This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Last month, I presented at Women in Tech Global Conference on the topic. During the conference and afterwards, I received a lot of queries on:
Do I as a Technologist have a role to play in ‘Sustainability’?
What is Technology’s role in Sustainability?
How is Technology getting influenced by ‘Sustainability’?
In this blog, I am answering these frequently asked questions.
We often relate to Sustainability as an initiative or agenda through which carbon footprint of any product is shared and some organizations share their commitment to reduce the same.
Here is the high-level summary of the journey any enterprise or business function needs to take to become sustainable. It starts with measuring the current environmental impact of the business, which enables monitoring and leads to corrective action and thereby creating a difference by minimizing environmental impact.
What is ‘Environmental Impact’? Carbon emissions, Waste generation, water consumption and land use are key impacts to ‘Environment’ that any industrialization process brings along, digital technology included.
To make this relatable, and understand how sustainability can be factored into every business process, let’s wear a hat of Garments industry Customer.
Just imagine, you come across a great deal (in terms of price):
Your deciding factors primarily will be:
Value of Product
Price, you pay for it (in terms of money)
Now what if some additional information is provided:
With this additional information, the decision of purchase will add an entirely new dimension, to consider the ‘Environmental Impact’ of this purchase decision. It will add additional factors:
Is the ‘Environmental Impact’ of this product worth the value?
What are the alternative options?
How can I maximize the usage of this product to minimize the ‘Environmental Impact’?
This transparency will lead the Garment manufacturers to explore the best available options across their whole business process from sourcing through manufacturing, distribution, and operations to ensure minimal environmental impact, there by staying competitive. This leads to prioritization for Sustainability at each stage of business enabled by technology.
To summarize, if we start measuring and sharing the environmental impact of every business, this will lead to consciousness and drive towards minimizing the impact.
These insights will lead to efficiencies across the product lifecycle leveraging the overall ecosystem. Each participant in this ecosystem has a role here in terms of sustainability, be it producer, operator, or consumer.
On the same lines, as a technologist we need to know:
What is the environmental impact of the business application we are supporting / leveraging?
How is this impact compared to other products available in the market?
How can you optimize the usage of these products, thereby minimizing the ‘Environmental Impact’?
So, whether you are a technology consumer or producer, we all have a role to play to ensure environmental impact is taken into account at every decision point.
We all have a role to play and responsibility here.
Who can leverage these solutions and resources?
Any technology customer needs to beconscious about the environmental impact their business is generating, thereby making a conscious decision during every stage of their business, be it procurement, operations, customer support or even disposition.
As of now this is heavily prioritized by the regional and industry-based compliance and competitive landscape, but it is not far that every business decision will be made with awareness and consideration of impact and responsibility towards the environment.
All these products and offerings enabling Sustainability awareness and transparency are at initial stages right now but are developing on rapid pace owing to the growing awareness and demand of having this transparency in addition to the Dollar price.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We are excited to announce the public preview of new alerts for IT admins managing Cloud PCs in Intune to better inform them about Cloud PCs in a grace period. This capability is available for Windows 365 Enterprise customers today!
We heard you. You want to receive proactive alerts on Cloud PCs so you can easily take appropriate actions based on this information. This can help reduce risk in situations where an IT admin may not be fully aware of Windows 365 provisioning controls and, therefore, make changes to user licensing or group membership that inadvertently trigger the grace period. Then you need this capability to extend to automated scripts, ensuring comprehensive coverage and proactive notification.
With this Windows 365 IT admin alerts, an email is delivered whenever a Cloud PC enters the grace period state. This provides admins with greater awareness of their environment so they can take appropriate actions and acts as a preventive measure against unintended Cloud PC deprovisioning.
Windows 365 IT admin alerts offer the following features:
Admins can establish and customize system-based alerts for Cloud PCs in the grace period based on their preferences.
IT admins can define alert rules by selecting from the available options, setting thresholds, specifying frequency, and choosing notification channels for receiving alerts.
IT admins are able to assess their environment and take informed decisions to either reprovision or end the grace period for specific Cloud PCs as needed.
Enabling the functionality to generate alerts when a Cloud PC enters the grace period is a critical, precautionary measure. It acts as a safety net in scenarios such as Cloud PC license expiration or inadvertent changes made by IT admins to groups, resulting in a Cloud PC being set to deprovision within seven days.
