Microsoft Cloud App Security User Interface Updates

Microsoft Cloud App Security User Interface Updates

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

In the coming months, Cloud App Security will be updating its UI to provide a more consistent experience across Microsoft 365 security portals. 


Use this blog to learn about the changes as they unfold. 


 


Week of January 10, 2021 


What’s changed: We’ve updated the following filters and controls for tables and forms across all Cloud App Security portal pages. 



  • The design and positioning of Basic and Advanced filters toggle control 

  • The design of Advanced filters in forms such as policies 

  • The design and positioning of table controls 


Examples 
















1. Basic/Advanced filters toggle 


2. Save query button 


3. Number of results (X of Y) indicator 



4. Bulk selection check box 


5. Export button 


6. Table settings controls 



 


Current design 


 

before UI changes.png


 



 


New design 


 

after UI changes.png


 



 


We look forward to sharing more with you. We encourage you to investigate these changes and ask questions.


 


– The MCAS team

Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 109

Azure Marketplace new offers – Volume 109

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.











We continue to expand the Azure Marketplace ecosystem. For this volume, 88 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:













































































































































































































































































































































































Applications


Adaptive Learning by Vitalyst.png

Adaptive Learning by Vitalyst: Vitalyst’s Adaptive Learning app serves as a central location in Microsoft Teams to access learning resources, sign up for training sessions, and ask questions about Teams and other applications.


aiola-azure-saas.png

aiola-azure-saas: Aiola’s powerful virtual analyst connects business users to data and AI through a user-friendly chat interface in Slack, WhatsApp, or Microsoft Teams. Accessing forecasting models or promotion optimization is as easy as texting a question.


Ambyint InfinityPL Plunger Lift Optimization.png

Ambyint InfinityPL Plunger Lift Optimization: Ambyint’s InfinityPL enables engineers and field personnel to increase production on plunger-lift wells by detecting anomalous behavior and determining optimal controller setpoints. InfinityPL uses physics-based AI and subject matter expertise to identify well problems.


Ambyint InfinityRL Rod Lift Optimization.png

Ambyint InfinityRL Rod Lift Optimization: Ambyint’s InfinityRL reduces operating costs and increases production volumes for rod-lift wells. It uses physics-based AI and subject matter expertise to improve operational effectiveness and drive bottom-line performance.


B2X eCommerce.png

B2X eCommerce: Part of Grupo Hasar’s suite, B2X is a business-to-business omnichannel solution with customer portfolio management, individual price lists, suggested products, and a promotions engine. This solution is available in Spanish.


Bosch.IO Retail Service Dashboard.png

Bosch.IO Retail Service Dashboard: Bosch.IO Retail Service Dashboard provides the grocery industry with a holistic view of data streaming from their IoT services, sensors, and equipment across the store. Retailers can monitor coolers, checkout lines, and more.


CentOS 7.8 HPC.png

CentOS 7.8 HPC: desktop.studio AG provides this ready-to-use CentOS 7.8 image for high-performance computing workloads running on InfiniBand networks. It includes optimizations and recommended configurations to deliver consistency and reliability.


CloudMoyo On-the-job Training Management System.png

CloudMoyo On-the-job Training Management System: CloudMoyo’s On-the-Job Training Management System simplifies the administration of training programs for the railroad industry, including critical field roles like locomotive engineers, diesel engineers, and equipment operators.


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CloudOps 365: CloudOps 365 from Asurgent gives decision-makers insight into their organization’s Microsoft 365 tenants, helping them determine licensing status, security posture, adoption program performance, and more.


Content Migration - Legacy systems to Office 365.png

Content Migration – Legacy systems to Office 365: Migration Accelerator from Proventeq smoothly migrates the assets of your enterprise content management platform, enabling you to maximize the potential of your content and information management infrastructure throughout each stage of your migration to Office 365.


Counter-Strike Condition Zero on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.png

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS: Get a private game server for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with this one-click deployment from Tidal Media. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero features updated character models, textures, maps, and other graphical tweaks.


Digital Inspection of Roads.png

Digital Inspection of Roads: HAL24K’s Digital Inspection of Roads augments and digitalizes agencies’ daily road inspections using video footage from consumer-grade cameras. Digital Inspection of Roads uses machine learning models to automatically detect defects.


Dorabot AI-CLP Interactive Edition.png

Dorabot AI-CLP Interactive Edition: Dorabot’s AI-CLP helps logistics workers optimize container use and load planning. AI-CLP can be seamlessly integrated with warehouse management systems, and it can handle complicated scenarios involving collocation specifications and weight distribution balance.


Dr.Bridge.png

Dr.Bridge: Dr. Bridge from Nihon Unisys Ltd. uses AI to enhance bridge inspection efforts. Through photo analysis, it diagnoses deterioration factors and construction soundness. This app is available only in Japanese.


