Azure Updates: Cost optimization; Digital Twins; API Management; Cost Management and Billing

As the year nears its end, Microsoft is focused on cost optimization, sharing insights, and developer tools, as well as deterring cyber attacks following an exploit targeting the US federal government.

News broke of widespread exploits against the US federal government through technology company and defense contractor SolarWinds. Reuters reports that Microsoft uses Orion, the SolarWinds' network management software targeted in the attack, although the news service added that according to one Department of Homeland Security, Microsoft's systems were not used as an avenue of attack.

General manager Omar Khan discussed the benefits of cost optimization for cloud spending. Microsoft provides its Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure to define cloud adoption plans, prep a cloud environment and migrate workloads. A successful approach to cost management can involve three teams: a cloud strategy team, cloud governance team, and cloud adoption team. A cloud governance team commonly oversees operational cost management best practices like tagging, licensing, bulk right-sizing and bulk shutdowns. Meanwhile, a cloud adoption team can take over horizontal over-vertical scaling, autoscaling, architecture revisions and re-sizing. Khan also recommended that customers check out the Azure Enablement show.