October update: What’s new for partners in Azure
The Cloud & AI Platforms partner newsletter is your monthly guide to the latest Microsoft partner resources, Azure product updates, and go-to-market opportunities to grow your cloud and AI practice. This month, explore new PostgreSQL on Azure capabilities, turn small and medium-sized business (SMB) demand for Azure AI into pipeline, and strengthen your skills, incentives strategy, and co-sell execution. Navigate to News and Announcements, Incentives and Offers & Skilling and Events News and Announcements Win modernization opportunities with the latest PostgreSQL capabilities: Customers are rethinking where PostgreSQL workloads should run as they balance performance, resiliency, operational efficiency, and future AI needs. That gives you an opportunity to influence database modernization decisions before platform choices are finalized. The latest PostgreSQL on Azure capabilities strengthen that conversation with both new capabilities and independent evidence. In tested 16-vCPU configurations, Principled Technologies found that Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server with Dv6 compute and Premium SSD v2 processed 72.7% more new orders per minute without high availability and 79.2% more with high availability than the tested competitor's solution for PostgreSQL configuration. Review the Partner Center announcement and Principled Technologies study to start and advance modernization discussions toward migration and managed services. Turn Azure AI demand from SMBs into your next growth opportunity: Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are moving beyond AI experimentation and looking for practical ways to modernize operations, use agentic AI, and create measurable business outcomes. Lead with Azure AI, an AI-ready data foundation, and sovereignty by design to modernize customer foundations and build a path to future AI innovation. Lead customer conversations with "Modernize your data to drive results and leverage AI" and "Create a competitive edge with AI." These FY27 SMB conversations are designed to uncover modernization and agentic AI opportunities and align customer priorities to Azure solutions. Build pipeline with Microsoft CloudAscent, Partner Marketing Center Pro, and co-op funds to identify in-market customers, generate demand, and increase the reach of your go-to-market activities. Use the SMB pitch deck and discovery questions to land business value and connect customer needs to Azure modernization and AI scenarios. Deliver a one-day, hands-on xIAD workshop to identify agentic AI and modernization opportunities, generate qualified leads, and create a path to the next engagement. Scope a proof of concept with Frontier Accelerate for Azure to move opportunities from planning to execution with Microsoft-backed investments and resources. Accelerate SQL Server modernization conversations with the SQL Server Migration & Modernization collection, including ready-to-use proposals, email templates, and pitch decks to engage customers and drive Azure SQL migration opportunities. Explore the FY27 Frontier Transformation SMB GTM Partner Playbook for conversation guidance, readiness resources, and proven engagement motions. Join the Azure Infrastructure community to connect with peers on Azure modernization, AI readiness, partner investments, technical resources, and best practices. Incentives and Offers FY27 incentive updates: Build your growth strategy around high-value data and AI workloads: Effective October 1, 2026, Microsoft made targeted adjustments to the FY27 partner incentives portfolio to support long-term sustainability and align funding with the greatest areas of customer opportunity. For Cloud & AI Platforms partners, rates are rebalanced to focus on the key high-value workloads, with weighting toward data. Small and medium-sized business participation in large engagements is adjusted to better match engagement scope with customer profile and propensity. Portfolio-wide updates also adjust rates, expectations, and engagement controls to sustain investment availability throughout the year. Claims submitted on or before September 30, 2026, will be assessed using prior terms; the updates apply to claims submitted from October 1 onward. Review the incentives guide for complete details and join an upcoming community call to learn more. Move from progress to proof: Earn your Frontier Transformation Engineer badge: Now that your team has started building Frontier AI capability, turn that momentum into visible proof. Complete the required certifications, project readiness milestones, and Frontier engineering training to earn your Frontier Transformation Engineer badge. Earning the badge validates your skills, strengthens customer confidence, gives your practice a clearer point of differentiation in customer conversations, and demonstrates your readiness to design, implement, and deliver Microsoft Frontier AI solutions. Keep