Starting A Career In Windows Operating System With MTA 98-349 Exam

Qualification is evidence of your skill-sets, proficiency in those areas through which you as if to operate. There are a lot of sellers on the Market that are allowing these qualifications if the candidate plans to work on Microsoft home windows Operating System and demonstrate his proficiency, qualification utilized through Microsoft. This Microsoft 98-349: Windows Operating System Fundamentals Certification exam helps a candidate to prove his skills in Microsoft home windows Operating System Technology.

Here in this post, we will cover Microsoft 98-349 exam details, how to ace the exam and the benefits it fetches.

Overview of Microsoft 98-349: Windows Operating System Fundamentals Exam

Candidate for Microsoft 98-349: Windows Operating SystemFundamentals exam aims to reinforce critical Operating System knowledge and skills. Before taking this exam, test takers need to hold strong fundamental details of the concepts cooperated preparation overview.

It is recommended that professionals are familiar with the concepts and also the latest technologies outlined listed here by taking relevant training programs. Candidates are expected to hold some practical expertise with Windows located Operating System referring to device upgrade, control panel, personal computer environments, management resources, and much more.

After passing the 98-349 exam, candidates receive a certificate coming from Microsoft that benefits them to demonstrate their skills in Windows Operating System Fundamentals to their clients and organizations.

Microsoft 98-349: Windows Operating System Fundamentals Exam Objectives

Applicants should know the examination topics just before they start preparation because it will aid them in attacking the center. Our Microsoft 98-349: Windows Operating System Fundamentals Exam discards will feature the following subjects:

• Understanding operating system configurations (15–20%)                             
• Installing and upgrading client systems (15–20%)
• Managing applications (15–20%)
• Managing files and folders (15–20%)
• Managing devices (15–20%)
• Understanding operating system maintenance (15–20%)

Some Valuable Tips You Can Follow to Prepare for Microsoft 98-349 Exam

Some applicants taking Microsoft 98-349 for the first time may think that they have sufficient time to tackle all the exam questions. Though, they don’t know the actual structure of the exam. Some questions tend to be more challenging than others. In such an instance, it is recommended to leave those questions to be answered afterward and answer the simple ones first. Make sure you tackle all of them smartly and efficiently.

There are many online communities and forums that the candidates can follow to prepare for the Microsoft exams. These forums are filled with other individuals studying for Microsoft 98-349. Hence, you can share the information you know and listen to their advice to help each other prepare for this MTA certification exam. In most situations, some qualified professionals moderate these study groups. So, they can provide you with solutions to several problems you confront during your preparation process. You can also take up the official instructor-led training course to learn all the exam concepts in detail.

Also Read: Capitalizing On Practice Tests For Triumphant MTA 98-349 Exam

Another great study resource that you can adapt for MTA 98-349 exam preparation is practice tests. Though, you need to make sure that these practice tests are authentic and up-to-date. That is why we suggest that you take practice tests from a reliable website. Using these practice questions during your preparation is vital. You’ll become familiar with the exam structure and get familiar with the actual exam environment. Moreover, it will raise your confidence to take Microsoft 98-349, as you’ll know what to expect.

Benefits of Getting Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) - Windows Operating System Fundamentals Certification By Passing 98-349 Exam

• This certification will be determining your skills and proficiency on your knowledge of Windows Operating System ideas & understanding of how to correctly operate on Windows Operating System.
• This MTA certification will offer you an advantage over several other counterparts.
• It helps you to build your profession into windows Operating System Administration and home windows Operating System Administrator utilizes to receive considerate plus fabulous projects into Market.

MTA 98-349 CERTIFICATION: OFFERS THE BIGGEST CERTIFICATION

Conclusion

Often, Windows has been considered as a built-in part of a newly bought desktop or laptop. This results in the increasing prevalence of this well-known Microsoft operating system. So, if you want something amazing happening in your career, why not earn this MTA certification and start journeying on your way to success? This might be your lucky shot! Just go through the Microsoft 98-349 exam and turn all your dreams into reality.

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Deploy apps seamlessly with Red Hat JBoss EAP on Azure App Service—now generally available

Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) on Azure App Service is a fully managed offering for Java EE (Jakarta EE) applications. Java developers have been deploying and scaling their Tomcat, Spring Boot, and other Java apps on App Service since 2014—when the platform first supported Java. Since then, our customers have told us they want the same hosting option for their Java EE (Jakarta EE) applications.

More Info: MB-300: Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Core Finance and Operations

We heard your feedback and partnered with Red Hat to offer JBoss EAP on App Service, which has been in preview since September 2020. Our customers are excited to have a managed platform for their Java EE (Jakarta EE) applications and the peace of mind that comes with joint support from Red Hat and Microsoft. Today, the offer is generally available, so you can deploy apps into Red Hat JBoss EAP on App Service with no Red Hat subscription or licenses required.

“Red Hat and Microsoft are both committed to extending choice and flexibility for organizations as they shift traditional Java applications to the cloud. Red Hat JBoss EAP on Azure offers customers a fully configured, jointly supported solution to make it easier for organizations to realize the benefits of cloud-based architecture. We look forward to continuing to build upon our long-standing relationship with Microsoft and expand support for our joint customers."—Rich Sharples, Senior Director of Product Management – Application Services, Red Hat

Figure 1. App service creation App Service interface showing the available options for creating a JBoss EAP application.

This means you can leverage all of App Service’s platform features for your Java EE (Jakarta EE) applications, such as:

◉ Automatic scaling based on metrics such as requests, CPU, memory utilization, or simply the time of day.

◉ Application insights auto-instrumentation for monitoring slow or failing requests, exception logging, and distributed tracing.

◉ Automatic updates for the Operating System, Java virtual machine, and Red Hat JBoss EAP server. You can also choose specific versions of JBoss and update them on your own terms.

◉ Deployment APIs and integrations with Maven, GitHub Actions, and popular IDEs.

◉ Networking integrations to secure and isolate your applications from the internet.

