Today was Day 1 of the 2017 Microsoft Ignite conference. There were so many awesome feature announcements made, and TONS of great sessions to attend. Here’s a short summary of what was announced today. I present this as a sort of “mini-Azure Weekly” since there’s so many awesome things to look at today!

Announcements and Blogs

Here’s a collection of product announcements from Microsoft as well as blog posts from the overall community. There are so many great blog posts and announcements from the day that it doesn’t make sense to have a “top links” section, so I encourage you to check out all the link listed below.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

End-to-End monitoring solutions in Azure for Apps and Infrastructure by Shiva Sivakumar
A new Planned Maintenance experience for your virtual machines by Ziv Rafalovich
Azure Data Box Preview by Lee Stott
Announcing the public preview of Azure File Sync by Klaas Langhout
Azure DDoS Protection Service preview by JR Mayberry, Anupam Jij
Azure Compute: New Features & Roadmap by Aidan Finn
OMS customers can now use Azure Security Center to protect their hybrid cloud workloads via Enterprise Cloud Management Team
Built-in security and operations management for Azure and hybrid environments by Jeremy Winter
New advancements in Azure for IT digital transformation by Jason Zander
Your future cloud is hybrid, and so is Azure by Mark Jewett

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Announcing general availability of the new App Service Premium Plan by Stella Lin

Serverless and Functions as a Service (FaaS)

My Intern Project: Microsoft Graph Bindings for Azure Functions by Chris Gillum
Develop Azure Functions on any platform by Donna Malayeri

Command Line and ARM Templates

Announcing the public preview of PowerShell in Azure Cloud Shell by Hemant Mahawar

Database / Big Data

Azure #CosmosDB – database for serverless era by Rimma Nehme
Azure Data Factory – announcing new capabilities in public preview by Mark Kromer
Introducing SQL Vulnerability Assessment for Azure SQL Database and on-premises SQL Server! by Ronit Reger
Yes to databases in containers – Microsoft SQL Server available on Docker Store by Yuvraj Mehta
New in Stream Analytics: Output to Azure Functions, built-in anomaly detection, etc. by Krishna Mamidipaka
Debug R with R Tools for Visual Studio by Lee Stott

Internet of Things (IoT)

Provisioning for true zero-touch secure identity management for IoT by Eustace Asanghanwa
The next generation of Azure IoT Suite accelerates IoT solutions by Cory Newton-Smith
Protecting our water and preserving our energy with IoT by Jerry Lee
Microsoft Ignite 2017: Leading innovation for IoT by Sam George

Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

Data Transformations “By Example” in the Azure Machine Learning Workbench by Ranvijay Kumar
Deploying Machine Learning Models using Azure Machine Learning by Raymond Laghaeian
Ignite 2017: Announcing Tools for AI-Driven Digital Transformation by Cortana Intelligence and ML Blog Team
How Stack Overflow Can Use Microsoft AI to Empower Every Developer by Anand Raman
Microsoft unveils its next-generation AI developer tools via ZDNet
Introducing Microsoft Machine Learning Server 9.2 Release by Nagesh Pabbisetty
Using the Team Data Science Process (TDSP) in Azure Machine Learning by Wei Guo, Nai Ning, Xibin Gao, Brad Severtson, Debraj GuhaThakurta
Diving deep into what’s new with Azure Machine Learning by Matt Winkler
Announcing tools for the AI-driven digital transformation by Joseph Sirosh
At Ignite, Microsoft is updating its Cognitive Services collection of intelligent APIs via Microsoft Azure

Containers and Service Fabric

Announcing the general availability of Service Fabric on Linux by Mark Fussell

Learning and Certification

Announcing New Azure Exams and Certification Path Recommendations for Azure Job Roles by Selina Winter

Events

Scott Guthrie Keynote Ignite by Aidan Finn
Ignite 2017: Day One News Wrap Up from Orlando via SuperSite for Windows
Microsoft Ignite 2017 Keynote Notes by Aidan Finn

Other

Microsoft Azure gets a new Logo and a Manifesto by Chris Pietschmann
New Azure advancements remove cloud barriers for enterprises at Ignite 2017 by Scott Guthrie
The Microsoft Graph is about to light up a new way for business users to search by Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft adds new Microsoft 365 versions, plus security and management features by Mary Jo Foley
Microsoft CEO Nadella’s ‘Hit Refresh’: Is a cultural revolution enough to refresh Microsoft? via ZDNet

Service Updates

Here’s a list of the Microsoft Azure Service Updates released today:

Videos

Here are links to some videos that were posted today:

Navigating the Microsoft Graph with Azure Functions via Azure Friday
Serverless Apps with Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Functions via Azure Friday

And, of course there the Session recordings from Microsoft Ignite 2017 too! Go check out http://ignite.microsoft.com to view all the awesome recordings as the get posted.

I’ll be at Microsoft Ignite 2017!

My employer has a booth at Ignite! You can stop by to learn all about how to get trained in Microsoft Azure. I’ll be at the booth all week, so you can stop by and say “hi” to me too. I had the chance to meetup with a few followers of Build Azure at the booth today and it’s great to meet people in person!

I hope to see you at Microsoft Ignite 2017!

About the Author

Chris Pietschmann

Chris Pietschmann is a Microsoft MVP, HashiCorp Ambassador, and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) with 20+ years of experience designing and building Cloud & Enterprise systems. He has worked with companies of all sizes from startups to large enterprises. He has a passion for technology and sharing what he learns with others to help enable them to learn faster and be more productive.