Monat: Juni 2019

Azure Security Expert Series: Learn best practices and Customer Lockbox general availability

With more computing environments moving to the cloud, the need for stronger cloud security has never been greater. But what constitutes effective cloud security, and what best practices should you be following?

While Microsoft Azure delivers unmatched built-in security, it is important that you understand the breadth of security controls and take advantage of them to protect your workloads.

We launched the Azure Security Expert Series, which will provide on-going virtual content to help security professionals protect hybrid cloud environments. Ann Johnson, CVP of Cybersecurity Solutions Group at Microsoft, kicked off the series and shared five cloud security best practices:

Strengthen Access Control
Increase your security posture
Secure apps and data
Manage networking
Mitigate threats

Make sure you are up to speed with each of these important best practices as you secure your own organization.

Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure

During Ann’s main talk, she announced the general availability of Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure. Customer Lockbox for Azure extends our commitment to customer privacy while also giving you help when you need it most. With Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Azure, customers can review and approve or reject requests from Microsoft engineers to access their data during a support case. Access is granted only if approved and the entire process is audited with records stored in the Activity Logs.

Customer Lockbox is now generally available and currently enabled for remote desktop access to virtual machines. To learn more, please go to Customer Lockbox for Microsoft documentation.

What will you learn?

Missed the broadcast or want to dive deeper into SIEM, IOT, Networking or Security Center?

Check out the Azure Security Expert series which includes the best practice session with Ann, and additional drill-down sessions including:

Get started with Azure Sentinel a cloud-native SIEM
What is cloud-native Azure Network Security?
Securing the hybrid cloud with Security Center
What makes IoT Security different?

Until June 26th, 2019, you will have a chance to win a Microsoft Xbox One S. To enter, watch the sessions and complete the knowledge check on the entry form and submit the entry.**

‘Ask Us Anything’ with Azure security experts

Have more questions? The Azure security team will be hosting an ‘Ask Us Anything’ session on Twitter on Monday June 24, 2019 from 10 am – 11:30 am PT (1 pm – 2:30 pm ET). Our product and engineering teams will be available to answer questions about Azure security services.

Post your questions to Twitter by mentioning @AzureSupport and using the hashtag #AzureSecuritySeries.

If there are follow-ups or additional questions that come up after the Twitter session, no problem! We’re happy to continue the dialogue afterward through Twitter or send your questions to Azuresecurityexpert@microsoft.com.

Save the date
 

How do I learn more about Azure security and connect with the tech community?

There are several ways to stay connected and access new executive talks, on-demand sessions, or other types of valuable content covering a range of cloud security topics to help you get started or accelerate your cloud security plan.

Watch for content on Azure Security Expert Series.
Visit Microsoft Azure for product details.
Follow the social channel for Azure security news and updates on @Azure.
Join our security community to connect with the engineering teams and participate in previews, group discussions, give feedback, etc.
Accelerate your knowledge on security capabilities within Azure with hands-on training courses with Microsoft Professional Program for Cybersecurity, or watch out for new Azure security training sessions on Microsoft Learn.
Attend Microsoft Ignite for specialized security learning paths and other exclusive activities to learn from the experts and connect with your peers.

**The Sweepstakes will run exclusively between June 19 – June 26 11:59 PM Pacific Time. No purchase necessary. To enter, you must be a legal resident of the 50 United States (including the District of Columbia), and be 18 years of age or older. You will need to complete all the Knowledge Check questions in the entry form to qualify for the sweepstakes. Please refer to our official rules for more details.
Quelle: Azure

New to Azure? Follow these easy steps to get started

Today, many organizations are leveraging digital transformation to deliver their applications and services in the cloud. At Microsoft Build 2019, we announced the general availability of Azure Quickstart Center and received positive feedback from customers. Azure Quickstart Center brings together the step-by-step guidance you need to easily create cloud workloads. The power to easily set up, configure, and manage cloud workloads while being guided by best practices is now built right into the Azure portal.

How do you access Azure Quickstart Center?

There are two ways to access Azure Quickstart Center in the Azure portal. Go to the global search and type in Quickstart Center or select All services on the left nav and type Quickstart Center. Select the star button to save it under your favorites.

Get started

Azure Quickstart Center is designed with you in mind. We created setup guides, start a project, and curated online training for self-paced learning so that you can manage cloud deployment according to your business needs.

Setup guides

To help you prepare your organization for moving to the cloud, our guides Azure setup and Azure migration in the Quickstart Center give you a comprehensive view of best practices for your cloud ecosystem. The setup guides are created by our FastTrack for Azure team who has supported customers in cloud deployment and turned these valuable insights to easy reference guides for you.

The Azure setup guide walks you through how to:

Organize resources: Set up a management hierarchy to consistently apply access control, policy, and compliance to groups of resources and use tagging to track related resources.
Manage access: Use role-based access control to make sure that users have only the permissions they really need.
Manage costs: Identify your subscription type, understand how billing works, and how you can control costs.
Governance, security, and compliance: Enforce and automate policies and security settings that help you follow applicable legal requirements.
Monitoring and reporting: Get visibility across resources to help find and fix problems, optimize performance, or get insight to customer behavior.
Stay current with Azure: Track product updates so you can take a proactive approach to change management.

