Azure is all about scale and Evan has pulled some interesting numbers and statistics about Azure that we discuss on this show.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode77.mp3

• As of March 26, 2015, there are 4.9M organizations are using Azure AD
• There are more than 430M identities in Azure Active Directory:
• The majority of the 4.9M are smaller businesses and have < 500 employees.
• A subset of the 4.9M organizations are medium/large and have 500 or more employees. Because these organizations are comparatively large, they account for 93% of identities in Azure AD.
• 55% of them are using Azure AD Sync (or its predecessor DirSync) to provision identities in Azure AD.
• 2% of them are using a 3rd party cloud identity service (i.e. Centrify, Okta, OneLogin, etc.) for provisioning.
• Another 2% use a wide variety of home grown and custom provisioning tools.
• The remainder are using one of our portals (Azure or Office365) and PowerShell scripts for provisioning.
• There are over 1B authentications per day to Azure AD
• 56% are cloud only authentications and completed directly by Azure AD
• 32% are authentications completed by an ADFS server deployed at a customer site
• 7% are authentications completed using a password that was synced from on-premises using our Password Sync feature
• Just over 1% are authentications completed by syndication partners (i.e. large companies who resell Microsoft services)
• Just under 1% are authentications completed by a 3rd third party federation server (i.e. CA Site Minder, Ping, etc.)
• Just under 1% are authentications completed by a 3rd party identity service (i.e. a company like Centrify, Okta, OneLogin, etc.)
• The remaining 1% are completed with a variety of open source and custom solutions.

• 57% of Fortune 500 companies now use Azure 
• Over 300,000 active websites 
• More than 30 trillion storage objects
• 3 million requests per second
• 13 billion authentications per week 
• Over a million SQL databases in Azure 
• 300 million Azure Active Directory users 
• 1.65 million developers registered with Visual Studio Online 

http://news.microsoft.com/cloud/index.html

http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-prioritizes-azure-over-windows-build-2015-new-azure-stats-revealed

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazurestorage/archive/2015/04/28/client-side-encryption-for-microsoft-azure-storage-preview.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/archive/2015/05/13/using-power-bi-to-visualize-and-explore-azure-sql-databases.aspx?linkId=14199317

http://blogs.technet.com/b/ad/archive/2015/03/26/what-s-the-best-way-to-connect-to-office365-and-azure.aspx

We talk about the latest Azure announcements from //BUILD and Ignite.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode76.mp3

http://buildwindows.com

http://ignite.microsoft.com/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2015/05/04/microsoft-brings-azure-to-the-datacenter-for-the-next-generation-of-hybrid-cloud.aspx

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/29/iaas-just-got-easier-again

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/campaigns/data-lake/

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/campaigns/sql-data-warehouse/

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/10/02/introducing-elastic-scale-preview-for-azure-sql-database/

http://news.microsoft.com/features/fearless-pursuit-to-break-the-human-speed-limit-gets-help-from-the-cloud/

Evan, Cale and Sujit talk to Senior Azure PM Josh Twist on these new style of cloud services called Logic Apps. We discuss the evolution of this service and some typical scenarios.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode75.mp3

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/app-service/logic/

http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/app-service-logic-what-are-logic-apps/

Catch up on some new Azure announcements from BUILD:

http://www.buildwindows.com/

Cale gives us the low-down on the Data Factory service.

Service details: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/data-factory/

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode74.mp3

Great guidance on Cloud Application Design and Implementation from the Patterns and Practices team at Microsoft. https://github.com/mspnp/azure-guidance

Upcoming Azure Bootcamp sessions: http://global.azurebootcamp.net/

We talk to Hugh Valentine of Cloud Point, an Azure hybrid, hosting and migration specialist firm in the UK. He shares some thoughts and observations on cloud adoption and migration strategies.

http://cloud-point.co.uk

Cloud Control:

http://www.cloud-point.co.uk/cloud-control/

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode73.mp3

We talk with Ganesh Srinivasan, a Senior PM in the Azure team who manages the VPN and Express Route services that open the door for all sorts of interesting hybrid cloud/on-premises scenarios.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode72.mp3

Other links:

Container Blog Posts:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2015/04/08/microsoft-announces-new-container-technologies-for-the-next-generation-cloud.aspx

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/04/08/microsoft-unveils-new-container-technologies-for-the-next-generation-cloud

Nano Blog Post:

                http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2015/04/08/microsoft-announces-nano-server-for-modern-apps-and-cloud.aspx

Evan and Sujit talk to Adam Abdelhamed who is a PM for the new Azure Portal. He gives us the scoop on the design of the new Portal and future plans.

Media File:  http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode71.mp3

Provide feedback on the new portal: http://feedback.azure.com/forums/223579-azure-preview-portal

Great resource for diagnosing and fixing a number of VNET and hybrid issues:

https://home.diagnostics.support.microsoft.com/SelfHelp?knowledgebaseArticleFilter=2996010&wa=wsignin1.0

Cale and Sujit chat with Mark Grimes, a long-time MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer) and MCS consultant on the new certification exams for Azure. Who are they meant for, how to prepare and what are the advantages of these certifications? We get answers from the pros. Cale is also involved with teaching courses for these exams so he weighs in as well.

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode70.mp3

Mark has put together a consolidated set of links for more information on the 70-533 exam: 

aka.ms/certification/70-533

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-534.aspx

https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-532.aspx

Other Links:

http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/03/24/announcing-azure-app-service

A blog post by PM Lichun Li describing causes of common VM/web/worker instance allocation failures and suggesting possible remediation steps.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2015/03/17/how-to-create-a-remoteapp-template-image-in-azure.aspx

The guys talk about a number of topics including:

Row Hammer bug http://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2015/03/exploiting-dram-rowhammer-bug-to-gain.html

Azure IoT Suite http://blogs.microsoft.com/iot/2015/03/16/microsoft-announces-azure-iot-suite/

Lack of PaaS in Azure Pack

Max connections in VMs

Favorite Azure Feature

Something in Azure that drives you crazy

Media file: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode69.mp3

Resources:

ECC - Error-correcting code

Azure RemoteApp PowerShell cmdlets are publically available

We talk to Robin Shahan and Michael Collier, the authors of a new free eBook on the Fundamentals of Azure. Besides being Azure MVPs, Michael is a Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft and Robin has her own consulting company Nightbird Consulting where she provides training and helps companies architect and develop effecient solutions using the Azure platform.

Media File: http://azpodcast.blob.core.windows.net/episodes/Episode68.mp3

Download the free book here: http://aka.ms/fundamentalsofazure

.

Robin can be found on Twitter as @RobinDotNet, and you can read her articles about Azure (and other subjects) at http://robindotnet.wordpress.com

·        Michael's Blog: http://www.michaelscollier.com

·        Twitter: @MichaelCollier