Enhanced Offloaded Auditing for D365 - Audit Away.png

Enhanced Offloaded Auditing for D365 – Audit Away: Designed to be used with the Microsoft Power Platform, Audit Away from cloudThing captures record changelogs from Microsoft Dataverse (formerly known as the Common Data Service) and publishes them to configurable storage targets.


Experian Address Validation.png

Experian Address Validation: Experian Address Validation standardizes, validates, and enriches addresses during data entry, enabling you to reduce data entry time by up to 80 percent. The real-time hosted API works with addresses from 245 countries, validating against official postal address sources.


Experian Aperture Data Studio.png

Experian Aperture Data Studio: Experian Aperture Data Studio combines self-service data quality and globally curated data sets in an intelligent platform. Use it to gain a single customer view and improve day-to-day operational efficiency and reporting accuracy.


Experian Email Validation.png

Experian Email Validation: Standardize and validate email addresses with Experian Email Validation. Whether you choose to integrate the API into a website, at a point of sale, or in a call center or CRM system, the API seamlessly protects your data quality.


Experian Phone Validation.png

Experian Phone Validation: Standardize and validate landline or mobile numbers with Experian Phone Validation. The API references multiple sources to check the existence, validity, format, type, provider, portability, and reachability of each phone number.


GPS Enterprise.png

GPS-Enterprise: GPS-Enterprise, a holistic platform for predictive analytics, delivers end-to-end data ingestion, processes extremely complex modeling, and provides deep insights through data visualizations.


Helio Demand Planning @ Weather.png

Helio “Demand Planning @ Weather”: Helio from Analytic Partners quantifies the impact of weather on business performance. Its predictive forecasts, fueled by machine learning, help companies answer important business questions by looking forward instead of backward.


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Identity Protection Suite: Image & video redaction: brighter AI’s Identity Protection Suite automatically anonymizes faces and license plates in images and videos, helping companies comply with the General Data Protection Regulation and other data privacy laws.


Johns Hopkins Balance.png

Johns Hopkins Balance: Balance is a digital behavioral health program committed to delivering convenient and accessible mental health resources. Connect your employees with a program rooted in providing care on their time and on their terms.


Journey Insights for CX.png

Journey Insights for CX: Based on Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services architecture, Genoa Performance’s Journey Insights CX captures customer interactions and processes so companies can enhance brand engagement. This app is available only in Portuguese.


KinderConnect.png

KinderConnect: KinderConnect helps childcare providers and agencies save time on everyday administrative tasks while minimizing the possibility of fraud. The web-based portal can be customized to each agency’s particular needs and state regulations.


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KinderTrack: KinderTrack supports case work done by childcare subsidy agencies, streamlining eligibility determination, provider payments, attendance tracking, reporting, and more. Every change made in the system is recorded in history tables, providing a complete audit trail.


KNIME Executor BYOL for Azure.png

KNIME Executor BYOL for Azure: KNIME Executor instances execute workflows for KNIME Server. This bring-your-own-license offer provides workflow execution for KNIME Server Large and can utilize a Microsoft Azure virtual machine scale set to spread deployment of KNIME Executor instances across Azure Availability Zones.


KNIME Server Large BYOL for Azure.png

KNIME Server Large BYOL for Azure: KNIME Server is enterprise software for collaboration, automation, management, and deployment of data science workflows. This bring-your-own-license offer is a requirement for using the KNIME Executor solution.


KnowYourPeople.png

KnowYourPeople: GBG KnowYourPeople provides fast and auditable background checks so companies can screen job applicants and employees. Use the cloud-based portal to streamline processes and efficiently meet compliance requirements.


Kuma Service Mesh 1.0.png

Kuma Service Mesh 1.0: This template-based offer from Kong is meant for pre-production and production environments where customers need Kuma Service Mesh capabilities running on a Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service cluster.


Low Carbon App.png

Low Carbon App: OrxaGrid’s Low Carbon App determines the optimal size of solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicle charging stations for a selected residential, commercial, or industrial site. OrxaGrid aims to maximize financial savings for building owners while reducing carbon emissions.


Lumapps.png

LumApps: Empower your employees with the LumApps intranet, which provides access to personalized and multilingual content according to each employee’s profile and location. LumApps can be easily configured and customized to fit brand identity.


Lumeta Community Edition Command Center v4.0.0.0.png

Lumeta Community Edition Command Center v4.0.0.0: FireMon’s Lumeta CloudVisibility delivers security, endpoint discovery, and anomaly detection for hybrid enterprises. Eliminate security blind spots and replace them with authoritative visibility into mobile, virtual, and cloud assets.


