March update: What’s New in Azure for Partners
Navigate to: News and announcements | Incentives and offers | Skilling and events | As customers accelerate toward AI‑powered transformation, partners are being asked not only to deliver technology, but to guide outcomes. This month’s Cloud & AI newsletter brings together Azure platform innovations, incentives, skilling, events, and go‑to‑market resources designed to meet that moment—supporting efforts to migrate and modernize with confidence, build intelligent apps and agents, and turn data into a competitive advantage. News and announcements Migrate to Enterprise-Grade Performance & Security: Azure Database for PostgreSQL now empowers organizations to confidently migrate from legacy databases (like Oracle) to a fully managed open-source platform with enterprise-grade performance and reliability. By combining new AI-powered migration tools, integrated migration planning, and next-generation performance upgrades, these launches help customers achieve the speed, scale, and resilience needed for mission-critical workloads – while lowering cost and complexity. Move your data to Azure PostgreSQL and get better performance, stronger security, and easier migration than ever before. You can modernize your databases faster, run them on high-performance storage and VMs, and protect them with Azure’s advanced security—all on one unified platform. Feature What It Does (Benefit) Value for Technical Users (DBAs/Developers) Value for IT Decision-Makers AI-Assisted Oracle-to-PostgreSQL Migration Tool Automates and simplifies the conversion of Oracle databases (schema, code, even app syntax) to PostgreSQL using AI. Benefit: Greatly reduces manual work and errors in migrations. Faster, easier migrations: Uses AI (LLMs via VS Code + GitHub Copilot) to convert Oracle schemas & PL/SQL code to Postgres automatically. This means DB engineers spend far less time hand-coding conversions and debugging – the tool even tests and fixes issues iteratively, ensuring the migrated database runs correctly. For the DBA, it’s a huge relief: much of the tedious conversion work is handled by AI, with clear flags only where human review is needed, speeding up the overall migration process. Accelerated cloud adoption & cost savings: Enables the business to move off expensive Oracle systems faster and with lower risk. Fewer manual hours and fewer errors mean migrations complete sooner, so you start saving on Oracle licensing/support costs and realize Azure benefits quickly. It reduces migration risk (thanks to AI validation on a live target database), giving decision-makers confidence that critical data and apps will transition smoothly without prolonged downtime or big surprises. Azure Migrate – PostgreSQL Discovery & Assessment Identifies on-premises database servers (Oracle/PostgreSQL) and evaluates them for migration. Benefit: Provides a migration readiness report and recommendations. Informed planning: Automatically discovers existing database instances in your environment and assesses their readiness for Azure. Technical teams get a detailed inventory and compatibility analysis (e.g. which Oracle features need changes for Postgres, or sizing recommendations for Azure). This helps DB admins plan migrations with data-driven insights (like SKU recommendations and expected performance on Azure), removing guesswork. Reduced migration risk & effort: For leadership, Azure Migrate’s assessments highlight potential blockers and costs upfront, helping avoid surprises. It delivers an executive-ready plan for migration (including estimated Azure cost for each workload), so decision-makers can confidently allocate budget and timeline. In short, it de-risks the migration project by ensuring you have full visibility into what’s needed before making the move. Premium SSD v2 New high-performance disk storage option with sub-millisecond latency and extremely high IOPS/throughput, at a lower cost per performance. Benefit: Improves database read/write performance dramatically. High I/O performance for databases: Enables PostgreSQL servers to use next-gen storage with up to 80,000 IOPS and 1,200 MB/s throughput per disk, far surpassing previous limits. DB architects and admins can handle I/O-intensive workloads with minimal latency (e.g. heavy OLTP, large batch operations) without complex sharding or caching. It’s also flexible – you can provision exactly the disk performance needed and even adjust IOPS/throughput on the fly, so tuning performance is easier. Enterprise-grade speed without huge cost: Premium SSD v2 gives a big performance boost (up to 4× more IOPS) for your databases at a lower cost per transaction. For decision-makers, that means you can support more users and transactions on the same database (improving application responsiveness and user satisfaction) without overspending on hardware. It provides headroom for growth and peak loads, delaying or avoiding major infrastructure upgrades. Essentially, you get *better performance *for your investment, which supports business growth and SLAs. **Intel & AMD V6-Series Compute SKUs (New Gen VMs, including confidential compute) New V6-generation compute options (General Purpose & Memory Optimized tiers) for Azure Database for PostgreSQL, powered by latest Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC processors with local NVMe storage. Benefit: Greatly increases scalability and processing power; an AMD Confidential Compute option adds in-memory data encryption for security. Massive scale & throughput: Developers/DBAs can now scale a single Postgres server up to 192 vCores and ~1.8 TB RAM on ultra-fast CPUs, with direct-attached NVMe storage for blazing I/O. This means even very large or complex workloads (heavy concurrent transactions, complex analytical queries) can run on Azure Postgres without hitting resource limits. Tech teams can consolidate databases or handle spikes more easily, and even opt for AMD Confidential VMs if they need hardware-level encryption of data in-use, all with minimal changes. Performance and security at scale: The new V6 SKUs ensure your PostgreSQL can handle enterprise workloads – from a performance perspective (very high CPU, memory, and I/O capacity) and a security perspective (Confidential Computing keeps data encrypted in memory for sensitive applications). For IT leaders, this means Azure can support your most demanding database applications (e.g. core business systems or large analytics) with headroom to grow, while also meeting stringent security/compliance requirements. You get mainframe/Oracle-like horsepower on an open platform, paying only for what you use and easily scaling up or down as needed. To learn more check out our Tech Community post. Optimize your Microsoft Marketplace listing: In today’s competitive Microsoft