You know, to run validation processes and all that.

Although the Redmond-based company’s focus is now shifting towards the Cloud PC space, the firm also has an existing offering called Azure Virtual Desktop, which offers users a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)- based experience to run the Windows operating system.

Now, the company has announced that these customers can utilize the preview of the upcoming OS on the service.

The company states that while using Windows 11 on Azure Virtual Desktop will be similar to running the operating system on a local machine, some higher-end graphical user interface components may necessitate configuring a VM with a decent GPU.

Windows 11 is rich in these — with its transparency effects, rounded corners, and new animations.

In terms of features, apart from performance, security, and usability enhancements, the new operating system provides its own perks on Azure Virtual Desktop, including exclusive support for multisession and Trusted Launch capabilities to utilize TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot in virtual machines.

The latter should be familiar, but multisession helps reduce costs by having multiple users utilize the OS on a single VDI.

Organizations that want to utilize Windows 11 in preview on Azure Virtual Desktop can point their browsers to the marketplace to purchase three possible configurations: Windows 11 Enterprise, Windows 11 Enterprise Multisession, and Windows 11 Enterprise Multisession + Microsoft 365 apps.

Of course, interested users must be enrolled in the Windows Insider program to access these images.

The company has now released a detailed status update explaining what went wrong.

Apparently, there was an unusual surge in Azure DNS queries from all over the world, which the cloud platform is designed to mitigate through layers of caches and traffic shaping. However, a specific series of events exposed an error in the code for the DNS service that basically made it less efficient.

How, you ask?

The software titan has systems in place that would usually drop illegitimate DNS queries that cause volumetric spikes like this. But because many of the queries were retries, they were considered legitimate. For this reason, the DNS services became unavailable after some time.

But wait, there’s more!

Things only got worse as clients faced errors, as subsequent DNS retries only resulted in more traffic piling up. And this is how things went from bad to worse.

Redmond says the issues started at 9:21PM UTC, and Azure services themselves had been fixed as early as 10:00PM. The company also lined up additional capacity, in case further mitigation was needed. That said, this time exceeded Microsoft’s goal for fixing problems like this.

Since many Microsoft services depend on Azure, recovery times were different for each of them. But the company says that by 10:30PM, most services were back online.

Microsoft has further revealed that it not just fixed the DNS code defect, but has also updated the logic on its mitigation systems to prevent excessive retries. It will continue working to improve the detection and mitigation of volumetric spikes in traffic.

But it certainly was a day to remember!

Windows Virtual Desktop.

The idea behind this new service is to allow customers to use their own PC to access a remote Windows desktop with their enterprise environment available. Microsoft describes this as a modern elastic, cloud-based Windows experience that would come with a subscription fee.

Now, we have a handy little leak from none other than WalkingCat, complete with leaked screenshots that reveal the existence of three different tiers.

• Medium tier with two virtual CPUs, 4GB of RAM, and 96GB of SSD storage
• Heavy tier with two virtual CPUs, 8GB of RAM, and 96GB of SSD storage
• Advanced tier with three virtual CPUs, 8GB of RAM, and 40GB of SSD storage

Sounds impressive.

According to these new details, the Cloud PC may also be accessible from the Microsoft Remote Desktop app that is available for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. The idea of a remote Windows experience accessible on any device definitely makes it an exciting proposition for enterprise customers.

Microsoft already has an online destination for this Cloud PC offering here, though there is nothing to see on the page except for a “Setting up your workspace” message.

The company will likely officially announce its new Cloud PC offering and pricing details closer to release, which should not be too far off.

This is the $10 billion contract that the Department of Defense handed to the Azure platform back in October 2019. AWS was deemed to be the frontrunner throughout the bidding process, but Redmond supposedly outbid it in the final rounds to win the deal.

Amazon filed a lawsuit challenging the decision to award the contract to Microsoft, citing political influence and errors.

And now there is some movement on this front, as the DoD has released a statement reaffirming that a originally planned, the JEDI contract will be awarded to Microsoft:

“The Department has completed its comprehensive re-evaluation of the JEDI Cloud proposals and determined that Microsoft’s proposal continues to represent the best value to the Government. The JEDI Cloud contract is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract that will make a full range of cloud computing services available to the DoD. While contract performance will not begin immediately due to the Preliminary Injunction Order issued by the Court of Federal Claims on February 13, 2020, DoD is eager to begin delivering this capability to our men and women in uniform.”

So that’s that.

Microsoft has maintained that the contract was offered to them because it offered significantly superior technology at a better price.

As things stand, the Pentagon will now procure cloud technologies from Redmond to modernize its systems and infrastructure. This win for Microsoft opens up more opportunities for Azure and related services in the government sector.

Something that the software titan been heavily focused on lately.

Totaling $233.4 billion.