Metro Activity Planner.png

Metro Activity Planner: Metro Activity Planner is a project and task management module within the Metro software suite from Retail Manager Solutions. Features include project templates, a workflow engine, a capacity calculator, and an activity planner.


Minerva.png

Minerva: Minerva Patient Engagement Suite, MphRx’s flagship platform, enables healthcare organizations to provide telemedicine and holistic care onsite. Deployed in more than 20 countries, the platform is used by more than 1.5 million patients and 350,000 healthcare professionals.


mTHM.png

mTHM: mPrest’s Transformer Health Management (THM) monitors power transformers for abnormalities. THM aggregates information from multiple sensors and uses advanced analytical algorithms to gauge transformer health and predict failures.


OneWindow Workplace for Healthcare.png

OneWindow Workplace for Healthcare: Withum’s OneWindow Workplace for Healthcare simplifies the rollout and adoption of Microsoft 365 in healthcare organizations. OneWindow creates consistency and engages employees through corporate communications, leadership conversations, and data dashboards.


PeopleSense - Easy People Counting.png

PeopleSense – Easy People Counting: Retailers, service providers, councils, and facility managers can use PeopleSense to monitor pedestrians and vehicles to gauge activity, optimize service intervals, improve customer experience, and flag potential security breaches.


Phonexia Voice Verify.png

Phonexia Voice Verify: Powered by deep neural networks and designed for contact centers, Phonexia Voice Verify authenticates customers over the phone. Its voice biometrics can verify a person after only three seconds of speech and detect speaker changes throughout the call to help prevent fraud.


powerThings - Power Platform Solution Accelerators.png

powerThings – Power Platform Solution Accelerators: cloudThing’s powerThings are pre-built accelerators that can be deployed atop the Microsoft Power Platform to solve common technical challenges and deliver cloudThing capabilities.


QuTScloud.png

QuTScloud: Empower your organization to optimize its cloud data and maximize the value of the cloud with QuTScloud, a virtual network attached storage (NAS) appliance from QNAP Systems. QuTScloud includes expandable storage along with data sharing, backup, and security features.


REMS.png

REMS: Based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, Bitforit’s Real Estate Management System (REMS) extends typical CRM functionalities with real estate processes, including purchase, legal, eviction, rent, and collaboration with developers, government, brokers, and service providers.


Reverse Proxy Server + NginX on Ubuntu 18.04.png

Reverse Proxy Server + NginX on Ubuntu 18.04: Tidal Media offers this image of Reverse Proxy Server + NginX on Ubuntu 18.04, specially hardened for Microsoft Azure and pre-configured for rapid and secure deployment. Provide an additional level of abstraction and control to ensure the smooth flow of network traffic.


RiskIQ PassiveTotal.png

RiskIQ PassiveTotal: RiskIQ PassiveTotal integrates with Azure Sentinel and Azure Defender to give security teams a 360-degree view of their attack surface to better detect threats and defend their enterprise. Accelerate investigations, increase visibility, and respond more effectively to threats.


Riverbed SaaS Accelerator.png

Riverbed SaaS Accelerator: An easy-to-deploy service, Riverbed Technology’s SaaS Accelerator maximizes SaaS application performance by overcoming network limitations of latency and data congestion as well as the unpredictability of last-mile user experiences.


SAP Data Custodian.png

SAP Data Custodian: SAP Data Custodian is a public cloud and SAP application data protection service that can help mitigate cloud data protection concerns and help you move to the cloud with confidence. Features include data residency control, contextual data access control, and customer-controlled encryption keys.


SearchUnify - Cognitive Search Engine.png

SearchUnify – Cognitive Search Engine: SearchUnify from Grazitti Interactive is a unified cognitive search platform and insights engine that facilitates the building of AI-based apps. SearchUnify’s out-of-the-box support for more than 35 native connectors helps you access relevant information without leaving Microsoft Dynamics 365.


Secure Linux - RedHat 7.4.png

Secure Linux – RedHat 7.4: BISSaN offers this hardened Linux – RedHat 7.4 image to provide a security-focused environment that is ideal for running web applications, databases, and application servers. The solution also helps mitigate insufficient authorization and network and program attack threats.


Serialization for the Supply Chain.png

Serialization for the Supply Chain: The Digimarc platform supports the creation, quality control, and detection of Digmarc’s unique code, which is used to create serialized digital identities for media objects and facilitate greater visibility in the supply chain.


Shufti Pro Identity verification KYC AML solutions.png

Shufti Pro Identity verification KYC AML solutions: Shufti Pro is an AI-powered identity verification solution that employs artificial intelligence and human intelligence to provide robust identification solutions that help eliminate risks and identity theft and financial crimes.


SMAARTBRAND.png

Smaartbrand: Smaartbrand from Enixta Innovations taps the customer voice from multiple channels (e-commerce, social media, vlogs, blogs) in various formats (audio, text, images, videos) to extract actionable insights so that brands can enhance their product offerings and customer experience.