Marketplace, the quality of your listing plays a critical role in helping customers discover and engage with your offer. To optimize your Marketplace listing, Microsoft now provides AI‑powered, on‑demand recommendations to enhance partner Marketplace listings—at no cost. Through App Advisor, partners can receive personalized, actionable guidance in seconds, without waiting for manual review cycles or guessing what best practices look like. The recommendations are generated by an AI model trained on Marketplace best practices and aligned with Microsoft expert review processes, so partners can edit their listings with confidence. The experience is designed to be flexible and iterative. Partners can update a listing, rescan it, and receive refreshed recommendations as often as needed—supporting continuous enhancement to boost discoverability and engagement over time. Any organization with a publicly available Marketplace listing is eligible, and partners with multiple listings can run recommendations for each one. Getting started is simple: 1. Visit App Advisor, sign in, and select your Marketplace offer. 2. Receive actionable recommendations in seconds. 3. Optimize your listing and rescan as needed. To begin enhancing your listing today, visit App Advisor now. Check out the Omdia Microsoft Marketplace study: Learn more about the Microsoft Marketplace partner revenue opportunity: According to a commissioned study by Omdia, Microsoft Marketplace is projected to be a $300B partner revenue opportunity by 2030. Partners already selling through Marketplace are seeing real results: 88% report revenue growth, 75% close sales faster, and 69% get larger deals. Download the report. Bring the connected Azure story to life with AI + Data: AI + Data Go Big is Microsoft’s unified, end‑to‑end GTM motion to win the AI and Data Platform by helping customers unlock AI value through an AI‑ready data foundation. Partners play a critical role in delivering this at scale through repeatable, integrated solutions. Partners can help customers prioritize and transform with AI—especially where data readiness is a blocker—while benefiting from Microsoft’s most comprehensive offers to accelerate wins. Available partner assets include the to‑partner value proposition, multiple through‑partner pitch collections (Foundry, Fabric, and Database), and the Azure Frontier Offer for eligible opportunities. Additional One Azure and Data pitch decks are expected to be published by the end of March here. Tap into new Microsoft Azure go-to-market assets: Partners are the catalyst for turning adoption and cloud investments into tangible impact for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). And with a robust collection of new go-to-market assets on the SMB market opportunity for Microsoft Azure, you can quickly build pipeline, grow your SMB customer base, and expand existing workloads—while leading secure cloud transformations at scale. These resources are built to deepen your engagement with customers—whether you're scaling outreach across a reseller ecosystem, equipping your sellers with actionable insights, delivering ongoing managed services, or developing repeatable, high-volume cloud solutions. By activating these assets, you can strengthen your cloud practice, expand Azure consumption, and deliver smarter, AI-powered outcomes that deepen customer relationships. Explore the Azure SMB content collection Incentives and offers Marketplace Rewards update: Azure sponsorship now supported on more MCA billing profiles: We're pleased to share that we've simplified how partners participating in Microsoft Marketplace Rewards can use Azure sponsorship credits if either they or their customers use Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) billing. For Global Cloud, partners can now redeem their Azure sponsorship credits on an MCA billing profile that had any Azure Credit Offer (ACO) credits applied. Previously, the presence of current or past ACO on the billing profile prevented sponsorship credit redemption. This blocker is removed, reducing friction for partners and customers using MCA billing profiles. While this update expands eligibility, the following rules still apply: -This change only applies to partners and customers receiving Azure sponsorship through Marketplace Rewards. -A billing profile can't have more than one active sponsorship redeemed at the same time. -This change doesn't alter other Azure sponsorship eligibility requirements or limitations. Skilling and events Connect and learn at FabCon US 2026 in Atlanta: FABCON and SQLCON are taking place March 16–20, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia. Register before tickets sell out. This is a critical opportunity to check out the latest innovations and connect with customers, Microsoft experts, and your peers. Be sure to join us for Partner Day on March 17 for exclusive insights. Upskill with the Azure VMware Solution (AVS) bootcamp: AVS is a Microsoft service verified by VMware that runs on Azure infrastructure. AVS bootcamp 2026 provides partners with guidance and coaching to accelerate customer migrations to Azure using familiar VMware tools. Attendees will learn how AVS empowers them to move VMware-based workloads to the cloud and manage existing environments with the same VMware tools they already know. View the bootcamp on-demand and pick and choose which sales and technical sessions are most of interest. Learn more about AI-powered migration and modernization at the Microsoft Azure Summit: Migrate & Modernize with Agentic AI: Back by popular demand, this event will take place on April 23 (Americas). Encourage your customers to attend to discover how new, AI-assisted migration and modernization tools, features, and capabilities can equip them to modernize quickly and efficiently. Registration information is coming soon. Acquire the skills to earn new Microsoft business certifications by attending Skills2Win: Join a free, three‑day virtual Sales Certification Week designed to help partner sellers build practical AI fluency, activate real‑world use cases, and validate AI readiness by earning Microsoft credentials – all without taking extended time away from selling. This no-cost event runs March 23 - 25 in a half-day virtual format, with two session options: 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific Time or 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM Pacific Time. Space is limited, so register today. Stay connected Follow the tag Azure news to be notified of the next newsletter release. To stay updated on the latest Azure news, connect with Microsoft Azure engineers and marketers, and expand your partner-to-partner network, select Follow in the Azure Partners discussion board. Throughout this document, $ refers to US dollar (USD).
