Highlights from Microsoft Ignite 2024
With Thanksgiving weekend here for those of us in the U.S., I’m going to take a few minutes to highlight what I think are the most important Azure announcements made last week at Microsoft Ignite.
If you’re looking for the full list of announcements, John Savill’s hour-long recap(!), or the full list of session recordings on YouTube, I’ve got you covered right here:
Azure AI
Azure AI continues to mature, with Azure AI Foundry (formerly Azure AI Studio) becoming the unified platform to design, customize, and manage AI solutions.
Azure AI Foundry also introduces a new SDK that makes it easier to create and manage AI-powered applications.
The next wave of Azure innovation: Azure AI Foundry, intelligent data, and more
Also announced, Azure AI Agent Service gives developers a new set of capabilities to help them create secure, stateful autonomous AI agents.
Azure AI Agent Service integrates with your existing APIs and other services such as Azure Functions and Azure Logic Apps so your agents can automate complex business processes and workflows.
Azure AI Agent Service: Revolutionizing AI Agent Development and Deployment
Recommended Ignite Sessions
- Azure OpenAI: the latest innovation for AI powered business value
- Introducing Azure AI Foundry Agent Service to scale your AI agents
- Azure AI Foundry unlocking the AI revolution
- Strengthen your data security in the era of AI with Microsoft Purview
Microsoft Fabric
Where Azure AI Foundry is your single platform for creating AI-powered apps, Microsoft Fabric is becoming your all-in-one platform for data projects of every kind.
Accelerate app innovation with an AI-powered data platform
Notable Fabric announcements:
- Public preview of SQL database in Microsoft Fabric, bringing fully managed transactional databases into the platform for the first time, with automatic mirroring into OneLake.
- OneLake catalog, the central place to browse, manage, and govern all your data.
- Open Mirroring lets you build your own custom mirroring solution based on open APIs to integrate your database with Fabric and ensure that all mirrored data is up-to-date and ready for analysis.
Related, here are the recaps of every Fabric feature announcement for November and how you can get a free Fabric certification voucher:
Recommended Ignite Sessions
- Microsoft Fabric: what's new and what's next
- Power BI in Microsoft Fabric: unveiling the latest innovations
- Secure and govern your data in the era of AI with Microsoft Fabric and Purview
- Power AI apps with insights from SQL database in Fabric
Azure Data
Most Azure-managed databases now offer vector search capabilities to make it easier to integrate your own data with generative AI models.
- SQL Server 2005 is now in preview, with AI features built-in, improved performance and security, and mirroring into Fabric’s OneLake.
- Azure Managed Redis is the new offering that offers a number of improvements over the current Azure Cache for Redis, including multi-core support, vector search, and more flexible price/performance options.
Recommended Ignite Sessions
- Fuel AI innovation with Azure Databases
- What’s new in Azure Databricks
- Use AI with the latest Azure SQL innovations to transform your data
- Azure Managed Redis: Designed to supercharge your GenAI Apps
Cloud Native Apps
- A whole bunch of new improvements for Azure Container Apps, including serverless GPUs, code sandboxes via dynamic sessions, private endpoints for workload profiles, and planned maintenance windows.
- Azure API Management Premium v2 is now available in public preview, bringing a new architecture with more secure networking and faster scaling.
Recommended Ignite Sessions
- Platform engineering: creating scalable and resilient systems
- Scale secure and optimize Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Effective API governance in the era of AI with Azure API Management