Why is this important? Windows 365 Enterprise users are granted a seven-day grace period to continue using a Cloud PC once it enters that state. After the grace period elapses, the user is logged off, loses access to the Cloud PC, and the Cloud PC undergoes deprovisioning. Deprovisioning is a significant and irreversible action. By proactively notifying IT admins, unnecessary deprovisioning of Cloud PCs can be mitigated.
The Alerts (preview) in Microsoft Intune
In the Microsoft Intune admin center, under Tenant admin, you can review the alert history and monitor the status of a Cloud PC alert event, including details such as severity, state, and date.
Screenshot of Tenant admin in Alerts (preview) menu
Easy-to-understand alert insights
The event summary page provides a more detailed overview of the specific alert event that needs attention. This enables you to promptly investigate issues related to Cloud PCs in the grace period and gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact.
Screenshot of Alerts (preview) menu with a red highlight on the reports “Show all Cloud PCs in grace period”
When you select Show all Cloud PCs in grace, you are redirected to the corresponding alert event page, as displayed below. This page offers additional information about the alert event, enabling you to take appropriate actions to resolve the issue.
Screenshot of All Cloud PCs tab under the Windows 365 menu with a red highlight over the status of devices in grace period
If you select In grace period for a particular Cloud PC, a fly-out will appear, providing details about the impact of Cloud PCs in the grace period. You can then choose to either Reprovision Cloud PC or End the grace period.
Screenshot of CPC-SB pop up menu showing the option to “reprovision Cloud PC” or “end grace period”
Managing alert rules and email notifications
With this new capability, you have the flexibility to customize and enable or disable the alert rules, including conditions, settings, and notifications, depending on their specific requirement.
Additionally, you have the flexibility to configure your preferred notification methods for events by choosing options such as portal pop-up and email. We also provide support for email localization, allowing you to customize the language in which you prefer to receive alert notifications.
Screenshot of Alerts (preview) under the Alert Rules tab showing the optional notification methods
Screenshot of the Cloud PCs in grace period menu under the Alert rules tab showing more details on notification options
Prerequisites and what’s next
Windows 365 system-based alerts are currently available for Windows 365 Enterprise customers and only with Microsoft Intune. The account needs to have the Intune Global Admin, Intune Admin, or Windows 365 Admin roles assigned.
Enhanced IT admin alerts for Cloud PCs that are unable to connect are coming soon. You’ll also soon have the ability to proactively notify IT admins when Cloud PCs encounter issues such as unhealthy hosts, persistent connection errors, suspected infrastructure problems, or other systemic issues. These new capabilities will also provide valuable insights to assist in resolving the problem promptly.
For a demo on this new alerts capability for Cloud PCs in a grace period, now in public preview, please check out this video:
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Like you, professionals around the world know that the cloud is transforming the business landscape for the better, while offering unparalleled opportunities for innovation and growth. As you look to the cloud to do more with less and to help support your organization’s goals and success, we’re confident that Azure can help you do exactly that—from saving money by migrating your apps and data to the cloud, to optimizing those cloud costs, and then reinvesting those savings to drive progress.
Knowing how critical these areas are, our mission is for Azure to be the world’s computer, so you can do what you do best—innovate, create, and differentiate your business. We also know that you need to focus on strategy and decision-making rather than on navigating the technical complexities of the cloud, even while you explore Azure costs and benefits, along with its ability to help solve your organization’s challenges.
So, where can you find an Azure overview?
We’re happy to introduce the new Get to know Microsoft Azure cloud platform: An overview for business professionals learning path on Microsoft Learn, crafted with you and your learning goals, needs, and preferences in mind. This free practical resource is designed to bridge the gap between cloud platform knowledge and business strategy—with no technical background required. Plus, you can complete it in about90 minutes, which makes this an extremely time-efficient investment.
Created to help you quickly learn the advantages of Azure and how it can support your organization’s success, this learning path focuses on real-world examples across multiple industries. It demonstrates how cloud adoption can benefit your operations, drive cost savings, fuel growth, and more.
What can you expect to learn?
We know that business leaders want the innovation and agility that the cloud enables, but you need to learn at your own pace and on your own schedule. So we’ve distilled the essential aspects of Azure into concise modules, helping you to get the maximum value from your time. With practical insights and real-life case studies, we highlight the transformative power of cloud adoption, offering the inspiration and confidence to explore the possibilities of Azure in three modules:
Describe the basics of Azure cloud for business details what the cloud is, what Azure is, and how your business can grow and transform with Azure and cloud economics.
Describe the business benefits of Azure covers cost efficiency, innovation, agility, and security.