SupplyChain Production Planning Simulation Soft.png

Supply Chain: Production Planning Simulation Soft: Cosmo Tech Supply Chain is a digital supply chain twin that simulates and optimizes production plans and drives the alignment of decisions throughout the supply chain. Simulate demand variability arising from unexpected events and adjust plans while achieving desired KPIs.


SYSOTools.com.png

SYSOTools.com: Available only in Spanish, SYSOTools is a technology and collaborative assistant that enables stakeholders to extend the occupational safety and health strategy more effectively and efficiently across your organization. 


Testportal for K12 Education.png

Testportal for K12 Education: The Testportal platform enables reliable online knowledge assessment via proctored exams, tests, and quizzes. Its integration with Microsoft Teams facilitates easy test sharing and provides secure identity verification thanks to Azure Active Directory.


Thought Machine Vault.png

Thought Machine Vault: Thought Machine Vault is a cloud-native core banking platform designed to enable banks to deploy modern systems and move away from the legacy IT platforms. Vault is built around APIs using a microservice architecture.


UNIMETIS.png

Unimetis: Based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, Unimetis is an education lifecycle managing platform that helps facilitate, optimize, and manage the daily routines of students, teachers, and faculty.


VibSign.png

VibSign: VibSign, available only in Japanese, uses artificial intelligence and IoT sensors to detect the state of bearings in rotating machines and help prevent sudden outages and unplanned downtime of factory equipment.


Virtual Conference Manager.png

Virtual Conference Manager: Virtual Conference Manager (VCM) from Opsgility makes it easy to deliver a virtual conference with a rich set of interactivity options for your attendees. Built on Microsoft Teams, VCM ensures your conference is secure and can be accessed from a browser or the Teams app.


Voicespin APPs.png

Voicespin APPs: Voicespin is a scalable call center and global VoIP gateway solution for inbound and outbound calls that enables users to make calls directly from a browser.


WInsights for Animal Healthcare.png

WInsights for Animal Healthcare: Powered by Microsoft Azure, WinWire Technologies’ WInsights for animal healthcare transforms data into actionable insights to help animal health organizations improve animal well-being, monetize critical data assets, drive growth, and accelerate time-to-market.


Your identity.png

Your identity: Available only in Spanish, Your Identity simplifies the process of identifying customers through place of residence verification; fingerprint, facial, and vocal biometric registration; crime sheet research; and more.



Consulting services


2-Day App Modernization Workshop.png

2-Day App Modernization Workshop: Active Solution’s App Modernization Workshop will help you move your application to Microsoft Azure, which enables you to focus on delivering business value faster instead of having to handle growing hardware needs and a complex IT infrastructure.


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2-day workshop: Secure authentication with FIDO2: In this two-day workshop, perinova IT-Management will work with you to develop a strategy for passwordless login, multifactor authentication, single sign-on, and a password safe for your organization. Deliverables include recommendations for Azure licensing and services.


4-Hr Workshop on Azure WVD by Embee.png

4-Hr Workshop on Azure WVD by Embee: Delivered via Microsoft Teams, Embee Software’s free Windows Virtual Desktop workshop will provide you with a basic understanding of the components required to deploy on Microsoft Azure, including a readiness assessment to help you plan your next steps.


AI & Data Discovery 2-Week Workshop.png

AI & Data Discovery 2-Week Workshop: Want to learn how to make your data work for you? Predica’s Artificial Intelligence & Data Discovery Workshop will help your organization develop a suitable data strategy; understand technology, licensing, and skills requirements; and identify key pain points.


App Modernization 2-Week Workshop.png

App Modernization: 2-Week Workshop: Aligned with Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework, Lunavi’s App Modernization Workshop includes a deep assessment of the chosen application and its associated data components, creation of new application architecture integrated with the Azure Landing Zone, and testing and validation.


Azure App Development 1-Day Spark Workshop.png

Azure App Development 1-Day Spark Workshop: Vectorform’s Azure App Development Workshop will help you kickstart your Azure projects by explaining opportunities, industry and market trends, and company dynamics. Vectorform will also identify potential solutions and outline best next steps for your organization.


Azure Cloud Optimization Platform Acltr 4-Wk Imp.png

Azure Cloud Optimization Platform Accelerator: 4-Week Implementation: The Cloud Optimization Platform Accelerator from Neudesic is designed to help your organization easily understand and control your Microsoft Azure cloud environment to reduce costs, increase performance, and maintain compliance.


Azure Synapse - 2-Hour Free Workshop.png

Azure Synapse – 2-Hour Free Workshop: Available only in Spanish, 54cuatro’s free workshop will introduce you to Azure Synapse Analytics and create a roadmap from your current data warehouse platform to a modern data warehouse model on Microsoft Azure.


