Microsoft Azure Builds Its Own Networking OS For Switches

Microsoft has developed a new networking OS, Azure Cloud Switch (ACS), that will give it a say in how data center switches operate.

It’s “a cross-platform modular operating system for data center networking,” writes Kamala Subramanian, principal networking architect for Microsoft Azure, in a recent company blog.

Linux-based ACS is Microsoft’s first foray into offering its own SDN-like software for running network devices such as switches. It came about because cloud and enterprise networks are challenged by the task of integrating “different software running on each different type of switch into a cloud-wide network management platform,” Subramanian writes.

“Ideally, we would like all the benefits of the features we have implemented and the bugs we have fixed to stay with us, even as we ride the tide of newer switch hardware innovation,” she writes.

ACS allows Microsoft to share the same software stack across multiple switch vendors. Other benefits include the ability to scale down the software while developing features that are required for data center and networking needs, as well as debug, fix, and test software bugs at a faster rate.

A cynic might view ACS as Microsoft’s attempt to get commercial switches to behave the way it wants. Subramanian explains it this way: “We believe there are many excellent switch hardware platforms available on the market, with healthy competition between many vendors driving innovation, speed increases, and cost reductions.”

ACS was designed using the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) specification, which is an Open Compute Project (OCP) standard that has an API for programming network-switch chips. Microsoft is a founding member of SAI and continues to be a major contributor. In July, the SAI specification was officially accepted by OCP as a standardized C API to program ASICs.

Microsoft put its ACS through its paces publicly at the SIGCOMM conference in August. The ACS was demonstrated with four ASIC vendors (Mellanox, Broadcom, Cavium, and the Barefoot Networks software switch), six implementations of SAI (Broadcom, Dell, Mellanox, Cavium, Barefoot, and Metaswitch), and three applications stacks (Microsoft, Dell, and Metaswitch.)

In her blog, Subramanian endorses the trend of separating switch software from switch hardware as part of a growing trend in the networking industry, and “we would like to contribute our insights and experiences of this journey starting here.”

Microsoft’s HoloLens Will Put Realistic 3-D People in Your Living Room

Demonstrations of augmented-reality displays typically involve tricking you into seeing animated content such as monsters and robots that aren’t really there. Microsoft wants its forthcoming HoloLens headset to mess with reality more believably. It has developed a way to make you see photorealistic 3-D people that fit in with the real world.

With this technology, you could watch an acrobat tumble across your front room or witness your niece take some of her first steps. You could walk around the imaginary people just as if they were real, your viewpoint changing seamlessly as if they were actually there. A sense of touch is just about the only thing missing.

That experience is possible because Microsoft has built a kind of holographic TV studio at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Roughly 100 cameras capture a performance from many different angles. Software uses the different viewpoints to create a highly accurate 3-D model of the person performing, resulting in a photo-real appearance.

The more traditional approach of using computer animation can’t compare, according to Steve Sullivan, who works on the project at Microsoft. He demonstrated what Microsoft calls “video holograms” at the LDV Vision Summit, an event about image-processing technology, in New York on Tuesday. More details of the technology will be released this summer.

“There’s something magical about it being real people and motion,” he said. “If you have a HoloLens, you really feel these performances are in your world.”

Microsoft is working on making it practical and cheap enough for other companies to record content in this form. It might one day be possible to visit a local studio and record a 3-D snapshot of a child at a particular point in life, said Sullivan.

Demonstrations of the technology included holographic videos of theatrical and acrobatic performances. Sullivan also showed how the format could be used in sports instruction. Someone looking for help with golf technique, for example, could wear a HoloLens to examine recordings of a pro golfer swinging different clubs at full or reduced speed, viewing the instructor up close and from different vantage points.

Microsoft has also recorded catwalk models using its system. That could help Internet shoppers by showing them how an item of clothing looks and hangs more realistically than is possible with still photos or 2-D video, said Sullivan. It should also be possible to use captured performances as the basis for animated characters in games or other applications, he said.

HoloLens uses a novel holographic display technology that can trick the eye into perceiving 3-D objects more effectively than conventional stereoscopic displays (see “Microsoft Making Fast Progress with HoloLens”). Sensors in the headset allow the device to figure out how to present virtual objects so they fit in with the real world. Sullivan showed how holographic videos can also be played back in 2-D on a tablet, in a special player that lets you drag your fingers to change your viewpoint on the action.

Several companies are working on ways to capture live action such as sports or movies for viewing on more conventional 3-D headsets like the Oculus Rift. But they capture only the 3-D view from the position of the camera at the time of shooting. Devices like the Rift also use a less sophisticated method of tricking the brain into perceiving 3-D objects, and they cannot mix virtual content with the real world.

A startup called Magic Leap, backed by Google, is developing its own wearable augmented-reality device based on display technology that’s similar to Microsoft’s (see “10 Breakthrough Technologies 2015: Magic Leap”). So far, however, Magic Leap’s demonstrations of its technology have involved animated content, not live action recorded in three dimensions.

Microsoft Windows 10 Hologram Trailer and Live Demo

Microsoft Windows 10 Event January 2015

Microsoft revamps logo for 1st time in 25 years

Microsoft's corporate logo has a new look, setting the stage for a wave of products designed to cast the world's largest software maker in a new light.

The makeover unveiled Thursday marks the first time that Microsoft Corp. has revamped its logo since February 1987. The Internet was barely around then, and cellphones were considered a luxury.

At the time, Microsoft was putting the finishing touches on the second version of its Windows operating system. Two of Microsoft's biggest nemeses - Google Inc. co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin - were just 13 years old. And Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs was just in the second year of an 11-year exile from the company that went on to invent the iPod, iPhone and iPad after he returned.

