On the 25th November 2024, we had the opportunity to attend the After Ignite Special 2024 meetup at the Microsoft office located in the Circle near the Zurich Airport. This event provided a platform to gather and discuss the exciting news and announcements from the recent Microsoft Ignite 2024 conference in Chicago. The focus of the meetup was mainly on the technical features rather than on the sales part of the news – perfectly embodying the motto “from the community to the community.”
Agenda Highlights
The event kicked off with a warm welcome from Alain Schneiter and Roger Haueter, the organizers of the meetup. They joked about the fact, that one could have easily turned the words AI, Copilot, and Governance into a drinking game at the Ignite 2024 — by the end, attendees would certainly have been in high spirits!
Following this, Wouter de Blank from Microsoft delivered a brief introduction, emphasizing the sheer amount of information shared at the Ignite. He highlighted that this event would consolidate those insights into smaller and focused portions through the line-up of the amazing speakers.
Azure Infrastructure – by Manuel Meyer
Manuel Meyer highlighted the latest news from the Ignite 2024 in Azure: the Integrated Hardware Security Module (HSM), Azure Boost DPU, and Azure Local (formerly Azure Stack).
Manuel began by introducing the Azure Integrated HSM, which is an onboard hardware chip specifically designed for cryptographic key management. This advancement is expected to facilitate low-latency networking, significantly enhancing security across Azure services. Impressively, every Azure datacenter server is projected to feature this technology starting in 2025, reinforcing Microsoft’s commitment to secure cloud computing.
Next, he introduced the Azure Boost DPU, which represents a shift in the processing architecture of every Azure datacenter server. This Data Processing Unit offloads various tasks from the CPU to dedicated processors, thereby streamlining operations related to network management, storage, security, and overall performance.
Manuel then mentioned the long awaited feature Azure Local. Rebranded from Azure Stack, this solution requires specialized hardware but is designed to extend Azure capabilities into your own datacenters. He shared insights into the historical context of Azure Local, noting that its concept originated around the same time Azure was founded. Despite facing challenges in setup, Azure Local is now empowered by Azure Arc, which simplifies management and integration for customers.
Modern Work & Copilot – by Pascal Brunner
Pascal Brunner introduced all the news to Microsoft 365 Copilot, which now should serve as a sophisticated and central user interface for artificial intelligence. Copilot is now backed by a powerful Copilot Control System that includes comprehensive analytics to monitor usage and performance of your AI.
A central focus of the speech was on the Copilot Agents, which include autonomous agents and prebuilt options designed to assist users in various capacities. For example, one of the agents serves as an employee self-service assistant in Teams, making it easier for users to access information and support. Another agent acts as an interpreter, facilitating real-time communication across language barriers. Additionally, there are Facilitator Agents that help take notes during meetings, ensuring that important details are captured without manual input.
Pascal specifically highlighted the Project Manager Agent – right now only available for North American tenants – which automates project management tasks within Microsoft Planner.
The presentation also covered the automation of prompts and tasks through Copilot Autonomous Agents, showcasing how these agents can operate autonomously in the background. They respond to events and triggers, freeing users to focus on more their actual work.
Lastly, Pascal introduced Copilot Analytics, a feature that provides insights into the daily use of Copilot. This allows organizations to analyze engagement levels and optimize their use of this powerful tool, further enhancing the integration of AI in modern work settings.
Security – by Michael Rüefli
In his session on security, Michael Rüefli outlined the latest news in Microsoft’s security offerings, particularly focusing on innovations in network security and compliance. He began by diving into the general availability of Global Secure Access in July this year and the announcement of news to the Microsoft’s Security Service Edge solutions (SSE) (Global Secure Access, Microsoft Entra Private Access and Microsoft Entra Internet Access) at the Ignite 2024.
One of the standout news regarding the SSE was TLS inspection for Microsoft Entra Internet Access, which is currently in private preview. This feature plays a critical role in securing communications by inspecting encrypted traffic and enables enhanced URL web category filtering based on full URLs. Michael also mentioned the Continuous Access Evaluation (Entra Private Access) and the Private Connector (Entra Internet Access) available in the Azure Marketplace. Additionally, he touched upon DNS Client private suffixes, which are currently in private preview, and the upcoming App Discovery feature that will soon be available in public preview and the DNSSEC feature in Azure DNS, which is already in public preview (finally). These innovations aim to improve visibility and control over network resources.
Microsoft Entra wise a significant update was the general availability of Passkey, which simplifies the authentication process for users and enhances security protocols.
Networking Break
A valuable opportunity for attendees to mingle, exchange ideas, and share experiences from the Ignite conference.
Compliance – by Lothar Zeitler
Unfortunately, we missed Lothar’s speech due to an important meeting with Microsoft regarding the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador Program.
Modern Work & Collaboration – By Fabio Bonolo
Fabio Bonolo highlighted the latest news about Modern Work & Collaboration from the Ignite 2024. He dove into the transformative advancements in Microsoft’s suite of collaboration tools, showcasing how they are redefining productivity in today’s dynamic work environment. Here’s a detailed rundown of the key points discussed.
