Microsoft's cloud computing services, Azure, is now available to users across internet infrastructures, including clouds owned and operated by competitors, Microsoft announced Monday. The new system, called Azure Arc, was unveiled at Microsoft's Ignite 2019 conference that featured a number of new tools and services for enterprise customers.
"It is really about extending what is in the cloud and letting it run anywhere," Julia White, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Azure, told Cheddar from the conference in Orlando, Florida.
Azure Arc is the latest initiative by Microsoft ($MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella to expand the company's software services and further collaboration — instead of competition — with rivals. Azure programs are expected to now be used on clouds owned by Amazon ($AMZN) and Google ($GOOGL). The new offering is also an investment, Microsoft says, given that the company expects that the cloud market to hit $513 billion by 2022.
"While organizations are running systems in data centers and public clouds … the customer wants one single way to run it," White explained. "Customers can have an application, run part of it on Azure, part of it in their data center, part of it even in other public clouds, and then on edge devices and havdae a single unified way to do that."
Microsoft also said that Azure Arc will make cloud based data and applications more secure by centralizing control and security systems through Azure portals.
"We are excited to see Microsoft bringing Azure data services and management to any infrastructure," Erik Vogel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise's vice president for customer success, hybrid cloud software, and services, added in a statement.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
