Azure World Newsletter – Issue 1.21

Welcome to the TWENTY-FIRST bi-weekly edition of the Azure newsletter.

We had a fairly good November here in Toronto, with the weather staying reasonably mild for most of the month. But December 1st hit us with some snow, to remind us that winter is knocking on the door.

I hope you are doing well, where ever you are in the world. I am glad to be connected to you.

I hope my American friends had a good Thanksgiving, and everyone is healthy.

As always, if you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, no problem. There’s an unsubscribe link at the bottom. I’ll be sad to see you go but also completely understand.


ONE.

Now I know this is the Azure newsletter, but AWS re:Invent conference is going on right now. (Apparently, it’s a three-week conference? That’s quite ambitious.)

It’s always interesting to see the announcements and new developments on that side of the fence.

The significant (and relevant) news that crossed my browser screen today were comments made by AWS cloud head Andy Jassy.

“COVID, while a period that none of us would have wished on anybody or ever want to repeat, will end up accelerating the cloud by a few years.”

“A very large number of those companies that have been talking about moving to the cloud have shifted to having real plans around moving to the cloud and having real migration plans,” he said.

96% of the global IT market still resides in on-premises data centers. So the opportunity is ahead of us, not behind.

https://siliconangle.com/2020/11/30/exclusive-aws-chief-andy-jassy-wakeup-call-cloud-adoption/


TWO.

Microsoft has announced that they are changing the way Azure certifications are renewed. And has also extended the renewal date of certifications that will expire this year by 6 months to June of 2021.

Now they haven’t specifically announced what that “new renewal process” is, but we are expecting that they are changing the way they’ve done it in the past – which can only be a good thing.

I’m expecting them to make it easier to renew certifications.

In the past, Azure has come out with new exam codes every couple of years. 70-534 became 70-535, which became AZ-300+AZ-301, which became AZ-303+AZ-304.

Occasionally, they’d have a special “upgrade exam” you can take (AZ-302). But they haven’t done that lately.

Anyone who passed a previous version of the exam would simply be “forced” to take an exam to renew their certification. 

Again, we don’t know what the “new process” is, but if they are making it “easier” to renew your certification, then we should be happy about that.

From the email: “We’re working on implementing a new approach that will allow learners who hold a valid role-based and specialty certification the ability to renew their certification. While we’re not ready to announce the renewal policy, role-based and specialty certifications currently scheduled to expire Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2021 will be extended for six additional months.”


AZURE PLATFORM UPDATES.

Well, it’s getting extremely slow. I guess that’s to be expected near the end of the year. The Azure Updates page only shows about 10 updates in the past 2 weeks. 

  • New Azure datacenter region announced for Sweden
  • Azure Policy can now be managed in GitHub
  • Azure Storage Blob Inventory now in public preview

Be sure and check out the Azure Updates page if any of these affect you.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/


COMING UP FOR ME.

I think I’ve almost fully recovered from the cold that I had. But as we get into December, I think I will take some time to rest and be with family. Wish everyone a safe, and happy, holiday. 

Udemy is running its “Cyber Week” sales event this week. So if you’re looking for some courses to watch over the next month, here’s a link to my instructor profile page.

https://www.udemy.com/user/scottduffy2/

This is the last newsletter for 2020. See you again in January!


WHERE TO FIND ME.

And that’s it for issue 1.21. Thanks for reading this far.

What is your favorite platform to be on? Perhaps we can connect there.

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/getcloudskills/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottjduffy/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getcloudskills.ca/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottjduffy

Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/user/scottduffy2/

LinkedIn Learning: https://www.lynda.com/Scott-Duffy/1993589682-1.html