Azure Synapse - 10-Day Migration Assessment.png

Azure Synapse – 10-Day Migration Assessment: Get a thorough review of your current data platform along with a roadmap for migrating your workloads to Azure Synapse Analytics in 54cuatro’s 10-day assessment. This service is available only in Spanish.


Cloud transformation prestudy 3-week assessment.png

Cloud transformation prestudy: 3-week assessment: Learn how to take advantage of modern Microsoft Azure services to gain a competitive advantage in Etteplan More’s three-week cloud transformation assessment. Deliverables include a roadmap detailing next steps and which Azure services will bring the best value to your business.


Data Modernization 2-Week Workshop.png

Data Modernization: 2-Week Workshop: Aligned with the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, Lunavi’s Data Modernization workshop will teach you how to bring together data from across your organization to uncover new insights and integrate Azure apps and services with your data sources.


Implement FHIR HL7 HIPAA on Azure SaaS PoC.png

Implement FHIR HL7 HIPAA on Azure SaaS PoC: In this proof of concept, TwoConnect will work with your healthcare organization to identify FHIR, HL7, and HIPAA app migration or integration opportunities that would improve operational efficiency.


Introduction to AKS and Kubernetes 1-day workshop.png

Introduction to AKS and Kubernetes: 1-day workshop: This one-day workshop from Gofore Oyj serves as a technical introduction to Kubernetes and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Workshop topics include an introduction to the services, the benefits of using them, and identifying right time to start using AKS.


Kubernetes 1-day Proof-Of-Concept.png

Kubernetes 1-day Proof-Of-Concept: In this one-day Kubernetes proof of concept, Active Solution’s experts will teach you how your team can use Azure Kubernetes Services to remove bottlenecks in production processes. Develop and deliver high-quality apps faster with Kubernetes.


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Maestro Cloud Management Service: Standardize and automate complex Microsoft Azure environments with this managed service from Softline. Softline will provide monitoring, customized cost analytics, utilization reports, alerts, infrastructure recommendations, and more.


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Manage API’s w/ Azure & BizTalk: 3-Day Assessment: API management platforms are designed to extend BizTalk’s protocol mediation and message format transformation capabilities. In this offer, TwoConnect will review your company’s APIs and determine a migration path to Microsoft Azure API Management.


Microsoft Azure DevOps CIO 1-Hr Assessment.png

Microsoft Azure DevOps CIO: 1-Hr Assessment: DevOps solutions enable a consistent experience across hybrid multi-cloud environments to accelerate application development while optimizing pipelines with cloud-native DevOps technologies. Learn how you can benefit from Azure DevOps in ITCO’s one-hour assessment.


Migration Strategy as a Service 6-Week Assessment.png

Migration Strategy as a Service: 6-Week Assessment: Looking for a flexible, scalable, and reliable environment for your IT ecosystem? In this six-week assessment, Tech Mahindra will use its InfoWise AI-augmented solution to assess your current setup and provide optimizations for your organization’s move to Microsoft Azure.


Secure Account Lifecycle Management 8-Week Implementation.png

Secure Account Lifecycle Management: 8-Week Implementation: Designed to automate and streamline the user identity lifecycle, Catalyte’s eight-week implementation will connect Azure Active Directory with the Workday human capital management solution to enhance enterprise HR management and protect your apps and users.


Security and Compliance 3-Week Proof of Concept.png

Security and Compliance: 3-Week Proof of Concept: In this three-week proof of concept, Conterra will assess your current infrastructure, prepare the environment for security features, configure scenarios, and implement security and compliance features for your pilot user group.


Sopra Steria Go2Cloud Assessment and Roadmap 6 weeks.png

Sopra Steria Go2Cloud Assessment and Roadmap 6 weeks: Available in Norwegian, Sopra Steria’s six-week assessment will help you develop a business case and plan to lift and shift your organization’s data from a datacenter to Microsoft Azure. Take advantage of Azure components for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.


Surveyor 360 WVD 10-Day Assessment.png

Surveyor 360 WVD: 10-Day Assessment: Phoenix Software’s Surveyor 360 WVD offering is designed to help you assess your current environment and seamlessly transition to Windows Virtual Desktop for specific use cases or at scale across your organization.


Teams Workshop.png

Teams Workshop: This workshop from Move provides an introduction to Microsoft Teams, enabling you to manage, adapt, and secure the productivity and collaboration platform and help users with simple issues.


VMware Azure Transition 2-Week Assessment.png

VMware Azure Transition: 2-Week Assessment: Through a series of discussions and discovery sessions, Insight’s experts will develop an understanding of where your organization is today and what steps you can take toward Azure VMware Solution.