Transition your business to Azure examines the various decisions to anticipate as you move to the cloud. Review strategic considerations and best practices for migrating to Azure and look ahead to the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework.
Modules and lessons included in the “Get to know Microsoft Azure cloud platform: An overview for business professionals” learning path
What other new learning paths are available for business leaders?
Like the cloud, AI has the power to change how organizations around the world operate, compete, and build value. And AI is ushering in a transformative era of innovation, efficiency, and unprecedented possibilities. We recently announced another new free educational series on Microsoft Learn, Transform Your Business with Microsoft AI, created to help you build your AI knowledge, insights, and skills.
This curriculum, which complements the new Azure overview for business leaders, explores:
The competitive advantage and potential of AI.
How to make informed decisions about its adoption.
Examples from the Microsoft AI journey.
Guidance from Microsoft experts and other industry leaders.
When you take this 90-minute cloud journey, you gain insight into the transformative power of Azure, enhancing your cloud fluency and examining strategic decisions that can help drive your business forward. With Microsoft Azure as your trusted cloud provider, you get not only security and privacy but also a reliable business partner invested in your success. Embrace the benefits of cloud computing, explore how it can solve your challenges, and discover the potential savings it offers, with this new learning path for business leaders.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Dynamics 365 Field Service Mobile is a robust and scalable mobile application created for your frontline workers. With the capabilities of Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse, you can customize and configure the mobile application to meet your unique business needs. In this post, we’ll explore the most important things you can do—and not do—to create the best possible experience for your frontline workers when you implement Field Service Mobile.
5 “Dos” when you implement Field Service Mobile
Do use “mobile offline“ for frontline workers
Frontline workers often perform tasks in areas with variable network connectivity. Online-only applications can experience slow performance when network connections are poor. Responses can be delayed or even fail when the network isn’t available.
Using offline-first mode with Field Service Mobile provides a consistent user experience for frontline workers regardless of network conditions. Even if the network is often available, offline mode has advantages for your organization.
The offline-enabled application stores and retrieves data from a local database on the device. App performance improves without the dependency on network calls to fetch data from the server.
When a network is available, the offline application automatically synchronizes data with the server. Without a network connection, the sync pauses until the device is back online. Frontline workers can focus on completing their tasks without worrying about network connectivity.
Frontline workers’ job progress is not delayed by long waits or networking errors in cases when they temporarily lose network access.
When configuring Field Service Mobile, you have control over the precise layout of forms and fields. It’s important to keep core user scenarios in mind when defining the layout of your forms to create a streamlined experience. Focus your customizations on making the interface intuitive and efficient. This is especially useful for new employees to help them familiarize themselves with the necessary processes and steps to complete their work.
Here are some suggestions to simplify the application:
Use fields in a logical sequence. Avoid forcing users to move between forms.
Consider performance when you lay out form fields and tabs. Fields that are off-screen are loaded on a delay to avoid impacting the user accessing data that’s visible on the screen. However, sub-grids and charts are loaded with the initial form and can have an impact on performance if they’re added to the form’s default tab.
Use Work Order Service Tasks, Services, and Products. These out-of-the-box tables help guide frontline workers to complete a work order.
Do minimize customizations
Field Service Mobile provides much of the necessary app experience out of the box, but there are times when business requirements necessitate business logic unique to your organization. When customizations are necessary, follow best practices and use common Power Platform capabilities. This enables your organization to get the latest new features and enhancements sooner. It also helps to improve supportability and lower maintenance costs.
We recommend documenting your customizations. This helps you to understand changes and set yourself up for success when making future revisions.
Do train users and use feedback for improvements
Training your users on how to use the app and any unique workflows leads to higher productivity and satisfaction. Training should include a feedback loop to assess user satisfaction and be responsive to misunderstandings or requested changes that will improve the frontline workers’ workflow.
Do take advantage of documentation and the Field Service community
A wealth of information is available in Field Service documentation and learning sites. Help is also available in the community-driven Field Service forum. Use these resources to build solid understanding of Field Service, Dynamics 365, and the Power Platform.
5 “Don’ts” when you implement Field Service Mobile
Don’t skip user acceptance testing
Assessing the end-to-end application in real-world scenarios with your organization’s customizations and data is critical to a successful rollout. This can be a challenge when introducing diverse Field Service scenarios in addition to complex online and offline capabilities.
Focus testing on the “happy path” workflow through the application. Make sure frontline workers can complete that workflow without error in various situations.