General Availability of Microsoft Places
Fabio introduced Microsoft Places, a groundbreaking AI-driven tool that promises to elevate team collaboration by seamlessly integrating into your work routine. Here are the highlights:
- Work Hours and Location
Enables teams to coordinate better by sharing work hours and preferred work locations. - Spontaneous Sync
Facilitates impromptu meetings and syncs, fostering spontaneous collaboration and innovation. - Integration
Fully integrated with Outlook and Teams, making it effortless to adopt. - Teams Premium License
Some advanced features are tied to the Teams Premium license. Additionally, portions of Microsoft Places are embedded within Microsoft 365 (M365). - Deployment
Microsoft Places is deployed via PowerShell.
Exciting Updates in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the top workplace collaboration tool, and Fabio highlighted several significant updates:
- Storyline Integration
Introducing a new experience within Teams, enhancing narrative-driven collaboration. - Live Transcription
Now supporting multiple languages, making meetings more inclusive and accessible. - New Calendar Experience
Streamlined and intuitive, improving how users manage their schedules. - Loop Workspaces
Integrated with Teams, Loop provides dynamic workspaces for real-time content collaboration. - Emoji Updates
Expanded skin tones for emojis, promoting greater inclusivity. - Intelligent Recap
Ideal for unscheduled meetings, this feature ensures no crucial insight is missed. - Copilot in Teams Admin Center
Seamless integration of Copilot in Teams Admin Center
Expanding Capabilities of Copilot
Copilot’s integration is expanding across various M365 applications, further streamlining workflows:
- OneNote
- General Availability (GA) in Desktop App
Making advanced note-taking more efficient. - BizChat
Functions within OneNote to provide citations, summaries, and the ability to rewrite notes, enhancing knowledge management.
- General Availability (GA) in Desktop App
- Excel
- General Availability (GA) in Desktop App
Excel users can now leverage the full capabilities of Copilot. - Python Integration
The GA of Python in Excel is a game-changer for data analysis and complex calculations. - Personalized Tables and Data Importation
Users can reference and import data from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and online resources, making data handling more robust.
- General Availability (GA) in Desktop App
Fabio’s insights underscore an exciting era where AI-driven tools and enhanced integration are setting new standards for modern work and collaboration. It’s so exciting to see these innovations rolling out! They’re going to be a huge benefit to organizations, making work more efficient and fostering a more collaborative and inclusive culture.
Data & AI – By Marco Gerber
Marco Gerber concluded before the apéritif with the news about Data & AI from Microsoft Ignite 2024. He has highlighted the latest updates on the hot topic of 2024.
Here’s an overview of the key themes:
- Simplification
- Integration
- Industry
Agents emerged as the new buzzword, reflecting an evolving approach to leveraging AI. The concept of agents, including multi-agents, represents a shift towards more autonomous, intelligent systems capable of performing tasks with greater autonomy.
Now let’s dive into the two areas, Data and AI, where there have been significant updates.
Data
- Fabric SQL Database
- New DB can be created inside Fabric based on Azure SQL
- Simplifies integration
- Optimized for AI workloads
- Azure Confidential Clean Rooms
- Enables multi-party data collaboration
- Allows sharing of privacy-sensitive data (PII) within a sandbox environment
- Supported by confidential compute with in-memory encryption
- Cloud for Healthcare
- Focused on healthcare data solutions (Data, Exchange, Connect, and Optimize Model – DECOM)
AI
- Azure AI Foundry
- Unified AI platform for centralized management
- Includes SDK, tracing, and content safety for image consent
- Azure AI Agent Service
- Public preview starting next month
- Supports agents and multi-agents
- Facilitates low-code prompt orchestration
- Allows easier integration with Fabric, Teams, SharePoint, etc.
- Based on Semantic Kernel technology
- Azure AI Content Understanding
- Extracts information from unstructured data (documents, images, videos, and audio)
- Produces structured outputs for optimal further processing
- Fine-tuning
- Vision fine-tuning available in Azure OpenAI
- Model distillation using evaluations (teacher/student model approach)
- Industry
- Custom-trained models tailored for healthcare and finance sectors and accessible via the model catalog in Azure AI Foundry
This summary captures the key points from Marco’s presentation on Data & AI at the event.
Last but not least, Flavio made a picture of all speakers after Marco’s presentation to round up the business part of the Meetup.
Apéro
The evening concluded with an Apéro sponsored by Microsoft, providing a relaxed environment to continue connections and discussions about the day’s presentations.
Looking Ahead
As we reflect on the exciting developments shared at this Meetup, we also look forward to Ignite 2025, which will be held in San Francisco from November 17 to 25. Maybe we will be there too, to cover all the news directly for you 😉 .
Stay tuned for more updates and details on our next Meetup and blog posts, where we’ll delve deeper into the insights shared at the Ignite 2024!