Purpose-built APIs to deploy and run your Java EE applications

Red Hat JBoss EAP on App Service is a jointly supported Pay-as-You-Go (PAYG) offer, which means you do not have to purchase a support subscription from Red Hat ahead of time. Simply create a JBoss EAP web app from the Azure portal or command-line interface (CLI) and start deploying your Java EE apps. If you run into an issue or have a question, create a support case with Microsoft or Red Hat, and support engineers from both companies will collaborate to resolve your case. A support fee for integrated support will automatically be applied to all JBoss EAP sites starting on August 1, 2021*.

Whether your Java applications are packaged in an EAR, WAR, or JAR, App Service has purpose-built APIs to deploy and run your applications. These are integrated into the Azure CLI, Maven plugin, and other tools for a seamless developer experience.

Figure 2. High-level architecture diagram showing Red Hat JBoss EAP on App Service connecting to other Azure services and users.

Red Hat JBoss EAP on App Service is offered on the Premium V3 and Isolated V2 App Service plan types. This means you can deploy Red Hat JBoss EAP onto the latest version of the App Service environment for added security and scale, or onto the multi-tenant variant of App Service. In either case, you can save on your hosting bill with Reserved Instance (RI) pricing, which allows you to make a one- or three-year commitment and save up to 35 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

Source: microsoft.com

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Manage your digital transformation at scale for retail with Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure

Retail organizations are embracing digital transformation and cloud technologies to be more agile and achieve strategic goals. The cloud enables them to drive innovation, make more informed decisions with data analytics, outpace competitors, and deliver products, services, and applications faster. The path to the cloud is unique for every organization and navigating that journey can be a challenge.

Accelerating business transformation with Cloud Adoption Framework

We’re excited to share new guidance within the Cloud Adoption Framework for the retail industry. It amplifies the documentation, best practices, tools, templates, and other useful resources already included in the framework, to accelerate retail customers to achieve their strategic goals and transform their business. This new content provides guidance to help retail organizations navigate their cloud journey right from defining their business strategy, creating their adoption plan, preparing their cloud environments, implementing governance and operations to maximize business value.

Ideally, organizations start with building their cloud strategy by understanding their business motivations and the industry-specific opportunities they need to address, including:

◉ Personalization: Consolidate customer data sources to drive relevant offers, grow revenue, and improve customer experiences.

◉ Omnichannel optimization: Provide a seamless customer journey, enabling customers to switch platforms, devices, and channels, while still having a connected retail experience.

◉ Supply chain optimization: Optimize supply chain with advanced insights and analytics that enhance product and service delivery and optimize planning to improve fulfillment, sourcing, and logistics.

Once the motivations and business outcomes have been identified, retail organizations would need to understand their digital maturity and assess where they are at in their cloud journey, to then properly plan how they would deliver on the business expectations and transform their business. To assist with this, we have created a retail maturity model that maps aspirational retail goals with recommended cloud technologies to potentially unlock those goals. By mapping the organization strategy, current and future stage, against this model, retail organizations would be able to prepare and execute a successful cloud adoption plan aligned to their business expectations.

Siloed retail

Little to no cloud adoption and underutilized data. Legacy patterns and practices need to be modernized.

Connected retail

Starting with migrating and modernizing technology solutions with the cloud to enable advanced innovations and reduce operational overhead.

Analytics-driven retail

Taking steps to align to a common data model and preparing for future growth, unlocking advanced analytics while improving data governance.

Intelligent retail

Integrating AI and machine learning into custom applications and Microsoft's retail cloud offerings to deliver intelligent retail and drive more value for customers.

After the business aspects of defining the strategy and creating the plan are in place, retail organizations can use the technical implementation guidance to build the proper cloud environment with Azure landing zones, and governance and management best practices to ensure that their cloud solutions are operating in alignment with their own and industry-specific security, compliance, and governance requirements.

Lastly, the scenario content also includes reference architectures to assist with the rapid deployment of retail solutions for common use cases, including scalable personalization on Azure, data warehousing and analytics, e-commerce front end, intelligent product search engine for e-commerce, and several others. You can find the full list of reference architectures and other solution areas for retail.

Real-world examples of how retail organizations address key challenges with Azure

Walgreens is able to rapidly analyze and generate insights from the tons of data it manages using Azure. With the power of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, it has been able to dramatically improve certain operations, lower TCO, and modernize business processes and decision-making.

Albertsons migrated its entire datacenter to Microsoft Azure to leverage its capabilities like scalability, flexibility, resiliency, and agility to deliver a flexible omnichannel platform to customers that supports growth and innovation.

Source: microsoft.com

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Optimize extreme computing performance with Azure FX-series Virtual Machines

We are announcing the general availability of the Azure FX-series Virtual Machines available in three regions. Azure FX-series Virtual Machines—based on the 2nd Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processor—feature a high-performing central processing unit (CPU) clock speed per single core of up to 4 GHz (all core turbo), 21 GB memory per vCPU, and local temporary SSD disks. The high-frequency CPU and memory capacity for FX-series Virtual Machines is designed for workloads demanding very high single-threaded and lightly threaded performance, such as Electronic Design Automation (EDA).

More Info: PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals

Azure FX-series Virtual Machines are now generally available in the West US 2, West Europe, and Japan East regions, and will come to more Azure regions to meet customer demand.

Fast and cost-efficient FX virtual machine for EDA workloads

EDA is a collection of complex software tools and workflows to design semiconductor integrated circuits. EDA customers have several key challenges:

◉ EDA simulations are compute-intensive jobs with each simulation running from hours to days depending on the complexity of the design. Additionally, some EDA processes are single-threaded. As a result, customers need fast CPU clock speed and a large memory footprint to accelerate their silicon design into fabrication and testing.

◉ EDA software license costs can be several times that of infrastructure costs and often licensed per CPU core. Consequently, EDA users want to lower their licensing costs by maximizing the performance of each CPU core, thereby enabling them to use a smaller number of CPU cores.

◉ EDA designs usually start with different groups working on smaller subsets of a larger design. Small subsets and blocks then need to be merged for additional verification checks at multiple points throughout the process. That verification run, especially in back-end design, demand a high memory footprint.