Test with the same set of devices that users will have.
Test with the same security role and data access that users will have.
Test with production-level amounts of data.
Test offline mode in variable network conditions emulating real-world usage.
Intermittent or ‘flaky’ network access: Weak or variable cellular signal or areas of high latency
Test customizations and make sure they work well on different devices with the network and in offline scenarios.
Enable a feedback loop with your tests. Listen closely to actual users who are taking part in user acceptance testing. Plan a phase to incorporate feedback, which will help users during the final rollout.
Don’t use low-performance hardware or outdated software
Mobile devices evolve quickly, and it’s best to keep up to date by using recent hardware with sufficient memory and processing power. Using modern, high-performance mobile devices increases productivity through faster access to data and better battery life. Additionally, apps on modern devices are more reliable and less prone to slowdowns or crashes.
Field Service Mobile recommends evaluating the device based on CPU benchmark scores as given in the system requirements documentation.
Don’t implement offline mode without understanding data needs
It’s highly recommended that you use offline mode with Field Service Mobile. When implementing offline mode, plan based on your scenarios and data needs for a successful experience for your users.
Include only the required data. It’s important to take a minimal amount of data offline as required for frontline workers to perform their work. Reducing data helps with the sync time, cellular data usage, device battery usage, and device storage. It’s important to understand users’ true data needs and how security roles influence data access.
Minimize the number of relationships between tables to reduce query complexity. The amount of data isn’t the only factor to consider. Complex queries with multiple joins against large tables can also have a high impact on offline sync time.
Avoid frequent schema changes. Schema changes may force the redownload of tables that had changes, resulting in longer sync times.
Be aware of server-side business logic. The offline-enabled Field Server Mobile application syncs data from the server at regular intervals. If part of a workflow depends on interaction with the server, the response may take minutes to return to the client when the network is available and not at all if the user is truly offline. It’s recommended that you move as much business logic to the client as possible to reduce wait time and dependency on the network.
Don’t design a workflow that includes switching applications or context
Try to bring as much of the Field Service workflow into the Field Service Mobile application as possible so frontline workers don’t need to switch between multiple applications. Maintaining multiple applications is time-consuming and frustrating for the user and increases organizational overhead. Use the Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) to build custom experiences, bringing in other data sources when necessary.
If alternate applications are required, try to ease the burden of context switching by using deep links to navigate between the apps.
Don’t reuse web forms on mobile devices
A benefit of working on the Power Platform is being able to reuse forms on both web and mobile. This capability can make development of your form more efficient, reduce maintenance, and provide a common user experience regardless of how the form is accessed.
However, a form intended for use on a larger-screen device may have information that’s not necessary for a technician using the mobile application. For this reason, we recommend creating mobile-specific forms in some cases to provide an optimized experience that contains only the data that’s necessary for the user.
Conclusion
Field Service Mobile is a powerful application that brings the robust capabilities of Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform into the field. Following these best practices and avoiding common mistakes will help you implement Field Service Mobile successfully.
What you can do with restricted management administrative units
With restricted management administrative units, you can now designate specific users, security groups, or devices in your Microsoft Entra ID tenant that you want to protect from modification by tenant-level administrators.
Here are some situations in which this is useful:
You want to protect sensitive user accounts, such as C-level executives, from being able to have their password or multifactor authentication settings changed by regular helpdesk administrators.
You want to ensure that certain user accounts, security groups, or devices from a specific country can only be modified by designated administrators from that country.
You have specific security groups granting access to sensitive data and you want to restrict who can modify the membership only to a small set of administrators.
By placing your sensitive objects in a restricted management administrative unit, your tenant-level administrators will not be able to modify them. Only the administrators you explicitly assign to the scope of the administrative unit itself will be able to make changes.
Tenant-scoped and other admin unit-scoped administrators are blocked from resetting executives’ account passwords. Only the explicitly designated Executive admin can manage these accounts.
This is a much easier way to protect your sensitive objects than having to identify and scope every single role assignment in the tenant just to your non-sensitive objects.
How to use restricted management administrative units in your tenant
Here’s a quick example of how restricted management administrative units make it a breeze to secure a few sensitive user accounts in your tenant:
1. Under Roles & admins, select Admin units and click Add to create a new administrative unit.
2. Set the Restricted management administrative unit setting to “Yes” and click Next: Assign Roles
3. Add the designated administrator(s) who should be the helpdesk administrators for these sensitive accounts (these are the people who you do want to manage the accounts) and finish creating the administrative unit.
