Watch how Virginia’s Chesterfield County Department of Social Services recently transformed its outdated workplace using cloud technology. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365, the department streamlined manual processes and siloed data to improve efficiency and productivity across their entire team.
Azure Arc will enable customers to understand and realise the benefits of up-to-date data capabilities and dynamic scalability on any infrastructure. Customers will now have the flexibility to deploy Azure SQL Database and Azure Database for PostgreSQL Hyperscale where they need it.
From the Azure portal, customers will be able to view all their Azure data services running across both on-premise and cloud infrastructures and can apply consistent policy, security and governance of data across all environments. Customers will also get limitless scale by seamlessly spinning up additional Kubernetes clusters in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) if they run out of capacity on-premise.
These set of technologies will unlock new hybrid scenarios for customers by bringing Azure services and management to any infrastructure. Today, Azure Arc is only available in preview mode.
To read Microsoft’s full announcement: CLICK HERE
If you need some advice and guidance on how the Cloud can change your business for the better, whether that be for AWS, Azure or the use of hybrid technologies,
It’s October 2019 which means its Future Decoded!
Once again, for the 3rd year in a row, Venture 1 attended day 2 of Microsoft UK’s leading European Conference full of exciting breakout sessions, insightful keynote speakers and a fantastically run expo.
Each year, Microsoft likes to keep Future Decoded on a consistent theme that all the breakout sessions are based upon. This year was all about focussing on how gathering data and analysing it properly can lead to real results for your business. This coupled well with the overarching use cases of utilising AI to sort through data and give users real business intelligence.
An highly informative keynote presentation from the British Heart Foundation opened day 2 explaining how collaboration with Microsoft is helping map out where the UK’s public defibrillators can be found. The partnership started after shocking figures revealed public access defibrillators being used in less than 3 per cent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, significantly reducing the survival chances of tens of thousands of people every year. A real use case scenario that will for sure make a huge difference.
Carrying on with the AI theme, Microsoft wanted to demystify AI and make it look a lot less intimidating by diving into the business use case. For example, there was also a talk on AI ethics and what it should do or should not do and how certain countries were prioritising becoming the best country for AI development. Microsoft had set up their very own AI juice bar in which a camera looked at how you react to certain pictures to understand and work out which juice drink you should have. Safe to say we were all given a ‘pick me up’ drink!
AI has become the new focus of international competition, with a general shift away from industrial manufacturing commodities to a technology and services driven economy. If “cloud computing” or the “cloud” was the buzzword a few years ago, now it’s AI and it’s here to stay for a long time…
If you would like to ask us any questions on any other topic you feel we could help with, give us a call or send us an email today and we’d be more than happy to have a chat!
Services@venture1consulting.com
+44 (0)20 8405 6434
Microsoft and Oracle recently announced that customers will soon be able to migrate and run workloads across Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud thanks to a new cloud partnership between the two companies. Users will also be able to connect Azure services such as AI to Oracle Cloud services. The exciting partnership between Microsoft and Oracle will enable customers to run parts of workloads within Azure and other parts of the same workload within Oracle’s Cloud as part of a “best-of-both-clouds experience”.
Oracle’s executive vice president for Cloud Infrastructure, Don Johnson believes that this partnership will enable businesses to make the most of their cloud investment and reduce Cloud architects time. Mr. Johnson also went on to state that this will only be available to the Azure US East and Oracle Ashburn region first, with additional regions gaining access within the near future.
To read Microsoft full statement: https://news.microsoft.com/2019/06/05/microsoft-and-oracle-to-interconnect-microsoft-azure-and-oracle-cloud/
If you need some advice and guidance on how the Cloud can change your business for the better, whether that be for AWS or Azure, FIND OUT MORE HERE.
2014 was Microsoft’s official timestamps for when Windows XP would stop receiving support. That was until 2017 when a patch was released to defend itself against the WannaCry ransomware situation. 2 years down the line and again it seems Microsoft have released another new patch…. But why?
Microsoft recently released patches for both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The reason behind this is said to be to prevent a ‘wormable vulnerability’ that has the potential to cause as much chaos as WannaCry did back in 2017 if unchecked.
