Pedro Hernandez

Microsoft’s cloud customers can now more easily encrypt their databases with this week’s release of the new Azure SQL Database Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) feature. TDE enables customers “to protect your data and help you meet compliance requirements by encrypting your database, associated backups, and transaction log files at rest without requiring changes to your […]

Microsoft is warning businesses that the software giant is putting more aging software out to pasture next April. Approximately six months from now, on April 12, 2016, the company is pulling the plug on Microsoft SQL Server 2005. “That means an end to supportability updates, and perhaps more importantly, security updates,” wrote Takeshi Numoto, corporate […]

Microsoft’s inaugural Ignite conference took place May 4-8 this year in Chicago, just days after concluding Build 2015 in San Francisco. For 2016, the company is offering each a little more breathing room. “As we look ahead to 2016, we’re gearing up for our Microsoft top tier conference lineup,” said Microsoft’s Chris Capossela, executive vice […]

One of the most sought-after user management and security features for Microsoft Azure has officially launched, the company said today. Azure Roles-Based Access Control (RBAC) is out of beta and is now generally available, said Alex Simons, director of program management at Microsoft’s Identity Division, in an Oct. 12 announcement. RBAC is the top request […]

Office 365 is now being locally delivered to India from Microsoft’s new Azure data centers in the region, the software giant announced Oct. 11. Late last month, the company announced a major expansion of its global cloud data center footprint, by launching Azure commercial cloud services in India. Three new Azure regions—Central India in Pune, […]

Microsoft is eliminating a blind spot for businesses looking to keep their cloud databases safe and compliant with regulations affecting how their industries manage and secure data. Matt Usher, senior program manager, Microsoft SQL Engineering, announced in a blog post that the database auditing feature on Azure SQL Database has been enabled for customers to […]

Sway users can now access content from the company’s enterprise cloud file service, Microsoft announced on Oct. 8. Sway is a free cloud-based presentation tool for creating interactive, mobile-enabled presentations—called “Sways”—with drag-and-drop ease. Users assemble embeddable images, videos and text from multiple sources, including Bing Image Search, YouTube and Twitter, and the app automatically arranges […]

Overshadowed this week by Microsoft’s splashy Windows 10 device event was the official launch of Dynamics NAV 2016, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) software platform for small and midsize businesses. In keeping with the Microsoft’s post-PC, “cloud-first” product strategy, the latest version of Dynamics NAV features deeper ties to the Redmond, Wash., software giant’s Azure-backed […]

Microsoft is working on tightly integrating its Skype for Business (formerly Lync) enterprise communications platform with its Office 365 productivity software and cloud services suite. In July, the company announced a trio of technical previews—Skype Meeting Broadcast, PSTN (public switched telephone network) support and Cloud PBX (private branch exchange) with PSTN Calling—for the U.S. with […]

Excel 2016, part of Microsoft’s newly released Office 2016 productivity software suite, has new built-in tools to help users peer a little further into the future. Data forecasting is not new to Excel. Before the new version, “many used the FORECAST() sheet function, which performs a linear forecast or extended trendlines in chart properties to […]