Extend your clusters capabilities through Kubernetes Apps from Azure Marketplace
Seeking to enhance your cloud-native capabilities? Kubernetes Apps on Azure Marketplace offers a transformative solution for your deployment needs. Designed by esteemed industry partners, these applications are crafted to address the complexities of contemporary cloud environments. Envision having a comprehensive array of partner and open-source Kubernetes solutions readily available. With a single click, you can effortlessly deploy these applications to your Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Arc-connected clusters. The entire process is streamlined, with integrated Azure billing and efficient lifecycle management capabilities, ensuring a smooth and hassle-free experience. The cumbersome procurement processes of the past are now obsolete. Through the trusted procurement channels of Azure Marketplace, you can swiftly and securely acquire your Kubernetes solutions. Furthermore, each purchase contributes to your Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), presenting a clear advantage for your organization. Ready to dive into the world of cloud-native applications? Kubernetes Apps on Azure Marketplace offer unparalleled benefits for those eager to run their apps on Kubernetes. Here's why these apps stand out and why they should be your top choice: Secure Deployment You Can Trust When it comes to deploying Kubernetes apps on Azure Marketplace, security and reliability are paramount. Each app undergoes a meticulous certification process and rigorous vulnerability scans before it’s made available to you. This means that solution providers must address any security issues detected, ensuring the app is safe and secure from the get-go. But the security doesn’t stop there. Once an app is published, it continues to be scanned for malware and vulnerabilities regularly. This continuous monitoring ensures that the apps you deploy remain secure and free from known threats, offering robust protection for your applications and data. With these comprehensive security measures, you can deploy Kubernetes apps on your clusters with confidence, knowing that your apps are shielded by multiple layers of protection. Leveraging ARM for Kubernetes Kubernetes applications benefit immensely from cluster extensions that provide ARM-driven lifecycle management. When deployed as a Kubernetes cluster extension, these applications become Azure ARM resources. This transformation allows you to apply all Azure management capabilities, including Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), policies, and monitoring, directly to your Kubernetes apps. ARM and RBAC integration on Kubernetes means end users no longer need to log in to the Kubernetes cluster to install Helm charts. This significant improvement enhances security by reducing potential attack vectors to the cluster. Moreover, the cluster state automatically reconciles to the declarative state if any unwanted changes or errors occur, ensuring consistency and reliability. By turning your Kubernetes apps into ARM resources, you unlock the full spectrum of Azure management tools. This includes centralized control, policy enforcement, and comprehensive monitoring, all underpinned by the robust security measures provided by Azure. Lifecycle Management of Kubernetes Apps Keeping your Kubernetes apps up-to-date is a breeze with the auto-upgrade feature, which ensures you always have the latest features and patches. Scheduled during planned maintenance windows, these updates help maintain seamless operations. Additionally, you’ll enjoy version compatibility support along with a comprehensive matrix of supported cluster types, making Kubernetes apps the smart, secure, and reliable choice for your deployment needs. Benefit from the power of CI/CD automation through ARM-based APIs. By using ARM templates, you can define and deploy your Kubernetes apps as a cohesive unit, streamlining your deployment and configuration processes. This not only simplifies management but also enhances the overall efficiency and effectiveness of your application lifecycle. Programmatic Deployments of Apps In today's dynamic cloud environment, flexibility and ease of deployment are key. That's why we're excited to support the deployment of Kubernetes apps through multiple programmatic methods. Whether you prefer Terraform, CLI, ARM, or the Azure Portal, we have you covered. These tools offer seamless integration and streamline the process, making sure your applications are up and running with minimal effort. We understand that your workloads may be diverse and spread across various environments. Our hybrid deployment capabilities ensure that Kubernetes apps can be enabled not only on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters but also on Arc-enabled clusters, whether on-premises or at the edge. This flexibility means you can manage and deploy your Kubernetes apps through the Azure Portal or CLI, no matter where your workloads reside. Embrace the power and convenience of hybrid deployments and take your Kubernetes management to the next level. Unlocking Benefits with Azure Consumption Commitment If your organization has Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) agreements with Microsoft, you're in for a treat! Kubernetes Apps on Azure Marketplace are MACC eligible, meaning you can leverage these commitments for additional benefits over time. This not only helps in optimizing costs but also ensures you get the most out of your