alternatively, organizations can pick up the entire on-premises virtual machine and
upload it to Windows Azure.
Figure 4: SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine provides an ideal path to move applications to the cloud
10. Page 10
SQL Server running in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine offers a low-cost, low-touch
migration path for existing apps. The key driver in the total cost of ownership for apps
is the cost of developing and maintaining the applicaton itself. In many cases, the
operational cost of running inefficient apps in on-premises data centers is still dwarfed
by the cost of writing and modifying application code; any cloud migration approach
that promises operational savings and requires major code changes is likely to go off
track. Moving databases to Windows Azure Virtual Machines typically requires no code changes.
A Windows Azure Virtual Machine running SQL Server Standard Edition (including licenses) costs
approximately 64 cents per hour, or about $476 per month. For workloads suitable for SQL Server Web
Edition, costs start at approximately 13.5 cents per hour, or about $100 per month.
Organizations can achieve even greater cost efficiencies through higher database densities. For an on-
premises SQL Server, it is possible to run tens or hundreds of light-load databases on a single virtual
machine for a single low monthly cost.
Microsoft SQL Server provides a range of capabilities beyond being a relational
database management system (RDBMS). These capabilities include rich reporting
technology; extract, transform, and load (ETL) tooling; and job-management and
scheduling.
Deploying SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine means that organizations
can take advantage of the full feature set of whichever version of SQL Server they have deployed. With a
couple of minor exceptions, users have access to the complete feature set of the SQL Server boxed
product. Features specifically supported include:
SQL Server Integration Services
SQL Server Analysis Services
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Master Data Services
SQL Server Data Quality Services
SQL Server Agent
By using SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine, organizations have
complete control over the deployment process. This means that they can customize
configuration of Windows and SQL Server. If an application requires the use of third-
party tools or technologies, then these items can be installed. Enterprise-level
organizations may have specific policies for SQL Server deployments such as
password strength requirements or virus scanners; these can be easily installed and
enforced in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine.
By using the Windows Azure Virtual Network, IT administrators can domain-join a Windows Azure Virtual
Machine to on-premises domains. This capability enables development of hybrid applications that span
on-premises and off-premises deployment under a single corporate trust boundary.
Windows Azure provides management of all of infrastructure that underlies the
Windows Azure Virtual Machine. IT administrators do not need to manage any of the
physical hardware or physical network configuration.
Even so, control comes with increased responsibility. IT departments are responsible
for patching the operating system and ensuring that SQL Server is updated.
11. Page 11
However, this deployment is just a Windows Server, so they can use standard management technologies,
including Microsoft System Center 2012 and earlier versions to help drive this process.
Virtual hard disks (VHDs) are stored in Windows Azure Storage and they benefit from the high-availability
storage provided by that service. To achieve a true high-availability database solution, IT administrators
must configure the AlwaysOn feature of SQL Server 2012 and later.
Typically, organizations have a 99.9-percent uptime service-level agreement (SLA) for their virtual
machine. Organizations are responsible for the uptime of the applications running on that virtual machine,
including the SQL Server database service itself.
Windows Azure SQL Database
Windows Azure SQL Database provides a highly available, scalable, multitenant relational database
operating in the Windows Azure cloud. SQL Database is ideal for new applications designed for the
cloud—these apps can take advantage of its unique scalability features. Because SQL Database is highly
compatible with SQL Server, it also is possible to move many existing apps to SQL Database with
minimal database and code changes. For organizations that have simple databases they can move,
SQL Database offers a very low TCO and benefits that can be hard to achieve on-premises such as high
availablility and scale-out. It can be a great choice for applications that run entirely in the cloud or, in
scenarios where some latency can be tolerated, as the data store for on-premises applicatons connected
remotely to the cloud.
SQL Database has a number of unique features that are not available in cloud offerings from other
vendors. While these features work well with the always-on, massive-scale applications currently in
demand, they also require specific support from application developers—so they are most suitable for
organizations that can take the option to build new apps rather than move existing apps.
