Technology Blog

Get started with analytics quickly with this collection of resources that offer best practices and in-depth guidance. Read More...

What is Microsoft Azure Arc? It's a game changer for developers, IT, and database administrators. Now, rather than managing separate resources individually, they can be collected in Azure Resource Manager—unlocking governance and policy tools across the entire disparate infrastructure. Fully manage on-premises, edge, and hybridcloud from one place.

REI is the largest consumer cooperative in the United States specializes in camping gear, outdoor apparel, and equipment. The popular Northwest company uses Microsoft Teams Connect capabilities to simplify how employees collaborate with external parties outside the company—with Microsoft Endpoint Manager and Intune key to its strategy for protecting mobile devices. During the pandemic, REI sold their campus and were fully committed to a hybrid work strategy. The fact that they had implemented products within the Microsoft 365 platform helped ensure their success in their new workplace environment. Read More...

Cloud Scale Analytics 101 Make your organization more nimble, efficient, and proactive by going beyond simple data collection and storage—using cloud scale data analytics to extract untapped information and insights. In Cloud Scale Analytics 101, you'll learn the core concepts of BI and analytics, the business motivations behind them, and the building block technologies to implement them. Download the e-book to learn how to: Coalesce and conform constituent data from siloed locations and view it in one unified repository. Synthesize information from on-premises and cloud-based applications as well as from streaming data from websites, social media, and IoT. Aggregate and interpret petabyte-scale data faster by using powerful data lake technologies. Identify macro patterns in real time and build machine learning models to predict future trends. View: Cloud scale analytics 101

This video highlights the core components in Dynamics 365 that enable an intelligent sales and marketing approach for your organization, and it also addresses key considerations for IT Admins. Dynamics 365 delivers a unified platform, built on Azure, and natively connected to Microsoft 365. Play this video to see the full breadth of capabilities and what it takes to set it up. 

The key to successful cloud migration is breaking the process into steps—regardless of why your organization wants to move or how complex your current environment is. The benefits of migration can be immediate in terms of time and budget. Just remember, whether you're in the early stages of assessment or fully planning your approach, migration is always easier with a trusted provider like Microsoft. Sign up to download the "Cloud migration essentials" e-book and discover an essential guide to successful migrations of servers and virtual machines. View: Cloud migration essentials

Understand how analytics and AI can help move your organization forward. Proven analytics technologies have a strong track record of enabling more dynamic and exploratory responses that can guide organizations through difficult times. View: Three ways analytics can help: Respond, adapt, and save

Companies must now consider endpoint detection and response software (EDR) with AI and machine learning capabilities, as well as threat intelligence databases, to function in a safer, evolving digital environment. However, most of the features users expect from popular EDR tools, such as device control, advanced threat targeting, and rollback, are either unavailable or require an additional fee. Microsoft Defender for Endpoints (formerly Defender Advanced Threat Protection) integrates into the source code of Windows, making it an obvious choice for its devices. (It's also available for Mac and Linux.) Defender for Endpoints simplifies management while also providing strong security and a wide variety of standard features. Read More...

GRUNDFOS is looking to play a key role in helping cities reduce their energy usage and hit environmental sustainability targets. Learn how Microsoft Azure plays a crucial role in this effort.

Microsoft Endpoint Manager is a solution that provides on-premises and cloud-based devices with tools (as well as the ability to co-manage with them) to provision, deploy, manage, and secure endpoints. It also enables insights into endpoint health and performance and remediates vulnerabilities in multiple areas—all while significantly reducing costs. It gives organizations the enhanced control and monitoring to support employees with minimal impact on user experience while preventing data loss and applying Zero Trust best practices. Subscribe to stay connected—we'll help you ensure a more secure, productive work environment throughout your organization. View: The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Migrating your applications using Microsoft Azure App Service can be simple. Redeploy code using your existing CI/CD pipeline, containerize your application, and deploy using Docker Imager—or use the Migration Assistant tool. Would you like to learn more about Azure App Service? Sign up to stay connected so we can keep you up to date on the fastest ways to migrate your applications using the latest cloud computing technology. View: Three simple ways to migrate your web applications to Azure App Service

As companies plan their digital transformation strategies, it is crucial to keep in mind four key areas where these efforts can introduce risk: multicloud or hybrid cloud infrastructure, digital supply chains and sales channels, Internet of Things (IoT), and automation and analytics. Discover how risks can be mitigated to prevent innovation from becoming a hazard. Read More...

While investment in digital business solutions continues to increase, workers remain the lifeblood of every organization. This article from Forbes covers key ways AI and analytics help organizations hire the right people and train them for success. Read More...

This five-minute video provides an overview of how data can play a vital role in your nonprofit to make sure your organization is operating efficiently and effectively. Read More...

Digital transformation is accelerating and keeping up with advancements adds complexity for workers, technology, and security teams. With an ever-expanding attack surface, leaders are challenged to manage a growing number of devices and endpoints. Meet the evolving needs of today's business world with modern endpoints built on the Microsoft 365 and intelligent security cloud. You can build security into apps and device experiences that help reduce the threat of endpoint vulnerability, including adoption of Zero Trust and Secure Endpoints for Frontline workforce devices. Sign up to say connected—we'll help you learn more about how to deploy and protect endpoints for hybrid work environments. View: Deploy and protect endpoints for hybrid work environments

This infographic shows how Microsoft Azure Synapse brings big data and data warehousing together in a single service to provide limitless analytics.   View: ROI Azure Synapse 

We used to think of network security as a perimeter issue, but with so many endpoints, the perimeter no longer exists. Employees now work from various locations using different devices, making it is close to impossible for any single IT team to confirm that they're using protection mechanisms. Employees require safe, versatile endpoint experiences to perform at their best from anywhere in the world. How can organizations protect themselves? Endpoint security seeks out viruses, malware, and other risks and, if it finds them, it works to mitigate the risk to the rest of the network by keeping it locked down. Read More...