The Azure FX-series Virtual Machine is designed to solve these EDA workload challenges. The series is powered by Intel Xeon Scalable Processors with a single-core frequency of up to 4.1 GHz, with a base frequency of 3.4 GHz, and an all-core-turbo frequency of 4.0GHz. It delivers up to 19 percent better performance per CPU core over current generation Compute Optimized Virtual Machines. When customers need additional per-CPU core performance, they can turn off hyper-threading by contacting the customer support team. With 1 TB of total memory and 21 GB RAM per virtual CPU core, FX-series Virtual Machines can meet a majority of front-end and back-end design needs. In addition, all the FX-series Virtual Machine sizes come with a local SSD so that memory can read data locally instead of accessing a slower remote Network File System (NFS).

To demonstrate FX-series Virtual Machine performance on the real EDA workloads, we ran an EDA backend physical verification task on E48sv4 and F48mds separately. It took 12.7 hours to complete the workload on E48sv4 versus 11.5 hours on F48mds Virtual Machine. In short, FX-series Virtual Machines shorten the EDA simulation time by 10 percent.

FX for other compute-intensive workloads

Most workloads that require fast CPU frequency and high memory capacity will reap performance benefits from the new FX-series Virtual Machine. The chart below shows the Coremark CPU benchmark results comparing the new FX-series Virtual Machine with Fsv2, both with 48vCPU. FX-series Virtual Machine achieved a 19 percent higher benchmark score.

Empowering customers with significant performance gains

“From the smallest projects to the largest, the performance of Redhawk-SC on Azure’s FX virtual machine family has captivated our interest. Our customers are keen to take advantage of flexible HPC for this task, and Microsoft has been a fantastic partner in delivering it.”—John Lee, General Manager and Vice President, Semiconductor Business Unit, Ansys, Inc

“Intel is proud to partner with Microsoft Azure on their EDA instance. With Intel® Xeon Scalable Processor this new EDA instance that will provide their customers a high-frequency solution to shorten their design cycles."—Trish Damkroger Vice President and General Manager of High Performance Computing, Intel Corporation

Source: azure.microsoft.com

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Improving agility, performance, and resilience with new Azure infrastructure capabilities

As our customers move beyond immediate crisis needs, such as enabling remote work, many are accelerating cloud adoption to increase competitive advantage and stay more digitally resilient. Enabling an agile, scalable, high-performing, and reliable infrastructure is critical to long-term success. Microsoft is committed to continuous innovation in Azure IaaS capabilities to help customers achieve these goals.

Today, we are announcing new updates to our Azure infrastructure portfolio that help address a wide range of customer needs.

Increase agility with access to more choices and flexibility

Being responsive to rapidly changing business requirements is more important than it has ever been. Organizations need choices and flexibility in their cloud investments to stay agile. New innovations in Azure provide our customers with even more options, and these updates give customers the ultimate flexibility they need.

More options to run memory-intensive workloads. New Msv2 medium memory virtual machines (VMs), available in preview, enable customers to achieve up to a 20 percent increase in central processing units (CPU) performance and access up to 192 vCPU and 4TiB of memory. New Azure Dedicated Host stock keeping unit (SKUs), available soon in preview, let customers run a broader range of memory-intensive workloads in a single-tenant, hardware-isolated environment.

Simplified acquisition of compute capacity at deep discounts. New Azure Spot Virtual Machines (Spot VMs) features, in preview, help customers drastically improve the overall runtime of scale-out apps by letting Azure try and redeploy previously evicted Spot VMs as part of a scale set. Customers can also simulate evictions to test app behavior to ensure tolerance to interruptions.

More options to scale hybrid and edge deployments. The integration of VMware SD-WAN and the Azure Virtual WAN hub, available in preview, allows customers to easily connect branch offices and remote locations to Azure through VMware SD-WAN and take advantage of a complete Secure Access Service Edge solution. Azure Route Server—now in preview, helps customers streamline operations between any networking appliance and Azure’s virtual network by facilitating dynamic routing.

New capabilities to manage Linux environments. Last fall, we launched Azure Automanage to help customers greatly simplify Windows virtual machine management in Azure. We are now extending Azure Automanage capabilities to Linux Virtual Machines, giving customers the convenience to manage Windows and Linux VMs through one control plane. Additionally, the preview of Azure native integration with Elastic allows customers using Elastic services on Azure to access integrated billing, full technical support, and Azure portal integration.

Scale business-critical apps and improve performance

Many customers are migrating to the cloud to scale their most demanding workloads to achieve efficiency and performance gains. Azure offers one of the fastest networks with the broadest global footprint, enabling customers to build and deploy apps anywhere. We continue to innovate and make it easier for customers to increase workload scale and performance.

Simplified network resource distribution with new Azure Load Balancing capabilities. The new Azure Load Balancing selection tool, now in preview, offers customers guidance to choose the right services based on their workloads and requirements. We’re also increasing flexibility to load balance across IP addresses with Azure Load Balancer, now generally available.

More options to scale deployments with new Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets features. Customers can simplify application deployment, management, and scalability while improving uptime with the recently introduced flexible orchestration mode. Customers can also gain greater operational agility by changing virtual machine sizes without redeploying the scale set and optimize costs by mixing Spot VMs and pay-as-you-go virtual machines within the same scale set.

Scaling disk performance with new performance tiers on premium SSDs. With the new capability in preview, customers can sustain a higher level of performance for planned events, such as a seasonal promotion, and change performance tiers without disruption to their workloads.

Strengthen business continuity with new reliability and security enhancements

Azure provides built-in high-availability and disaster recovery options to ensure maximum resilience for all workloads. We continue our infrastructure investments, including expanding our already leading number of regions and availability zones and are launching new services to keep apps and data resilient and secure on Azure.

Improving high availability with new on-demand capacity reservations. On-demand capacity reservations, now in preview, enable customers to reserve compute capacity for one or more virtual machine size in an Azure region or Availability Zone for any length of time. Customers can also combine capacity reservations with Reserved Virtual Machine Instances to greatly reduce costs.   