The first of these is a feature called SQL Federation. Federation enables an organization to scale out a
database by providing tooling and T-SQL support for the database sharding pattern (row-based partition).
Given an appropriately architected application, SQL Database can achieve almost limitless scale in terms
of both data volumes and transactional load. To take advantage of this feature requires a specific
approach to both database and application design. At a minimum, Federation requires significant rework
of an existing application; ideally application developers will build an application for the sharding pattern
from the outset.
Another unique feature of SQL Database is that it provides high levels availability by maintaining three
transaction-consistent copies of the database distributed across fault-tolerant regions of a Windows Azure
data center. If one replica fails, SQL Database reroutes traffic to the remaining operational copies,
creates a new replica, and then brings that replica back to transactional consistency. While organizations
can use sophisticated high-availability features on-premises and in IaaS deployments, the complexity of
setting them up might put them beyond reach. Even the smallest databases, just a few dollars per month
in SQL Database, are configured for high availability. To take full advantage of high availability,
developers need to ensure that their code can reliably deal with database disconnections; SQL Database
will disconnect an application’s connections if the workload needs to be moved to another replica.
Developers can handle these disconnection events by using retry logic.2
2 “Retry Logic for Transient Failures in Windows Azure SQL Database.” Microsoft TechNet.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4235.retry-logic-for-transient-failures-in-windows-azure-sql-
database.aspx
12. Page 12
Figure 5: Windows Azure SQL Database provides unique capabilities for building massive-scale applications and offers
low TCO for new apps designed for the cloud
By using SQL Database, organizations can deploy their database applications quickly.
Because there is no data center to build, hardware to provision, or software to install,
a new database can be provisioned in minutes. This agility allows organizations to try
new things and reach new markets quickly. Given an appropriate application
architecture, the effort to deploy an application for hundreds of users versus hundreds
of thousands of users is the same—just a few minutes.
SQL Database is broadly equivalent to an on-premises instance of SQL Server running with full hot
standby servers; not one standby server, but two. Such a solution on-premises would typically require
thousands of dollars of investment in hardware and setup time, whereas SQL Database starts at just a
few dollars per month. This bears repeating: SQL Database provides a true high-availability, enterprise-
class relational database starting at US $5 per month.
In the completely connected world of the Internet, phenomenal success can be as
hard to deal with as abject failure. If a newly launched business application takes off,
maybe thanks to good press on one of the heavily trafficked blog sites, it needs to
scale fast. “Fast” in this context means within minutes or hours; if it takes days or
weeks to add more capacity, then you may have missed the moment.
To achieve rapid scale-out, a deployment platform needs two key properties:
An ability to add capacity without affecting the operational system
A strong commitment that there will be sufficient resources available regardless of how quickly
demand grows
By using SQL Federation, developers who build applications with SQL Database can shard their data out
across multiple databases. This scale-out happens quickly, is transparent to users, and does not need
significant amounts of input from IT professionals. Databases can be scaled out or split while under load.
Split operations (re-sharding) are performed online without application downtime.
Because SQL Database is delivered at massive scale, there is always “spare capacity” available in real
time (Figure 6). This availability contrasts with on-premises deployment approaches, even private clouds,
where a significant new demand for capacity typically requires new hardware to be deployed into the data
center first. A very successful new application can outrun an organization’s ability to procure new server
13. Page 13
hardware through their supply chain. It takes days or even weeks to order and provision new on-premises
servers.
Figure 6: Organizations can manage federation by using T-SQL, SQL Server Management Studio, or the Management
Portal
With SQL Federation, organizations can scale out their relational databases; this capability is important
for organizations that value strong transactional consistency and other attributes that are typically
sacrificed by “NoSQL”-style cloud data stores.
Very few businesses differentiate themselves on how well they manage their IT
infrastructure. They want to do a great job; they’ll want to be as good as or better than
their competitors, but good management typically is not the source of their strategic
advantage. With SQL Database, organizations can take advantage of not only the
economies of scale but also qualities of scale.
SQL Database delivers 99.9-percent availability at the database level, backed by SLA. This means that
Microsoft guarantees the uptime of not only the servers that run SQL Database, but also the database
itself.
