Jharkhand and Microsoft sign MoU to leverage Cloud technology to drive digital ambitions

Image: Reuters

By IANS /  18 Feb 2017 , 10:19

Jharkhand on Friday signed an MoU with Microsoft India at the ‘Momentum Jharkhand: Global Investors Summit and Trade Exhibition’ to leverage Cloud technologies to drive the state’s digital ambitions.

“As per the MoU, Microsoft will support the state government to explore Cloud, machine learning and mobile-based solutions to improve citizen services and provide better facilities in the fields of education and agriculture,” a press release of the company said.

Jharkhand has been using an advanced IT infrastructure to provide citizen services and is aggressively driving technology-led programmes such as ‘Skill India’ and ‘Digital India’.

As per the Friday MoU, Microsoft will help the government access the best of Microsoft’s technology and expertise for the improvement of digital services to citizens and drive digital inclusion in the state.

Speaking on the occasion, Umesh Prasad Sah, IT Director at Department of IT and e-Governance of Jharkhand government, said, “Microsoft will work with Jharkhand government to support the development of Cloud and mobile-based solutions and support the use of machine-learning and advanced visualisation to help solve challenges in the fields of agriculture and education.”

Commenting on this association, Country General Manager at Microsoft India Sanjeev Gupta said, “Over the past year we have experimented with Cloud, mobile and machine learning based solutions for better citizen connect as well as to help students and farmers in India. We are happy to bring the power of Microsoft Cloud technologies, machine learning and data analytics to Jharkhand.”

“We look forward to supporting the Jharkhand government in its effort to enhance citizen services and drive digital inclusion,” he added.

Microsoft has been working closely with several state governments in India to support their digital infrastructure, enhance their citizen services and drive efficiencies in their administrative and governance operations.

Microsoft Corporation announces new cloud console for Azure portal

By tech2 News Staff /  09 Dec 2016 , 10:36

Cloud services traditionally come with two standard interfaces. There’s either a web-based graphical interface or a command line terminal interface. In most cases users go with both but switching between them mean switching between applications and terminal interfaces, and in some device cases, it’s just not possible.

Well according to the latest blog from Microsoft, the software giant has come up with a solution.

The new Microsoft Azure Cloud Console comes with an integrated workflow, that allows users to build applications on Azure using graphical interface or command line tools. The shell is integrated into the portal so users can quickly drop into a command line experience, while simultaneously viewing their cloud resources in the graphical web interface.

This solves the common problem mentioned above and lets users work with devices like a mobile or tablet or places where command line tools aren’t installed.

This makes developing code a whole lot easier where there’s no switching involved.

The key features of this experience are:

• Automatic authentication to the command line tools from your existing web login
• All Azure command line tools, as well as relevant command line utilities pre-installed
• Personalised, persistent workspace that preserves your code, configuration and activity across cloud shell sessions.

“The terminal is a fully featured experience featuring not only the Azure command line tools, but also standard editors and tools you would expect. Further, the cloud shell preserves context for you,” writes Brendan Burns, Partner Architect in the blog. Moreover, files saved to disk are persisted in Azure’s cloud so users can resume where they left off in the next cloud shell session. Impressively, users need not even be on the same device or network to continue the session.

Microsoft Azure Government DoD Regions Preview Now Available

 

By Luke Jones -
October 28, 2016 4:37 pm CET 

After recently announcing significant growth in Azure Government, Microsoft has launched a preview for Department of Defense regions.

Microsoft has announced the Preview for Azure Government Department of Defense (DoD) regions. The release is an Impact Level 5-ready cloud infrastructure and platform. In its announcement, Microsoft points out that it is the only hyperscale cloud provider to offer such a high level support to the DoD. The company adds it expands its commitment to the Azure Government platform.

The company has doubled down on its Azure Government strategy this week during the 5th annual Government Cloud Forum. Microsoft announced the platform has grown three times in 2016. Operations Management Suite (OMS) and Government Marketplace were also made widely available.


Through this preview, Microsoft is giving customers early access to DoD regions. With the ability to explore the infrastructure, the company is hoping for customer feedback to improve the platform before full launch. In the blog post, Microsoft confirmed general availability will come early 2017.
Capabilities

Microsoft has previously detailed the capabilities of Azure Government DoD regions in a previous post:

Department of Defense-specific Office 365 and Azure. By the end of 2016, physically isolated versions of Azure Government and Office 365 US Government Defense specifically for the Department of Defense (DoD) will be available in two new dedicated regions. These regions will also connect to Department of Defense (DoD) networks via Microsoft Express Route.