Windows-SQL 2008 End of Support - 1-Day Workshop.png

Windows/SQL 2008 End of Support – 1-Day Workshop: Migrating to Microsoft Azure allows you to continue to innovate securely in the cloud while making it faster, easier, and less expensive to remain current with security updates and regulatory compliance. In this one-day workshop, BrainScale will prepare you for migration to Azure or SQL Managed Instance.


WVD 2-Day Assessment.png

WVD: 2-Day Assessment: Sela Group’s experts will engage with your relevant stakeholders in this two-day assessment to gather information and help you determine how to successfully and efficiently implement Windows Virtual Desktop in your organization.


WVD 10-Day Implementation.png

WVD: 10-Day Implementation: Simplify the management of your virtualized desktop and app environment by connecting your virtual machines to Windows Virtual Desktop in this 10-day implementation from Sela Group.



Quickly respond to changing retail needs with an intelligent supply chain

Quickly respond to changing retail needs with an intelligent supply chain

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Truly engaged, always connected

As digital commerce continues to evolve and become an integral revenue stream for retailers and consumer goods companies, it is paramount for these companies to digitally transform their supply chain as well. They need the agility to rapidly plan and adapt to changing customer needs, use AI and machine learning to automate order orchestration, fulfilment, and delivery, and lastly, seamlessly add new fulfilment methods like buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) or curbside pick-up. Customer shopping behaviors are constantly changing, but customers continue to seek near-instant gratification when buying online or in-store. If a product is not on the shelf when they need it, they will order it from another retailer instantly using their cell phone.

According to a recent study by Forrester Consulting commissioned by Microsoft, 69 percent of retail businesses were impacted due to disruptions in supply chain and shifting customer demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and only 51 percent of retail decision makers felt their supply chains are prepared to meet growing digital commerce needs. One of the ways to achieve agility is to enhance end-to-end visibility of their supply chain and have access to real-time omnichannel inventory data. Creating a digital supply chain twin is a starting point to help businesses gain visibility all the way from the supplier upstream to the customer downstream. With the digital twin, the supply chain leaders can predict disruptions, simulate different countermeasures to overcome them, and automate the execution of these countermeasures to resolve the issues in a timely manner. Further, with real-time visibility into their inventory, retailers can drive demand for overstock products and expedite replenishment of out-of-stock items in a cost-effective manner.

Companies like Michael Hill are using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to be more agile in responding to changing market needs. With their stores impacted by lockdowns due to the pandemic, Michael Hill accelerated their roll out of Microsoft Dynamics 365 to gain end-to-end supply chain visibility and improve availability of their valuable inventory. They overcame complications related to shipping to global customers and seamlessly shifted to using each retail store as a warehouse location so that customers can order jewelry online and pick up at the store of their choice.

“Moving our supply chain onto Dynamics 365 was a major step-change from our legacy platform, but the really exciting part is the speed with which we are now adapting to changing business needs be they driving incremental efficiencies in our warehouse, trialing new fulfilment models or unlocking deeper insights into customer experiences. We are able to trial and mature new models faster than ever before.”Ian Dallas, Program Manager Supply Chain and Finance, Michael Hill

They can take the customer-first approach using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to support its warehouse management system (WMS), transform its supply chain, and connect production, inventory, and distribution directly to in-store operations and customer fulfilment. They are now able to expand their fulfilment choice to their customers including curbside pickup as a contactless option in Canada.

“Now that we have established Dynamics 365 as our operating WMS, the world is our oystertactically, we are able to deliver agile flow solutions that we could only dream of with our legacy systems. Strategically, we have a foundation for our expanding supply chain transformation endeavors, enabling integration with best of breed partners to deliver outstanding customer experiences.”Nat Cooper, GM Global Logistics, Michael Hill

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management helps companies close the gap between demand and fulfilment to deliver a delightful customer experience. Companies can rapidly re-plan supply and distribution of products in near real-time within minutes with in-memory microservice to effectively adapt to shifting customer demand.

“It’s like magic. With Planning Optimization, our master planning went from five to seven hours to less than five minutes and the on boarding couldn’t have gone any smoother.”Andy Lee, IT Operations Manager, Fenwick

The intelligent distributed order management system can manage, automate, and optimize order fulfillment to ensure on-time delivery in a cost-effective manner. This ensures that the inventory is not only stored closest to where the customer demand is, but also in the right quantity to reduce the time to fulfillment. It helps drive down excess inventory.

Companies like Dr. Martens have implemented virtual warehouses using real-time omnichannel inventory data and together with their overnight store replenishment capability, they are able to get the right products to the right store within a short lead time.