Azure investments. Flexible Billing Options for Kubernetes Apps One size doesn't fit all, especially when it comes to billing for Kubernetes Apps. That's why we offer a range of flexible billing models to suit your needs. Whether you prefer being billed based on usage (per core/per node, etc.), a flat rate, or custom dimensions, we've got you covered. Plus, we support upfront billing through private offers, giving you even more control and predictability over your expenditures. Choose the billing option that works best for you and focus on what matters most—running and scaling your applications with ease. How to Get Started with Kubernetes Apps Deploying Kubernetes apps has never been easier, thanks to a variety of methods at your disposal: - Programmatically deploy using Terraform: Utilize the power of Terraform to automate and manage your Kubernetes applications. - Deploy programmatically with Azure CLI: Leverage the Azure CLI for straightforward, command-line based deployments. - Use ARM templates for programmatic deployment: Define and deploy your Kubernetes applications efficiently with ARM templates. - Deploy via AKS in the Azure portal: Take advantage of the user-friendly Azure portal for a seamless deployment experience. Choose the method that best fits your workflow and get your Kubernetes applications up and running with ease. We hope this guide has been helpful and has made the process of deploying Kubernetes apps on Azure a bit clearer. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks, and happy deploying! 😄Unlocking the Power of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes: Simplifying Hybrid and MultiCloud Management
In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, managing applications across hybrid and multi-cloud environments has emerged as a complex challenge. Enter Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, a groundbreaking solution designed to simplify and streamline these operations. Let’s delve into the myriad offerings of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes and illustrate how it can transform hybrid and multi-cloud management for you. What is Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes? Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes extends Azure management capabilities to Kubernetes clusters running on-premises, at the edge, or in other cloud environments. By integrating with the Azure ecosystem, it provides a unified management experience, enabling you to manage, govern, and secure your Kubernetes clusters from a single control plane. Key Features and Offerings Unified Management Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes brings all your Kubernetes clusters, whether on-premises or in the cloud, under one management umbrella. This unified approach simplifies operations, such as monitoring, reducing the complexity and overhead associated with managing disparate environments. Consistent Deployment One of the standout features of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes is its ability to deliver consistent deployment across various environments. By using GitOps-based configuration, you can ensure that your applications and infrastructure are deployed consistently, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. This consistency enhances reliability and reduces the risk of misconfigurations. Enhanced Security and Compliance Security and compliance are paramount in today’s IT landscape. Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes leverages Azure Security Center and Azure Policy to provide robust security and compliance capabilities. With policy enforcement and threat detection, you can ensure that your Kubernetes clusters meet stringent security standards. Seamless Integration with Azure Services Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes integrates seamlessly with a wide array of Azure services. Whether it’s Azure Monitor for observability, Azure DevOps for CI/CD pipelines and GitOps, or Azure Machine Learning for AI workloads, you can leverage Azure’s rich ecosystem to enhance your Kubernetes environments. Flexibility and Scalability Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes offers unparalleled flexibility and scalability. It allows you to run your applications where it makes the most sense—on-premises, at the edge, or in the cloud—without compromising on management capabilities. This flexibility ensures that you can scale your operations seamlessly as your business grows. Simplifying Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Management Streamlined Operations Managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments traditionally involves dealing with multiple management tools and interfaces. Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes streamlines these operations by providing a single management platform. This simplification reduces operational overhead and allows your IT team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than mundane management tasks. Centralized Governance Governance is a critical aspect of managing hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, you can apply policies consistently across all your Kubernetes clusters. This centralized governance ensures that your environments comply with corporate and regulatory standards, regardless of where they are hosted. Improved Visibility Visibility is key to effective management. Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes provides comprehensive visibility into your Kubernetes clusters through Azure Monitor and Azure Security Center. This enhanced visibility allows you to monitor the health, performance, and security of your clusters in real-time, enabling proactive management and quicker issue resolution. Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) By consolidating management operations and leveraging Azure’s integrated services, Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes can significantly reduce the total cost of ownership. This reduction in TCO is achieved through decreased operational complexity, improved resource utilization, and the elimination of the need for multiple management tools. Real-World Use Cases To better understand the impact of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, let’s explore some real-world use cases: Financial Services In the financial services industry, data privacy and compliance are of utmost importance. Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes allows financial institutions to manage their Kubernetes clusters across on-premises data centers and public clouds, ensuring consistent security policies and compliance with regulatory requirements. Take a look at one of our customer’s case study: Microsoft Customer Story-World Bank invests in greater efficiency and security with Microsoft Azure Arc Healthcare Healthcare organizations can leverage Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes to manage their applications across hybrid environments. This capability is crucial for maintaining data sovereignty and complying with health regulations while enabling efficient application deployment and management. Retail Retail businesses often operate in a hybrid environment, with applications running in on-premises data centers and public clouds. Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes provides a unified management platform, allowing retailers to manage their applications consistently and efficiently, enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiency. Take a look at one of our customer’s case study: Microsoft Customer Story-DICK’S Sporting Goods creates an omnichannel athlete experience using Azure Arc and AKS Getting Started with Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes Prerequisites Before you start, ensure that you have the following prerequisites in place: An Azure subscription Kubernetes clusters (on-premises, at the edge, or in other cloud environments) Azure CLI installed Basic knowledge of Kubernetes and Azure For additional prerequisites please refer here How to Discover and Deploy Kubernetes applications that support Azure Arc-enabled clusters: Discover Kubernetes Applications: 1. In the Azureportal, search for Marketplace on the top search bar. In the results, under Services, select Marketplace. 2. You can search for an offer or publisher directly by name, or you can browse all offers. To find Kubernetes application offers, on the left side under Categories select Containers. 3. You'll see several Kubernetes application offers displayed on the page. To view all of the Kubernetes application offers, select See more. 4. Search for the applications using the ‘publisherId’ that was identified earlier as part of discovering applications that support connected clusters. Deploying a Kubernetes application using the Azure Portal: 1. On the Plans + Pricing tab, review the options. If there are multiple plans available, find the one that meets your needs. Review the terms on the page to make sure they're acceptable, and then select Create. 2. Select the resource group and Arc-enabled cluster to which you want to deploy the application. 3. Complete all pages of the deployment wizard to specify all configuration options that the application requires. 4. Whenyou're finished, select Review + Create, then select Create to deploy the offer. 5. When the application is deployed, the portal shows Your deployment is complete, along with details of the deployment. 6. Lastly, verify the deployment navigating to the cluster you recently installed the extension on, then navigate to Extensions, where you'll see the extension status. If the deployment was successful, theStatuswill beSucceeded. If the status isCreating, the deployment is still in progress. Wait a few minutes then check again. Conclusion Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes is a powerful solution that simplifies hybrid and multi-cloud management for tech enthusiasts and enterprises alike. With its unified management capabilities, consistent deployment, enhanced security, and seamless integration with Azure services, it transforms the way you manage your Kubernetes clusters. By adopting Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, you can streamline operations, improve visibility, and reduce costs, all while leveraging the flexibility and scalability of hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Embrace the future of Kubernetes management with Azure Arc and unlock the full potential of your hybrid and multi-cloud strategy. 😄Microsoft Ignite 2024: Celebrating the Success of Our First Show Floor Interview Series
