Laying a secure cloud foundation for AI-powered enterprises

As AI continues to redefine the way businesses operate, organizations are facing new challenges and demands on their technology platforms. Today’s enterprises want systems that can handle massive amounts of data to support real-time insights while also helping them overcome the challenge of working with operations, applications, data, and infrastructure across IT and OT environments—whether in the cloud, at the edge, or on-premises. 

This is where Azure’s adaptive cloud approach enabled by Azure Arc comes into play. Azure is designed to help unify operations, streamline application development, and consolidate data management across distributed infrastructures to meet the demands of an AI-powered world. 

At Microsoft’s Ignite conference, we announced new capabilities that make it easier to use the power of Azure wherever you need it. These announcements include the preview of Azure Arc gateway, the introduction of Windows Server Management enabled by Azure Arc, the preview of Azure Container Storage enabled by Azure Arc, Azure Monitor pipeline, Azure Key Vault Secret Store, general availability (GA) of Azure IoT Operations, Fabric Real-Time Intelligence, and the introduction of Azure Local, among others. 

Azure Arc, the core component of this approach, now supports over 39,000 customers worldwide, connecting servers, databases, and Kubernetes clusters directly to Azure. The rapid growth of Azure Arc signals that the cloud is more than just a place; it is a paradigm shift spread throughout every organization. We are excited to share how customers such as LALIGA, Coles, Husqvarna, and Emirates Global Aluminium are leveraging the adaptive cloud approach to help achieve their business goals. 

Operate anywhere with AI-enhanced management and security

For one of our customers, LALIGA, one of the world’s largest football leagues, Azure’s adaptive cloud approach has been critical for managing an infrastructure capable of helping support real-time data processing across its stadiums and digital platforms to deliver an engaging fan experience. By adopting Azure Arc, LALIGA has achieved seamless management of both cloud and on-premises environments, processing over 3 million data points per match and enabling rapid, AI-powered insights. This unified platform provides LALIGA with the flexibility and scalability to react to dynamic fan interactions and optimize operations, to help ensure they can continue evolving alongside new technologies and market demands. 

“The challenges that we have can be solved with this adaptive cloud approach. I think that we have the right tool, which is Azure Arc. With this, we’re able to manage the infra no matter if it’s located in the cloud, on-premises, in the edge.”—Miguel Angel Leal Góngora, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, LALIGA 

Enabling operational resilience and security across distributed systems is a foundational requirement to help maintain service and protect sensitive data.

Azure provides comprehensive tools that help streamline operations and management of both infrastructure and applications, including configuration management and governance, resiliency and observability, built-in security and control, and universal AI assistants like Copilot in Azure. An essential part of simplifying cloud connectivity from datacenter and edge sites is the new Azure Arc gateway in preview. Built in response to customer feedback, this capability provides a streamlined approach that simplifies cloud connectivity and empowers teams to manage cloud connections more easily, enhancing control over the network infrastructure. 

In addition, we are simplifying access to Windows Server Management enabled by Azure Arc. At no extra cost, customers with Software Assurance (SA) or active subscription licenses can access certain Azure Arc-enabled management capabilities. By connecting their servers to Azure, customers can use over 20 of Azure’s services, including Azure Update Manager, Machine Configuration, and Azure Monitor, as well as Windows Server features like Azure Site Recovery and Best Practices Assessment. These tools help centralize and modernize management across hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge environments.

Simplifying app development and accelerating innovation with Arc enabled Kubernetes

Leveraging cloud native development to drive innovation is a key focus for modern infrastructure and Microsoft’s adaptive cloud approach provides solutions that help make this easier for developers.

One of the primary challenges that developers face is ensuring applications remain reliable, even in disconnected or intermittent network scenarios. A significant part of this solution is the new Azure Container Storage enabled by Azure Arc, which is currently available in preview. Azure Container Storage allows developers to build containerized applications that operate seamlessly across environments, regardless of where data is stored and despite intermittent connectivity. With this capability, data is automatically synchronized between local storage and cloud environments when connectivity is restored, ensuring that developers can confidently build edge solutions that are scalable and robust. 

The new Azure Monitor pipeline allows teams to ingest and process large volumes of data efficiently, allowing for quick identification and resolution of potential issues. This streamlined data pipeline is key for maintaining operational efficiency and scaling modern cloud-native applications across distributed environments.

Security becomes increasingly complex as systems span clouds, datacenters, and edge. Azure Key Vault Secret Store provides a robust solution for managing secrets within Kubernetes clusters, offering features such as auto-rotation of secrets for enhanced security. This modern cloud security approach helps to ensure that sensitive information remains secure across Linux and Windows environments and offers a reliable and scalable way to secure applications and workloads. 

