Today, I gathered with the tech community in the Seattle area at the GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit to talk about how customers are using the cloud and what the future holds. I joined GeekWire’s Todd Bishop and Tom Krazit on stage for a fireside chat to share more about Microsoft’s vision for emerging cloud innovation, but I also got to connect with many of you directly. In those conversations, it became even more apparent just how many of you are turning to the intelligent cloud to explore how emerging innovation like serverless, blockchain, edge computing, and AI can help you create solutions that can change your business — and people’s lives.

At Microsoft, we’re continually releasing technology that’s inspired by our customers and what you tell us you need to make the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge a reality for your businesses. For example, you may need to build applications to work in remote areas with low connectivity. Or you need to store, access, and drive insights from your data faster because of competitive pressures. And, you need confidence that your data and applications will be secure, resilient, and highly available across the globe.

During my time with Tom and Todd, I announced a few of our latest Azure solutions and newest regions and availability zones designed to bring this vision to you, our customers, and I’d like to share more on these new technologies.

Introducing the next level in big data analytics

Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 and general availability of Azure Data Factory capabilities

Data is currency for enterprises today, and we know you need to be able to easily store and quickly access your data to drive actionable insights. You also need to be able to ingest and integrate big data quickly and easily to get to insights more readily. Today, we are introducing a preview of a highly scalable, highly performant, and cost-effective data lake solution for big data analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2, to deliver the scale, performance, and security needed by your most demanding and sensitive workloads. 

Because Azure Data Lake Gen2 is built on the foundations of Azure blob storage, all data — from data that is constantly in use through to data that only needs to be referenced occasionally or stored for regulatory reasons — can coexist in a single store without having to copy data. This means that you will have greater speed to insight over your data along with rich security at a more cost-effective price. Azure Data Lake Storage also provides a unified data store where unstructured object data and file data can be accessed concurrently via Blob Storage and Hadoop File System protocols.

Today also brings the general availability of new features in Azure Data Factory to deliver data movement as a service capacities so you can build analytics across hybrid and multicloud environments, and drive raw data into actionable insights. The new features include a web-based graphical user interface to create, schedule and manage data pipelines, code-free data ingestion from over 70 data source connectors to accelerate data movement across on-premises and cloud, and ability to easily lift SQL Server Integration Services packages to Azure and run in managed execution environment in Azure Data Factory. You can also start taking advantage of native ADF connector for Azure Data Lake Storage to load your data lake at scale.

Enabling the intelligent edge

Azure IoT Edge is generally available

In the next 10 years, nearly all our everyday devices and many new devices will be connected. These devices are all becoming so “smart” that they can power advanced algorithms that help them see, listen, reason, predict and more, without a 24/7 dependence on the cloud. This is the intelligent edge, and it will define the next wave of innovation in how we address world issues: distributing resources like water and oil, increasing food production and quality, and responding to natural disasters.

As key part of our strategy to deliver the promise of edge computing is Azure IoT Edge, which enables consistency between cloud and edge. This means you can push AI and machine learning to the edge, providing the most comprehensive and innovative edge offering on the market. As of today, Azure IoT Edge is generally available globally, with new updates for increased flexibility, scalability, security, and more.

Also today, the Azure IoT Edge runtime is open sourced and available on GitHub. If you are a developer, this gives you even greater flexibility and control of your edge solutions, so you can modify the runtime and debug issues. Azure IoT Edge now also supports more languages than another other edge solution including C#, C, Node.js, Python, and Java, and we’ve added support for the Moby container management system. Additionally, we’ve released a Device Provisioning Service that enables you to provision tens of thousands of devices with zero touch. The new Security Manager for Azure IoT Edge acts as a well-bounded security core for protecting the IoT Edge device and all its components by abstracting the secure silicon hardware.

Azure IoT Edge customers like Schneider Electric and a farmer in Carnation, Washington are building sophisticated solutions that deliver real-time insights in areas with unreliable connectivity. Now that the solution is production-ready, with enhanced features, we can’t wait to see what else you build.

Azure global infrastructure

New Azure regions

We continuously invest in our cloud infrastructure to give you more compute power to enable the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge. We’ve announced 54 Azure regions to help you deliver cloud services and apps to nearly every corner of the globe and to provide everything that’s needed to run mission-critical applications, across scenarios, with a full set of resiliency solutions.

