Microsoft Build: 10 Interesting Technologies Hitting GA

The Microsoft Build conference was virtual this year, but many of the product and platform revelations coming out of the show were concrete.

Let's look at 10 interesting technologies that hit general availability (or at least got GA timeframes) at the developer-centric event that kicked off on Tuesday.

1. Project Cortex
While Build was filled with mostly small bore announcements, one of the larger ones was Project Cortex. Billed as the first new service in Microsoft 365 since the launch of Microsoft Teams, Project Cortex involves applying artificial intelligence to the Microsoft Graph. The new service is intended to surface knowledge and information from within the apps that workers use daily. While still in private preview, Project Cortex makes this GA list because general availability has now been promised for "early summer."

2. Azure Spatial Anchors
Graduating from preview to GA are Azure Spatial Anchors. Developers can use the anchors for mixed-reality apps that "map, persist and share 3D content," according to a Microsoft description. Intended for gaming, social networking, networking, manufacturing and retail, Azure Spatial Anchors are designed to share persisting 3-D content for HoloLens, iOS and Android devices.

3. IoT Hub Support for Virtual Networks
IoT Hub is Microsoft's cloud gateway for collecting telemetry data from IoT devices. What's becoming generally available is virtual network (VNET) support. That way customers can set up a more secure connection through Azure VNETs that they own.

4. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Support
Microsoft's capabilities for orchestrating and managing containers matured considerably at Build with a handful of announcements involving GA of support around AKS. For one, AKS now supports Windows Server containers, allowing Windows and Linux applications to run within a single AKS cluster. AKS also newly supports private clusters and best-practice recommendations on performance, availability and security.

5. Responsible ML Workflow Documentation Capabilities
Not exactly a technology, but heavily intertwined with and informed by one, is some documentation capability for developers. A major theme out of Microsoft the last few years has been socially responsible use of emerging technologies. In line with that effort are new workflow documentation capabilities being made available to customers shortly after Build. The capabilities to enforce accountability cover Azure Machine Learning.

6. Azure Peering Service
This enterprise-focused networking service involving Microsoft partnerships with telecoms and carriers allows companies that are heavy users of Office 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure to ensure more reliable and higher-performance public connectivity and optimal routing.

7. Bookings App in Teams
The Bookings app allows scheduling, managing and conducting business-to-consumer meetings. Microsoft announced the integration of the app into Teams in March, and Build marks its general availability. Microsoft says the Bookings app in Teams allows organizations to consolidate management of meetings for multiple departments in one scheduling tool.

8. Azure Secure Score API
An API for the Azure Secure Score service is generally available for those who might want to incorporate the security benchmarking/snapshot tool into other applications. The API covers the enhanced version of Secure Score, which is still in preview. The new version is designed to be more meaningful to users and to group the scores and recommendations by their associated attack surfaces.

9. Windows Terminal
I guess this Microsoft statement qualifies as general availability: "The Windows Terminal is now out of preview and stable for enterprise use." Windows Terminal is an open source project available from the Microsoft Store and designed for command-line tool users. Power users can run things like Command Prompt, PowerShell and WSL from an interface with tabs, panes, custom themes and a GPU-accelerated text rendering engine.

10. Azure Cosmos DB Autoscale Provisioned Throughput
Like Project Cortex, this is another one that's not quite ready, but that makes the list because Microsoft is now talking about a GA date, in this case summer. Azure Cosmos DB autoscale provisioned throughput, a mouthful that Microsoft used to call "autopilot," handles planning and management of throughput capacity. Microsoft says it's suited for large, unpredictable workloads.

Posted by Scott Bekker on May 19, 2020