progressing, complete the remaining steps, and earn your Frontier Transformation Engineer badge. Turn co-sell into a scalable growth engine: Co-sell can drive stronger collaboration, faster deal progression, and better sales outcomes, but success requires more than occasional engagement. The new Co-sell Execution Engine video series on the Microsoft Partner Skilling Hub shows you how to build a repeatable co-sell motion that delivers long-term results. In five on-demand sessions, Microsoft co-sell leaders and experienced partners share practical frameworks and proven strategies to improve collaboration with Microsoft, increase deal velocity, and equip your business to win more opportunities. Skilling and Events Take your AI on the road: The Microsoft Frontier Tour kicks off in October, bringing the latest AI innovation to 35 cities around the world. The one-day events bring together AI, cloud, data, and security leaders, and the people making decisions about what comes next. For sponsors, it’s an opportunity to meet these audiences face-to-face, share what you’re building, and connect around real-world AI solutions. There are still sponsorship opportunities available for select stops. Now is a great time to make a plan and join us on tour. Ready to get started? Visit Microsoft Event Sponsorship or contact Follow the tag Azure news to stay updated on monthly news and follow the Azure Partners discussion board to ask questions and connect with subject matter experts.September update: What’s new for partners in Azure
Catch up on September Azure news and updates for Microsoft partners. Learn what’s new with Frontier Accelerate for Marketplace, upcoming Azure promotions for Cloud Solution Provider partners, AI agent skilling, co-sell training, and the Frontier Transformation Engineer badge, with resources to help you prepare and take action.August update: What’s new for partners in Azure
The Cloud & AI Platforms partner newsletter is your monthly guide to the latest Microsoft partner resources, Azure product updates, and go-to-market growth opportunities for you to accelerate your cloud & AI practice. This month, explore new FY27 Cloud & AI Platforms go-to-market (GTM) resources, get ahead of the upcoming Azure reservation exchange policy update, and more.July update: What’s new for partners in Azure
Stay ahead of key Microsoft partner updates shaping cloud and AI growth in FY27. This month’s highlights include details on the Frontier Accelerate incentives driving AI adoption, hands-on learning at the upcoming Microsoft Partner FY27 GTM Kickoff Event, and much more. Discover how these updates create new opportunities to grow services, increase profitability, and lead customers from cloud adoption to AI-powered outcomes.June update: What’s new for partners in Azure
This June Cloud and AI newsletter brings together the latest Azure news, partner announcements, incentives, and skilling opportunities designed to help Microsoft partners grow their business. Inside, you’ll find updates from Microsoft Build 2026, including new capabilities across Microsoft Fabric, Azure databases, and Azure Linux, along with timely announcements such as Azure Virtual Machine Reserved Instance changes and Partner of the Year Award submissions. The roundup also highlights migration and modernization offers, upcoming events and training, and real‑world partner success stories that show how organizations are using Azure and Microsoft Power Platform to deliver measurable results.May update: What’s New in Azure for Partners
Guiding customers through their AI transformation is not just about delivering technology but shepherding them into a new era of AI-powered productivity. From migrations and modernization to innovation at scale, partners have a profound opportunity to help their customers usher in Frontier Transformation while creating long-term business by building and deploying intelligent apps and agents. This month’s Azure newsletter rounds up Azure platform innovations, incentives, skilling, events, and go-to-market resources designed to meet that moment. From this year's MCAPS Start for Partners to a new Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study by Forrester on the partner value of a robust Azure practice, this roundup is for partners who want to migrate and modernize with confidence and turn data into a competitive advantage. Navigate to News and Announcements, Incentives and Offers, Skilling and Events, Go-To-Market, Partner success stories News and Announcements MCAPS Start for Partners returns on July 22: Get ready for the FY27 planning event so you can start defining your Frontier Transformation roadmap and focusing your efforts where demand will be strongest. At MCAPS Start for Partners, you'll hear directly from Microsoft executives including Judson Althoff and Nicole Dezen on FY27 priorities, investments, and partner opportunities so you can align to where Microsoft is investing and how to engage the market. Through a keynote