Because it manages both infrastructure and platform components, SQL Database delivers zero downtime
updates (hardware upgrades, software patching, and more) with no intervention required of IT
administrators. By adopting SQL Database, organizations can deliver their applications that have
enterprise-grade availability without incurring enterprise levels of cost.
By spending less time operating existing systems, IT teams are free to spend more time innovating
systems and improving applications. The IT focus moves from operations to adding strategic value to the
business.
14. Page 14
The SQL Database protocol is compatible with SQL Server, meaning that developers
and IT pros can use familiar tools such as the Microsoft Visual Studio integrated
development environment (IDE) and SQL Server Management Studio. When they
work with on-premises applications that use SQL Server, developers and IT pros use
client libraries that implement the tabular data stream (TDS) protocol to communicate
between client and server. Windows Azure SQL Database provides the same TDS
interface as SQL Server, meaning that those same libraries can be used by applications working with
data that is stored in Windows Azure SQL Database. Common approaches to relational database
programming include ADO.NET, Entity Framework, and ODBC. SQL Database also supports other
platforms with drivers for JDBC and even PHP and Node.JS. Code developed for on-premises
SQL Server applications usually can be moved easily to Windows Azure SQL Database.
SQL Database is a true RDBMS. The relational database model and the transactional properties of
RDBMSs remain the gold standard for enterprise application data storage. Unlike with many other cloud-
hosted data stores, developers working with SQL Database do not need to learn new approaches to data-
modeling nor make concessions for functionality such as transactional consistency. SQL Database
supports stored procedures, stored functions, and the vast majority of tried and true SQL Server features.
Delivering functionality in common cloud scenarios
SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machine scenarios
This section covers four key scenarios for organizations that use SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual
machine. Figure 7 summarizes these scenarios.
Figure 7: SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine targets four key scenarios
Move Existing SQL Server Applications
Because it can run nearly any image based on Windows Server, a Windows Azure
Virtual Machine facilitates moving an existing application to the cloud. Both the
database tier and application tier can be moved to Windows Azure Virtual Machines,
or, for some workloads such as ASP.NET, it may make sense to port to Windows
Azure Cloud Services or even Windows Azure Web Sites. This platform as a service
15. Page 15
(PaaS) application tier can then connect more easily to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) SQL Server
running in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine.
Moving a database from an on-premises SQL Server to SQL Server running in a Windows Azure Virtual
Machine typically takes one of the paths shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Paths for moving a database to SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine
Moving the entire virtual machine
In Figure 8, option 1 involves moving the entire virtual machine from an on-premises Hyper-V server to
Windows Azure. Moving the entire virtual machine is suited to development and test scenarios,
particularly for situations where the on-premises machine has additional and complex configuration. By
moving the entire virtual machine, there is no need to re-create that exact configuraton in another
machine. To move the whole virtual machine, IT pros need to ensure that the server operating system is
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 x64 or later and that the version of SQL Server is a 64-bit installation of
SQL Server 2008 SP3 or later. Organizations with virtual machines that don’t meet those specific
requirements need to either upgrade or follow the “backup and restore” approach in option 2.
It is also possible to move virtual machines running in a third-party hypervisor such as VMWare, or even
physical bare-metal servers, by first moving these server installations into Hyper-V. For this move,
organizations must perform either a virtual-to-virtual (V2V) or physical-to-virtual (P2V) migration. Microsoft
provides tools in System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Virtual Machine Converter Solution
Accelerator.
Organizations can upload the virtual machine by using upload tools supported by Windows Azure.
System Center App Controller 2012 SP1 also provides a mechanism to move the entire SQL Server
virtual machine to Windows Azure.
Moving just the database
In Figure 8, option 2 involves transferring just the database to the cloud. This transfer can take the form of
a full database backup or data file, or it may be more appropriate to move the database schema and data
separately. A key benefit of this approach is that organizations only need to send the database over the
wire; it can be a time-consuming process to send the entire virtual machine on a slow Internet connection.