Increasing workload portability and availability. Azure Resource Mover, now generally available, lets customers seamlessly move resources between public Azure regions. Customers can also increase workload availability with protection in the event of a zone failure with Zone Redundant Storage support for Premium and Standard SSDs, available in preview.

Built-in backup management at scale with Azure Backup Center. Azure Backup Center, now generally available, supports all Azure-based workloads supported by Azure Backup and offers new Azure policies to deploy backups at scale based on resource groups and tags.

Protection for data-in-use with Azure Confidential Computing. Customers can harden workloads and protect against malicious attacks with Trusted Launch for all Azure Virtual Machines, available in preview. We’re also safeguarding sensitive data in Azure with the preview of SQL Always Encrypted secure enclaves and enabling secure orchestration of confidential containers on Azure Kubernetes Service, now generally available.

Protection for apps and data with auto-key rotation. With the preview of the new feature, customers can automatically update all disks, snapshots, and images, and ensure their data is always secured with the latest encryption key.

Accelerate cloud migration with confidence

We help customers accelerate cloud migration with first-class migration tooling, support, skilling, and resources. We are adding new capabilities to Azure Migrate and Azure Migration Program based on customer feedback.

Centralized migration across all infrastructure, apps, and data. With new features in Azure Migrate, customers can now assess their SQL Server estates with the preview of discovery and assessment for SQL Server migration to Azure SQL. Additional new features include the general availability of PowerShell support for migration of VMware virtual machines and the preview of a new app containerization tool allowing customers to migrate .NET and web apps to Azure Kubernetes Service. Plus, customers have access to more migration options with the addition of our newest partner, Zerto.

Application modernization for all source application frameworks. Customers can now take advantage of proactive guidance and expert help with expanded support for all major source frameworks, such as Java and LAMP, and PostgreSQL scenarios through the Azure Migration Program.

Source: microsoft.com

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Expanding cloud services: Microsoft launches its sustainable datacenter region in Arizona

Today we are launching our newest sustainable datacenter region in Arizona, known as “West US 3.” Datacenters are today’s engine for modern business, providing organizations of all sizes the cloud services and tools to innovate, collaborate, and operate securely and efficiently at scale. We build datacenters around the globe to address increased customer demand for Microsoft cloud services, and we do so with sustainability firmly in mind.

More Info: AZ-303: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies

We chose Arizona as the location for our next US datacenter region for its abundant solar energy, highly skilled workforce, proximity to our customers, and availability of land. We are honored to be part of the community and take seriously our role as a community member in the regions we operate.

"Technology continues to be an area of growth for Goodyear, and Microsoft’s datacenters represent a significant investment in our city. This project has created a boost in our local economy through hundreds of construction jobs as well as new high-paying positions to support datacenter operations. We are pleased that Arizona government and businesses, as well as global customers, can select this new Microsoft datacenter region to run their business-critical operations, with the security and sustainability benefits offered by Microsoft.”—Mayor Georgia Lord, City of Goodyear

“Microsoft’s datacenter investment creates new, local jobs to support operations and development and provides opportunities for businesses to innovate with Microsoft cloud services in our City, across Arizona, and throughout the world. We look forward to continuing to partner with Microsoft on local community initiatives, supporting cloud-powered business growth.”—Mayor Alexis Hermosillo City of El Mirage

West US 3 region delivers highly resilient, secure cloud services

Starting today, customers can choose to build and run their Microsoft Azure applications from West US 3. Azure is an ever-expanding set of cloud services that offers computing, networking, databases, analytics, AI, and IoT services. Each year, Microsoft spends $1 billion on cybersecurity to address security at every layer of the cloud. In addition, Microsoft has more than 90 compliance certifications for customers to support data compliance requirements across industries and geographies. The new West US 3 datacenter region includes Azure Availability Zones, which offer customers additional resiliency options for their applications by designing the region with unique physical datacenter locations with independent power, network, and cooling for additional tolerance to datacenter failures. For customers looking to leverage the new region and Availability Zones, Azure offers region portability for multiple resources with Azure Resource Mover.

Microsoft customers, including Banner Health, State of Arizona, and Teradata are some of the early customers with plans to use the West US 3 region, which offers local businesses the ability to run applications closer to where compute is needed for lower-latency, along with the data security, privacy, and sustainability offered by Microsoft cloud services.

“Working with cloud providers like Microsoft enables us to be more agile as well as develop new strategic cloud services for our residents at scale, securely. With Azure, we’ve created a highly secure system to reduce trips to the DMV, enabling residents to update drivers’ licenses and complete vehicle title transfers, for example, online. We also implemented a new child safety case management system using Azure and Dynamics 365, enabling caseworkers to capture critical, time-sensitive information at the moment through a tablet and the cloud. The new Microsoft datacenter region in Arizona enables us to continue this important work with computing resources right here in our state.”—J.R. Sloan, State of Arizona Chief Information Officer

“Enabling customers to have deep analytics, while managing all their data on Azure attached to the Microsoft ecosystem is at the heart of our enterprise offering, Teradata Vantage. When coupled with the worldwide footprint of Microsoft Azure, we offer our joint customers a connected cloud data platform driving industry outcomes and the ability to attach Azure native services, such as AI, machine learning, and IoT. The new Microsoft datacenter region in Arizona gives us another option to deliver Vantage on Azure with lower latency and high availability in the public cloud.”—Lisa Stewart, SVP of Cloud Alliances, Marketing and Programs, Teradata

Sustainable datacenter design, operations

Our new datacenter region is built with sustainable design and operations in mind. As part of our commitment to being carbon negative by 2030, we will have power purchase agreements for green energy contracted for 100 percent of carbon-emitting electricity consumed by all our data centers, buildings, and campuses.

To meet our renewable energy goals in Arizona, Microsoft collaborated with Longroad Energy on their 150-megawatt Sun Streams 2 photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant located in Maricopa County, Arizona. Renewable energy from Sun Streams 2, using First Solar technology, will offset the energy use of the new campus with Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) from the project.