November Update: What's new in Azure for Partners
Navigate to News and Announcements, Incentives and Offers, Skilling and Events, Go-To-Market, Customer Success News and Announcements Microsoft Ignite 2025 Recap: Learn about our key updates and view sessions from Ignite. This year’s announcements focused on enabling partners to scale AI-first transformation through simplified program offerings, unified tools, and expanded opportunities across cloud, data, and security—making it easier to differentiate, go to market, and drive profit. Learn more Blog series: Catch up on our Cloud & AI Platforms blog series starting with Part 1: Capturing the market opportunity and continuing with Part 2: Migrations & modernizations, Part 3: Unifying the data platform, and Part 4: Building an AI app and agent factory. New Digital Sovereignty specialization now available: Showcase your expertise in secure, compliant, and sovereign cloud solutions with the new Digital Sovereignty specialization—now part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Gain enhanced visibility, priority access to sovereign cloud opportunities, and specialized badging by meeting rigorous audit criteria. Help customers stay in control of their data while driving innovation. Learn more Near-zero-downtime maintenance: Azure MySQL now offers near-zero-downtime maintenance for seamless, high-availability workloads. How to enable Faster backups: New automated backup options mean quicker recovery and optimized storage. Modify your backup interval Fabric Data Agent: Now with CI/CD, ALM flow, and Git integration for streamlined, enterprise-grade data solutions. Learn more Azure Databricks: Enhanced performance, security, and integration with Azure AI, Fabric, and Synapse—delivering more value, faster. Learn more The new SAP Business Data Cloud Connector for Azure Databricks is now generally available—empowering partners to help customers seamlessly unify SAP and enterprise data for advanced analytics and AI, all with secure, zero-copy data sharing and full governance across both platforms. Learn more Incentives and Offers Explore Azure Accelerate: A unified offering within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Azure Accelerate brings together Azure Migrate and Modernize, Azure Innovate, and Cloud Accelerate Factory––all built upon the foundations of Azure Essentials. Nominate your project today. New Azure Accelerate resources are now live! Check out the six-minute demo video for a quick walkthrough and explore the detailed nomination guide and FAQ to simplify your onboarding process. Access at the bottom of this page Cloud Accelerate Factory provides zero-cost deployment assistance for more than 30 Azure services, with expert support and joint delivery, no matter the project size. Dr Migrate is an AI-assisted platform for cloud migration planning, available within Azure Accelerate. Eligible partners can request licenses through Azure Accelerate to run environment and proof of value assessments with customers. View the Driving Confidence Through AI-Assisted Cloud Migrations on-demand partner webinar to learn more about the Dr Migrate offer. Invite a colleague to join the Azure Migrate and Modernize Partner Forum, your source for early access to Azure offerings, product roadmaps, and marketing updates for partners. ISV Success Advanced Package: Top-performing software companies with certified software designations can qualify for financial incentives to build AI solutions or migrate customers to Azure. The package supports every stage of ISV Success. Learn more New end-customer migration incentives: Microsoft’s FY26 partner incentives empower software development companies to accelerate customer migrations and modernizations with substantial financial rewards. Partners with certified software designations—including Azure, Security, and Industry AI—can earn up to $175,000*for qualifying customer engagements. Check out the “ISV Engagements” tab under the “Azure Incentives” tab in the incentives guide for more information. Secure every workload: Qualified partners can earn up to $8,000* for delivering the new Microsoft Security envisioning workshop, and help customers improve the security posture of cloud workloads with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Skilling and Events Certification vouchers: Claim a free DP-600 or DP-700 exam voucher (exams by December 31, 2025, or while supplies last). Get started Learn from Microsoft experts: Join us for a webinar on December 4 that explores the latest innovations in Linux on Azure and Azure Database for PostgreSQL and MySQL to support customers’ migration, application modernization, and AI projects. Morning session, evening session Microsoft AI Tour for Partners is back: Join a free one-day event to accelerate your AI journey with sales best practices, growth opportunities, hands-on labs, and technical deep dives. Upcoming stops include Frankfurt (December 2) and Mumbai (December 9). Sovereign Cloud Boot Camp: Master operational sovereignty, data residency, and compliance with this on-demand boot camp. View details and access the recording Agentic AI + Copilot Partner Skilling Accelerator: Explore our four-episode webcast series (November 24, December 1, 8, 15; 9:00–10:00 AM, all time zones). Learn how to assist customers in becoming Frontier Firms and architect modern AI. Join here In-person Fabric workshops: Find technical skilling events near you on the Partner Skilling Hub. Don't miss the November Data Platform Sales Bootcamp for partners, featuring sales strategies, partner opportunities, and guidance on positioning Cosmos and SQL in Fabric, as well as updates on our GTM approach with Snowflake and how to pitch Azure Databricks to your customers. Register here Partner Project Ready Workshops: Join our hands-on training in Fabric, Databricks, and Purview. Sessions are available