16. Page 16
Organizations must start by creating a Windows Azure Virtual Machine from an image in the Image
Gallery (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Creating a virtual machine from the Image Gallery
We recommend choosing one of the Microsoft SQL Server images, as shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10: Choosing the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Evaluation machine image
During setup, you must specify a machine name, changing the administrator account name, provide a
strong password for it, and choose a machine size. The machine size can be changed later. For testing
purposes usually it is sufficient to run a Small instance size (Figure 11).
Figure 11: Setting virtual machine properties
The remaining settings determine where the virtual machine is located, how it is resolved for DNS
purposes, and the subscription that will be used (Figure 12).
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Figure 12: Setting networking, DNS, storage, data center, and subscription properties
Clicking the button starts the process of creating the virtual machine, which may take a few minutes.
The indicator in the lower-right corner of the portal shows progress in green bars (Figure 13).
Figure 13: Progress indicator for virtual machine creation
In the list of virtual machines in the portal, you must wait for the provisioning process to complete, as
indicated in the Status column. You can make a connection after the status is Running.
Figure 14: Clicking connect establishes an RDP connection to the virtual machine
At this point, possible approaches include:
Extract a copy of the on-premises database
Transfer that copy to the virtual machine running in the cloud
For more information, see “Migrating with SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines” at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156165.aspx.
As the steps below show, you can back up the on-premises database (Figure 15), copy the backup file to
the server directly over the RDP connection, and then restore the database file to the SQL Server
instance running in the Windows Azure Virtual Machine. This approach is well suited to small databases.
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Figure 15: Backing up the on-premises database
The Remote Desktop protocol makes it easier to transfer small files by cutting and pasting them in
Windows Explorer (Figure 16).
Figure 16: Copying the file from an on-premises machine and pasting it into the Windows Azure Virtual Machine
(Remote Desktop protocol)
After you copy the file, you can restore it to the SQL Server instance running in the Windows Azure
Virtual Machine (Figure 17). If the database depends on metadata not stored in the user database, then
additional steps may need to be taken. For more information, see “Manage Metadata when Making a
Database Available on Another Server Instance” at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms187580(v=sql.110).aspx .
Figure 17: Database restored in SQL Server Management Studio
SQL Server 2014 provides a wizard (Figure 18) to deploy the database to another SQL Server instance
running in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine. The complexity is fully automated and deep Windows Azure
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knowledge is not required. There also is no performance overhead for this operation as the major factor
defining deployment time is database size. To further simplified the steps of migration, the same wizard
can also create the SQL Server instance in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine if needed.
Figure 18: Wizard to deploy on-prem SQL Server database to SQL Server running in Windows Azure Virtual Machine
(SQL Server Management Studio)
Support Development and Test
When building apps, many organizations use development, test, and staging servers
as part of their application life cycle. These setups can range from a virtual machine
hosted in a developer’s desktop to an environment hosted on dedicated virtual
servers. In large organizations, particularly large enterprises and systems integrators,
these development servers can require something more akin to a private cloud.
Windows Azure Virtual Machine provides a public cloud option to support these workoads. Even where
an application eventually will be hosted on-premises, the use of Windows Azure to run development and
staging servers can be a cost-effective choice. It provides the flexibility of self-service machine
provisioning and cost-saving benefits of pay-for-use billing.
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Backup On-Prem Databases to the Cloud
Windows Azure Storage provides a highly available cloud-hosted storage mechanism
at a few cents per gigabyte per month. This, coupled with availability of the Windows
Azure Virtual Machine service, presents new options for organizations that need
backup and disaster recovery capabilities.
Organizations can use Storage to store backups of either their databases or entire
virtual machines. Windows Azure Storage provides highly available, durable, and secure offsite storage
for these files; three consistent copies are stored in the primary data center and a fourth replica is copied
asynchronously to a secondary data center.
Should disaster strike, organizations can either retrieve files from Storage or use a Windows Azure Virtual
Machine to restore backed-up machine images and then run them from the cloud for a period.
SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU2 onwards includes functionality to enable the use of Azure Storage for
database backup and restore (Figure 19).
Figure 19: Creating a Windows Azure Storage account using the portal
To upload backup data directy to Windows Azure Storage, you need to retrieve one of the security keys
for their storage account (Figure 20).
Figure 20: Retrieving storage keys from the portal
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You can gain access to Windows Azure Storage backup support from SQL Server Management Studio
and by using the T-SQL command BACKUP DATABASE …. TO URL. First, you need a SQL Server
credential (Figure 21) to store authentication information to Windows Azure Storage. The credential
stores the name of the storage account and the storage account access key values.
Figure 21: Creating a SQL Server credential to store Windows Azure Storage authentication information
After creating the credential, use BACKUP/RESTORE and WITH CREDENTIAL to back up and restore
the database directly to Windows Azure Storage using SQL Server Management Studio (Figure 22).
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Figure 22: Backing up data to Windows Azure Storage in SQL Server 2014 Management Studio
For more information, see “SQL Server Backup and Restore with Windows Azure Blob Storage Service”
at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj919148.aspx.
Organizations can use this feature to back up SQL Server databases in an on-premises instance or in an
instance of SQL Server running a hosted environment such as Windows Azure Virtual Machine. Backup
to the cloud offers benefits such as availability, virtually limitless geographically replicated offsite storage,
and ease of moving data to and from the cloud. These benefits also include flexible, reliable, and virtually
limitless offsite storage while providing a backup archive mechanism and no overhead for hardware
management.
SQL Server 2014 provides cloud backup feature (Figure 23) to automatically backup SQL Server
databases to Windows Azure Storage called Managed Backup to Windows Azure. The backup process is
context-aware (sensitive to workload and throttling), uses minimum configurations to specify the retention
period, and can manage the entire database instance or particular databases.
Figure 23: Managed Backup to Windows Azure in SQL Server 2014 to automatically backup SQL Server databases
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SQL Server 2014 also allows creation of AlwaysOn replica in Windows Azure Virtual Machine for Disaster
Recovery. An easy to use wizard (Figure 24) is supplied to make this process seamless. Using this
wizard, customers can easily deploy one or more replicas of their databases to Windows Azure Virtual
Machine. The benefits are great as customers do not need to set up a DR site, there is no need to
purchase DR machines for replicas. After setup, customers can backup their databases using the replica
or use the replica for reporting applications.
Figure 24: Wizard to create AlwaysOn replica in Windows Azure Virtual Machine (SQL Server Management Studio)
Finally, in addition to backing up data from within SQL Server, users of Windows Server 2012 and
System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager can use Windows Azure Online Backup to back up other
data—including whole virtual machine images—directly to Windows Azure and stores all the backup data
in a central location.
Extend On-Prem Applications to Azure Virtual Machine
In some situations, organizations may want to move just a portion of an application to
the cloud and retain sensitive data on-premises while moving portions of the
application that require additional scale to the public cloud.
Consider the e-commerce site. Sensitive information such as customer details and
credit card information may need to remain on-premises; but, to support increased
load, the product catalog and shopping cart data could be moved into Windows Azure.
We discuss these types of hybrid applications in more detail in later sections.
24. Page 24
Windows Azure SQL Database scenarios
This section covers two key scenarios for organizations looking to work with Windows Azure
SQL Database.
Figure 25: SQL Database is ideal for developers creating apps designed for the cloud
Develop New Cloud-Designed Applications
To take advantage of many of the unique capabilities of SQL Database, an application
must be be specifically architected and developed for those features. For example, to
use SQL Federation applications, developers must understand the constraints
presented by the sharding scale-out pattern and must know how to access shard
members through USE FEDERATION T-SQL statements.
Developers typically can build a new application for the cloud in SQL Database by undertaking all
development work while connected to a remote database running in Windows Azure SQL Database.
Organizations typically create their servers and databases from the Windows Azure or SQL Database
management portals. Then, they connect their existing tools to those remote databases. As noted earlier,
SQL Database is highly compatible with SQL Server and as such supports most tools based on
SQL Server, incuding Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio 2012. Developers use these
tools, working against the remote server, to build out their database schema.