Today, we expanded our Azure presence in China, one of the most dynamic cloud markets in the world, with two additional regions now generally available. We were the first international cloud provider in China in 2014 (in partnership with 21Vianet), and today’s announcement doubles the number of Azure regions available there. We continue to see immense opportunity in China for cloud services to fuel innovation and multinational corporations including Adobe, Coke, Costco, Daimler, Ford, Nuance, P&G, and Toyota, which are choosing our intelligent cloud services to help deliver for their customers in China. This builds on our recently announced plans to expand our cloud infrastructure in Europe and the Middle East and announced plans for new regions coming to Norway. 

We’re also constantly increasing Azure’s resiliency capabilities with the addition of new Azure Availability Zones. Our Availability Zone in the Netherlands is now generally available, adding to the Zones already available in Iowa and Paris. The combination of region pairs and Availability Zones not only increases Azure’s resiliency capabilities, but broadens customer choice for business continuity architectures and delivers an industry-leading SLA for virtual machines.

It’s an exciting future

It was great to see all of you at GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit today. For those of you who weren’t able to be there live, you can follow along online. As always, we will continue to focus on building the technologies you need to drive innovation and disruption with the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge. Let us know what you think about these new solutions by sharing your feedback and comments.

Modern civil infrastructure is all around us — in power plants, radar systems, traffic lights, dams, weather systems, and so on. Many of these infrastructure projects exist for decades, if not longer, so security and longevity are paramount.

And, many of these systems are powered by Linux, which offers technology providers more control over these issues. However, if every provider is building their own solution, this can lead to fragmentation and duplication of effort. Thus, the primary goal of Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) is to create an open source base layer for industrial use-cases in these systems, such as embedded controllers and gateway devices.

“We have a very conservative culture in this area because once we create a system, it has to be supported for more than ten years; in some cases for over 60 years. That’s why this project was created, because every player in this industry had the same issue of being able to use  Linux for a long time,” says Yoshitake Kobayashi is Technical Steering Committee Chair of CIP.

CIP’s concept is to create a very fundamental system to use open source software on controllers. This base layer comprises the Linux kernel and a small set of common open source software like libc, busybox, and so on.  Because longevity of software is a primary concern, CIP chose Linux kernel 4.4, which is the LTS release of the kernel maintained by Greg Kroah-Hartman.

Collaboration

Since CIP has an upstream first policy, the code that they want in the project must be in the upstream kernel. To create a proactive feedback loop with the kernel community, CIP hired Ben Hutchings as the official maintainer of CIP. Hutchings is known for the work he has done on Debian LTS release, which also led to an official collaboration between CIP and the Debian project.

Under the newly forged collaboration, CIP will use Debian LTS to build the platform. CIP will also help Debian Long Term Support (LTS) to extend the lifetime of all Debian stable releases. CIP will work closely with Freexian, a company that offers commercial services around Debian LTS. The two organizations will focus on interoperability, security, and support for open source software for embedded systems. CIP will also provide funding for some of the Debian LTS activities.

“We are excited about this collaboration as well as the CIP’s support of the Debian LTS project, which aims to extend the support lifetime to more than five years. Together, we are committed to long-term support for our users and laying the ‘foundation’ for the cities of the future.” said Chris Lamb, Debian Project Leader.

Security

Security is the biggest concern, said Kobayashi. Although most of the civil infrastructure is not connected to the Internet for obvious security reasons (you definitely don’t want a nuclear power plant to be connected to the Internet), there are many other risks.

Just because the system itself is not connected to the Internet, that doesn’t mean it’s immune to all threats. Other systems — like user’s laptops — may connect to the Internet and then be plugged into the local systems. If someone receives a malicious file as an attachment with email, it can “contaminate” the internal infrastructure.

Thus, it’s critical to keep all software running on such controllers up to date and fully patched. To ensure security, CIP has also backported many components of the Kernel Self Protection project. CIP also follows one of the strictest cybersecurity standards — IEC 62443 — which defines processes and tests to ensure the system is more secure.

Going forward

As CIP is maturing, it’s extending its collaboration with providers of Linux. In addition to collaboration with Debian and freexian, CIP recently added Cybertrust Japan Co, Ltd., a supplier of enterprise Linux operating system, as a new Silver member.

Cybertrust joins other industry leaders, such as Siemens, Toshiba, Codethink, Hitachi, Moxa, Plat’Home, and Renesas, in their work to create a reliable and secure Linux-based embedded software platform that is sustainable for decades to come.