across Asia, EMEA, and Americas time zones: Fabric, Databricks, Purview. Participate in AgentCon 2025 by Global AI Community: Join a global series of one-day conferences designed exclusively for developers building the future with autonomous AI agents. SAP S4/HANA Deadline: 2027 is coming—activate your SAP on Azure practice now with Partner Ready and Sales Ready courses. Visit our Skilling Hub for the latest training resources to earn designations and specializations. Explore the most recent skilling blog for key skilling-related announcements. Looking for bite-sized skilling? Check out this episode of the Azure Essentials Show to learn how Azure Databricks transforms fragmented data estates into unified platforms for analytics and AI. Go-To-Market Download and use the Partner Execution Guide for AI Apps and Agents. The Partner Execution Guide has use cases, the Win Formula, key actions to take, questions to ask customers, and more. The sales assets include solution accelerators, templates, and pitch decks. Access four new co-branded campaign in a box (CiaB) asset collections to generate demand and create more opportunities with your customers: Migrate and modernize your estate ENT & SMB and Unify your data platform ENT & and SMB. Take your marketing strategy to the next level with predesigned campaigns, resources, and ready-to-go assets. Learn more Generate leads leveraging custom propensity lists and executing marketing initiatives with Microsoft CloudAscent and Solution Play Propensity Accelerate Revenue and KPIs (SPARK) Propensity. Looking for proven and scalable AI transformation assets that deliver value quickly? AI Solution Accelerators are proven, prebuilt proof of concept (PoC) assets that drive successful AI implementations, enabling you to demonstrate the value of AI capabilities and accelerate time to value. Drive success in building AI apps and agents with a comprehensive set of sales tools and marketing resources, including Microsoft pitch decks, guides, solution accelerators, demos, and more. Access them here. Unify your data platform to empower your customers in implementing a data strategy fit for the era of AI, including customizable pitch decks and other go-to-market resources to support your success. Find it all here, and explore our newly launched collection of resources on Azure databases and other resources for our key solutions including Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, and Microsoft Purview. Differentiate your expertise to customers with Solutions Partner designations and specializations. Customer Success Watch the FabCon Europe video series on YouTube to discover how partners and customers are driving innovation with Microsoft Fabric. Learn how Carne Group, in partnership with Prodata, leveraged Microsoft Fabric to transform its CAMDA analytics platform—achieving 20x efficiency improvements and scaling from processing hundreds to hundreds of thousands of files per day—demonstrating how to deliver high-impact, enterprise-scale data solutions. In another example, iLink Digital used Microsoft Fabric to help Crane unify global data and enable real-time insights, showing how you and your business can deliver enterprise-scale, strategic data transformations that drive business value. Discover how Microsoft can transform your sales strategy with case studies and customer success stories that showcase how businesses, NGOs, and individuals leverage AI to transform their organizations. *Throughout this document, $ refers to US dollar (USD). Follow the tag Azure news to get notified of the next newsletter release. Stay updated on the latest Azure news, connect with Microsoft Azure engineers and marketers, and expand your partner-to-partner network by clicking follow in the Azure Partners discussion board!October Update: What's new in Azure for Partners
Navigate to News and Announcements, Incentives and Offers, Skilling and Events, Go-To-Market, Customer Success News and Announcements Blog series: Catch up on our Cloud & AI Platforms blog series starting with Part 1: Capturing the market opportunity and continuing with Part 2: Migrations & modernizations and Part 3: Unify your data platforms. Microsoft Ignite 2025: Seats in San Francisco (and virtually) are filling fast; don’t miss this opportunity to bolster your knowledge, build connections, and explore emerging technologies to give you the edge you need to drive impact in the era of AI. Register today for Microsoft Ignite, which runs from November 18 to 21. Oracle AI World 2025: Microsoft announced expanded Oracle Database@Azure investments and new platform innovations—including support for Base Database, Exascale 19c, and Oracle Database 23ai—now available in 28+ regions. These updates strengthen our multicloud hyperscaler reach for partners and customers. Learn more. Introducing Microsoft Agent Framework (public preview): The Microsoft Agent Framework is the open-source SDK and runtime that simplifies the orchestration of multi-agent systems. It converges AutoGen, a former Microsoft Research project, and the enterprise-ready foundations of Semantic Kernel into a unified, commercial-grade framework—bringing cutting-edge research to developers. Learn more here. New models in Azure AI Foundry: Sora 2 is now available in Azure AI Foundry (in public preview). Combining OpenAI’s most advanced video generation capabilities with the trusted infrastructure and security controls of Microsoft Azure through Azure AI Foundry and responsible AI principles, we empower customers with embedded security, safety, and privacy controls. Microsoft partners have more capabilities to choose from, so they can use the precise models needed to meet specific customer requirements. Find more details here. Access three new co-branded campaign in a box (CiaB) asset collections to generate demand and create more opportunities with your customers: Migrate and modernize your estate ENT & SMB and Unify your data platform. Missed FabCon Europe? Learn about the top announcements and Partner Day through these blogs from Jessica Hawk (CVP, Azure Marketing) and Arun Ulagaratchagan (CVP, Azure Data). Get ready for FabCon 2026 in Atlanta in March––register soon before it sells out. SAP Business Data Cloud Connect for Azure Databricks: We are happy to announce that your Azure Databricks customers can connect their SAP BDC environment to existing Azure Databricks to enable bi-directional, live data sharing and run SAP Business Data Cloud on Azure. Learn more and share this update with your customers. Use this blog to tell your customers why Databricks and Azure work so well together. New partner investments available for Microsoft Defender for Cloud: InfraDB specialized and Azure Expert MSP partners with the Microsoft Security designation are now eligible for incentives to help drive Defender for Cloud in migration and modernization projects. Access helpful resources here. New third-party integrations into Fabric: Announced at FabCon, these new integrations go even further. Build your customer’s workload into Fabric with the Fabric Extensibility Framework. Incentives and Offers Explore Azure Accelerate: A unified offering within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Azure Accelerate brings together Azure Migrate and Modernize, Azure Innovate, and Cloud Accelerate Factory––all built upon the foundation of Azure Essentials. Nominate your project today. Cloud Accelerate Factory provides zero-cost deployment assistance for more than 30 Azure services, with expert support and joint delivery, no matter the project size. Dr Migrate is an AI-assisted platform for cloud migration planning, available within Azure Accelerate. Eligible partners can request licenses through Azure Accelerate to run environment and proof of value assessments with customers. Join the Driving Confidence Through AI-Assisted Cloud Migrations partner webinar to learn more about the Dr Migrate offer. Invite a colleague to join the Azure Migrate and Modernize Partner Forum, your source for early access to Azure offerings, product roadmaps, and marketing updates for partners. ISV Success Advanced Package: Top-performing software companies with certified software designations can qualify for financial incentives to build AI solutions or migrate customers to Azure. The package supports every stage of ISV Success. Learn more. New end-customer migration incentives: Microsoft FY26 partner incentives empower software development companies to accelerate customer migrations and modernizations with substantial financial rewards. Partners with certified software designations—including Azure, Security, and Industry AI—can earn up to $175,000 USD for qualifying Customer Migrate & Modernize engagements. Check out the “ISV Engagements” tab in the incentives guidefor more information. Grow your business with Microsoft Security Envisioning Workshops to reach more customers, refine your sales, and unlock new revenue with world-class security. Skilling and Events Visit our Skilling Hub for the latest training resources to earn designations and specializations. Explore the most recent skilling blog for key skilling-related announcements. Looking for bite-sized skilling changes? Check out this episode of the Azure Essentials Show to learn how Azure Databricks transforms fragmented data estates into unified platforms for analytics and AI. Microsoft AI Tour for Partners is back: Join a free one-day event to accelerate your AI journey with sales best practices, growth opportunities, hands-on labs, and technical deep dives. Upcoming stops: Frankfurt (December 2) and Mumbai (December 9). Join the Fabric FabCon Global Hackathon (September 15–November 3, 2025): Build data and AI solutions with Fabric, collaborate globally, and compete for prizes up to $10,000 USD. Participants get 50% off Fabric certifications. Register for in-person Fabric technical skilling workshops in your region: Check out the Skilling Hub for events near you. Sign up for our upcoming Azure Databricks workshops (November 4–7), available with instructors from several time zones. The Migrate and Modernize Summit replay is available now. Hear from Microsoft leaders––including Scott Guthrie, Jeremy Winter, Amanda Silver, and Cyril Belikoff––on the latest innovations around AI-assisted tooling and products to help simplify and accelerate cloud migrations. Participate in AgentCon 2025 by Global AI Community: Join a global series of one-day conferences designed exclusively for developers building the future with autonomous AI agents. The 2027 deadline to move SAP workloads to S4/HANA is approaching, so now is the time to activate your SAP on Azure. Utilize Partner Ready and Sales Ready courses to help business managers unlock Azure benefits and equip sales teams to effectively position SAP on Azure solutions. Go-To-Market Download and use the Partner Execution Guide for AI Apps and Agents for use cases, win formulas, key actions, questions to ask customers, and more. And the sales assets include solution accelerators, templates, and pitch decks. Take your marketing strategy to the next level with predesigned campaigns, resources, and ready-to-go assets. Learn more. Generate leads leveraging customer propensity lists and execute marketing initiatives with Microsoft CloudAscent and Solution Play Propensity Accelerate Revenue and KPIs (SPARK) propensity. Looking for proven and scalable AI transformation assets that deliver value quickly? AI Solution Accelerators are prebuilt PoC assets that drive successful AI implementations, enabling you to demonstrate the value of AI capabilities and accelerate time to value. Drive success in building AI apps and agents with a comprehensive set of sales tools and marketing resources, including Microsoft pitch decks, guides, solution accelerators, demos, and more. Access them here. Unify your data platform to help your customers implement a data strategy that is fit for the era of AI, including customizable pitch decks and other go-to-market resources to help you succeed. Find it all here, and explore resources for our key solutions, including Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, and Microsoft Purview. Differentiate your expertise to customers with Solutions Partner designations and specializations. Customer Success Discover how Microsoft can transform your sales strategy with case studies and customer success stories that showcase how businesses, NGOs, and individuals leverage AI to transform their businesses. Follow the tag Azure news to stay updated on monthly Azure partner news.September update: What's new in Azure for partners