Another primary area of energy use in the datacenter is keeping the servers cool to maintain performance and the lifetime use of the server. Microsoft’s Arizona datacenters will use zero water for cooling for more than half the year, leveraging a method called adiabatic cooling, which uses outside air instead of water for cooling when temperatures are below 85 degrees Fahrenheit. When temperatures are above 85 degrees, an evaporative cooling system is used, which operates like “swamp coolers” in residential homes. This system is highly efficient, using less electricity and a fraction of water used by other water-based cooling systems, such as cooling towers. In addition, we’re pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, which will help conserve additional resources including energy and water, generate less waste, and support human health. Finally, we are committed to zero-waste certified operations for this new region, which means a minimum of 90 percent of waste will be diverted away from landfills through reduction, reuse, and recycling efforts.

Beyond the datacenter—community investments for water conservation, education, and skilling

Beyond our datacenters, we are deeply invested in Arizona’s water conservation and replenishment efforts. These projects include:

◉ Working with the State of Arizona and the Colorado River Indian Tribes to sustain water levels in Lake Mead, with the goal of supporting the state to meet its Drought Contingency Plan Commitments. Microsoft’s investment in this project has generated a one-to-one cash match from the Water Funder Initiative that will support the state’s efforts and further expand project impact. The project will benefit the Colorado River Indian Tribes, ultimately resulting in more water in Lake Mead and more efficient water infrastructure.

◉ Microsoft and Gila River Water Storage, LLC are recharging and replenishing groundwater levels in the Phoenix Active Management Area with long-term storage credits dedicated to the cities of Goodyear and El Mirage to balance a portion of Microsoft’s future water use.

◉ The Yavapai-Apache Nation is a significant stakeholder in the Verde Watershed. They are one of the largest farmers in the Verde Valley and utilize Verde River water and groundwater for their irrigation. Their reservation and other landholdings support vibrant communities, ecosystems, and agricultural lands. The Nation is partnering with The Nature Conservancy, with support from Microsoft, to convert flood irrigation to a pivot system on tribally owned lands. The investment will allow the Nation to reduce the amount of water they draw for irrigation—leaving more water in the Verde River system—without decreasing crop production.

◉ Agriculture, irrigated by the Verde River, has been an important part of the economic and cultural identity of the Verde Valley for years. Here, a network of ditches irrigates crops, ensuring food supply and sustaining communities. While these earthen ditches serve their purpose, they leak, forcing users to draw more water to irrigate and leaving less water in the river. Established in 1895, the Eureka Ditch is one of the four major ditches in the area that draw water from the Verde River. To help restore streamflow, Microsoft provided funding to The Nature Conservancy to support the installation of pipes to enclose and eliminate losses from the leakiest section of the Eureka Ditch to convey water more efficiently to farms and reduce the amount of water diverted from the Verde River. By reducing diversions from the river, the project will help enhance flows, eliminate dry reaches, and support the wildlife and communities that depend on this river and its tributaries.

Over the past two years, we’ve been working closely with local leaders in the cities of Goodyear, El Mirage, and the greater Phoenix area to address local priorities surrounding education opportunities in STEAM, environmental sustainability, and workforce training programs. To date, we have invested more than $1.1 million in local projects across more than 70 community initiatives, including tree equity initiatives, Gila River cleanup, resources to support academic achievement through more than 2,000 hours of tutoring, mentoring, and STEAM activities. In addition, Microsoft is collaborating with two Maricopa community colleges, including Estrella Mountain Community College in Avondale and Glendale Community College in Glendale, to develop workforce training that prepares workers for jobs in the IT sector, including work in Microsoft datacenters.

Source: azure.microsoft.com

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Unlocking the enterprise opportunity with 5G, edge compute, and cloud

The power of 5G, IoT, and real-time AI will unlock new and innovative services for enterprises across the world to accelerate their transformation toward Industry 4.0 as they evolve and adopt diverse new business models. The partnerships created by operators, managed solution providers (MSPs), and cloud solution providers (CSPs) will be at the center of this transformation.

More Info: AZ-303: Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies

Nine months ago, we unveiled our Azure for Operators initiative to help operators and enterprises maximize Industry 4.0 opportunities. Today, we’re introducing Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC), new services to accelerate 5G and edge monetization, and a new partner initiative to empower operators, system operators (SI), and ISVs to develop Microsoft-validated Azure private MEC customer solutions.

Growth is on the horizon for the MEC market

The MEC market is expected to grow exponentially within the next few years. 5G, IoT, MEC, and real-time AI will unlock scenarios to help businesses drive their competitive edge, with operators and CSPs positioned at the core of this transformation. CSPs and systems integrators are looking to simplify the deployment of edge platforms and network functions, and to deliver applications that will be powered by low-latency wireless solutions.

Microsoft continues to be the cloud hosting provider of choice, enabling mobile operators to capitalize on 5G and edge opportunities. According to Nick Mcquire, Chief of Enterprise Research at CCS Insight, our recent acquisitions of Metaswitch and Affirmed Networks “represent a significant expansion of Microsoft’s hybrid cloud strategy and are one of the biggest statements yet by a hyperscale cloud provider on the opportunities for transformation in 5G and the telecom operator arenas.” Today’s announcements underscore this sentiment.

In the current 5G era, operators are looking to the enterprise to fuel revenue growth. Microsoft understands that enterprises see the edge and private wireless as key to success, but there are challenges. For example, enterprises have edge assets, such as critical infrastructure in remote locations, but may have difficulties onboarding network connectivity and applications to extend the value of those assets. Our goal is to perform this service with minimal disruption to existing business models, with the flexibility required to meet each operator along their unique journey.

Introducing Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC)

Azure private MEC enables operators and systems integrators to simplify the consumption of secure and private 5G networks and to easily deliver ultra-low-latency networking, applications, and services at the enterprise edge.

As an evolution of Private Edge Zones, Azure private MEC expands the scope of possibilities from a single platform and service to a combination of edge compute, multi-access networking stacks, and the application services that run together at the far edge. These capabilities help simplify integration complexity and securely manage services from the cloud for high-performance networking and applications. Azure private MEC is also deployable in space- and power-constrained scenarios in a performant, scalable manner starting with (and incrementing in) 1U form factor server.

