Microsoft Azure News: 2023 Year in Review

In 2023, Microsoft marked continued annual growth of its Azure cloud technology stack. AI dominated announcements, with significant emphasis on large language models, but new services like Microsoft Fabric, updated offerings like Entra, and new plays for segments like industries and geographies continued to progress.

The articles presented below represent Azure-focused news and features from MSDW that covered 2023's most notable product changes and the topics that our audience was most interested to read about.

Ignite 2023: Microsoft announces the general availability of Fabric (Nov. 15, 2023)

Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Fabric at its annual Ignite 2023 conference. The data governance tool offers a single capacity pricing model integrated with Power BI, Synapse, and Data Factory.

Microsoft sees Fabric as a way to empower ISVs because it is integrated with Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform, supporting unified data analytics and SaaS implementations.

See also:

• Ignite 2023: Microsoft touts dedicated cloud infrastructure

Microsoft renames Azure AD with Entra brand (July 13, 2023)

Microsoft announced that it is renaming Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) as Microsoft Entra ID. Existing users were told they could continue to use the service uninterrupted. All deployments and configurations will continue on unchanged, with the service accessible through Azure portal, Microsoft 365 admin center, and Microsoft Entra admin center, the company explained in its announcement.

Microsoft emphasized that along with configurations, licensing and service level agreements will also stay the same, with service plan names changing on October 1. Together with Microsoft Entra ID Free, Microsoft Entra ID P1, and Microsoft Entra ID P2, Entra ID will continue to be included with Microsoft 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E5 licensing plans.

Orca Security identifies fresh Azure Bastion and Container Registry vulnerabilities (Jun. 20, 2023)

Orca Security, an independent cybersecurity research organization, announced that it has uncovered a fresh vulnerability in Azure, this time affecting Azure Bastion and Container Registry. The vulnerabilities opened opportunities for cross-site scripting attacks. Orca promptly informed Microsoft, which resolved the vulnerabilities.

In a cross-site scripting attack, an attacker injects a trusted site with malicious code to gain entry through a user’s browser. postMessages are used by apps to send messages between windows. A vulnerability in this system in the two affected Azure services allowed attackers to insert endpoints into remote servers to execute malicious Javascript.

See also:

• Orca Security identifies new Azure security vulnerability (Jan. 29, 2023)

Bloomberg to provide financial datasets via Azure Virtual Networks (May 5, 2023)

Bloomberg announced that Azure customers can now access real-time trading data, reference data, pricing, and regulatory information with historical datasets using an Azure Virtual Network private connection. Through the integration, customers can receive content from B-PIPE, Bloomberg’s real-time market feed data.

By making Bloomberg Data licenses available on Azure, Bloomberg and Microsoft encouraged mutual customers to read data directly from Azure Blob Storage containers.

Microsoft 2023 Q3 Earnings Highlights (April 26, 2023)

Microsoft highlighted its Copilot capabilities and the growing contribution of AI to revenue in its earnings. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella explained that the company will have to decide how to charge for capabilities like in-app generative AI in a way that both appeases customer concerns and delivers profitability.

Confidential container apps on Azure Container Instances reaches public preview (April 21, 2023)