and breakout sessions, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how Frontier Transformation is reshaping customer expectations and where that shift is creating new opportunities for you to lead. Join us to get actionable next steps to engage sellers, activate co-sell motions, and scale pipeline. Save the date! Advance database modernization with Azure Accelerate for Databases: Help organizations modernize their data estates and build new AI-ready capabilities on Azure more seamlessly with Azure Accelerate for Databases. This offering combines Microsoft-led delivery through Cloud Accelerate Factory, Azure specialized partner expertise, flexible savings and investments, and role-based Data and AI skilling to unlock an AI-ready foundation for innovation. GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing starting June 1, 2026: Instead of counting premium requests, every Copilot plan will include a monthly allotment of GitHub AI Credits, with the option for paid plans to purchase additional usage. Usage will be calculated based on token consumption, including input, output, and cached tokens, using the listed API rates for each model. This change aligns Copilot pricing with actual usage and is an important step toward a sustainable, reliable Copilot business and experience for all users. Learn more and access partner resources. Incentives and Offers Explore the new guided experience for incentives: Now delivered through an online experience, the Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide offers clear navigation, direct paths to engagement, and faster access to up-to-date guidance. With this new experience, you can search incentives by category to find go-to-market-aligned opportunities; quickly confirm eligibility so you can target where you invest time and effort; and take action. Explore the digital incentives guide experience and join one of our upcoming partner community calls for the Americas and EMEA or Asia to share feedback so we can continue to evolve the experience. Accelerate Microsoft Defender for Cloud adoption with partner investments: Security is a baseline expectation for customers—which is why we've put together opportunities for you to deliver a built-in security approach and drive growth. Complete the Cloud Security Envisioning Workshop to sharpen your approach to engaging customers in security discussions earlier in their cloud journey. We also encourage you to attain the Cloud Security specialization to unlock continued access to the Envisioning Workshop—along with other targeted benefits—to strengthen your capabilities leading secure cloud transformation. Tap into Microsoft resources to accelerate migrations and modernization: Access robust migration and modernization resources like Azure Accelerate, Cloud Accelerate Factory, and Dr Migrate. Nominate projects for Azure Accelerate, a unified offering that supports faster deal closure and predictable payouts for implementations. Plan cloud migrations with AI assistance from Dr Migrate. And access no-cost deployment assistance for more than 30 Azure services with Cloud Accelerate Factory. Review our streamlined incentives guide for more information on tools and resources built for your customer migrations and modernization projects. Apply for access to preview Microsoft Azure HorizonDB: A fully managed Postgres-compatible database service designed to meet the needs of modern enterprise workloads, Azure HorizonDB is designed to support applications across the entire workload spectrum from the first line of code in a new app to the migration of large-scale, mission-critical solutions. Built for enterprises, Azure HorizonDB introduces new levels of performance and scalability to PostgreSQL. Apply now to get hands-on experience with this database experience during the preview period. Skilling and Events Dive deep on real code, systems, and workflows at Microsoft Build: Register today for the June 2–3 event. Join us in person in San Francisco or tune in remotely to learn from the teams building and scaling AI, connect with the developer community, and learn strategies to ship smarter AI. Develop expertise in Azure Database for PostgreSQL: Design secure, scalable architectures, perform seamless migrations from multiple platforms, and build AI-powered applications using vector search and GraphRAG. Labs provide practical experience for modernization, high availability, and intelligent innovation. Register now for our June 16–18 Project Ready workshop. Start building your team’s Microsoft Fabric capabilities after FabCon and SQLCon: Take advantage of these technical trainings to equip your team with hands-on learning opportunities across key Fabric offerings: Fabric Databases and Data Factory (May 12–14) and Fabric Data Agents and Fabric IQ (June 9–11). Microsoft will also be hosting a Microsoft Fabric Sales Accelerate skilling event on May 27 (Americas) and May 28 (Asia and EMEA) to empower you to win data platform