An ecosystem to enable operators, SIs, and ISVs to unlock enterprise opportunities

Network-aware applications drive business value for these new private networks, and edge AI drives most use cases beyond simple connectivity. We are simplifying this application development with Azure developer tools and partners, and low-code or no-code programming environments. Once established, enterprises can work within a single dashboard view, for both on-premises and cloud-based deployments, streamlining management of operations.

Enterprises understand that it requires multiple partners to enable edge computing. The Azure private MEC ecosystem represents Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to operators, SIs, and ISVs.

Operators and systems integrators will realize the value of Azure private MEC in three ways:

◉ Accelerate their time-to-market with customers and reduce their investment in integrating various network and compute scenarios.

◉ Leverage existing Azure capabilities to extend reach to customer premises—regardless of a hardware platform—using a consistent Azure experience.

◉ Use Azure private MEC to gain access to a validated set of application ISVs who can create and deliver customer solutions.

Today, we are seeing and hearing about Industry 4.0 opportunities in these areas, where this highly reliable and ultra-low latency communication requires a degree of computing and connectivity at the edge:

◉ Manufacturing. Real-time automation (for example, the automotive industry driving increased productivity). Command and control of robots, quality control, and remote updates.

◉ Smart spaces. Actionable insights for data-driven actions in places where digital kiosks and signage are connected to real-time events and information (for example, airports or stadiums).

◉ Energy (oil and gas). Better access to global services and coverage available to customers and improved customer experiences.

◉ Healthcare. Real-time analytics to enable more efficient patient monitoring and video analytics for behavioral recognition to improve facility safety.

◉ Transportation. Improved efficiencies for airplane turnaround times and passenger counts, and greater insights to manage large parking lots.

◉ Public safety and health. Near real-time data capabilities foster greater transportation safety, improve passenger flow, and create more efficient and safer parking in commercial spaces.

◉ Retail. Improved customer experiences with quick identification of out-of-stock items, in-store customer traffic insights and journeys, and more efficient curbside pickups.

◉ Infrastructure. Early infrastructure deterioration protection and predictive maintenance, and enhanced safety of critical infrastructure.

New private MEC products and services

We are introducing new products and services in conjunction with Azure private MEC.

Azure Network Function Manager

Azure Network Function Manager is a fully managed cloud-native orchestration service that lets you deploy and provision network functions in Azure private MEC for a consistent hybrid experience. The consistency comes from using familiar tools like Azure Marketplace to pick from a curated list of pre-validated offers (to ensure proper operation at the edge), and the Azure portal to deploy network functions as managed applications. By using the Azure portal to access marketplace applications, you take advantage of managing distributed workloads across multiple sites through a single pane of glass.

Metaswitch Fusion Core

Available in the Azure Marketplace, Metaswitch Fusion Core is a fully containerized 5G Core solution that supports all network functions needed for connecting IoT devices over 4G or 5G radio networks. Using the Azure Network Function Manager, Metaswitch Fusion Core is easily deployed and provisioned from within the Azure portal and enables ISVs and operators to deploy applications, 4G and 5G network functions, O-RAN centralized and distributed units, Azure AI, machine learning, and IoT, and video analytic services on the same Azure private MEC platform. This integrated approach simplifies and speeds the deployment of solutions that meet enterprise use case scenarios.

Affirmed Private Network Service (APNS)

APNS is a fully managed and configurable private cellular network offering, enabling mobile network operators and managed service providers (MSPs) to run private LTE and 5G core networks for enterprises. Operators can now provide enterprises with a carrier-grade private network that is essential to run business-critical applications that require low-latency, high bandwidth, and end-to-end security. APNS provides a smooth transition from 4G to 5G and enables operators to scale private networks to thousands of enterprise edge sites with its automation and simplified operations capabilities. APNS is also the only operator-integrated solution to provide secure mobility across multiple enterprise sites.

Microsoft marketplace partner solutions

In addition to Metaswitch Fusion Core and APNS offerings, customers can access Azure Marketplace solutions from our growing partner ecosystem. These include Celona, ASOCS (coming soon), Netfoundry, Versa, Nuage Networks, VMWare SD-WAN by Velocloud, Fortinet (coming soon), 128 Technology (coming soon), and others to follow.

The Azure private MEC partner ecosystem

The importance of considering Azure private MEC in terms of its partner ecosystem cannot be overstated, given the drive to continue Microsoft’s partner-centric mindset. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said, “We fundamentally wouldn’t exist as a company if not for the partner ecosystem taking what we build, adding value to it and then, most importantly, jointly being as obsessed about how do the outcomes of it help the world get better one business at a time, one community at a time.”

Azure private MEC is no exception. It’s about enabling our trusted advisors—the partner community—to help meet our broader customer goals. Our partners are critical for Azure private MEC to span the ecosystem of hardware, application, and the network. This enables operators and systems integrators who are building on top of our platform to create solutions that drive new innovations and enterprise digital transformation. These include operators, managed service providers, and systems integrators who are responsible for the planning, deployment, and the operation of an Azure private MEC implementation; platform partners, who bring critical hardware and software components to the Azure private MEC ecosystem; and application ISVs, who offer ready-to-deploy solutions.

Our partners in their own words

We are thrilled about Azure private MEC, its role in helping enterprises transform their business operations, and the vast opportunities it creates for our partner ecosystem. Read and take a listen to videos of what some of our partners are saying about working with Microsoft to deliver Azure private MEC solutions that create new business value for their enterprise customers.

Operators and system integrators

We’re working with AT&T and our mutual customers in the automotive space to improve their factory operations, travel and logistics customers to make asset-tracking more accurate and cost-effective, and experimenting with opportunities to improve worker safety in heavy manufacturing scenarios through live video analytics.