On the 14th May 2019, Microsoft stated:
Today Microsoft released fixes for a critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708, in Remote Desktop Services – formerly known as Terminal Services – that affects some older versions of Windows. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) itself is not vulnerable. This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. In other words, the vulnerability is ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits this vulnerability could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017. While we have observed no exploitation of this vulnerability, it is highly likely that malicious actors will write an exploit for this vulnerability and incorporate it into their malware.
Now that I have your attention, it is important that affected systems are patched as quickly as possible to prevent such a scenario from happening. In response, we are taking the unusual step of providing a security update for all customers to protect Windows platforms, including some out-of-support versions of Windows.
If you need some advice and guidance to do with IT security, or an independent security audit please feel free to contact us directly! CLICK HERE
On the 8th May 2019, Amazon hosted its AWS London Summit bringing thousands of the cloud computing community together to learn about and understand the direction AWS is heading towards. This year’s event saw over 12,000 attendee’s and 40 speakers, with Amazon presenting its overarching idea that the future of IT is Cloudification.
Amazon’s own Matt Garman (VP of EC2) started the Summit talking about one of its largest UK customers, Sainsbury’s and how its AWS journey has just started. To see the Sainsbury’s name using AWS has been seen by some as quite a shock due to Amazons affiliation with Whole Foods, a competitor, which was acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in 2017.
This begs the question…
Is Sainsbury’s now funding the competition?
Many of Whole Foods other competitors, such as Walmart and Target have already made the change from AWS to Azure due to concerns about possible conflicts of interests.
Notwithstanding this, Sainsbury’s CIO, Phil Jordan, explained that the relationship with AWS started when it was decided it was time to rebuild the groceries online business into the Cloud. Mr. Jordan went on to say how a big database migration was successfully achieved using AWS services, with the result that now 80% of Sainsbury’s groceries are now run online.
The numbers behind this migration are certainly impressive:-
Whilst AWS may not be the answer for every organisation it has certainly had a significant impact at Sainsbury’s so if you need some advice and guidance on how the Cloud can change your business for the better whether that be for AWS or Azure, FIND OUT MORE HERE.
Venture 1 Consulting is proud to present First Glance!
Each week, before a new Tech and Tea with V1C (TATWV1C) episode is released, a teaser insight will be posted in the form of blog post. This will give listeners a First Glance look at what they can expect from the upcoming episode a week before it is released.
In this week’s First Glance, we take a look at one of the IT industries most talked about questions, a heavyweight clash in its own right… AWS vs Azure: Overview and Networking.
Venture 1 Consulting Managing Director, Mark Thurston, once again joins Charlie to discuss the Networking differences of both AWS and Azure. Mark dives deep into the thinking behind the different ways both platforms are set up and the different services each platform has to offer.
Having worked extensively with both platforms, Mark provides listeners with many interesting insights about how they are setup and how both providers think they know what is best for a Cloud platform and Infrastructure. In this latest episode, at a high level, Mark also talks about the restrictions each platform has, the reasons behind these and how to get around them.
If nothing else, one key takeaway from the session will certainly be Mark finishing up with his entertaining ‘Cake Shop’ analogy on the differences between each Cloud provider!
The AWS vs Azure battle will be a consistent theme for several episodes in our first series of TATWV1C, in which we will discuss all the different aspects that make up a public Cloud platform.
To stay up to date and to be the first to read our First Glance posts and listen to each podcast as soon as they’re released, CLICK HERE to Sign up and Subscribe.
Venture 1 Consulting is today delighted to announce the imminent launch of our first in a series of podcast shows, Tech and Tea with V1C.
Each episode of the Tech and Tea Podcast series will treat listeners to the wealth of knowledge that the fantastic technical team at Venture 1 has; as well as exposure to exciting special guest presenters from time to time! With over 100 years of combined experience between the team, we’re delighted to share our stories and industry insights with you, our listener. Episodes will be posted on iTunes, Spotify and the Venture 1 Podcast Page.
Join Venture 1 and guests as we dive deep into the questions you want answering on a range of technical topics from Cloud, Storage and Infrastructure, to the latest and greatest Security solutions. Venture 1 will both educate and entertain listeners in an informal, chatty atmosphere. So grab yourself a tea and let’s talk tech with V1C!
To stay up to date with every episode as it is released, sign up to our newsletter here.
We look forward to you joining us and sharing our real life experiences of working with the latest technologies!