🔥 Microsoft Ignite 2024 has wrapped, and what an event it was! This year, we tried something new - theIgnite Show Floor Interview Series - and it is safe to say it was a huge success. Alongside liorkamrat and thomasmaurer, I had the privilege of conducting interviews with some of the most innovative minds in our Adaptive Cloud ecosystem. We spoke with partners, customers, ISVs from the Azure Arc ISV program (Announcing the Azure Arc ISV Partner Program at Ignite), and Microsoft MVPs, diving into their unique stories, their takeaways from Ignite, and how they’re leveraging Microsoft technologies to drive innovation. 17 Interviews, Countless Stories In total, we produced 17 videos during Ignite, each offering a fresh perspective on cloud innovation. Here is a snapshot on everyone we talked to: Why This Matters This was our first year running the Show Floor Interview Series, and it exceeded our expectations. Here’s why we’re excited: Showcasing Innovation: These interviews highlighted the incredible work being done across the Adaptive Cloud ecosystem, from large enterprises to individual experts Building Community: The series wasn’t just about interviews; it was about connecting with people, hearing their challenges, and celebrating their successes Expanding Reach: By sharing these conversations on our Jumpstart YouTube channel and LinkedIn, we helped bring these stories to a wider audience - even for those that were not able to attend Ignite this year What's Next? While Ignite 2024 is over, this is just the beginning. We are already thinking about how to expand and improve this series for future events. Expect more interviews, more insights, and more opportunities to engage with the Microsoft community next year. And we didn’t just stick to business - we even had a little fun with attendees, asking them what their favorite Microsoft Ignite swag was! 🚀 Haven’t seen the interviews yet? Check out our full playlist on the Arc Jumpstart YouTube channel here. Thank You! A huge thank you to everyone who participated and a huge thank you to everyone who tuned in to our series! To our partners, customers, ISVs, and MVPs - thank you for sharing your time and insights. You made this series what it is, and we are excited to continue building on this momentum! Here’s to the power of innovation, collaboration, and community. Let’s keep the conversation going!Ignite 2024: Azure AI Video Indexer Enhances Multi-Modal Video Summarization
We are thrilled to introduce the Multi Modal Video Summarization, an enhancement to our previouslyintroduced textual video summarization for recorded video and audio files. This new feature allows customers to obtain concise textual summaries of their videos by identifying key frames and processing them through a GenAI engine using Azure OpenAI or Phi3.5 model. By leveraging the Key frames as an input in addition to the audio and visual insights computed by Azure Video Indexer, prompts are generated to assist the language model in creating a comprehensive video summary. This multi modal approach, ensuring a more accurate and contextually rich summary, suitable for more use cases and scenarios. This feature is available both in the cloud, powered by Azure OpenAI, and on the Edge, as part of VI enabled by ARC, utilizing the latest Phi3.5 visual model that can be configured to run with GPUs for improved performance. Summary of a short video that had no audio, by applying key frames extraction as part of the Textual Summary using GPT4V. The Power of Keyframes By incorporating Video Indexer’s keyframe extraction technology, which captures key moments in the video, and combining them with other audio insights from the video indexer engine such as transcripts, special sounds like alarms or applause, and visual signals including Optical Character Recognition (OCR), object detection, labels, and more, the Multi-Modal video summarization can leverage these signals more effectively and process them using language models like Phi3.5 or GPT4 Visual that receive a textual prompt as well as visual input. This comprehensive approach, of providing the language model rich prompt based on visual and audio insights along with the actual keyframes, ensures that the summaries that are generated are more accurate, contextually rich and relevant to more use cases and industries. Consider the scenario of summarizing long security camera footage with no audio. Relying solely on audio signals and visual insights might miss critical events captured in the video. With our new multi modal keyframe-based summarization, the model can identify and highlight significant moments, such as when individuals enter restricted areas or when a suspicious behavior occurs. By obtaining these summaries, security analysts can quickly review hours of footage, identifying critical events without needing to watch the entire video. This saves precious time and enhances the effectiveness of security monitoring. GPUs at the edge: Enhance Azure AI Video Indexer enabled by Arc with integration with SLM through Phi3.5 The Multi Modal Textual Summarization on Edge has been upgraded to use the Phi-3.5-mini-instruct model. This model, with its 128k context size and modest hardware requirements, now supports image processing essential for the newly introduced keyframe processing. This model can run on GPUs, enhancing it performance. On average, the runtime on A100 is 14.5% of the video duration, and this can be even lower for some videos. Creating an Azure AI Video Indexer Arc extension and configuring GPU to run Textual Video Summarization. How to make it available in my Azure AI Video Indexer account? Use Textual Video Summarization in Your Public Cloud Environment: If you already have an existing Azure Video Indexer account, follow these steps to use the video summarization: Create an Azure Open AI resource in your subscription. Connect your Azure Open AI resource to your Video Indexer resource in the Azure