Also, according to the study by Forrester, retailers are building redundancy into their supplier network to gain agility and become more resilient. Forty-five percent of the retailers are planning to increase the size of the distribution networks, and 42 percent of the retailers plan to onboard more suppliers to ensure greater flexibility going forward. This includes adding transportation partners to alleviate bottlenecks in getting goods to customers as demand fluctuates. Forty-eight percent of retailers consider last-mile delivery to be one of the top five most important components of supply chain agility. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management helps retailers optimize their sourcing and fulfillment strategy with a fast and sophisticated supplier qualification process. It enhances collaboration with vendors using portals and streamlines planning of inbound and outbound shipments to ensure on time delivery to the customer.

As retailers embark on their journey to the next normal, they can improve resilience and easily scale with cloud and edge computing enabling faster decision making in a compressed timeframe.

A company like Chemist Warehouse, a large regional retailer with 500 franchise stores and 20,000 products, digitally transformed to the cloud to be able to offer a true omnichannel retail experience to its customers. Chemist Warehouse integrated the enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and business-to-business offerings from Dynamics 365 to achieve complete transparency about which products are on order, who is delivering what, when it will be delivered, and who has ordered it. This has helped them streamline delivery and pave the way for expanding its online customer offering from click and collect, to click and deliver, while the customer experience at the point of purchase (whether in-store or online) is made as friction free as possible.

“The main reason to leverage the Dynamics 365 platform is time to value-add. The mantra for us is scalability and agilitythey’re the two things that we bear in mind with everything we do. It’s really to be able to provide a better experience to the customer.”Jules Cardinale, Chief Information Officer, Chemist Warehouse

Learn more

The post Quickly respond to changing retail needs with an intelligent supply chain appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Enabling Linux based Azure IoT Edge Modules on Windows IoT

Enabling Linux based Azure IoT Edge Modules on Windows IoT

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Today we are announcing the availability of Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows, also known as EFLOW, in public preview. EFLOW enables customers for the first time to run production Linux-based cloud-native workloads on Windows IoT. Customers retain their existing Windows IoT assets plus benefit from the power of Windows IoT for applications that require an interactive UX and high-performance hardware interaction. There is no longer a need to choose between Windows or Linux; customers can now leverage the best of both platforms.


Windows IoT is deployed in millions of intelligent edge solutions around the world in numerous industries including manufacturing, retail, medical equipment and public safety. Customers choose Windows to power their edge devices because it is an out of the box that provides a rich platform to create locked-down, interactive user experiences with natural input, provides world class security, enterprise grade device management, and 10 years of servicing allowing you to build a solution that is designed to last. In addition to all these features, customers also want to benefit from existing Linux workloads and leverage the advances in cloud-native development.


EFLOW provides the ability to deploy Linux IoT Edge modules onto a Windows IoT device. This opens a world of capabilities for commercial IoT as well as AI/ML with the availability of pre-built modules from the Azure Marketplace such as Live Video Analytics, SQL Edge, and OPC Publisher as a few examples. As a developer, you may also choose to implement your own custom modules using the Linux distribution of your choice to address specific business requirements. Running Linux modules on Windows IoT becomes a seamless of your solution.


In addition, Windows applications can easily interact with Linux modules running on the same physical device. A Windows process that provides UI or accesses cameras, sensors, or other hardware can seamlessly communicate with business logic or ML inferencing provided by a Linux module.


 



 


So how does it work?


How do you run Linux IoT Edge Modules on Windows IoT devices? Windows has had a Linux kernel for years which is used in products like Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Microsoft leveraged that kernel and produced a user mode to develop an internal Linux distribution, CBL-Mariner, which is open sourced and already used in the Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI.


The magic of EFLOW is that we are running an optimized Linux virtual machine and Azure IoT Edge, on a Windows host. This allows you to run Linux modules from the Azure marketplace or from other sources, that simultaneously communicate with existing Windows code and the Azure cloud. And the entire solution is built, validated, and maintained by Microsoft.


 


EFLOWDiagram1.png


 


The EFLOW solution includes:


Windows Admin Center
​​​​​​A ​Windows Admin Center (WAC) extension facilitates installation, configuration, and diagnostics from a remote workstation or on the local device. IT can administer the entire deployment with their existing infrastructure like any other Windows service using WAC, reducing the overall infrastructure management complexity.


Interoperability
Bi-directional communication between Windows processes and Linux containers provides the best of both worlds where Windows process can provide UI or hardware proxy for business logic and ML inferencing provided by the Linux containers. ​​​​​​​


Curated Linux VM with Azure IoT Edge
A Linux virtual machine, based on CBL-Mariner, is purpose-built for Azure IoT Edge, validated using an automated test pipeline, and supported as a Tier 1 environment for Azure IoT Edge workloads.


Microsoft Update
Integration with Microsoft Update to keep the software up to date, including the Windows runtime components, the Mariner VM, and Azure IoT Edge.


 


So why does this matter?