The ongoing work of these companies under the umbrella of CIP will ensure the integrity of the civil infrastructure that runs our modern society.

Learn more at the Civil Infrastructure Platform website.

The Steam Intergalactic Summer Sale continues! For the next thirteen days, take advantage of huge savings throughout our store on over ten thousand games. You can also help unlock free games by playing our Summer Saliens Game.

Today’s Featured Deals include:

Tom Clancy’s The Division – 80% off
Prey – 50% off
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – 34% off
Planet Coaster – 55% off
Just Cause 3 – 85% off
Sudden Strike 4 – 65% off
Undertale – 50% off
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series – 50% off
and many more

Along with the sale is the Summer Saliens Game. Team up with other Saliens to fight The Duldrumz on different planets and free the abducted games. Gain XP as you battle, level up, unlock new abilities, and win cosmetic items to deck out your Salien. Plus, get Summer Sale Trading Cards just for playing.

Choose to battle on a planet that piques your interest and you’ll automatically be entered for a chance to win one of its rewards when it’s conquered. The longer your Salien spends on a planet the higher your chances of winning! The groups with the most tiles when a planet is taken will get to plant their flag as conquerors, undoubtedly gaining Saliverse-wide fame in the process.

The Steam Intergalactic Summer Sale will run until 10 AM Pacific, July 5th. Complete information can be found HERE.

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PDT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Beta and a subset of the Delta Ring will begin receiving the latest Xbox One system update (1806.180612-1920). We are adding more Delta users with this release as we are targeting the upgrade process and will move the remaining set of Delta users in over the next few weeks as we flight new builds to test the upgrade process. Read on for more about the fixes and known issues in the latest 1806 system update.

New Feature and Help wanted!

Fast Start  – Xbox One Insiders we have added the Fast Start technology in the build and we would love your help testing the install performance of the following games:

• The Flame in the Flood
• Fuzion Frenzy
• Screamride
• Spelunky
• Casey Powell Lacrosse 16
• Dovetail Games Euro Fishing
• The Golf Club

We will light up a Quest and Survey on Monday for feedback!

Fixes:

My Games and Apps

• Fixed an issue for Games that are being updated that use the Fast Start feature.  Users will no longer have the game uninstalled if they cancel a game update.
• Fixed an issue with the installation and launching of the CW app.  The app now launches correctly.

Localization

• Various localization fixes across the console.

Party Chat

• Performance improvements to the stability and reliability of Party Chat.

System Performance

• Misc. performance fixes in the platform.

 YouTube

• The issue with some users are encountering an issue where their YouTube account is being signed out whenever they launch the app is resolved.

Known Issues:

Friends

• Some users may notice that the online status of Friends is not updating correctly.

Groups

• Some users may encounter an issue where their Pins are not displaying artwork or are seeing a while tile instead of their profile color.
• Workaround: Please perform the following steps to fix the issue
  
  • Open My Games & Apps
  • Navigate to Groups tab
  • Scroll to the bottom of the page
  • Select Delete all groups
  • Select Delete local groups
• The Groups tab in My games & apps may not show after sign in even though you can access Groups in Guide, or you may see “This group does not exist” on Home on first sign-in for your existing Groups. Workaround: Sign in / out to refresh these pages.
• Some changes might not be reflected when editing Groups between multiple consoles after coming out of connected standby. Sign in/out to fix.
• Using special characters in Group names (e.g. &,”) causes issues during Group creation or using the “Add more” flow. Note: emojis are fine. This is being fixed in an upcoming build.
• You may see issues with Groups if you frequently switch between your non-Preview console and your Preview console. Workaround: Reset your Groups locally on the Preview console through “My games & apps” > Groups, then using the “Reset groups” button at the bottom of the page to resync from the service.

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter an incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

Networking

• Work continues on the stability of the Wi-Fi connectivity. If you see any issues please report the problem for investigation by performing a Full system software via the dashboard as opposed to just pressing the Xbox Power button.

YouTube

• Some users are encountering an issue where their YouTube account is being signed out whenever they launch the app.
  
  • Workaround: Uninstall/re-install the app and sign in with your account again.

We’ve just launched an open beta for Creator Homepages, a new part of the Steam store designed to help players discover and connect with the developers and publishers behind their favorite games. With this feature, you can explore the full catalog of games created by the developers and publishers of games you enjoy and you can choose to follow those creators to be automatically notified when they release their next title.

