Azure: Unifying Operations for an AI-Driven World
In an era where artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping business practices, organizations are seeking technology platforms that can manage massive datasets and deliver real-time insights. This need extends across diverse IT landscapes: cloud, edge, and on-premises. Microsoft’s Azure stands out as a key player in this transformation, with its adaptive cloud approach, especially as enabled by Azure Arc.
Azure is designed to unify operations, streamline application development, and consolidate data management across distributed infrastructures, catering to the evolving needs of an AI-powered world. At the recent Microsoft Ignite conference, several announcements highlighted Azure’s commitment to providing powerful tools wherever businesses need them.
These developments include: the preview of Azure Arc gateway, the introduction of Windows Server Management enabled by Azure Arc, the preview of Azure Container Storage enabled by Azure Arc, Azure Monitor pipeline, Azure Key Vault Secret Store, the general availability (GA) of Azure IoT Operations, Fabric Real-Time Intelligence, and Azure Local. Azure Arc, a core component of this adaptive vision, now supports over 39,000 customers worldwide. This expansion of Azure Arc underscores a larger shift in the industry: the cloud is becoming integral to how organizations operate.
Microsoft is excited to share how various clients such as LALIGA, Coles, Husqvarna, and Emirates Global Aluminium are leveraging the adaptive cloud approach to meet their business needs.
Operate Anywhere with AI-Enhanced Management and Security
LALIGA, one of the world’s largest football leagues, is using Azure’s adaptive cloud approach to unify its infrastructure and enable real-time data processing across stadiums and digital platforms, thus enhancing fan engagement. Adopting Azure Arc enables LALIGA to manage both cloud and on-premises seamlessly, processing over 3 million data points per match to power AI-driven insights. This unified platform provides LALIGA with the agility and scalability needed to adapt to dynamic fan interactions and optimize operations.
“The challenges that we have can be solved with this adaptive cloud approach. I think that we have the right tool, which is Azure Arc. With this, we’re able to manage the infra no matter if it’s located in the cloud, on-premises, in the edge” – Miguel Angel Leal Góngora, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, LALIGA.
Azure helps maintain service and ensure data protection by providing tools to streamline operations and management of both infrastructure and applications. This encompasses configuration management and governance, resiliency and observability, built-in security and control, and universal AI assistants like Copilot in Azure.
The new Azure Arc gateway simplifies cloud connectivity from data centers and edge sites, making cloud connections easier to manage, thereby offering improved control over network infrastructures. Windows Server Management enabled by Azure Arc is also now simpler to access. Customers with Software Assurance (SA) benefit from no extra costs to access Azure Arc-enabled management capabilities by connecting their servers to Azure, they can leverage over 20 Azure services, including Azure Update Manager, Machine Configuration, and Azure Monitor, as well as Windows Server features like Azure Site Recovery and Best Practices Assessment. These resources help centralize and modernize management across diverse environments.
Simplifying App Development and Accelerating Innovation
Microsoft’s adaptive cloud approach provides solutions to streamline cloud-native development. A common challenge for developers is ensuring application reliability, even with intermittent network connectivity. Azure Container Storage, available in preview, enables developers to construct containerized applications that can operate across various environments.
Data is automatically synchronized, allowing developers to confidently design scalable and robust solutions. Furthermore, the new Azure Monitor pipeline assists teams in efficiently processing vast data volumes. This is instrumental in helping to maintain operational efficiency and scale modern cloud-native applications.
As companies span across clouds, datacenters, and edge systems, security complexity increases. Azure Key Vault Secret Store provides a robust method for managing secrets, and includes features such as secret auto-rotation for improved security. The approach ensures that sensitive information stays secure across Linux and Windows environments, supporting reliable and scalable application protection.
Coles, operating over 1,800 stores, is investing in innovative technologies, such as AI and computer vision to optimize customer experiences. Coles is using Azure Machine Learning to train and develop edge AI models and run these models locally in their stores. According to reports, Coles has met its target of a six-times increase in the pace that it can deploy applications to stores.
“We’re going to be working more with Microsoft over the next 12 months to build out Azure Machine Learning operations for the edge to be able to seamlessly test and deploy new models and ensure auditability of our models and the different versions over time. The Azure automated machine learning tool was really useful for us, and it speeds up our data annotation time for training models by 50%.” – Roslyn Mackay, Head of Technology Innovation, Coles Group
Unifying Data from Edge to Cloud for AI-Powered Insights
According to a recent Forrester survey commissioned by Microsoft, 46% of the data gathered by organizations is sent to the cloud, with an expected increase to 68% within two years. Azure Arc supports data integrity across distributed environments by streamlining device management. The GA of Azure IoT Operations improves data collection from IoT devices, while Fabric Real-Time Intelligence enables edge signal ingestion. Combined, these features let businesses fully harness AI within their infrastructure.
Husqvarna is looking to double the connected devices it has in the market and increase sales of robotic lawn mowers. Husqvarna views Azure IoT Operations as an important component by enabling them to build a data-powered, global supply chain and upgrade processes.
For Husqvarna, the ability to harness data on a global scale will help them develop a more efficient supply chain. This will allow them to lower costs and increase efficiency in transporting goods to their customers.
Innovating on Blended Infrastructure
Microsoft is focused on creating a seamless blend of cloud and customer environments, which means integrating customer environments with cloud services for their business needs. Azure Local is an Arc-enabled infrastructure designed for local data processing and critical operations, enabling businesses to manage low-latency and high-performance workloads while benefiting from the scalability and resilience of the cloud.
Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the world’s largest premium aluminium producer, is now focused on moving one-third of its server base to the cloud with Azure and another third to run hybrid and at the edge with Azure Local, unifying the advantages of both private and public cloud.
After moving the cloud into its operation areas, EGA reported a 10 to 13 times faster AI response time. They also experienced reduced latency and saw 86% cost savings associated with AI video and image recognition when compared to creating an AI model at the edge separately.
“Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud brings us not just infrastructure as a service capability, but also many software and platform capabilities that open up new possibilities we didn’t have in our former on-premises environment. One of the key capabilities is running real-time AI data analysis in our operations. For example, we used to manually inspect only 2% of anodes, which are large carbon blocks used in the aluminium smelting process. Now, we inspect 100% of all anodes using vision AI based on a neural network machine learning model running on the edge (with Azure Local). This model allows us to standardize the inspection process by automatically recognizing defects in real time going beyond what the human eye can see.” – Carlo Khalil Nizam, Chief Digital Officer, EGA
Looking Ahead
Microsoft is committed to its adaptive cloud approach and continues to innovate to help businesses thrive in an AI-powered world. Microsoft is excited to keep partnering to transform possibilities across distribution environments.
To know more about Microsoft’s roadmap and how Azure can power transformation across various industries, view Microsoft Ignite sessions and blogs.