4. Now, you can go ahead and add the sensitive user accounts to the restricted management administrative unit you just created (just like you would for any other administrative unit).
That’s it! Now the sensitive user accounts can only be modified by the users you designated, regardless of how many other administrative roles may be assigned in your tenant.
To learn more details about how restricted management administrative units can help you secure sensitive resources in your tenant, check out our product documentation!
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We are thrilled to announce the general availability of Collaboration spaces in Viva Sales, transforming the way sales teams collaborate. Collaboration is essential for sales success, yet many organizations struggle to stay organized and find the right digital tools to bring them together. In the pursuit of closing deals, sellers find themselves collaborating with an average of over 15 cross-functional teams within their organizations, while simultaneously serving their customers. This intricate web of interactions adds a significant layer of complexity to their already demanding work.
With Collaboration spaces, sellers now have an organized and effortlessly created space, tailored to their needs, where they can collaborate seamlessly with their colleagues and customers.
Collaboration space in Teams for an account team
Collaboration made easy with Sales templates
Sales templates in Viva Sales simplify the process of creating purpose-built Collaboration spaces in Microsoft Teams, directly linked to D365 or Salesforce accounts or opportunities. Collaboration spaces are set up with predefined channels and pinned apps, providing a ready-made environment for effective collaboration built on the secure and trustworthy framework provided by Teams.
Once set up, sales teams can conveniently access these Collaboration spaces from the Viva Sales app in Outlook or directly from the Sales app, within the context of their accounts or opportunities. This eliminates the hassle of searching for the right place to collaborate, saving valuable time for the sales team.
We are excited to offer two sales templates as part of this release:
1. Account team template: The Account team template is designed for seamless collaboration within account teams and with customers. Applied at the team level and linked to a CRM account, this template provides a comprehensive solution. It comes equipped with predefined channels and pre pinned apps, ensuring a smooth and efficient workflow for effective collaboration.
2. Deal room template: The Deal room template is tailored for focused collaboration on deal related activities. Applied at the channel level and linked to a CRM opportunity, this template provides a dedicated space for efficient teamwork. With predefined channels and pre pinned apps, it streamlines communication and enhances productivity, allowing sales teams to effectively collaborate and drive successful deal outcomes.
Deals rooms that help sellers collaborate effectively
Eliminate set-up overhead for effortless teamwork
Setting up a Collaboration space is now easier than ever. With just a few clicks, sellers can create their own space for collaboration. By clicking on the ‘Set up account team’ or ‘Set up deal rooms’ button from Collaborate in Teams card in Viva Sales app within Outlook, sellers can quickly get the set up going. The process involves three simple steps: choosing a new/existing team, reviewing default team/channel names, and adding recommended team members to new teams.
Simplified setup for account teams
Convenient access within sales workflows
Once set up, sales teams can conveniently access these Collaboration spaces from the Viva Sales app in Outlook or directly from the D365 Sales app, within the context of their accounts or opportunities. This eliminates the hassle of searching for the right place to collaborate, saving valuable time for the sales team.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
In the realm of database management, the BACPAC format is widely used for exporting and importing data between databases. However, we have found an interesting service request, where the recommended automatic indexes are not included in the exported data used by BACPAC.
The Scenario:
During a remote session with a customer, a comparison between the source and target databases revealed a discrepancy in the indexes. Specifically, while the source database contained three types of indexes (PK_xxx, IX_xxx, and NCI_xxx), only the manually created PK_xxx and IX_xxx indexes were visible in the target database after restoration. The absence of NCI_xxx indexes prompted an investigation into the BACPAC export process.
Unveiling the Missing Indexes:
To shed light on the issue, the .BACPAC file extension was changed to .ZIP, allowing access to the model.xml file. By analyzing the file, a search for PK_xxx and IX_xxx indexes revealed their presence, but the NCI_xxx indexes were absent. Further examination of the sys.indexes view showed a significant distinction: the column auto_created held a value of 1 for NCI_xxx indexes, indicating that they were automatically created by Azure.
Uncovering the Export Query Condition:
A test conducted in an on-premises environment using SQL Profiler provided valuable insights. The query responsible for exporting indexes contained a condition wherein auto_created = 0, thereby excluding automatically created indexes. This finding explains the root cause of the missing NCI_xxx indexes in the BACPAC export.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Today, we are so excited to announce the general availability of Azure cross-region Load Balancer in all Azure public and national cloud regions. Since the preview, this product has been used by so many of you, our customers, whose valuable feedback has helped further improve the product. Our Global tier of Azure Load Balancer is ready for you to use in your production workloads. It is backed by the same 99.99% availability SLA.