Portal. Go to Azure Video Indexer portal, select a video and choose “Generate summary”. For detailed instructions on how to set up this integration, click here . Please note that this feature is not available in Video Indexer trial accounts or on legacy accounts which uses Azure Media services. Leverage this opportunity also to remove your dependency on Azure Media services by following these instructions. Use Textual Video Summarization in Your Edge Environment, enabled by Arc: If your edge appliances are integrated with the Azure Platform via Azure Arc, here’s how to activate the feature: Register for Video Indexer (VI) enabled by Arc using this form. Rest assured, we are dedicated to activating the Azure AI Video Indexer Arc-enabled extension in your Video Indexer account within 30 days of your request. Once activated, create an Azure AI Video Indexer service extension by adhering to these guidelines. Go to the Azure Video Indexer portal, select a video under your extension, and click “Generate Summary”. For detailed instructions on how to set use the feature click here or watch the demo. Our Video-to-text API (aka Prompt Content API) now also supports Llama2, Phi3, Phi3.5, GPT4O and GPT4OMini Our Video-to-Text API, also known as the Prompt Content API , now supports additional models: Llama2, Phi3, Phi3.5, GPT-4O, and GPT-4O Mini. This enhancement provides greater flexibility when converting video content to text, opening up more opportunities for Azure Video Indexer customers. Users can gather information from Azure Video Indexer in a prompt format that can be customized by selecting the model name and adjusting the prompt style. The “Summarized” style is ideal for tasks like video summaries, naming videos, and describing main events, while the “Full” style is more suited for Q&A, RAG, and search use cases. To learn more about this API, click Here. Read More About the introduced features Video Summarization Demo Video Summarization: Public feature documentation Video Summarization on Edge with Phi Transparency note Prompt content: Video-to-text API About Azure AI Video Indexer Use Azure AI Video Indexer website to access product website Visit Azure AI Video Indexer Developer Portal to learn about our APIs Search the Azure Video Indexer GitHub repository Review our product documentation. Get to know the recent features using Azure AI Video Indexer release notes Use Stack overflow community for technical questions. To report an issue with Azure AI Video Indexer, go to Azure portal Help + support. Create a new support request. Your request will be tracked within SLA. For any other question, contact our support distribution list at visupport@microsoft.comOperate everywhere with AI-enhanced management and security
Farzana Rahman and Dushyant Gill from Microsoft discuss new AI-enhanced features in Azure that make it simpler to acquire, connect, and operate with Azure's management offerings across multiple clouds, on-premises, and at the edge. Key updates include enhanced management for Windows servers and virtual machines with Windows Software Assurance, Windows Server 2025 hotpatching support in Azure Update Manager, simplified hybrid environment connectivity with Azure Arc gateway, a multicloud connector for AWS, and Log Analytics Simple Mode. Additionally, Azure Migrate Business Case helps compare the total cost of ownership, and new Copilot in Azure capabilities that simplify cloud management and provide intelligent recommendations.
Generally Available: Multicloud connector enabled by Azure Arc
We are excited to announce that the Multicloud connector is now generally available for customers for AWS environments. With the Multicloud connector, you can easily connect your AWS accounts to Azure with the following capabilities: Inventory: Get an up-to-date, comprehensive view of your cloud assets across different cloud providers. Now supporting over 30+ AWS services (EC2, EKS, S3, Lambda, and more), you can now gain insights into your Azure & AWS environments in a single pane of glass. The agentless inventory solution will periodically scan your AWS environment, project the discovered resources in AWS as Azure resources, including all of the AWS metadata like AWS tags. Now, you can easily view, query, and tag these resources from a centralized location. Azure Arc onboarding: Automatically Arc-enable your existing and future EC2 instances so you can leverage Azure and Microsoft services, like Azure Monitor and Microsoft Defender. Through the multicloud connector, the Azure Arc agent will be automatically installed for machines that meet theprerequisites. How do I get started? You can easily set up the multicloud connector by following ourgetting started guidewhich provides step by step instructions on creating the connector and setting up the permissions on the AWS console. What can I do after my connector is set up? With the inventory offering, you can see and query for all of your AWS and Azure resources via Azure Resource Graph. Check out some example querieshere. Create your own Multicloud dashboards containing data from both Azure and AWS. For Azure Arc onboarding, you can apply the Azure management services on your EC2 instances that are Arc-enabled. Learn morehere. We are very excited about the new capabilities. Set up your multicloud connector now for free! Please let us know if you have any questions by posting on theAzure Arc forumor via Microsoft support. Here is themutlicloud capabilities technical documentationCheck out the Ignite sessionhere!