The top five providers captured a slice that amounted to more than one third of the pie, with spending being consolidated last year with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Google, and Oracle growing 35% year-over-year.

These are the figures for the worldwide public cloud services market:

Discussing the impact that the coronavirus crisis has had on the shift to cloud computing, the research firm says that the economic uncertainty due to COVID-19 has drawn fresh attention to the core benefits of cloud computing — in particular IaaS.

Rick Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research at IDC:

“Cloud is expanding far beyond niche e-commerce and online ad-sponsored searches. It underpins all the digital activities that individuals and enterprises depend upon as we navigate and move beyond the pandemic. Enterprises talked about cloud journeys of up to ten years. Now they are looking to complete the shift in less than half that time.”

Going forward, IDC believes that the current financial crisis could boost IaaS and PaaS offerings, as customers combine both of these when deploying applications on a public cloud.

AWS and Microsoft Azure, for example, both have more than half the global revenues in these segments, but despite their unhindered success, the competition is still healthy. And this is something that will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future.

Minecraft has been using Amazon Web Services since 2014 to offer a subscription service called Realms that allowed users to quickly set up private spaces to play with friends. In fact, a few months after this partnership with AWS was announced, Microsoft acquired Mojang.

For a sweet sum of $2.5 billion.

Since then, the software titan has been working to transition Minecraft to its own cloud platform, which should come as no surprise considering the huge investment the company made on the game.

After years of preparation the big moment is finally here.

And Matty Booty, Head of Microsoft Studios took time out to explain why it took the company that long to end this reliance on AWS after its acquisition.

“It would be easy for a large organization to come in and say: ‘Hey, we’re going to show you how it’s done. We’re going to get you off this Java code. We’re going to get things moved over to C. We’re going to get you off Amazon Web Services and over to Azure. But it’s important to realize that the conditions that created Minecraft, how it came to be, are likely to be things that are difficult to recreate within a more corporate structure.”

Colossal.

But makes perfect sense for a game that has sold more than 200 million copies.

Despite all these preparations, the migration itself will require months. The software titan confirmed that the transition will be completed by the end of 2020.

However, while we are a fair while away from that reality, another one could be here much sooner.

Redmond is said to be working on a new cloud-based Windows OS, which according to the always reliable Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet is set to arrive in 2021. She got wind of this new version of the operating system via a job posting.

Currently, it is called Cloud PC.

And yes, it is a play at bringing back the thin client, whereby business users will be able to use their existing computers as one. Customers will be able to use computers that are managed by Microsoft in the cloud, and they will come preloaded with software like Windows, Office, and Teams.

This is how the job describes this new venture:

“Microsoft’s vision of Cloud PC is that it is the only M365 powered user compute experience delivered from azure and managed by Microsoft – at a flat per user price. Microsoft Cloud PC is a strategic, new offering that is built on top of Windows Virtual Desktop to delivering Desktop as a Service. At its core, Cloud PC provides business customers a modern, elastic, cloud-based Windows experience and will allow organizations to stay current in a more simplistic and scalable manner. It has never been a more exciting time for us to start this initiative!”

Exciting, indeed.

This new offering is built on top of Windows Virtual Desktop, and the technology giant plans to use the power of the Azure cloud platform and the Windows operating system itself to deliver what it calls Desktop as a Service.

The job listing promises a flat, per-unit price, which implies that Microsoft will probably offer this as a set subscription service that user can use as much as they want.

As opposed to the current Windows Virtual Desktop pricing that is based on how much resources are consumed while using it.

Not the first time the company is exploring something like this, as rumors were rife not too long ago about a Windows 365 subscription service. Done right, this could very well become another cash cow for the software titan.

We should learn more about this new service, ahead of its launch in spring next year.

Perhaps around BUILD 2021.

While the company itself has remained tight-lipped on how many employees were laid off, reports indicate that around 1,000 people were let go.

Interestingly, Reuters claimed that the Azure cloud division was also impacted by these job cuts, though we don’t have official confirmation about this right now. If true, this will be a new one for Redmond, as the cloud unit has become a money printing machine for the company.

These layoffs are, obviously, different from the 800 or so editors that Microsoft let go earlier this year.

They were part of the Microsoft News team, and we later found out that those were not job cuts, but rather vendor contracts that were not renewed. This latest round is actually part of a plan, a new restructuring that the company is pursuing.

Like all companies, Microsoft too evaluates its business on a regular basis and makes changes to its investments and workforce.

Perhaps more so than others.

But these job cuts have not come as a result of the global health crisis as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. They are due to a strategic decision, just like the recent one of closing all its retail stores that resulted in an impairment charge of $450 million.

• App development
• Testing
• Deployment
• Management

It has been proven as a priority for emerging as well as established businesses across the globe.

