Microsoft Azure Review of 2014
2014 has been a massive year for Microsoft Azure. We have seen Azure show up as the only leader across PaaS, IaaS and Storage according to Gartner and is now positioned very strongly against competitors like Amazon and Google, in fact in terms of data centre reach Azure is twice the size of AWS and 6 times that of Google. This is an impressive acceleration and it makes for a very interesting 2015.
We have even seen a rebranding to Microsoft Azure from Windows Azure: a step I think was crucial in dispelling the myth that Azure was good for Windows only workloads. We are now seeing over 20% Linux workloads on VMs and the developer support for languages like PHP, Java, Node.JS and more is second to none.
So here is a summary of the major enhancements this year:
January 2014
March 2014
April 2014
- Preview Portal
- Chef and Puppet support
- Website updates including new Tier and improved SSL support
- Autoscale GA
- Web Hosting Plans
- New Pricing Tiers for Websites
- Hadoop 2.2 support in HDinsight
- New Region for Websites - Southeast Asia
- Avro library for HDinsight released
- EU Data Privacy Rubber Stamp
May 2014
- Acquisition of GreenButton for HPC
- GA of ExpressRoute
- GA of Azure Import/Export
- Preview of Hybrid Connections
- API Management Preview
- Anti-malware for VMs
- Azure Store Opens to Direct Customers
- Predictable Performance Levels in SQL Database
- Acquisition of Capptain for Mobile Analytics
- SAP Certifications for Azure
June 2014
- Phone Support for SLES 11 SP3
- Azure HDInsight supports Hadoop 2.4 for 100x faster queries on Azure Blobs
- Microsoft Continues Global Expansion of Cloud Services
- Azure HDInsight previewing HBase clusters as a NoSQL database on Azure Blobs
- Announcing the 0.3.0-beta preview of Microsoft Azure WebJobs SDK
- New and improved Azure Status
- Azure Traffic Manager External Endpoints and Weighted Round Robin via PowerShell
- Docker on Azure
July 2014
- SQL Database Updates
- Collaboration with Google and Docker to Support New Open Source Projects on Microsoft Azure
- New ExpressRoute locations and partners
- Announcing: Reverse DNS for Azure Cloud Services
August 2014
- Azure Resource Manager Tools Preview
- RavenHQ Now Available in the Azure Store
- Migrate On-Premises Virtualized Workloads to Azure using Azure Site Recovery
- MyGet Now Available in the Azure Store
- Azure Virtual Machine Disk Encryption using CloudLink
- DocumentDB in Preview
- Azure HDInsight support for Apache HBase™ generally available
- VM Depot in Azure Gallery
- Azure Search in preview
- Azure HDInsight makes HBase (NoSQL database) a GA Feature
September 2014
- Azure Media Services Launches Proven Live Streaming Platform
- VPN support for Websites
- Greater price performance and business continuity with SQL Database
- GA of API Management
- Role Based Access Control
- The apiphany epiphany: GA’ing Azure API Management
- Announcing public availability of Azure Media Services Content Protection Services
- High Speed Encoding with Azure Media Services
- Introducing: Azure Media Indexer
- DASH Live Streaming with Azure Media Service
- Azure Websites Virtual Network Integration
- Microsoft Azure Announced as Cloud Computing Winner at 2014 Tech Impact Awards
- Monitoring, Diagnosing and Troubleshooting Azure Storage
- ModSecurity Web Application Firewall on Azure Websites
October
- Introducing Elastic Scale preview for Azure SQL Database
- Disaster Recovery to Azure using Azure Site Recovery is now GA
- Announcing Support for Backup of Windows Server 2008 with Azure Backup
- Azure Traffic Manager available within Azure in China
- Managing Media Workflows with the new Azure Media Services Explorer Tool
- Support Site Extension for Azure Websites (Preview Release)
- Azure DocumentDB: Profile of MSN Health and Fitness
- New Windows Server containers and Azure support for Docker
- Real-time analytics to Hadoop with Storm preview
- SAN Replication based Enterprise Grade Disaster Recovery with ASR and System Center
- Announcing the Azure Marketplace
- Introducing Azure Websites Migration Assistant
- Announcing Azure Stream Analytics for real-time event processing
- New: Azure Traffic Manager Nested Profiles
- New Networking features and partnerships for Enterprise scenarios
- Azure Site Recovery – Announcing Windows Azure Pack integration and PowerShell Support
- Microsoft Antimalware for Azure Cloud Services and Virtual Machines
November
- Azure Search Updates: Multilanguage, Azure Portal Index Management & More!
- Deploying Your Own Private Docker Registry on Azure
- Azure Websites Authentication / Authorization
- Azure HDInsight clusters can now be customized to run a variety of Hadoop projects including Spark and R Modules
- Docker CLI for Windows Clients
- Announcing Azure Media Services Live streaming with AES encryption
- Azure HDInsight now Generally Available in China, Australia, and Japan East
December
- DockerCon Europe 2014 announcements opens up new opportunities for Azure customers
- Announcing General Availability of Microsoft Azure Government
- Azure Security SSL 3.0 Update
- Continued Innovation: Microsoft announces updates across Storage, Azure SQL Database, Identity and Access Management and Media Services
- Azure Media Services Announces General Availability of Live Channels
- Introducing Premium Storage: High-Performance Storage for Azure Virtual Machine Workloads
- Azure HDInsight Makes Cluster Customization Generally Available And Provide more Templates for Hadoop projects including Spark, R, Giraph, and Solr
- Announcing General Availability of Mobile Offline Sync Managed SDK
- Microsoft Azure Government Meets Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Requirements