The Azure migration guide is focused on re-host also known as lift and shift, and gives you a detailed view of how to migrate applications and resources from your on-premises environment to Azure. Our migration guide covers:

Prerequisites: Work with your internal stakeholders to understand the business reasons for migration, determine which assets like infrastructure, apps, and data are being migrated and set the migration timeline.
Assess the digital estate: Assess the workload and each related asset such as infrastructure, apps, and data to ensure the assets are compatible with cloud platforms.
Migrate assets: Identify the appropriate tools to reach a "done state" including native tools, third-party tools, and project management tools.
Manage costs: Cost discussion is a critical step in migration. Use the guidance in this step to drive the discussion.
Optimize and transform: After migration, review the solution for possible areas of optimization. This could include reviewing the design of the solution, right-sizing the services, and analyzing costs.
Secure and manage: Enforce and set up policies to manage the environment to ensure operations efficiency and legal compliance.
Assistance: Learn how to get the right support at the right time to continue your cloud journey in Azure.

Start a project

Compare frequently used Azure services available for different solution types, and discover the best fit for your cloud project. We’ll help you quickly launch and create workloads in the cloud. Pick one of the five common scenarios shown below to compare the deployment options and evaluate high-level architecture overviews, prerequisites, and associated costs.

After you select a scenario, choose an option, and understand the requirements, select Create.

We’ll take you to the create resource page where you’ll follow the steps to create a resource.

Take an online course

Our recommended online learning options let you take a hands-on approach to building Azure skills and knowledge.

Get started today

Use the rich capabilities of the Azure Quickstart Center to create your first cloud solution like a pro.
Quelle: Azure

Microsoft positioned as a leader in the Forrester WaveTM: Database-as-a-service

We’re excited to share that Forrester has named Microsoft as a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Database-as-a-service, Q2 2019. This decision is based on their evaluation of Azure relational and non-relational databases. We believe Microsoft’s position as a leader is further underscored by its standing in the recent Q1 2019 NoSQL Forrester WaveTM.

Database-as-a-service has come a long way

Microsoft provides the freedom to operate wherever you are in your digital transformation, whether modernizing on-premises, migrating to the cloud, or using a hybrid solution. Database-as-a-service (DBaaS) has evolved into a very popular option for organizations looking to reduce their operational and capital expenses, while tapping into the performance and scale benefits of the cloud. Azure database services not only automate many of the daily database chores like updates, patches, and backups, but also use built-in intelligent features. These are on by default to optimize database performance and secure your data, keeping you one step ahead of potential threats.

According to Forrester, “33 percent of global infrastructure business decision makers already support a DBaaS deployment in production, and this will likely double over the next three to four years. In addition, 61 percent of global data and analytics technology decision makers plan to increase their investment for DBaaS in the coming year by at least 5 percent, and 22 percent of them plan to increase it by more than 10 percent compared to the previous year.”

Azure databases built on choice and flexibility

According to the Forrester report, customers “like Microsoft’s automation, ease of provisioning, high availability, security, and technical support.” Microsoft has a comprehensive portfolio of database services on Azure that are grounded in choice and flexibility, providing the right tool for maximizing productivity, efficiency, and return on investment for every use case that customers encounter.

Whether migrating on-premises databases at scale, building multi-tenant software-as-a-service (SaaS) or developing new, cloud native apps, Azure databases comprise the range of relational and non-relational, community-based and proprietary engines that provide a variety of deployment options and support an array of application types. All the Azure databases are managed by Microsoft, so you can focus more on building great apps and growing your business:

Relational databases

Azure SQL Database provides broad SQL Server compatibility and is optimized for SQL Server migrations, OLTP and multi-tenant SaaS applications. Significantly expand the potential for application growth without being limited by storage size with Hyperscale.

Community-based Azure Database for PostgreSQL, Azure Database for MySQL, and Azure Database for MariaDB are enterprise-ready, secure, and ideal for low-latency scenarios such as online gaming and digital marketing. Bring high-performance scaling to your low latency, high-throughput PostgreSQL workloads with Hyperscale powered by Citus Data technology.

NoSQL database

Azure Cosmos DB provides turnkey global distribution and transparent multi-master replication and is great for scalable IoT applications and real-time personalization and analytics.

Forrester states in its report that “Microsoft offers a mature, scalable, secure, and hybrid DBaaS offering.” Azure databases have been tried and tested over the years, becoming more scalable, performant, secure, and intelligent in the process.

Next steps

We’re committed to making Azure the ideal destination for your data migration and the best platform to build powerful, intelligent, and modern apps upon. If you haven’t tried Azure database services, you can try them for free today without signing-up or providing a credit card.

Download the full Forrester WaveTM Database-as-a-Service Q2 2019 report for more details.
Quelle: Azure