Usually, developers build the application tier by using Windows Azure Cloud Services or Windows Azure
Web Sites features. With these tools, application developers can build applications that can be more
easily scaled out behind Windows Azure load-balancers. Scale-out in the application tier closely matches
the approach of scaling out the data tier, and this means that developers can build applications that meet
the demands of massive workloads in the cloud. Developers are not restricted to just the Microsoft .NET
framework; Cloud Services work well with Java, and SQL Database works well with the JDBC drivers for
SQL Server. Microsoft also supports an open-source project that provides Windows Azure add-in tooling
for Eclipse, a popular Java IDE. Other frameworks such as Ruby, PHP, and Node.js are equally well
supported by SQL Database and Windows Azure.
IT pros use a combination of Windows Azure and SQL Database portals and existing SQL Server
management tooling to manage the ongoing operation of the database (Figure 26).
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Figure 26: In SQL Database, developers can scale out applications in the app and data tiers
You can use the Windows Azure Management Portal to create a SQL Database. Use the Custom Create
option to create a SQL Database server (Figure 27).
Figure 27: Using the Custom Create option for a new SQL Database
Note that a server in SQL Database is a logical concept only; the actual database replicas that make up
any given SQL Database instance are physically located in a number of different physical nodes within a
data center (Figure 28).
Figure 28: Specifying a new server when creating a database
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Figure 29: Creating a new server, including log-in details
SQL Database includes a firewall that protects against attempted connections from unknown IP
addresses. You must create firewall rules (Figure 30) to explicitly open access for each address or
address range that is expected to connect to the database server (Figure 31). Select Windows Azure
services to set firewall rules that permit other services in Windows Azure, such as Windows Azure
Compute and Windows Azure Virtual Machines, to access the database server. To connect by using
Management Studio or other tools from on-premises machines, you must create additional rules.
Figure 30: Adding firewall rules (click the server hyperlink to open the server properties)
Figure 31: Adding firewall rules (specifying a range of permitted addresses)
After the server is configured, you can retrieve the connection strings from the database properties within
Management Portal (Figure 32).
27. Page 27
Figure 32: Using the connection string to connect Management Studio (getting information)
Use the information contained in the connection string to connect SQL Server Management Studio to the
remote database.
Figure 33: Using the connection string to connect Management Studio (entering settings)
From here, use the familiar tooling available in Management Studio to create database schema.
SQL Server Management Studio also supports creation and management of Federations.
Extend On-Prem Applications to Windows Azure SQL Database
In some situations, organizations may want to move just a portion of an application to
the cloud and retain sensitive data on-premises while moving portions of the
application that require additional scale to the public cloud.
Consider the e-commerce site. Sensitive information such as customer details and
credit card information may need to remain on-premises; but, to support increased
load, the product catalog and shopping cart data could be moved into Windows Azure.
We discuss these types of hybrid applications in more detail in next sections.
28. Page 28
Hybrid scenarios
In addition to giving organizations choices about where they run their apps, the concept of hybrid IT
means they also can choose to distribute their apps across the public cloud and private data center.
Windows Azure Virtual Network allows creation of a logically isolated section in Windows Azure and
securely connect it to on-premises datacenter or a single client machine using an IPsec connection.
Virtual Network makes it easy to extend datacenter using Windows Azure much in the same way of
setting up a remote branch office. Organizations retain control over the network topology and
configuration, and manage it in the same way as on-premises infrastructure. Virtual Network makes it
easier to build hybrid scenarios while maintaining secure connections with on-premises infrastructure
without the creation of custom codes.
Code-far apps: A simple path to an enterprise-class data tier
SQL Database offers many enterpise-class database features, including high availability. Many
departmental applications would benefit from these capabilities, but often it is too expensive to deliver
such features on-premises. A code-far hybrid approach involves connecting an on-premises application
over the Internet to a SQL Database instance (Figure 34).