DoD Information Impact Level 5. These versions of Office 365 and Azure are built from the ground up to meet DoD Impact Level 5 controls. DoD agencies and companies managing controlled information will be able to use this platform for Department of Defense National Security System data. Microsoft is on track to achieve a DoD Impact Level 5 Provisional Authorization for both Office 365 and Azure.

Two additional Azure Government regions in the South West and South Central United States. Today we’re announcing our intent to expand Azure Government from new regions in Arizona and Texas. Slated to be generally available in 2017, the new regions will add to our existing regions in Virginia and Iowa and are new additions beyond the Department of Defense regions mentioned above. Now, Microsoft has a total of six dedicated regions for government customers – significantly more than any other cloud provider. Combined with dedicated Government ExpressRoute options, Microsoft offers government agencies broad choice of where they host their data and where they connect directly to Microsoft’s infrastructure.

To access DoD regions, customers need to pass a pre-qualification process. Microsoft says this is to verify that the organization is secure and to check its intended use of the platform.

Microsoft focusing on cloud and newer technologies to drive digital transformation in India

#MICROSOFT

By tech2 News Staff /  22 Sep 2016 , 17:59

Microsoft hosted a two-day event in Bengaluru and some of the prominent names present were Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman, Microsoft India, Anil Bhansali, Managing Director, Microsoft India (R&D) and Sriram Rajamani, Managing Director, Microsoft Research India, among others.

After talking about its cloud adoption in India and how the company plans to go all out with emerging technologies like AI, bots and NLP, the company spoke about its mission for digital transformation in India. Microsoft is primarily known as the ‘Windows’ company, but the two-day event put forth a new face wherein the recognition goes beyond or is rather not limited to Windows.

Talking about this change, Pramanik said, “It is very evident. If you look at the personal computing strategy, it’s not just Windows, all our products like Office and Skype are available on Android and iOS. It doesn’t matter what the OS is. Secondly, we are creating bots on Skype so they will run on all platforms. Think about augmented reality, we can integrate with anything with the capability. But, Windows 10 is important. It gives the same user interface and flexibility across multiple platforms, be it IoT, XBox, Surface, tablets, and PC. While you will be able run apps and services across multiple devices, Windows gives you the unique opportunity to have the same software, apps and user interface. If I walk into my living room, my Xbox opens up, it has Cortana, Skype and Edge and whatever my phone knows about me, the device knows.”

The company is looking to create building blocks based on the current trends like the massive explosion of data, intelligence from machine learning and advanced analytics, along with the economies and agility of cloud computing to drive digital transformation in India. The focus remains on Microsoft cloud services that claim to be trying to fuel innovation by helping organisations engage with customers with a tailored experience, optimise operations through cost savings, cloud automation, IoT and operational insights, better customer relation management, analytics and also improve employee productivity via collaboration and new age ISV solutions on the cloud.

The company already has some initiatives in the education and agricultural sector in partnership with the Indian government (more on this here). For instance, The Andhra Pradesh government is using Microsoft’s Azure machine learning to predict dropouts across 10,000 schools.

To give a big boost to Digital India, PM Modi’s ambitious project, Microsoft also seemed pretty keen on enabling Aadhaar-embedded Skype. Pramanik explained how Aadhaar-embedded Skype could work, wherein it could be used to verify identity. He further spoke about working on technology that could replace ID verification using one time password to doing it using an iris scan. Though there is no current partnership to doing so, Microsoft is open to working on it.

Microsoft has also entered into a strategic relationship with PwC, which is now a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider. It will help expand the reach to organisations of all size in various sectors including Financial services, Government and public sector, manufacturing, consumer goods and so on.

Amway India also teamed up with Microsoft to conceptualise and design a digitally-enabled Experience Store in Bengaluru. The experience is a result of several new-age technologies such as Augmented Reality, Gamification, Virtual Makeover Studio, Interactive Table and Virtual Cart. Similarly, a Pune-based startup, CarIQ, is also using Microsoft cloud to enable deep analytics and scalability to process data and offer products to car owners. So, the device collects data directly from the car, uses Big Data to understand it and recommends a course of action to car owners accordingly. This data is further believed to help car insurance companies. Similarly, NIIT and Fortis Healthcare are using Microsoft cloud services. SBI Life is using a mobile-based tool (Vymo) that runs on Microsoft Azure.