Announcing the Azure Arc ISV Partner Program at Ignite
Empowering Partners and Enhancing Customer Experience We are thrilled to introduce the newly launched Azure Arc ISV Partner Program at Ignite! This innovative and growing ecosystem partner program allows them to publish offers on the Azure Marketplace that can be deployed to Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters. Customers can now access validated, enterprise-grade applications and tools to enhance their Azure Arc development, while ISVs benefit from a deeper integration with Azure Arc services and access to the Arc enabled customer base. All marketplace images have been validated across the Azure Arc platform with the support of both Microsoft and partner teams. With the solutions each partner has made available on the Azure marketplace, the integration with Azure Arc offers central governance to build robust applications with consistent security and reliability for any hybrid deployments. What is Azure Arc? Azure Arc is a platform that extends Azure to datacenters, on-premises, edge, or even multi-cloud environments. It simplifies governance and management by delivering the consistency of the Azure platform. The ability to create offerings for Azure Arc in the marketplace is a significant benefit to our partners, allowing them to integrate with Azure services and tools and access a large and diverse customer base. Azure Arc also provides validated applications for customers to manage their Kubernetes clusters on our platform. Edge developers leverage the open-source community to build their enterprise applications, and we aim to provide them with a one-stop shop in Azure Marketplace, offering a choice of Kubernetes-based building blocks needed to develop their applications. Meet our partners With our Ignite launch, we have built the foundation of an ecosystem that is designed to bring the best capabilities and innovations to our marketplace, focused on leading building block categories: databases, big data/analytics, and messaging. We are excited to introduce our esteemed partners, (CloudCasa, MongoDB, Redis, MinIO, DataStax) who have Arc enabled their application and will now be available on the Azure Marketplace. Here’s a closer look at their offerings: CloudCasa CloudCasa is a leading provider of Kubernetes backup and recovery solutions. By Arc-enabling their application, CloudCasa offers robust, secure, and easy-to-use backup services for Kubernetes, ensuring the protection and availability of critical data. With CloudCasa, your Arc enabled Kubernetes deployments across hybrid environments are fully protected, ensure that your data is safe and recoverable, no matter the scenario. CloudCasa’s integration with Azure Arc offers three key components: handling persistent volume with or without CSI snapshots, unified management and monitoring across environments, and disaster recovery and migration for AKS hybrid. One-way CloudCasa manages persistent storage is that it natively integrates with Container Storage Interface snapshots, ensuring that all your persistent volumes can be captured and protected without interrupting your workloads. CloudCasa also provides a powerful disaster recovery and migration solution. For AKS on Azure Stack HCI, this means you can confidently deploy hybrid and edge clusters, knowing that you have a trusted solution to recover from any disaster, or even perform seamless migrations from edge to cloud or vice versa. To explore CloudCasa’s full capabilities for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters, visit the CloudCasa Marketplace listing for Azure Arc or find out more at cloudcasa.io. For personalized assistance, feel free to contact casa@cloudcasa.io. DataStax DataStax is a leading provider of Gen AI solutions for AI developers. With DataStax HCD (Hyper-Converged Database), businesses can harness the power of Apache Cassandra, the highly scalable and resilient NoSQL database, to manage large volumes of structured and vector data with ease. By Arc-enabling their applications, DataStax HCD offers users a “single pane of glass” for streamlined deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management of their entire infrastructure. Ensuring consistent operations across on-premises, Azure, and multi-cloud environments makes Azure with HCD an ideal choice for mission-critical applications. The combination of Azure Arc central governance and Mission Control, DataStax’s operations platform, on HCD will allow for provisioning of resources for on-premises and on the cloud. HCD brings to Azure Arc database management and the ability to support workloads and AI systems at scale with no single point of failure. DataStax HCD brings three key benefits to Azure Arc: data replication and distribution, node repair, and vector search