Coles operates more than 1,800 stores across Australia, including 850 Coles Supermarkets locations. Committed to seamless experiences for millions of customers in person and online, the retailer is constantly investing in innovative technologies, such as AI and computer vision. Coles uses Azure Machine Learning to train and develop edge AI models and run these models locally in their stores. Leveraging Azure’s adaptive cloud approach, the company reports it has met its target of a six-times increase in the pace that it can deploy applications to stores. 

“We’re going to be working more with Microsoft over the next 12 months to build out Azure Machine Learning operations for the edge to be able to seamlessly test and deploy new models and ensure auditability of our models and the different versions over time. The Azure automated machine learning tool was really useful for us, and it speeds up our data annotation time for training models by 50%.”—Roslyn Mackay, Head of Technology Innovation, Coles Group 

Unifying data from edge to cloud for AI-powered insights

In a recent Forrester survey commissioned by Microsoft, respondents shared that on average 46% of the data captured by their organization is currently sent to the cloud and that they expect that number to grow to 68% within just two years. With Azure Arc, organizations can more consistently manage and secure connected devices across distributed environments, to help ensure data integrity at every level. 

The GA of Azure IoT Operations further enhances this capability by simplifying the process of collecting, managing, and processing data from IoT devices. Additionally, the GA of Fabric Real-Time Intelligence enables ingestion of signals from the edge for transformation, visualization, tracking, AI, and real-time actions in the cloud. This complements Fabric’s existing suite of insights and analytics capabilities including OneLake and Power BI. Together, these services help provide businesses with the ability to leverage AI fully across their distributed estate. 

Husqvarna is a world-leader in outdoor products for forest, park, lawn, and garden care, as well as equipment and diamond tools for the light construction industry. Husqvarna’s business goals include doubling the number of connected devices it currently has in the market, doubling the sales of robotic lawn mowers, and increasing its market share of electrified solutions, all of which will require a highly effective global supply chain. Husqvarna envisions Azure IoT Operations as an important component of the platform they are defining by providing new capabilities that will allow them to build a data-powered, global supply chain and improve processes in ways that were previously difficult. For Husqvarna, the ability to harness data on a global scale will allow them to develop a stronger and more efficient supply chain, reduce costs, and help enhance their efficiency in delivering goods to their customers. 

Innovating on a blended infrastructure, together 

Microsoft’s vision for the future of distributed infrastructure centers on creating a seamless blend of cloud and customer environments, fundamentally redefining what cloud infrastructure means. Instead of treating cloud as a separate entity, Microsoft’s approach integrates customer environments with cloud services, allowing businesses to extend their technology operations across datacenter, edge, and public cloud environments.

A cornerstone of this vision is the introduction of Azure Local. Azure Local is an Arc-enabled infrastructure designed specifically for local data processing and critical operations, bringing cloud-like capabilities to on-premises environments. This solution enables organizations to manage workloads that require low-latency and robust performance while benefiting from the scalability and resilience of the cloud. 

Azure Local’s architecture is built to support near real-time processing needs and can help our customers with more options for their regulatory compliance requirements, including decentralized or disconnected scenarios.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), based in the United Arab Emirates has rapidly grown from a small regional smelter into a vertically integrated aluminium provider serving more than 400 customers from aerospace to automotive to consumer goods, and is now the world’s largest premium aluminium producer. To support both its on-site operations and broader cloud-based solutions, including its digital manufacturing platform, EGA is now focused on a plan to move one-third of its server base to the cloud with Azure and another third to run hybrid and at the edge with Azure Local, bringing together the best of the public and private cloud from one provider.

After bringing the power of the cloud into its operation areas, EGA experienced 10 to 13 times faster AI response time, lower latency, and 86% cost savings associated with AI video and image recognition in comparison to building an AI model at the edge independently.

“Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud brings us not just infrastructure as a service capability, but also many software and platform capabilities that open up new possibilities we didn’t have in our former on-premises environment. One of the key capabilities is running real-time AI data analysis in our operations. For example, we used to manually inspect only 2% of anodes, which are large carbon blocks used in the aluminium smelting process. Now, we inspect 100% of all anodes using vision AI based on a neural network machine learning model running on the edge (with Azure Local). This model allows us to standardize the inspection process by automatically recognizing defects in real time going beyond what the human eye can see.”—Carlo Khalil Nizam, Chief Digital Officer, EGA 

Looking ahead: join us in shaping the future of adaptive cloud

At Microsoft, our commitment to the adaptive cloud approach is not just about addressing today’s challenges. It is about equipping organizations to thrive in the AI-powered world of tomorrow. As we continue to innovate, we are excited to partner with you to redefine what is possible across distributed environments.

Want to learn more about our roadmap and how Azure is powering transformation across industries? Check out our Microsoft Ignite sessions and blogs to dive deeper into the latest announcements, hear from our experts, and explore how the adaptive cloud approach can work for you. Let’s build the future together. 

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