“AT&T and Microsoft Azure are offering bold solutions to help transform business through the power of on-premises edge computing. By combining highly secure, reliable high-speed cellular traffic management with the power of Azure at the edge, we’re bringing the performance, high security, and privacy businesses need for businesses to innovate. The future of business technology is at the edge, and we’re delivering the tools that businesses will need to succeed.”—William Stovall, VP, Mobility and IoT, AT&T Business

“Tampnet’s ‘Connected Platform/rig’ initiative is to connect an IoT ecosystem of smart devices and sensors located on the rig or platform product to the internet. It is centered on providing our customers with the most reliable, secure, and agile connectivity to operate oil platforms and rigs in remote inaccessible locations where they face the most challenging environments. With the Microsoft/Affirmed integrated approach to private networks, we were able to provide the carrier-grade connectivity to our customers while providing simplified operations and end-to-end assurance using the cloud ecosystem.”—Frode Stoldal, Chief Digital Officer, Tampnet

Watch to learn more about how Tampnet is using private networks to provide reliable, secure connectivity for managing offshore assets for the oil and gas industry.

“One of the most relevant challenges around 5G wireless factory is how to combine robust and reliable communications with computing capabilities. Within industrial environments, integration of both technologies is feasible due to the use of industrial edge computing technologies. We can guarantee the milliseconds of latency that use cases such as robotics, artificial intelligence algorithms (video processing, etc.), augmented reality, etc., need to interact with the real world. Microsoft Azure edge solutions allow us to simplify and increase operational efficiency to certify and integrate more partner use cases, thereby establishing a robust ecosystem of industry solutions for our clients.”—Gonzalo Martin-Villa, CEO, Telefonica TECH AI of Things

Watch to learn more about how Accenture, Cognizant, HCL, and Tech Mahindra are partnering with Microsoft to deliver new and innovative solutions to help accelerate the digital transformation of their enterprise customers.

Network functions partners

“Industrial customers are looking for end-to-end solutions that will connect their IoT devices and production lines to their management systems as well as for analytics and machine learning tools. They also seek a platform that can support and introduce multiple relevant edge applications. Our partnership with Microsoft brings together all of the above, including packet core as a service, cloud infrastructure, and third-party applications. The Azure Stack Edge helps them simplify the deployment and management of their private 5G networks for latency-sensitive applications.”—Gilad Garon, CEO, ASOCS

Watch to learn more about how ASOCS and Microsoft are partnering to provide cloud-managed private 5G networks on Azure private MEC.

“As enterprises are seeking faster time-to-market for the delivery of innovative business applications, they can now leverage our fully cloud-managed Celona private mobile network service with Azure private MEC. They can securely run real-time applications along with Celona’s network resources for private 5G on the Azure Stack Edge."—Rajeev Shah, CEO, Celona

Watch to learn more about Celona’s solution for private mobile networks, using Azure Network Function Manager and Azure Stack Edge to support low-latency, high throughput applications at the edge.

“Technology is clearly transforming every industry, with compute migrating to the edge, AI and automation reducing the costs of running networks, and new 5G services becoming a commercial reality. We believe that open, multi-vendor 5G solutions based on a cloud-native architecture will be the catalyst for a new wave of innovation. We are partnering with Microsoft to bring innovative new private network solutions to market, leveraging Azure private MEC platform, Azure Network Function Manager, and the Affirmed and Metaswitch solutions to accelerate the growth of a variety of use cases, including Industry 4.0.”—Mark Colaluca, VP and GM, Communications and Technology Group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

“Fujitsu’s carrier-grade 5G Open RAN solution and managed services offerings, combined with the power of cloud computing from Microsoft’s Azure private MEC, will help enterprises across any industry realize their digital transformation vision.” —Shingo Mizuno, Corporate Executive Officer, Vice Head of System Platform Business, Fujitsu Limited

“A key goal of the collaboration between Samsung and Microsoft is to drive innovation that lowers the barrier to entry for the deployment of private 5G networks in enterprises. The combination of Samsung’s virtualized 5G solutions with Azure private MEC will help enterprises and network operators with increased access to 5G and its ability to transform the way they operate.”—Alok Shah, VP Strategy and Marketing, Networks Business, Samsung Electronics America

“Now, more than ever, there is an opportunity to transform businesses by delivering a variety of edge services in concert with capabilities in the cloud. VMware is working with Microsoft to enable a seamless cloud-to-edge experience. VMware SD-WAN, delivered through our extensible SASE platform, is available today as a click and deploy experience from Azure marketplace on Azure public cloud and Azure Virtual WAN. This same experience will now be extended to Azure private MEC using Azure Network Function manager to enable more secure connectivity for ultra-low latency edge-native applications.”—Sanjay Uppal, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Service Provider and Edge Business Unit, VMware

ISV application partner

“With Azure private MEC we’re able to run Spyglass Visual Inspection’s deep learning inferencing at the edge, empowering our manufacturing customers to detect and address defects on the production line in real-time.”—Phil Morris, CEO and Co-Founder, Mariner

Source: microsoft.com

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Azure DDoS Protection—2020 year in review

2020 was a year unlike any other. It brought major disruptions to both the physical and digital worlds, and these changes are also evident in the cyberthreat landscape. The prevalence of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks in 2020 has grown more than 50 percent with increasing complexity and a significant increase in the volume of DDoS traffic.

More Info: PL-900: Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals

With the COVID-19 pandemic, billions of people across the world have been confined to their home environments, working, learning, and even socializing remotely, and internet traffic has exploded. Now, DDoS attacks are one of the largest security concerns: the surges in internet traffic make it easier for attackers to launch DDoS attacks since they don’t have to generate as much traffic to bring down services. Cybercriminals can exploit huge traffic streams to launch DDoS attacks, which makes it harder to distinguish between legitimate and malicious traffic.

At Microsoft, the Azure DDoS Protection team protects every property in Microsoft and the entire Azure infrastructure. This past year, we continued to defend against DDoS attacks in the face of an ever-evolving cyber landscape and unprecedented challenges. In this review, we share trends and insights into DDoS attacks we observed and mitigated throughout 2020.

2020 DDoS attack trends

COVID-19 drove a sharp increase in DDoS attacks

Throughout the year, we mitigated an average of 500 unique attacks a day. In total, we mitigated upwards of 200,000 unique DDoS attacks against our global infrastructure.