capabilities to enhance your enterprise data workloads. To learn more about the full capabilities of DataStax HCD, please visit the DataStax HCD for Azure Arc or find out more on the HCD product page. MongoDB MongoDB Enterprise Advanced (EA) empowers customers to securely self-manage their MongoDB deployments on-premises or in hybrid environments, driving operational efficiency, performance, and control to meet specific infrastructure needs. Now with Arc-enablement, MongoDB EA allows developers to build, scale, and innovate faster by providing a robust and dynamic database solution across a multitude of environments. MongoDB’s document data model is intuitive and powerful, and it can easily handle a variety of data types and use cases efficiently. MongoDB EA includes advanced automation, reliable backups, monitoring capabilities, updating deployments, and integrating with various Kubernetes services. The MongoDB integration with Azure Arc provides three key benefits: support for multi-Kubernetes cluster deployments, centralized provisioning through the Azure portal, and leveraging the resilience of Kubernetes deployments. As Azure Arc provides centralized management of Kubernetes environments across a multitude of environments, MongoDB EA adds value with databases that can run across multiple Kubernetes clusters. To explore MongoDB EA on Azure Marketplace for Azure Arc - and to learn more about the full potential of this offering - please visit MongoDB Enterprise Advanced for Azure Arc. For licensing inquiries and to learn more about MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, please visit MongoDB's website. Redis Redis Software, an enterprise-grade, real-time data platform, offers an in-memory data structure store used as a cache, vector database, document database, streaming engine, and message broker. With its Arc-enabled application, Redis Software provides ultra-fast data access, real-time analytics, and seamless scalability. This makes Redis Software ideal for applications requiring high performance and low latency. Integrating with Azure Arc allows users to deploy Redis workloads across on-premises, Cloud and hybrid infrastructure. The benefits Redis Software brings to Azure Arc are support multi-core deployments, Active-Active geo-distribution, data tiering, high-availability with seamless failover and multiple level of on-disk persistence. As it is integrated with Arc, these Redis instances are located on-premises or on the cloud and can be managed centrally on the Azure portal. To explore Redis Software on the Azure Marketplace for Azure Arc, please visit Redis Software for Kubernetes for Azure Arc. You can learn more about licensing inquiries at Redis Software. MinIO MinIO AIStor is the standard for building large scale AI data infrastructure. It is a software-defined, S3 compatible object store that is optimized for the private cloud but will run anywhere - from the public cloud to the edge. Enterprises use AIStor to deliver against artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, application, backup and archival workloads - all from a single platform. It was built for the cloud operating model, so it is native to the technologies and architectures that define the cloud, such as: containerization, orchestration with Kubernetes, microservices and multi-tenancy. By Arc-enabling their application, MinIO ensures that Azure users can experience the unmatched scalability, robust security, and lightning-fast storage performance that has made MinIO the most widely integrated object store in the market today. Users can now run these hybrid or multi-cloud deployments on Azure Arc and manage them in a single pane of glass on the Azure portal. To deploy and learn more about MinIO AIStor on Azure Arc, please visit MinIO AIStor for Azure Arc here. For further information on MinIO AIStor for Azure Arc, please visit MinIO | AI Storage is Object Storage. Become an Arc Enabled Partner These partners have collaborated with Microsoft to join our ISV ecosystem, providing resilient and scalable applications readily accessible for our Azure Arc customers via the Azure Marketplace. Joining forces with Microsoft enables partners to stay ahead of the technological curve, strengthen customer relationships, and contribute to transformative digital changes across industries. We look forward to expanding this program to include more ISVs, enhancing the experience for customers using Arc enabled Kubernetes clusters. As we continue to expand our Azure Arc ISV Partner Program, stay tuned for more blogs on the new partners being published to the Azure Marketplace. To reach out and learn more about the Azure Arc ISV Partner Program, please feel free to reach out to us at https://aka.ms/AzureArcISV.Announcing the Public Preview of the Azure Arc gateway!