Navigate to News and Announcements, Incentives and Offers, Skilling and Events, Go-To-Market, Customer Success News and Announcements Explore Microsoft Marketplace, a trusted source for AI apps, tools, and agents and a growth engine for partners. With a dedicated AI apps and agents category, expanded discoverability and co-sell, distributor integration, and resale-enabled offers (in private preview), partners now have even more ways to connect innovation with customers everywhere. Learn more. Blog series: Catch up on our Cloud & AI Platforms blog series starting with Part 1: Capturing the market opportunity and continuing with Part 2: Migrations & modernizations. Microsoft Ignite 2025: Join us in San Francisco or virtually November 18–21, 2025, to bolster your knowledge, build connections, and explore emerging technologies to give you the edge you need to drive impact in the era of AI. Register today. Azure AI Foundry: Now featuring GPT-5, OpenAI gpt-oss, Foundry Local support, and a new browser automation tool to help you build intelligent agents using natural language. Learn more here. AKS Automatic: Managed Kubernetes is now generally available, making cloud-native and AI app deployment easier than ever. Read more. Oracle Database@Azure: Now available in Germany North—bringing availability to 23 regions worldwide. MySQL 8.4: Now generally available on Azure Database for MySQL – Flexible Server, MySQL 8.4 provides improved performance, observability, and replication management. Broadcom licensing update: Broadcom is changing its VMware licensing model. With the AVS VCF BYOL option, customers can now deploy AVS with their own VCF subscriptions (BYOL) in 35 regions, reducing costs. If you’re an Azure VMware Solution (AVS) partner, speak to your customers about their options. Access three new co-branded campaign in a box (CiaB) asset collections to generate demand and create more opportunities with your customers: Migrate and modernize your estate ENT & SMB and Unify your data platform ENT. Missed FabCon Europe? Learn about the top announcements and our Partner Day through these blogs from Jessica Hawk (CVP, Data, AI, and Digital Applications Product Marketing) and Arun Ulagaratchagan (CVP, Azure Data). Get ready for FabCon 2026 in Atlanta in March––register soon before they sell out. Microsoft Fabric Extensibility Toolkit: Software companies can help customers bring apps to Fabric, speed development, and integrate workloads. Get started today. Read the latest on why Databricks runs best on Azure from the Azure blog. New partner investments available for Microsoft Defender for Cloud––InfraDB and Azure: Expert MSP partners with the Microsoft Security designation are now eligible for incentives to help drive Defender for Cloud in migration and modernization projects. Access helpful resources here and sign up for our upcoming webinar on October 29, 2025, Americas/EMEA time zones or Asia time zone. Incentives and Offers Explore Azure Accelerate: A unified offering within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Azure Accelerate brings together Azure Migrate and Modernize, Azure Innovate, and Cloud Accelerate Factory––all built upon the foundations of Azure Essentials. Nominate your project today. Cloud Accelerate Factory provides zero-cost deployment assistance for more than 30 Azure services, with expert support and joint delivery, no matter the project size. Dr Migrate is an AI-assisted platform for cloud migration planning, available within Azure Accelerate. Eligible partners can request licenses through Azure Accelerate to run environment and proof of value assessments with customers. Join the Driving Confidence Through AI-Assisted Cloud Migrations partner webinar to learn more about the Dr Migrate offer. Invite a colleague to join the Azure Migrate and Modernize Partner Forum, your source for early access to Azure offerings, product roadmaps, and marketing updates for partners. ISV Success Advanced Package: Top-performing software companies with certified software designations can qualify for financial incentives to build AI solutions or migrate customers to Azure. The package supports every stage of ISV Success. Learn more. New end-customer migration incentives are now available to help software companies and advanced specialized systems integrators securely and efficiently move software companies’ end customers to modern applications running on Azure. See the ISV Engagements tab in the incentives guide for more information. Grow your business with Microsoft Security Envisioning Workshops to reach more customers, refine your sales, and unlock new revenue with world-class security. Skilling and Events Visit our Skilling Hub for the latest training resources to earn designations and specializations. Explore the most recent skilling blog for key skilling-related announcements. Looking for bite-sized skilling? Check out this episode of the Azure Essentials Show to learn how Azure Databricks transforms fragmented data estates into unified platforms for analytics