The peak attack period was during March to April 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, as countries across the globe implemented lockdowns and stay at home measures. We mitigated around 800 to 1,000 attacks per day, more than 50 percent higher than pre-COVID levels during the same time in previous years.

Number of DDoS attacks during COVID-19 outbreak

Short bursts of high-volume attacks

In 2020, we observed a trend towards high volume attacks with shorter durations. Multi-vector attacks continued to be prevalent as well.

Attack bandwidth

The highest attack bandwidth volume we recorded on a single public IP was 1 tbps. In another instance, we mitigated a reflection attack of 1.6 tbps against multiple customers. These two attacks occurred during the peak attack period in March to April 2020.

Attack duration

At the same time, we noticed that a majority of the attacks were short burst attacks. 87 percent of the DDoS attacks were under an hour, with 53 percent of the attacks under 10 minutes in duration.

Increase in User Datagram Protocol (UDP) flood and reflection attacks

The top attack vectors were User Datagram Protocol (UDP) flood attacks followed by UDP reflection attacks and SYN flood attacks. The top reflection attacks were DNS, NTP, CLDAP, WSD, SSDP, memcached, and OpenVPN. This is due to the rise in IoT-connected devices, with vulnerable operating systems that are exploited to build botnets and launch reflection attacks.

Wider range of attack sources and industries targeted

The top source countries to generate DDoS attacks were the United States and Russia, followed by the United Kingdom. Unknown sources indicate that the autonomous system numbers (ASNs) were either garbage, spoofed, or private ASNs that we could not translate.

Most attacks were concentrated in Europe, Asia, and the US as the financial services and gaming industries are especially vulnerable to DDoS attacks, although we also saw that a wider range of industries were just as susceptible.

New attacks observed

In 2020, we defended against three zero-day attack vectors:

Electrum DDoS malware

We detected Azure virtual machines (VMs) in Europe were exploited with this malware running on TCP port 50002 and were a target of DDoS attacks.

Trojan.ElectrumDoSMiner: Malwarebytes Labs Malwarebytes Labs Detections

DVR exploit reflection attack

This exploit specifically targeted Azure gaming customers on UDP port 37810. The amplification factor of this attack was 30 times, which means for every 1 byte of inbound traffic, 30 bytes was sent out in response. AMP-Research/Port 37810 - Dahua DVR IP Camera (refined payload) at master · Phenomite/AMP-Research · GitHub

MacOS vulnerability reflection attack with WSD

Mac OS vulnerability leads to DDoS attacks on UDP SRC Port -3283.

Low barriers to entry for DDoS attacks

The barriers to entry for DDoS attacks are becoming extremely low, and the easy availability of DDoS for-hire services makes it far easier and inexpensive to generate targeted DDoS attacks. At Microsoft, our research team found that in 2020, the average price of a one-hour DDoS attack was $48, a one-day attack was $134, and a one-month attack was $1,000.

Trends and approximate average price for cybercriminal DDoS attack services

Sadly, it remains easy for cybercriminals to evade prosecution. The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2020 reveals that in the US, the chances of catching and prosecuting a cybercrime actor are almost nil (0.05 percent).

No DDoS protection means devastating consequences

DDoS attacks can incur extensive financial damage. At its core, companies would suffer immediate production and operational disruptions due to service downtime and absorb significant recovery costs. According to Gartner research, the average cost of downtime for a small to medium-sized business is $5,600 per minute. This leads to a huge loss in revenue and business opportunities, particularly if intellectual property is stolen.

Intangible costs due to reputation damage are especially devastating, as such attacks expose non-compliance and the failure to protect sensitive customer data, resulting in customer churn to competitors.

What's next for 2021?

As we head into the new year, the threat of cyberattacks will continue to rise. We have observed that DDoS attacks are often used as smoke screens to cover up bigger network intrusions, which can wreak immense havoc on both businesses and users. There is also a new brewing national security threat: as healthcare organizations fight to cope with the growing demands of COVID-19, they are also becoming the prime target of cyber-attacks.

As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, the world will continue to be heavily dependent on digital services, and service availability and performance will become more important than ever. Given the evolving cyber-risks, it is all the more crucial for both business and users to develop a robust DDoS response strategy, and be proactive in protecting their resources.

Azure DDoS Protection Standard

Azure DDoS Protection Standard provides enhanced DDoS mitigation features to defend against DDoS attacks. It is automatically tuned to protect all public IP addresses in virtual networks. Protection is simple to enable on any new or existing virtual network and does not require any application or resource changes. You can even leverage the scale, capacity, and efficiency of Azure DDoS Protection Standard to protect your on-premises resources, by hosting a public IP address in Azure and redirecting the traffic to the backend origin to your on-premises environment.

Azure DDoS Protection Standard offers the following key benefits:

◉ Backed by the Microsoft global network: We bring massive DDoS mitigation capacity to every Azure region, scrubbing traffic at the Azure network edge before it can impact the availability of your services. If we identify that the attack volume is significant, we leverage the global scale of Azure to defend the attack from where it is originating.

◉ Cost protection: DDoS attacks often trigger the automatic scale-out of the service running in Azure. This could lead to a significant increase in network bandwidth, the scaling-up of the virtual machine count, or both. In the event of an attack, you can receive Azure credits for any scale-out of resources, so you do not have to worry about setting your application to auto-scale or paying the excess cost for egress data transfer.

◉ DDoS Rapid Response: During an active attack or after an attack, you can engage the DDoS Protection Rapid Response team for help with attack investigation and specialized support. The DDoS Protection Rapid Response team follows the Azure Rapid Response support model.

◉ Rich attack analytics: With DDoS attack analytics, you get access to detailed reports in five-minute increments during an attack, and a complete summary after the attack ends. You can also stream DDoS mitigation flow logs to an online or offline security information and event management (SIEM) system for near real-time monitoring during an attack. Review Azure DDoS Protection Standard reports and flow logs documentation to learn more. You can also connect logs to Azure Sentinel, view and analyze your data in workbooks, create custom alerts, and incorporate it into investigation processes.

Source: microsoft.com

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