Microsoft Azure Stack is a cutting-edge hybrid cloud computing solution that is making waves in the business world today. It is a component of the Azure platform that enables an agile combination for on-premises environments with cloud computing. An increasing number of organizations are enjoying Microsoft Azure advantages by incorporating Azure Stack as it is an inventive blend of PaaS and IaaS services.

The Azure Stack was created by Microsoft to enable businesses to experience hybrid cloud computing with a high level of control. It allows them to effectively stay on top of data sovereignty, security, regulations and customization.

Currently, businesses have a high priority need for a hybrid cloud computing solution that could meet their core business needs and at the same time ensure the above-mentioned to enable themselves achieve scalability, ease of use and integrated systems for fast paced innovations catering to business and market needs.

Benefits of Opting for Microsoft Azure Stack as a Service

• Targets Limitations The Stack targets the hardware and application deployment limitations as businesses face issues with third-party and private data centers. Azure Stack, being a cloud and on-premises hybrid, helps an organization perform Azure deployment from a private data center. This is one of the key reasons why many Microsoft Azure consultants are recommending this advanced software solution to clients across industry sectors. Azure Stack makes deployment easier and organizes all web operations.Moreover, the presence of most integral Azure features in Azure Stack makes it a better choice. It also facilitates the swift application of Azure mobile and web services, containers, and architectures for legacy applications.
• Functionality Benefits – Azure Stack is beneficial to businesses due to its hybrid nature. It offers many perks including better speed, higher scalability and flexibility, enhanced business agility, and workload segregation. Many business owners are now experiencing seamless integration and functionality between the Azure Cloud and their Azure Stack. Offerings like the Commvault Hyperscale and Primeflex, can easily be integrated with this hybrid stack.Users of Microsoft Azure Stack are able to effortlessly transfer workloads between public and private environments whenever requirements arise. This makes deployment processes more efficient and deployments can take as low as a few minutes instead of hours.
• Enhanced application development – Microsoft Azure Stack lets developers boost their productivity by eliminating the requirement of developing different applications for both private and public cloud environments. This is why the stack model enhances Microsoft Azure advantages for numerous businesses across the world.An identical DevOps approach is followed in the case of hybrid cloud environment development. Users can access automation tools like Azure PowerShell extensions, open-source tools, and more, for creating feature-rich and sophisticated applications.Developers can easily program in Python, PHP, Java, Node.js, and other application platforms. Stack helps in speeding up the building and deployment of cloud-based applications.
• Feature-rich updates – Users of Microsoft Azure Stack also benefit from frequent and timely updates that expand and enhance functionality. Users have the choice of two different modalities for updates. The first type, Azure Capabilities to Azure Stack, involves releasing updates on the basis of feature readiness and bug fixes, with no clear scheduling protocol in place.Users can expect updates to current Azure services and marketplace components. Infrastructure updates get released at regular periodic gaps and generally include drivers, firmware among other components. This type of update enhances the operational capabilities of Microsoft Azure Stack.Updates improve the experience and help developers to enhance the building and deployment of apps.
• On-premises services – Azure Services are available on-premises and can be availed by Azure Stack users. It lets them utilize hybrid cloud computing and gives them the flexibility to make suitable deployment choices based on the needs of a business. These include IaaS services that facilitate dynamic deployments alongside pliable scaling sets capable of handling convoluted modern workloads.Azure PaaS services aid businesses to initiate high-performance Azure cloud managed services and functions within the on-premises infrastructure. Developers do not require specialized skills for using Azure Stack as operations of both IaaS and PaaS services are similar to Azure.

These are some of the major gains of opting for Microsoft Azure Stack.

The two companies actually announced the expansion of their partnership more than a year back.

As part of this deal, Microsoft was to incorporate the company’s map and traffic data into various mapping scenarios across the cloud-based services of Azure and Bing. Essentially, the software titan was to use TomTom as its preferred provider of the base map data.

Well, we now have confirmation that the migration is has now well and truly underway.

The change starts today, and affects all regions with the exception of China, Japan, and South Korea.

Microsoft started the gradual rollout of the new TomTom base map data to Bing.com users and other first-party products in March 2020. Today, it is doing the same for the Bing Maps platform.

And over the coming months, all Bing Maps customers will be automatically migrated to the new data source. The Basic and Free accounts are now seeing this change, while Enterprise customers of the service will see this shift by the end of August.

The Azure Maps SDK already uses TomTom services, and can collect real-time data like parking meter rates and street-specific traffic.

All applications that use the Bing Maps API will continue to function normally — except for older versions of Windows 10 below version 1703.

In case you were curious, while the base map data source is changing, REST APIs and SDKs that are part of the Bing Maps platform will continue to work.

TomTom, a Dutch giant, is one of the largest developers and creators of location technology in the world. The Amsterdam based company competes with Garmin and HERE in their respective spaces.