How does it work?

Any developer or publisher on the platform can now set up a customized homepage to showcase their full catalog of titles and content. Once set up, these homepages can be found by clicking on the developer or publisher name from the store page of your favorite games.

Check out the official Creator Homepage Announcement Page, which includes a list of all the homepages so far. This will quickly become an overwhelming and unusable list as more developers create their homepages, so at the top of the page we’ve also specifically highlighted the developers and publishers behind games that you’ve recently played.

On these homepages, you’ll find standard lists of top-selling or new released titles from that developer or publisher.

You’ll also find collections that the developer or publisher has created to best highlight their portfolio of games and content available on Steam.

A studio might divide its games into collections by genre or franchise, or could choose to highlight their fan-favorite or top-selling games. A developer of only a single game might primarily dedicate their homepage to announcements of new projects.

Regardless of how each developer or publisher chooses to customize their homepage, you can easily follow them to be notified when they release their next title or post an announcement. Newly released titles from developers or publishers that you follow will show up at the top of your Steam homepage and we’ll send you an e-mail to let you know that they’ve released something new (as with other Steam e-mail notifications, you can opt out at any time by visiting your e-mail preferences page).

Creators can also set up unique URLs within Steam for easy reference to their homepage. You can see an example by following this customized URL for the Valve developer homepage: http://store.steampowered.com/dev/valve

Why Beta?

We’re pretty excited to get the core functionality into the hands of players and give developers the opportunity to set up their presence on Steam. While we haven’t worked out all of the smaller bugs or finished adding every feature we’d like to, we decided that the basic set of functionality is worth putting into the hands of players and creators. We still have a number of features that we are considering adding and there are still a few rough edges that need smoothing out, so opening this system up as a beta to players and developers will help us gather feedback and suggestions that inform the direction of those features.

Over the previous few weeks, we’ve worked with a number of developers and publishers on Steam to get their pages set up and help us work out as many of the bugs as we can. As a player, you’ll find that many of your favorite game makers probably already have a spiffy homepage created and customized. But there are still quite a few developers that have not yet had a chance to set up their pages and will do so during this open beta period.

Looking for more details?

Check out the official Creator Homepage Announcement Page.

For game developers, check out the Creator Homepages Steamworks documentation for more details and information on how the system works, the features that are included, and necessary permissions for game creators.

Reporting bugs and feedback

As always, we’ll keep an eye out for your feedback and suggestions as to what you’d like to see added or changed about this system.

The fourth pre-release for Update Aquatic is now available!

A full changelog for this pre-release can be found on Minecraft.net. 

• Updated LWJGL
• Biome names are now sorted alphabetically in the buffet menu
• Performance improvements
• Bugs got fixed!

FIXED BUGS IN 1.13-PRE4

• MC-36030 – Music playing despite music / jukebox slider set to OFF
• MC-121798 – Can only scroll list in superflat preset selection when it is focused
• MC-126162 – Waterlogged blocks and bubble columns don’t absorb explosion damage
• MC-126244 – Extreme lag when using the /locate command or when generating explorer maps
• MC-126595 – Blue Wither heads are intangible and invincible on the first tick(s?)
• MC-128299 – Blocky and fully bright areas appearing underwater
• MC-128690 – Water does not flow sideways when there’s no block below it
• MC-130270 – Iron golem spawning inside blocks
• MC-130530 – Water source block gets destroyed from downwards flowing water
• MC-131094 – Projectiles ignore collisions for ~1 block after spawned
• MC-131462 – Coordinate math error causes structure not to generate and possibly other issues
• MC-131768 – Models’ predicates are inverted
• MC-131773 – Comparators from command blocks no longer output results properly
• MC-131805 – Observers pulsing after being moved instantly after triggering
• MC-131825 – Enchanted books lose enchantments when upgrading
• MC-131849 – Duplication bug

To get pre-releases, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Pre-releases can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 

Share your thoughts on how 1.13 is shaping up in the comments below!

General

• Fixed an issue where the Lupus Visage Ornament for Fighting Lion was not correctly granted to players who purchased the Iron Ornament Bundle

Disruption/Insults/Disrespect

Disruption/Insults/Disrespect

Harassment/Personal Attacks/Privacy Violation

Gory Violence/Explicit Sexuality

Illegal Activity

Hacking/Cheating

Spoilers/Stolen Content

Soliciting/Phishing/Impersonation