Based on customer input, we developed EFLOW to provide an integrated end-to-end solution for workloads that normally require separate hardware and software.


Imagine a retail store with cameras recording the activity. Many network video recorders like this are powered by Windows IoT. The videos are only used when something changes or something of interest has occurred. If the store wanted to use the camera feed for local analytics or other intelligence, they may need to add a Linux box to leverage Linux AI workloads. With EFLOW, the operator can easily deploy Linux-based Azure Live Video Analytics on Windows, leveraging their existing Windows expertise and investments. They can then tie this with the new or existing ML models and have gone from having a basic video recording system to an intelligent solution that can trigger actions based on the content of the video feed.


EFLOW is available on all Hyper-V capable Windows 10 installations. This makes 100s of millions of existing devices EFLOW capable, which can easily be managed and connected through Azure.


 


Want to know more or where to get started?


Start by watching the IoT Show: IoT Edge for Linux on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise on Channel9.


Detailed documentation to get started is available at https://aka.ms/AzIoTEdgeforLinuxOnWindows


 


Stay in touch


If you want to stay up to date and get notified of future updates to Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows, you can register using this link. Note that the information you will share will only be used by Microsoft for the purpose of keeping you informed about this product.


 

Level up with Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate

Level up with Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Organizations all over the world are gearing up for a future powered by AI. And they’re looking for  engineers who can create AI-enabled apps and bots to help improve customer service, drive cost savings, accelerate decision-making, and build agility and resilience with this new breed of digital technologies. Does this sound like you?


 


The Azure AI Engineer Associate certification validates that you have subject matter expertise using cognitive services, machine learning, and knowledge mining to architect and implement Microsoft AI solutions involving natural language processing, speech, computer vision, and conversational AI.


You can earn the certification by passing Exam AI-100: Designing and Implementing an Azure AI Solution, which is live through June 30, 2021. Or, after February 23, 2021, you can earn the certification by passing Exam AI-102: Designing and Implementing a Microsoft Azure AI Solution, which will eventually replace Exam AI-100. The updated exam focuses more on practical engineering and less on solution architecture, in keeping with the current skills for the role.


 


Passing either exam will earn you the certification. If you’ve been preparing for Exam AI-100, you still have time to take it before it retires. If you’re just beginning your exam prep, consider taking the new exam instead, after the beta version is available. For more details, please read our blog post, We’re taking Azure certifications for data and AI to the next level.


 


What kind of knowledge and experience should you have?


As an Azure AI engineer, you analyze requirements for AI solutions, recommend the appropriate tools and technologies, and design and implement AI solutions that meet scalability and performance requirements. Your responsibilities include translating the vision from solution architects and working with data scientists, data engineers, IoT specialists, and software developers to build complete end-to-end solutions. If this describes your workday, this could be the certification for you.


 


How can you get ready?


To help you plan your journey, check out our infographic, The journey to Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate. You can also find it in the resources section on the certification and exam pages, which contains other valuable help for Azure AI engineers.


 


The journey to Azure AI Engineer AssociateThe journey to Azure AI Engineer Associate


 


To map out your journey, follow the sequence in the infographic. First, decide whether this is the right certification for you.


 


Next, to understand what you’ll be measured on, review the Exam AI-100 skills outline guide on the exam page or check out the Exam AI-102 skills outline guide.


 


Sign up for training that fits your learning style and experience:



Complement your training with additional resources, like Microsoft Docs, The Developer’s Guide to Azure, or the Azure Architecture Center.


 


After you pass the exam and earn your certification, check out the many other training and certification opportunities. Want to add to your skill set? Consider taking a machine learning course or exploring AI Business School.


 


Note: Remember that Microsoft Certifications assess how well you apply what you know to solve real business challenges. Our training resources are useful for reinforcing your knowledge, but you’ll always need experience in the role and with the platform.


 


Keep your certification up to date


If you’ve already earned your Azure AI Engineer Associate certification, but it’s expiring in the near future, we’ve got good news. You’ll soon be able to renew your current certifications by passing a free renewal assessment on Microsoft Learn—anytime within six months before your certification expires. For more details, please read our blog post, Stay current with in-demand skills through free certification renewals.


 


It’s time to level up!


Future growth in many industries will be empowered by AI and the engineers who work with it. Whether you’re building mission-critical solutions to understand speech, make predictions, or analyze images, or you’re using bots to engage customers and empower employees, there are a lot of career doors to open. The Azure AI Engineer certification is a great opportunity to prove your skills and worth to current and future employers.


 


Related announcements


Understanding Microsoft Azure certifications


Finding the right Microsoft Azure certification for you


Master the basics of Microsoft Azure – cloud, data, and AI


 


We’re taking Azure certifications for data and AI to the next level


Stay current with in-demand skills through free certification renewals