and AI. Microsoft AI Tour for Partners is back: Join a free, one-day event to accelerate your AI journey with sales best practices, growth opportunities, hands-on labs, and technical deep dives. Upcoming stops: Toronto (September 30) and Chicago (October 8). Join the Fabric Global Hack (September 15–November 3, 2025): Build data and AI solutions with Fabric, collaborate globally, and compete for prizes up to $10,000. Participants get 50% off Fabric certifications. The Migrate and Modernize Summit replay is available now. Hear from Microsoft leaders––including Scott Guthrie, Jeremy Winter, Amanda Silver, and Cyril Belikoff––on the latest innovations around AI-assisted tooling and products to help simplify and accelerate cloud migrations. Join us at the Azure Dev Summit (October 13–16, 2025): This Microsoft-sponsored event is designed for developers, architects, and technology leaders to explore the latest in Azure, .NET, and Microsoft AI, gain insights from inspiring speakers, and connect with peers driving innovation. Participate in AgentCon 2025 by Global AI Community: Join a global series of one-day conferences designed exclusively for developers building the future with autonomous AI agents. The 2027 deadline to move SAP workloads to S4/HANA is approaching, so now is the time to activate your SAP on Azure practice Partner Ready and Sales Ready courses to help business managers unlock Azure benefits and equip sales teams to effectively position SAP on Azure solutions. The Azure Cosmos DB Partner Acceleration Program for FY26 has officially launched. Designed to upskill partners through technical enablement, monthly sessions, and self-learning resources, the program also offers customer engagement assistance—including funding for proofs of concept (PoCs) and migrations—and direct access to the product group for blockers. Enroll today and don’t miss the first training on October 14, 2025. Go-To-Market Take your marketing strategy to the next level with predesigned campaigns, resources, and ready-to-go assets. Learn more. Generate leads leveraging custom propensity lists and executing marketing initiatives with Microsoft CloudAscent and Solution Play Propensity Accelerate Revenue and KPIs (SPARK) Propensity. Looking for proven and scalable AI transformation assets that deliver value quickly? AI Solution Accelerators are proven, prebuilt PoC assets that drive successful AI implementations, enabling you to demonstrate the value of AI capabilities and accelerate time to value. Drive success in building AI apps and agents with a comprehensive set of sales tools and marketing resources, including Microsoft pitch decks, guides, solution accelerators, demos, and more. Access them here. Unify your data platform to help your customers implement a data strategy that is fit for the era of AI, including customizable pitch decks and other go-to-market resources to help you succeed. Find it all here, and explore Fabric here. Differentiate your expertise to customers with Solutions Partner designations and specializations. Customer Success Discover how Microsoft can transform your sales strategy with case studies and customer success stories that showcase how businesses, NGOs, and individuals leverage AI to transform their business. Follow the tag Azure news to stay updated on monthly Azure partner news.Register for the Cloud and AI Platforms FY26 Partner Playbook Walkthrough Replay and Q&A session
Join us for a replay and exclusive Q&A session on September 11, at 8:00 AM Pacific Time or 5:00 PM Pacific Time to learn about the exciting go-to-market (GTM) priorities and initiatives planned for FY26 across the Cloud and AI platforms solutions area, aligned to the System Integrator partner audience. We are excited to invite you to an exclusive session where we will unveil the FY26 Cloud & AI Platform Partner Playbook and guide you through any Q&A. This comprehensive guide is designed to help you leverage Microsoft's latest investments and strategies to grow your business and enhance customer engagement. What to Expect: Business Overview: Gain insights into the FY26 investments and strategic priorities. Customer Opportunities: Understand the growth drivers and market opportunities for FY26. Solution Plays: Learn how to migrate and modernize your estate, innovate with Azure AI apps and agents, and unify your data platform. Partner Skilling: Discover opportunities for partner skilling and certifications to enhance your capabilities. Why Attend? Exclusive Insights: Get a detailed overview of the playbook and how it can benefit your business. Interactive Sessions: Participate in discussions and Q&A sessions to address your specific needs and questions. We look forward to your participation and collaboration in driving mutual growth and success. Please register now to secure your spot. Can’t attend the live event? Register anyway to get notified when the event content is available on demand. Register here for the morning and evening session! When you join this meeting, your name, email address and/or phone number may be viewable by other session participants in the attendee list. By joining, you’re agreeing to this experience. Learn more at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=521839. This event may be recorded and shared publicly with others, including Microsoft’s global customers, partners, employees, and service providers. The recording may include your name and any questions you submit to Q&A. You may submit questions anonymously.August update: What's new in Azure for Partners