Azure Load Balancer’s global tier is a cloud-native global network load balancing solution. With cross-region load balancer, you can distribute traffic across multiple Azure regions with ultra-low latency and high performance.
Key Features
Ultra-low Latency
Azure cross-region Load Balancer is optimized for ultra-low latency traffic distribution. This ultra-low latency is achieved through two mechanisms, geo-proximity routing and layer 4 distribution.
IP Controls
Each instance is given a static globally anycast IP address that you own and control. With a static IP address, you don’t have to worry about your frontend IP changing. In addition, cross-region load balancer preserves the original IP of the packet. The original IP is available to the code running on the virtual machine. This preservation allows you to apply logic that is specific to an IP address.
Ability to scale up/down behind a single endpoint.
When you expose the global endpoint of a cross-region load balancer to your end-users, you can add or remove regional deployments behind the global endpoint without interruption. This also enables easy scaling for high traffic events.
High Availability
Under a single global anycast IP, you can add all your application’s regional load balancers to achieve high availability. If one region fails, traffic is automatically routed to the closet healthy regional load balancer to a user, with no intervention from you. With automatic health probes and failovers, you can achieve high availability and regional redundancy for your applications.
What’s New
Azure Load Balancer’s Global tier provides the following additional capabilities as part of the general availability release:
SLA backing
Azure cross-region Load Balancer is now backed by a 99.99% availability SLA just like the regional tier. This means that you can count on the SLA for your production workloads.
UDP support
During preview, UDP traffic was not supported via Global tier Azure Load Balancer. With this release, UDP traffic is supported for IPv4.
Floating IP
You can also set up floating IP at the cross-region load balancer level. With floating IP, you can reuse backend ports across multiple frontend IP addresses and rules.
An example real world scenario
To better understand the use case of Azure’s cross-region Load Balancer, let’s explore an example customer scenario. In this scenario, we’ll learn about a customer, their use case, and how Azure Load Balancer came to the rescue.
Who is the customer?
In this scenario we will be learning about an example customer called Contoso. Contoso is a large utility company based out of North America. Contoso has over 6 million internet of things (IoT) devices spread across North America, Asia, and Europe. These IoT devices constantly send data back every hour to an application hosted on Azure. Contoso has deployed their applications into multiple Azure regions across all 3 continents, to support their low latency requirement. To support high availability at a regional level, Contoso places each instance of the application behind an Azure Load Balancer.
What are the issues with the customer’s current set-up?
By having the application deployed in multiple regions across the globe, Contoso’s IOT devices can send their data with low latency to the backend application. However, this set-up has led to a few issues that need to be dealt with as Contoso scales up their operation.
First, each deployment of Contoso’s application is deployed with an Azure Load Balancer, and each load balancer has its own public IP address. Contoso needs to ensure that each IOT device is sending its data to the correct IP address. IP management and overhead is becoming a growing concern for Contoso as they are looking to expand into additional Azure regions.
Second, in the off chance that an Azure region fails, then Contoso will need to manually failover all the affected IoT devices to the next available Azure region. Manually redirecting traffic isn’t a feasible solution for Contoso as they are looking to scale to over 10 million plus IoT devices in the next 4 years. They could add another product on top but do not want to incur the added complexity.
Given the concerns with their current set-up, Contoso is actively looking for a solution that provides a single IP address, multi-region support, and automatic fail-over in case a region is down.
How did Azure’s cross-region Load Balancer help?
Azure cross-region Load Balancer is a perfect solution to Contoso’s problems! With Azure cross-region Load Balancer, Contoso will get a single globally anycast IP address in which all the IoT devices can send their data. Contoso can add and remove backend regional load balancers with zero interruption to their operations. Also, cross-region load balancer provides automatic fail-over to the next available regional load balancer in the event that a regional load balancer is unhealthy. With this feature, Contoso no longer needs to manually fail-over impacted IoT devices during an incident, since high availability is achieved without any intervention required.
With all the benefits of Azure cross-region Load Balancer, the team at Contoso decided to integrate the product with their overall application. After running a small-scale test, Contoso rolled out Azure cross-region Load Balancer into full production and experienced the benefits immediately.
Learn More
Visit the Cross-region load balancer overview to learn more about Azure’s cross-region Load Balancer and how it can fit into your architecture.
Recent Comments