conversations. Access the Fabric Center of Excellence Accelerator: Join a high-impact, four-day virtual training designed to speed your DP-600 and DP-700 certifications, deepen your practical knowledge, and create immediate, customer-ready capability. This training will be offered across multiple time zones with cohorts in May and June. To get more information and participate, email fabricpartnersteam@microsoft.com with your organization name, selected certification track (DP-600 or DP-700), estimated number of participants, and target timeframe. Select Microsoft Azure Virtual Machine Reserved Instances (RIs) ending: Starting July 1, 2026, purchases and renewals will no longer be available for Azure Reserved Virtual Machines Instances (RIs) for select VM series. One-year RIs will no longer be available for the Av2, Amv2, Bv1, D, Ds, Dv2, Dsv2, F, Fs, Fsv2, G, Gs, Ls, and Lsv2 VM series. One-year and three-year RIs will no longer be available for the Dv3, Dsv3, Ev3, and Esv3 VM series. We strongly recommend reviewing your current RI orders and taking necessary action to prevent lapse in commitment savings. Review the documentation for more information on how to prepare. Get ready for the 2026 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards: It's almost that time of year again—the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards are quickly approaching. Nominations open on June 1 and close on July 7. Learn more about the awards, start preparing your organization’s submissions, and be on the lookout for more details coming in mid-May. Go-To-Market Check out new Microsoft Azure go-to-market assets for SMBs: Partners are uniquely positioned to turn adoption and cloud investments into tangible impact for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with Microsoft Azure. Our robust collection of Azure SMB go-to-market assets are designed so you can quickly build pipeline, grow your SMB customer base, and expand existing workloads while leading secure cloud transformations at scale. Explore the collection now. Review the TEI partner opportunity: Explore the Database accelerate page for independent, data-backed validation of the profitability and growth potential of building an Azure practice so you can help customers justify the investment, prioritize their focus areas, and confidently scale their businesses across enterprise and SMB segments. Drive database cost savings for customers with savings plans for databases: These plans can deliver strong savings across customers’ database estates, with flexibility that follows the database estate as it grows, scales, and modernizes. Learn how to use these plans for your customers and tap into our refreshed database narrative to support your conversations. Standardized pricing for Extended Security Updates is now available: The new pricing model impacts SQL Server and Windows products including Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB and Windows Server, offering customers consistent pricing across clouds and purchasing channels. Read the blog for more details, and connect with SQL Server and Azure SQL experts in the SQL partner community. Azure SRE Agent is now generally available: Azure SRE Agent offers AI‑powered incident management and resource optimization with extensible automation via custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations. Read the Apps on Azure blog to learn how Azure SRE Agent can improve uptime and reduce operational toil. Microsoft has launched new Cloud Adoption Framework guidance for data: Help your customers prepare for an AI-first future by getting their data estates organized for success and ensuring you are providing services that align with Microsoft best practices. Dive into the guidance here. Partner success stories System performance at Apollo Hospitals reaches 99.85% uptime after migrating to Azure: Apollo Hospitals needed a more scalable, flexible way to manage digital care delivery across its network of more than 74 hospitals. It shifted from a fragmented on-premises setup to Microsoft Azure, replaced its back end with Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and streamlined delivery via Azure DevOps. This modernized hospital systems and enhanced scalability, visibility, and security, improving system uptime to 99.95%. Deployment timelines dropped by 40%, and teams now work with greater speed, resilience, and readiness to support future innovation. Microsoft Fabric helps improve data accuracy by bringing data into a single source of truth: Learn how partners are helping Microsoft customers unify data for real-time insights, improve data accuracy, accelerate innovation, and drive intelligent transformation, all through the power of Microsoft Fabric. Veeam strengthens data resilience for Batterjee Medical College: As Batterjee Medical College expanded its hybrid learning environment and cloud footprint, it needed a unified approach to protecting critical data across on‑premises and cloud