By revamping its logo, Microsoft is trying to signal that it has changed its thinking and its products to cater to people who are interacting with technology much differently than just a decade ago, let alone a quarter century.

Now, more computing tasks are being done on touch-based devices such as smartphones and tablets instead of personal computers tethered to keyboards and mice. Many software applications are now supplied over high-speed Internet connections for a monthly fee instead of being installed on individual computers.

Microsoft believes a radical change to Windows will ensure that the company survives the technological upheaval. Windows 8, due to hit the market Oct. 26, displays software applications in a mosaic of tiles and has been engineered so it works on both touch-based tablets and traditional PCs.

The company also is releasing its own Windows 8-powered tablet to compete against the iPad, accompanied by a new version of Office applications tailored for such devices. There also will be a Windows 8 operating system for smartphones.

The new logo ushers in "one of the most significant waves of product launches in Microsoft's history," Jeff Hansen, the company's general manager of brand strategy, wrote in a blog post Thursday.

The redesign features the Microsoft name in a lighter, straight font called Segoe to replace the italic bold type used in the old standby. The new logo also includes the familiar red, blue, yellow and green colors used in the flag on Microsoft's Windows operating system, but the colors will be in a square box instead of the curvy template that has been in place for years. Those color boxes evoke the tiles that will be central to Windows 8.

"The ways people experience our products are our most important `brand impressions,'" Hansen wrote. "That's why the new Microsoft logo takes its inspiration from our product design principles while drawing upon the heritage of our brand values, fonts and colors."

The new logo made its debut Thursday on Microsoft's websites, as well as three of its stores in Boston, Bellevue, Wash. and Seattle, which is located near the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters.

This is Microsoft's fifth logo since Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company 37 years ago. When it last changed its logo in 1987, Microsoft had been a publicly traded company for less than a year and boasted a market value of about $2 billion. It peaked at more than $600 million in 1999. Now, Microsoft's market value stands at $254 billion - less than half of Apple's market value of $623 billion.

For more information refer -
http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/08/23/microsoft-unveils-a-new-look.aspx

 

Bill Gates Invests in Satellite Broadband

Patent house Intellectual Ventures Management LLC (IV) is spinning off satellite antenna maker Kymeta after securing a $12 million round in funding from a group that includes Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates.

Kymeta plans to use the funds to "simplify the satellite connection needed for broadband Internet on the go, anywhere in the world," it said in an announcement Tuesday afternoon. Other backers include international cable operator Liberty Global Inc. (Nasdaq: LBTY) and Lux Capital.

Kymeta plans to achieve its lofty goal by commercializing IV's Metamaterials Satellite Antenna Technology (MSA-T). MSA-T is an artificial material engineered to manipulate electromagnetic radiation, meaning that Kymeta's "mTenna" can point and steer radio signals toward a satellite to connect a mobile device to broadband. The companies say that this approach is thinner, lighter, more efficient and less expensive than traditional antenna technology.
The company expects to have the first product commercially available by 2015. Kymeta is the second company to spin out from IV, which has been criticized for using its patent trove for the basis of lawsuits rather than for new product innovation. Its first spinoff was nuclear power startup TerraPower.

Why this matters
If it works, Kymeta's technology could help to bring affordable broadband to areas that lack access to high-speed connections, and help to meet a goal of the U.S. National Broadband Plan. And, if metamaterials can help eliminate interference concerns for mobile broadband via satellite, the spinoff could be on to something big. That's the kind of issue that's kept LightSquared , which wanted to build out an Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in satellite spectrum, from getting off the ground.

For Liberty Global, Kymeta's technology could come in handy to bring high-speed Internet services where its Docsis networks don't reach, and possibly set it up for offering broadband services outside its traditional cable footprints.

IV says that the satellite antenna technology Kymeta is using is just the tip of the iceberg for the application of metamaterials. The company is plotting mobile apps for the aerospace, transportation and maritime industries, and plans to develop portable satellite hot spots for individual users, such as field reporters, emergency responders and customers in remote areas.
 

Microsoft Cloud Services: Training and Certification

Cloud technology creates new opportunities and job roles, but it also impacts current ones. Over the next year, Microsoft will introduce new certifications on Microsoft cloud services and will update many of their current certifications to include cloud-related skills.

Infrastructure as a Service - (Iaas)

Following are the ceritifications available for this -

MCITP: Server Administrator
Earning the MCITP: Server Administrator certification will help you gain core Windows Server skills and better prepare you to support a cloud infrastructure. It is not required that you pursue the MCITP: Virtualization Administrator certification.
Exam 70-640
Exam 70-642
Exam 70-646

MCITP: Virtualization Administrator
Get ready for "private cloud" by earning your MCITP: Virtualization Administrator certification. This certification helps validate your knowledge and skills in designing and deploying virtualization solutions when using Windows Server 2008 R2 in an enterprise organization.
Exam 70-669
Exam 70-693
plus either
Exam 70-659
or
Exam 70-652

MCTS: Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, Configuring
System Center solutions help IT professionals manage the physical and virtual IT environments across data centers, client computers, and devices. This certification helps validate key skills to build a "private cloud."

Exam 70-400

Software as a Service (SaaS)

MCITP: Lync Server 2010 Administrator
This certification helps show that you have the skills to deploy and configure Microsoft Lync Server 2010, an integral part of the Microsoft software as a service offering, called Microsoft Office 365.
Exam 70-664
and
Exam 70-665

MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010
Demonstrate your professional messaging expertise by earning the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator certification. Updates that include cloud-related skills are now available.
Exam 70-662
Exam 70-663

or

MCITP: SharePoint Administrator 2010¹
Demonstrate your Microsoft SharePoint 2010 administration skills. Updates will include cloud-related skills.
Exam 70-667
Exam 70-668