Figure 34: Providing an enterprise-class database for lightweight apps through a remotely accessed SQL Database
Microsoft Access 2013 presents an excellent example of this deployment architecture. Access 2013
supports developers in building Access 2013 apps that run either in Microsoft Office 365 or on-premises
servers, but store their data in a Windows Azure SQL Database.
Apps occasionally connected with SQL Data Sync
SQL Data Sync is a service built on the Microsoft Sync Framework. Organizations can use it to
synchronize data bidirectionally between on-premises SQL Server and SQL Database instances.
Because SQL Data Sync is provided as a service within Windows Azure, there is no need for developers
to write custom code; they can configure SQL Data Sync in the Azure portal and then install the SQL
Data Sync Agent in the on-premises servers (Figure 35).
29. Page 29
Figure 35: Supporting occasionally connected work through hybrid architecture by using SQL Database and SQL Data
Sync
This hybrid architecure allows organizations to build applications that support occasionally connected
work. When the user is not connected, data is stored in a local SQL Server database and then
syncronized with the SQL Database hub once connectivity is restored.
SQL Database plus SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines—in a single app
As described earlier, SQL Database and SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine have
respective strengths; another hybrid approach is to combine both into a single application. As an
example, an organization may want to take advantage of the scale-out capability of SQL Database for an
OLTP web application. They also may need to perform mutidimensional analysis and reporting, a
capability that would require the full functionality of SQL Server installed into a virtual machine (Figure
36).
Figure 36: Enabling apps to use strengths of deployment options (SQL Database combined with SQL Server)
30. Page 30
By using SQL Data Sync, organizations can deploy SQL Database to drive the transaction processing
needs of the application and use the full power of SQL Server Reporting and Analysis Services on-
premises to provide the analytical processing requirements.
SQL Server Data and Log Files in Windows Azure Storage
New in SQL Server 2014, organization can move data and log files from running database into Windows
Azure Storage, while keeping the compute node of SQL Server running on-prem (Figure 37). This can be
easily done without the need of changing the applications so no application compatibility testing is
required. For added security to the data and log files, Transparent Data Encryption can be turned on for
the database and the encryption key can be stored on-premise.
Figure 37: SQL Server Data and Log Files in Windows Azure Storage
By using this scenario, customers can keep their applications intact while enjoying virtually ‘unlimited’
storage capacity in Windows Azure Storage, built-in Windows Azure Storage high availability, built-in
multiple copies on different geographical locations for added protection, and faster recovery in case of on-
premise disaster.
Conclusion
Cloud computing provides new opportunities for organizations to deploy applications more cheaply or at
greater scale than ever before. At the same time, Microsoft hybrid IT strategy recognizes that most
organizations typically have a range of applications, some of which are deployed to the cloud and some
of which remain on-premises. Complex applications that require detailed hardware configurations and
optimization, or that house sensitive data, are not well suited to the types of commodity services delivered
31. Page 31
by cloud computing; these applications are likely to remain on-premises for some time to come. At the
other extreme, some workloads are well suited to public cloud deployment—applications with highly
variable demand, for example. The goal of Microsoft hybrid IT is to offer choices for organizations to use
the same industry-leading technology, techniques, and expertise across on-premises servers, private
clouds, and public cloud platforms.
Hybrid IT delivers the power of SQL Server, an industry-leading DBMS, across the full spectrum of
deployment topologies. It delivers the same familiar SQL Server experience and tool set, regardless of
whether an organization chooses to deploy on-premises or into a public or private cloud.
With Microsoft SQL Server in a Windows Azure Virtual Machine, organizations can take advantage of the
efficiencies of cloud computing while also experiencing almost full feature parity with on-premises SQL
Server deployments. Organizations that want to use the cloud to deliver new applications to large-scale
audiences can use Windows Azure SQL Database to build next-generation relational database
applications that scale out to millions of users.
Whatever the specific needs of your application scenario, and wherever it may be deployed, your
organization can be confident that Microsoft provides the capability, flexiblity, and familiarity you need.
For more information:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/: SQL Server Web site
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/: SQL Server TechCenter
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/: SQL Server DevCenter
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