systems. Working with Veeam, the institution improved data resilience and accelerated recovery, reducing recovery times by up to 80% while maintaining continuity across a growing multiregional education environment. Infosys modernizes education systems with large‑scale Azure migration: A major school district partnered with Infosys to modernize its legacy Student Information System and migrate it to Microsoft Azure. The cloud‑based platform improved performance during peak demand, reduced operational strain, and created a scalable foundation for future innovation—supporting one of the largest Azure‑based SIS deployments in education. EPAM builds an AI assistant to streamline retail operations at Albert Heijn: EPAM worked with Albert Heijn to deploy a secure, Azure‑based AI assistant integrated into the retailer’s employee app. The solution streamlined daily store workflows, surfaced product and inventory information faster, and laid the groundwork for broader enterprise AI adoption across retail operations. practices. Dive into the guidance here. Resources Tackle migration planning bottlenecks with Azure Migrate: Every migration starts with the same questions: what do we have, and where should it go? Historically, that process has taken weeks. Azure Migrate collapses that entire process into a single workflow, cutting migration planning from weeks to hours with a repeatable workshop-to-deck motion that accelerates migrations and app modernization. Starting with the Azure Migrate Collector, you can scan your estate offline, enrich the inventory with tags and application groupings, and generate a PowerPoint report that summarizes modernization and lift-and-shift recommendations, security posture, and cost insights for your next stakeholder meeting. Review the Learn page now for more information. Follow the tag Azure news to stay updated on monthly news and follow the Azure Partners discussion board to ask questions and connect with subject matter experts.April update: What’s New in Azure for Partners
This month’s Azure newsletter highlights the latest Fabric innovations unveiled at FabCon, introduces the Azure SRE Agent for proactive operations, and showcases new Azure Database for PostgreSQL capabilities that support enterprise migrations. It also includes updated incentives—such as Azure Accelerate and Microsoft Defender for Cloud investments—along with key skilling opportunities like Microsoft Build and Fabric Sales Accelerate to support pipeline development, modernize customer environments, and deliver AI‑ready solutions. Navigate to News and Announcements, Incentives and Offers, Skilling and Events, Go-To-Market, Partner success stories News and Announcements Explore new innovations from FabCon and SQLCon Atlanta. Building on the market position of Microsoft Fabric, the latest event unveiled a bevy of new product capabilities, including simplified migration pathways, new features in Fabric IQ, data and operations agents, and the just-announced Database Hub. Check out the keynote to catch up on the latest and share our blog to start customer conversations. Drive database cost savings for customers with savings plans for databases. These plans can deliver up to 35% savings across customers’ database estates, with flexibility that follows the database estate as it grows, scales, and modernizes. Learn how to leverage these plans for your customers and utilize our refreshed database narrative to support your conversations. Azure SRE Agent is now generally available, offering AI‑powered incident detection and remediation with extensible automation via custom Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations. Read the Apps on Azure blog to learn how Azure SRE Agent can improve uptime and reduce operational toil. Standardized pricing for Extended Security Updates is now available. The new pricing model impacts SQL Server and Windows products including Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB and Windows Server, offering customers consistent pricing across clouds and purchasing channels. Read the blog for more details, and connect with SQL Server and Azure SQL experts in the SQL Partner Community. Confidently migrate from legacy databases with Azure Database for PostgreSQL, a managed, open-source platform with enterprise‑grade performance and reliability. New innovations—including the Oracle‑to‑PostgreSQL AI migration tool—empower customers to achieve the speed, scale, and resilience required for mission‑critical workloads, while lowering cost and complexity. Learn more. The new, digital Microsoft Commercial Partner Incentives Guide delivers clear navigation, direct paths to engagement, and fast access to the most up-to-date guidance—all in one place. Now you can search incentives by category, quickly confirm eligibility, and act swiftly on opportunities with live links that connect you to the next action. Explore the digital incentives guide experience and share your feedback as we continue to