The wait is over, we are thrilled to introduce the Public Preview of the Azure Arc gateway for Arc-enabled Servers, and Arc-enabled Kubernetes! They reduce the number of required endpoints for customers to configure their Enterprise proxy when setting up for using Azure Arc services. How Does it Work? Arc gateway introduces two new components: Arc gateway – An Azure Resource with a single, unique endpoint that will handle the incoming traffic to Azure from on-prem Arc workloads. This endpoint is to be configured in customer’s enterprise proxies. Azure Arc Proxy – A component of the Arc connected machine agent that routes all Agent and extension traffic to its destination in Azure via an Arc gateway Resource. The Arc Proxy is installed on every Arc-enabled Resource within the core Arc agent. Arc gateway on Arc-enabled Servers Architecture Arc gateway on Arc-enabled Kubernetes Architecture How do I Deploy Arc gateway? At a high level, there are three steps: create an Arc gateway Resource. Get the Arc gateway URL, and configure your Enterprise proxy Either onboard your Servers/K8s clusters using the gateway resource info or update the existing Arc Server/K8s resource with the created gateway resource info. For Arc enabled Servers, you can find Arc gateway details & instructions in thePublic Preview documentation, and the Arc gateway for Arc-enabled Servers Jumpstart Episode. For Arc-enabled Kubernetes, more details are available in the Public Preview Documentation. Arc gateway Endpoint Coverage, Illustrated by the Azure Monitoring Scenario For the Arc gateway public preview, we have focused on covering primarily Service Endpoints for Azure control plane traffic. Most of the data plane endpoints are not yet covered by Arc gateway. I’d like to use the Azure monitoring on Arc-enabled Servers scenario to illustrate the Endpoints covered by the Public Preview release. Below is a comparison of the list of endpoints customers must open access to in their enterprise proxy with and without Arc gateway for this common scenario. As displayed, Arc gateway cuts the list of required endpoints nearly in half and removes the need for customers to allow wildcard endpoints in their on-prem environment. Endpoints required without Arc gateway (17) Endpoints required with Arc gateway (8) Arc-enabled Servers Endpoints aka.ms download.microsoft.com packages.microsoft.com login.microsoftonline.com *.login.microsoftonline.com pas.windows.net management.azure.com *.his.arc.azure.com *.guestconfiguration.azure.com azgn*.servicebus.windows.net *.blob.core.windows.net dc.services.visualstudio.com Azure Monitor Endpoints global.handler.control.monitor.azure.com <virtual-machine-region-name>.handler.control.monitor.azure.com <log-analytics-workspace-id>.ods.opinsights.azure.com <virtual-machine-region-name>.monitoring.azure.com <data-collection-endpoint>.<virtual-machine-region-name>.ingest.monitor.azure.com Arc-enabled Servers Endpoints <URL Prefix>.gw.arc.azure.com management.azure.com login.microsoftonline.com gbl.his.arc.azure.com <region>.his.arc.azure.com packages.microsoft.com Azure Monitor Endpoints <log-analytics-workspace-id>.ods.opinsights.azure.com <data-collection-endpoint>.<virtual-machine-region-name>.ingest.monitor.azure.com We're continuing to expand the endpoint coverage and further reduce the number of endpoints required to be configured through customers' Enterprise proxies. I’d like to invite you to try out the Arc gateway Public Preview release and share any questions, comments or feedback and requests to thePublic Preview Contact Form.Launching the Arc Jumpstart Newsletter: October 2024 Edition
We are excited to kick off this monthly newsletter, where you can get the latest updates on everything happening in the Arc Jumpstart realm. Whether you are new to the community or a regular Jumpstart contributor, this newsletter will keep you informed about new releases, key events, and opportunities to get involved in within the Azure Adaptive Cloud ecosystem. Check back each month for new ways to connect, share your experiences, and learn from others in the Adaptive Cloud community.