Today's users are looking for more ways to remain productive while working on any device. Businesses have security top of mind, and so with those two goals, Global healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline chose Microsoft Edge as its single web browser. The IT team responsible for the Microsoft Edge deployment of over 130,000 employees enrolled every Windows 10 device in Microsoft Endpoint Manager. With Microsoft Edge now on their internal store, end users could install it on-demand—a perfect solution for employees who are asking for more ways to work the way that they want. With a consolidated default browser, legacy web apps are secure. Read More...

The business world has changed completely—and continues to change every day. Using your data to keep track of changes in your market and react to changes as they arise is now a necessity. Read the e-book Analytics Lessons Learned to see real-world examples of companies using data analysis to make responsive, informed, and timely decisions. See how companies used their data to: Boost operational efficiency and achieve near real-time inventory management. Accelerate and improve fraud detection. Build machine learning models that help predict necessary maintenance and upgrades for physical machinery. Gain a holistic view of their customers that helped them improve customer experiences and profitability. View: Analytics Lessons Learned - How four companies drove business agility with analytics

Learn how Battersea Dogs and Cats Home is leveraging Azure Machine Learning to help match animals with their forever-families. Read More...

Whether you want to spend a bit of time every day to master the core concepts of Azure or use it to narrow your focus—this resource will be invaluable to the immediate and future needs of your nonprofit organization. You're welcome to read the entire Learn Azure in a Month e-book, but we'd like to direct you to Part 4, which begins on page 267, titled "The Cool Stuff." This section breaks down the most important Azure concepts into bite-sized lessons with exercises and labs—along with project files available in GitHub—to reinforce your skills. It covers how to integrate key technologies, including containers and Kubernetes, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the Internet of Things. View: Learn Azure in a month of lunches

Security, agility, collaboration, and productivity—learn why telecommunication companies are embracing the cloud to take their industry to the next level.

Nunavut, located in the northernmost region of Canada, has a large population under the age of 25, distributed across remote communities with no connecting roads. The IT team in Nunavut's government collaborated with Microsoft on a pilot rollout of Windows 365 to help maintain remote government operations during COVID-19 and as part of a larger strategic initiative to provide more efficient community services to all its citizens. With Windows 365, Nunavut can deploy virtual endpoints to a government employee's device using Microsoft Endpoint Manager—no small challenge in dealing with getting users up and running with personalized, highly secure cloud PC service. Read More...

Bring the future into your organization today with AI. Pre-Built AI has cognitive services—deep learning cognitive capabilities ready to use, such as vision, speech, knowledge, translation, etc. Custom AI uses machine learning capabilities to analyze data to build artificial neural networks to address specific problems not covered by cognitive services. This infographic explores these two types of artificial intelligence. View: Two types of artificial intelligence

Microsoft Azure can help achieve your goals with the freedom and flexibility to build, manage, and deploy Java applications anywhere. Sign up to stay connected so we can help you modernize your Java apps and stay up to date on the latest cloud computing trends. View: Microsoft Azure supports your Java workloads and processes

Microsoft Tech for Social Impact recently launched the Nonprofit Data Warehouse Quickstart, a script-to-deploy data warehouse solution that integrates sample datasets to help nonprofits modernize their data estate. Read More...

Today's complicated virtual business reality makes it difficult to secure fragmented IT or cloud point solutions. As we've seen, natural disasters and political tensions require always-on from anywhere tech solutions. We know that Microsoft 365 helps businesses stay agile in these uncertain economic times with cost savings and cloud advances. Need proof? This infographic illustrates how organizations further along in their transition from on-prem to the cloud are more likely to report positive experiences among employees and end users about securing data and personal privacy. View: Transition to Cloud: Secure your business with technology you can trust

The transition from local servers to the cloud is a multistep process that requires preparation. The steps are similar—they just vary depending on the size, infrastructure, and cloud migration goals of each company. Compliance with this basic checklist should ensure a smooth transition. This article offers a step-by-step guide on how to correctly migrate to the cloud. Read More...

Data is being generated at an exponential speed. Organizations all over the world are migrating their infrastructure to the cloud. Cloud Analytics with Microsoft Azure teaches all that you need to extract useful insights by analyzing your big data. This e-book covers the power of data with big data analytics, the Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and DataOps. It also delves into data analytics by studying a use case that focuses on creating actionable insights for a company from its near-real-time data. With this e-book, you will gain a solid understanding of data analytics on Azure and its practical implementation. View: Cloud Analytics with Microsoft Azure 

Among the options for application modernization is a spectrum—running from a simple lift-and-shift of the application to a new platform to a full rewrite. Each of these strategies responds to specific situations and requirements, so it's important to understand which one is best for your business. Subscribe to learn about the four strategies for modernizing your business applications. We can help you stay connected and up to date on the latest cloud computing trends. View: Four strategies for modernizing your business applications

Attitudes toward the shift to cloud computing are changing—even in the banking world, which has been reluctant to make the transition from on-premises to the cloud due to customer data security concerns. The chief information officer (CIO) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston noted recently that ignoring the cloud may introduce security vulnerabilities as on-premises vendors discontinue support for their products. Learn what executives are saying about how and why risk management needs to act now. Get up to speed on the benefits across the six stages of the life cycle for risk model development, and how Microsoft 365 can help build cloud computing infrastructures. Read More...