evolve it. Azure Migrate now consolidates the migration planning process into a single workflow. With Azure Migrate Collector, you can scan your estate offline, then enrich the inventory with tags, organize workloads into applications, and generate an executive-ready report that summarizes modernization and lift-and-shift recommendations, security posture, and cost insights for your next stakeholder meeting. Read the blog to learn more about using Azure Migrate. Microsoft launched new Cloud Adoption Framework guidance for data. Help your customers prepare for an AI-first future by getting their data estates organized for success and ensuring you are providing services that align with Microsoft best practices. Dive into the guidance here. Incentives and Offers Build, validate, and publish AI solutions on Azure with our Build & Publish offer, featuring updated criteria and increased flexibility. Infuse AI into solutions, advance analytics capabilities, and accelerate readiness for Microsoft Marketplace publication. For more information, review the SDC Partner Incentive Deck. Tap into secure migration partner investments for Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Access helpful resources on the new Cloud Security Envisioning Workshop. Act now—after June 30, 2026, you will need the Cloud Security specialization to access this workshop. For more information on Defender for Cloud incentives for partners, join the Azure Migrate and Modernize Partner Forum to access the recent Secure Migrations webinar and additional content (accessible in the Forum Teams site). Drive growth and eliminate legacy virtualization cost constraints. Third-party virtualization licensing changes are reshaping the hosting landscape—and partners who act now can transform faster and reduce long‑term risk. Microsoft Datacenter Optimization (DCO) provides a clear, strategic path forward, empowering partners to transition from a Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) licensing model to a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) operation and deliver modernization across Azure Native, Azure Local, and Azure Arc. Tune in to the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud partners podcast to learn more and explore additional tools and support on the Microsoft Datacenter Optimization page. Deploy tools and access rewards to accelerate customer migrations and modernizations. Microsoft is committed to partner growth, and we offer numerous tools and rewards to support your migration and modernization efforts. Nominate your project for Azure Accelerate, a unified offering within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program that supports faster deal closure and predictable payouts for your implementations. Plan cloud migrations with AI assistance from Dr Migrate, available within Azure Accelerate. Plus, access no-cost deployment assistance for more than 30 Azure services with Cloud Accelerate Factory. In addition to these offerings, Solutions Partners* with certified software designations** can earn up to $175,000 for qualifying Customer Migrate & Modernize engagements. Check out the streamlined incentives guide for more information. Skilling and Events Dive deep on real code, systems, and workflows at Microsoft Build. Register today for the June 2–3, 2026, event. Join live in San Francisco or tune in remotely to learn from the teams building and scaling AI, connect with the developer community, and gain strategies to ship smarter AI. Develop expertise in Azure Database for PostgreSQL. Design secure, scalable architectures, perform seamless migrations from multiple platforms, and build AI-powered applications using vector search and GraphRAG. Labs provide practical experience for modernization, high availability, and intelligent innovation. Register for our June 16-18 Project Ready workshop. Explore AI-powered migration and modernization at the Microsoft Azure Summit: Migrate and Modernize with Agentic AI event. Back by popular demand, this event will take place on April 23, 2026. Encourage your customers in the Americas region to attend to discover how new, AI-assisted migration and modernization tools, features, and capabilities can equip them to modernize quickly and efficiently. Register today. You can also catch up on the Partner Preview held ahead of the Migrate and Modernize Summit, featuring early insights, key announcements, and guidance to prepare you for customer conversations. Ready to start building your team’s Fabric capabilities after FabCon + SQLCon? Take advantage of these technical trainings to equip your team with hands-on learning opportunities across key Fabric offerings: Fabric Databases and Data Factory (May 12-14) and Fabric Data Agents and Fabric IQ (June 9-11). Microsoft will also be hosting a Microsoft Fabric Sales Accelerate skilling event on May 27 (Americas) and May 28 (Asia and EMEA) to empower you to win data platform conversations. Access the Fabric Center