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Azure Roundup: Build 2022 Updates

by Eamon McCarthy Earls
Assistant Editor, MSDynamicsWorld.com

Microsoft Build 2022 is here and with it a slate of updates related to Azure services. Let’s examine some of the biggest announcements from this year’s event.

AI & ML

Azure AI capabilities featured prominently at Build this year. Microsoft opened a new preview of Azure OpenAI Service, offering approved customers access to GPT-3 models like Codex, Curie, Babbage, DaVinci, and Ada. The team also announced Cognitive Service for Language with enhanced summarization for conversations and documents, to surface important information for developers or call center agents.

The team added Applied AI capabilities, such as Form Recognizer vaccine verification and an integration between Power Virtual Agents and Bot Service Composer. Metrics Advisor offers an in-preview auto-tuning option, plus anomaly detection.

Microsoft deployed a new dashboard for responsible AI to advise developers on fairness, model interpretation, and causal inference analysis. Developers gained access to the preview of Python SDKv2, ML managed endpoints, and AutoML features like generation of model training code and natural language processing. 

Hybrid & Infrastructure

Over recent years, Microsoft has often emphasized hybrid capabilities at its annual event, reflecting the growth of hybrid cloud customer scenarios. Build 2022 fits into this pattern, with plenty of emphasis on Azure Arc. A landing zone accelerator option for Arc-enabled Kubernetes is pitched as a way to streamline hybrid cloud. Meanwhile, the Business Critical service tier for Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance provides for business continuity requirements.

At the event, Microsoft announced generally available single node Stack HCI tailored for smaller environments with space limitations. Although Microsoft leaders discussed infrastructure partnerships, the event featured relatively few infrastructure announcements.

Instead, for migration and modernization, Microsoft drew attention to features like agentless discovery and grouping for Hyper-V VMs, SQL assessment recommendations, ways to pause and resume migrations, as well as discovery and assessment for ASP.NET web apps.

Developer Capabilities

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About Eamon McCarthy Earls

As the assistant editor at MSDynamicsWorld.com, Eamon helps to oversee editorial content on the site and supports site management and strategy. He can be reached at eearls@msdynamicsworld.com.

Before joining MSDynamicsWorld.com, Eamon was editor for SearchNetworking.com at TechTarget, where he covered networking technology, IoT, and cybersecurity. He is also the author of multiple books and previously contributed to publications such as the Boston Globe, Milford Daily News, and DefenceWeb.