2. New Ways to Gather, Store and Analyze Data
It was difficult to find a session or keynote that didn’t involve data in some way. Expanded cloud capabilities means that organizations are able to collect and store more data than ever before, and it’s estimated that the industry will be worth $77 billion by 2023.
Microsoft’s big splash in Big Data came in the form of Azure Synapse Analytics, a service that combines data warehousing with analytics to allow structured and unstructured data analytics to be brought together at enterprise scale. With deep integration with Azure Machine Learning, Synapse Analytics can also better predict outcomes through the same system.
3. Using Machine Learning to Create Business Solutions
Machine learning had plenty of action on its own during Microsoft Ignite, most notably with the announcement of Project Cortex. The knowledge network harnesses machine learning, along with artificial intelligence, to make organizational data easily accessible.
It combs through the entirety of a company’s files, from documents to contracts to videos, and it puts together a “knowledge hub” for everything that pertains to a particular topic or project. “This is again putting your data to work for you,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in his vision keynote.
MORE FROM BIZTECH: Read why small businesses want to consider DRaaS right now.
4. Microsoft Products are Built for Integration
One aspect of many of these announcements that might be most intriguing for IT departments is that there is no need to migrate to a new service to use these new products. Microsoft has built-in capabilities to run many of its Azure services on outside providers or use Azure to power existing infrastructure.
Azure Arc, for example, works with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, allowing businesses to run Azure’s services on their current cloud provider. There’s also Azure VMware Solutions, which allows organizations to use Azure to power their current VMware infrastructure. This is particularly good news for organizations who might not have the time or resources to change providers.
5. Cybersecurity Continues to Evolve
Cybersecurity threats are the top concern among businesses overall. During Ignite, Microsoft announced a new capability built into Microsoft 365 that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to protect against one of the biggest threats against companies: the inside job.
The system will now be able to track digital movements from employees and alert the organization to any trends that might be concerning, allowing companies to confront a potential problem before it happens. Microsoft CISO Bret Arsenault also emphasized the importance of device health, zero-trust, and even password elimination to simplify security.
Find more of BizTech's coverage of Microsoft Ignite 2019 here.