of Excellence Accelerator. Join a high-impact, four-day, virtual training designed to speed your DP-600 and DP-700 certifications, deepen your practical knowledge, and create immediate, customer-ready capability. This training will be offered across multiple time zones with cohorts in April, May, and June. To get more information and participate, email fabricpartnersteam@microsoft.com with your organization name, selected certification track (DP-600 or DP-700), estimated number of participants, and target timeframe. Build your team’s capabilities at Fabric workshops. At Fabric FAST, you can learn from Microsoft experts how to build, price, and launch revenue-ready Microsoft Fabric offers for customers. This virtual experience runs throughout April and is available in English and Spanish. In addition, we are offering a Spanish-language Microsoft Fabric skilling series, hosted virtually May 5–6. Japanese speakers can join us in-person in Tokyo for a workshop, hosted jointly with AMD, on both technical and sales readiness, May 15 and May 19. Go-To-Market Accelerate growth with Microsoft Azure GTM assets. Turn adoption and cloud investments into tangible impact for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). With a robust collection of go-to-market (GTM) 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. By activating these assets, you can strengthen your cloud practice, expand Azure consumption, and deliver smarter, AI-powered outcomes that deepen customer relationships. Explore available campaigns in Partner Marketing Center Pro (for eligible partners) or in Partner Marketing Center. 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 empowering customers to unlock AI value through an AI‑ready data foundation. Support customers with AI transformation—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 will be published here. Become a Fabric Featured Partner. If you are a partner with the Analytics on Azure specialization, take the opportunity to learn more and become a Fabric Featured Partner to stand out as customers modernize their data estates. Access the latest product pitch decks for data platform conversations with customers. Whether you’re looking for the latest content from FabCon + SQLCon or refreshed assets on data governance capabilities in Microsoft Purview, you can find what you need on our Cloud & AI Platform page. Partner success stories System performance at Apollo Hospitals improves significantly after migrating to Azure. Apollo Hospitals needed a more scalable, flexible way to manage digital care delivery across its network of more than 74 hospitals. It shifted from a fragmented on-premises setup to Microsoft Azure, replaced its backend with Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and streamlined delivery via Azure DevOps. This modernized hospital systems and improved scalability, visibility, and security, improving system uptime to 99.95%. Deployment timelines dropped by 40%, and teams now work with greater speed, resilience, and readiness to support future innovation. Microsoft Fabric helps customers improve data accuracy by bringing data into a single source of truth. Learn how partners are helping Microsoft customers unify data for real-time insights, improve data accuracy, accelerate innovation, and drive intelligent transformation all through the power of Microsoft Fabric. Follow the tag Azure news to stay updated on monthly news. 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. * “Solutions Partner” refers to a company that is a member of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and may offer software, services, and/or solutions to customers. Reference to “Solutions Partner” in any content, materials, resources, web properties, etc. and any associated designation should be not interpreted as an offer, endorsement, guarantee, proof of effectiveness or functionality, a commitment or any other type of representation or warranty on the part of Microsoft. All decisions pertaining and related to your business needs including but not limited to strategies, solutions, partner selection, implementation, etc., rests solely with your business. ** A certification is (1) specific to the solution’s interoperability with Microsoft products and (2) based on self-attestation by the solution owner. Solutions are only certified as of the date the solution is reviewed. Solution functionality and capability are controlled by the solution owner and may be subject to change. The inclusion of a solution in Marketplace and any such designations should not be interpreted as an offer, endorsement, guarantee, proof of effectiveness or functionality, a commitment or any other type of representation or warranty on the part of Microsoft. All decisions pertaining and related to your business needs including but not limited to strategies, solutions, partner selection, implementation, etc., rests solely with your business.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!