News and Announcements We just shared our FY26 partner strategy at MCAPS Start for Partners—and it’s all about what’s next with AI. Catch up on key announcements here. Explore the latest Cloud and AI platforms and Agentic AI partner playbooks which includes key skilling resources, investments, win formulas and more. GPT-5 is now in Azure AI Foundry, offering top-tier reasoning for building intelligent and safe AI apps and agents. Learn more. Serve customers in bandwidth-constrained environments who are building autonomous assistants or embedding AI into real-world workflows, using gpt-oss-20b on Windows AI Foundry. Learn more. Watch The AI Show to hear about the latest announcements, including Observability in Azure AI Foundry, App Templates, and more. This is a show by Seth Juarez for developers and tech experts. Watch now. Your customers can now mirror Azure Databricks Unity Catalog into Fabric. Deeper integration. No clusters. No pipelines. Just insights. Help them get started––learn more here. Dive into our latest blog and research to learn how Azure-native integration, autoscaling, and unified governance make Azure Databricks the best home for your data and AI workloads, and then share the information with your customers as they consider their preferred data platform. Learn more. Incentives and offers We recently announced Azure Accelerate—a unified offering within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program that brings together Azure Migrate and Modernize, Azure Innovate, and Cloud Accelerate Factory––all built upon the foundations of Azure Essentials. Nominate your project today. Dr Migrate is an AI-assisted platform for cloud migration planning, available within Azure Accelerate. Eligible partners can request licenses through Azure Accelerate to run customer environment assessments through Azure Accelerate. Invite a colleague to join the Azure Migrate and Modernize Partner Forum, your source for early access to Azure offerings, product roadmaps, and marketing updates for partners. Learn more. Skilling and Events Visit our skilling hub for the latest training resources to earn designations and specializations. Explore the most recent skilling blog for key skilling-related announcements. If you're a consultant or part of a Microsoft partner's sales or tech pre-sales team looking to drive AI apps and agents, join our virtual 3-day skilling event, Sept 9–11. Hear from Microsoft field and product leaders on sales best practices, product demos, and how to pitch AI CoEs—a key FY26 strategy for driving org-wide AI transformation. Register here. Join us for FabCon25 Europe in Vienna, September 15–18, for workshops, networking with customers, and insights from Microsoft leaders. Don’t miss Partner Day on September 15 to explore Fabric growth strategies and connect with the community. Learn more and buy your ticket here. Heading to VMware Explore Las Vegas? Join our exclusive partner session on August 25 to explore new Azure investments like TCO tools and migration funding. Visit booth #107 to discuss VMware workloads and register early—space is limited (max 2 attendees per organization).—register here. Join us at the Azure Dev Summit, a Microsoft-sponsored event designed for developers, architects, and technology leaders. Explore the latest in Azure, .NET, and Microsoft AI, gain insights from inspiring speakers, and connect with peers driving innovation. Reserve your spot today. SAP Specialization: Partners can now meet SAP Specialization requirements with the new Run SAP on Microsoft Cloudtraining path—aligned to SAP on Azure’s latest capabilities and validated during audits. This streamlined option simplifies the journey to specialization. Go-To-Market Take your marketing strategy to the next level with pre-designed campaigns, resources, and ready-to-go assets. Learn more. Drive success in building AI apps and agents with a comprehensive set of sales tools and marketing resources, including Microsoft pitch decks, guides, solution accelerators, demos, and more! Access them here. Unify your data platform to help your customers implement a data strategy that is fit for the era of AI, including customizable pitch decks and other go-to-market resources to help you succeed. Find it all here. Differentiate your expertise to customers with Solutions Partner designations and specializations. Introducing SAP Business Suite: Unlock mid-market growth by partnering with Microsoft and SAP. Lead with AI Innovation and leverage SAP Cloud ERP, GROW and RISE journeys, to deliver scalable cloud services, spark strategic cloud conversations, and access exclusive incentives, GTM resources, and tools to accelerate success. Access resources here. Customer success Discover how Microsoft can transform your sales strategy. Explore real AI case studies and customer success stories showing how businesses, NGOs and individuals leverage AI to transform their business. Follow the tag Azure news to stay updated on monthly Azure partner news.Generate Now! Podcast - Agentic AI Partner and Industry Conversations
James Caton sits down with Microsoft industry experts and leading global system integrators (GSIs) to explore how Agentic AI is transforming industries— from banking and healthcare to manufacturing and public sector. Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts YouTube Channel Subscribe and listen on all major podcast platforms. Each episode will feature behind-the-scenes insights, measurable impact, and the strategic thinking that’s driving Agentic AI success at scale. Season SN Topic 2 1 Gaming Industry Agentic AI (Byung-su Kim, Microsoft) 2 2 Banking Industry Agentic AI (Daragh Morrissey, Microsoft) 2 3 Retail CPG Industry Agentic AI (Mike Edmonds, Microsoft) 2 4 Telco Industry Agentic AI (Rick Lievano, Microsoft) 2 5 Manufacturing Industry Agentic AI (Eleni Rachaniotou, Microsoft) 2 6 EY's Ed Bobrin on Agentic AI 2 7 PwC's Diego Jarne on Agentic AI 2 8 Capgemini's Roshan Gya on Agentic AI 2 9 NTTDATA's Charlie Doubek on Agentic AI 2 10 Infosys Mona Dash on Agentic AI 2 11 LTIMindtree Sheba Fernando on Agentic AI 2 12 EPAM Dmitry Tikhomirov on Agentic AI Connect with James at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmcaton/
