February 14, 2024
Welcome to the third edition of the Azure World Newsletter in 2024.
I’ve had a very good couple of weeks. The weather is improving, I have an interesting trip coming up, and I’ve been recording videos almost daily. Those are all of the things it takes for Scott to be happy. I hope you’ve been having a good start to the year.
To celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day (or Dia dos Namorados in Portugal), I’ve created a special coupon code for my courses that is available at the end of this newsletter.
Let’s see what has been happening with Azure since we last looked.
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ONE.
It’s been a few years since I’ve looked at the relative market share between Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS. Obviously, there was a big push to the cloud in 2020 and 2021 due to people having to work from home, but cloud adoption has slowed down since then.
As of the latest earning releases, the growth of Azure continues to exceed AWS as it has over the last several years. As you can read in the CNBC article linked below, Azure is growing at a 30% year-over-year pace, while AWS is currently at 13%.
A direct comparison is difficult to confidently make as both companies try to keep their business close to their chests. But it’s pretty clear that AWS is still the number 1 cloud platform. However, with Microsoft’s faster growth, the gap is shrinking.
“Azure could be the industry leader by 2026”, according to Forbes.
One interesting factor is how Microsoft is clearly working harder to provide AI services than Amazon is. OpenAI Services is now available to a wider group of customers, and Microsoft claims to have over 50,000 customers using it. There are also many customers specifically choosing Azure to take advantage of its perceived lead in AI services.
This is not to count AWS out. You can never count them out. It would not be difficult for AWS to incorporate other AI providers like Anthropic in their services and make them on par with Azure. But other than some announcements of Titan and their foundation models, I haven’t seen much progress there. They don’t seem to be progressing on Alexa being an improved AI tool, either.
I think Amazon is being too slow or cautious on this. Maybe they will surprise me.
Analysts are expecting Azure’s business to accelerate next year due to generative AI.
TWO.
I wonder how many people remember the Azure Services Management (ASM) deployment model.
That model didn’t have the concept of Resource Groups, and Azure was still looking for a unified way to manage resources.
In 2014, Azure introduced the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) deployment model. You had to choose between the two models (ARM or ASM) when deploying resources. A lot of the online documentation (blog articles, articles, and YouTube videos) demonstrated Cloud Services like Web Roles and Worker Roles, and I was thoroughly confused at first about what the difference was with a Web App.
Luckily, after a few years, Azure announced the ASM model was being renamed to the Cloud Services (Classic) deployment model, and it was on track for deprecation. In 2020, if you had never created a Classic resource before, you could no longer create new VMs using Classic model.
And now, the Cloud Services (Classic) deployment model is going away completely as of August 31, 2024.
There is still the Cloud Services (Extended Support) model if you really, really must stay on the old platform.
If you have any remaining resources running on the Classic model, you need to migrate them before August 31. I’m sure Microsoft must be desperately reaching out to you privately as well, to figure out why you’re still using this old model. But just in case, here’s the final reminder that ASM (Classic model) is gone for good.
See also:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/cloud-services-retirement-announcement/
AZURE PLATFORM UPDATES.
Here’s a summary of the highlights in the last two weeks.
- Cloud Services (classic) deployment model is retiring on 31 August 2024
- Azure Business Continuity Center is now available in all regions, in public preview
- ExpressRoute guided portal experience for multi-site resiliency, in public preview
- Azure Cosmos DB for PostgreSQL Customer-managed keys (CMK)
- Kube-reserved resource optimization in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), in GA
- Disable Secure Shell (SSH) support in AKS, in public preview
- Azure Container Apps supports additional TCP ports, in GA
- Distributed tracing v2 for durable Functions, in public preview
- Durable Functions extension v3.0.0 is currently in public preview
- Azure Monitor Metrics Data Plane API, in GA
- Continuous model monitoring in Azure Machine Learning, in GA
- Azure Site Recovery support for Azure Trusted Launch VMs (Windows OS), in private preview
- Azure Virtual Network Manager security admin rule, in GA
- Azure Virtual Network Manager topology view, in GA
Be sure to check out the Azure Updates page if any of these affect you.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/
COMING UP FOR ME.
I’ve been re-recording the AZ-900 videos in the past few days, and it’s going quickly. I am very excited for students to get the latest updates in that course.
If you haven’t taken the AZ-900 exam yet, here’s a special discount for you. Get the course for US $9.99 or your local equivalent using the coupon code VALDAY2024 at checkout or one of the links below.
AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Prep In One Day
https://www.udemy.com/course/az900-azure/?couponCode=VALDAY2024
AZ-900: Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Practice Test
https://www.udemy.com/course/az900-azure-tests/?couponCode=VALDAY2024
That same code works for any of my Azure, TOGAF and ChatGPT courses on Udemy.
WHERE TO FIND ME.
And that’s it for issue 5.03 Thanks for reading this far. Talk to you again in two weeks.
What is your favorite platform to be on? Perhaps we can connect there.
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