A decade later: Microsoft Azure at ten – Interview on Nigel Frank

Microsoft Azure just celebrated its 10th birthday. I had the chance to be interview by Nigel Frank International about the last ten years, today and the future. Right for the 10th birthday of Microsoft Azure. you can read the full interview here, where Microsoft MVPs, Mark Scholman and Charbel Nemnom together with myself answer a couple of questions like:

• Did you encounter any skepticism in the early days, surrounding both Azure and broader cloud technology?
• In the ten years since Azure’s official launch, has the product evolved as you expected?
• How does each of you view the influence Azure has had on the cloud technology industry?
• Can you pinpoint any turning points over the last ten years when Azure stood out as something of a game-changer?
• Finally, what would you like to see next from Microsoft Azure?

Originally titled Windows Azure upon its official launch in February 2010—a moniker that would change to Microsoft Azure some four years later—the cloud platform has changed the face of computing on a scale previously unimagined.

A decade on, the service has arguably developed beyond recognition, expanding and adapting at regular intervals to help businesses of all shapes and sizes. The freedom to build, deploy and manage applications on a global scale is just one consequence, with 95% of Fortune 500 companies putting their faith (and trust) in the product.

To mark the platform’s tenth birthday, we sat down with Azure Stack consultant Mark Scholman, Microsoft Senior Cloud Advocate Thomas Maurer, and Cloud Architect and ICT Security Expert Charbel Nemnom—three Microsoft MVPs who have used Azure in all of its guises on a daily basis—to talk about the journey so far and the future of cloud computing.

I am looking forward to the next ten years of Microsoft Azure, especially since I am now part of the Azure team. And if you want to learn more about Microsoft Azure, check out my blog post about learning Microsoft Azure in 2020!

• Azure Architecture Center – The Azure Architecture Center contains guidance for building end-to-end solutions on Microsoft Azure. Here you will find reference architectures, best practices, design patterns, scenario guides, and reference implementations.
• Cloud Adoption Framework – The Cloud Adoption Framework is the One Microsoft approach to cloud adoption in Azure, consolidating, and sharing best practices from Microsoft employees, partners, and customers. The framework gives customers a set of tools, guidance, and narratives that help shape technology, business, and people strategies for driving desired business outcomes during their adoption effort. This guidance aligns to the following phases of the cloud adoption lifecycle, like Strategy, Plan, Ready, Migrate, Innovate, Govern, and Manage.
• Azure Migration Center – Get all the tools and resources you need to migrate your apps, data, and infrastructure at your own pace, with confidence.
• Azure Architecture Framework – A successful cloud solution requires to focus on these five pillars of architecture excellence: Cost, DevOps, Resiliency, Scalability, and Security. The Azure Architecture Framework helps you to build on these pillars.
• Azure Reference Architectures – The Reference Architectures are a set of recommended architectures for Azure. Each architecture includes best practices, prescriptive steps, and a deployable solution.
• Architectural decision guides – The architectural decision guides in the Cloud Adoption Framework describe patterns and models that help when creating cloud governance design guidance.
• Cloud Operating model – Establish an operating model for the cloud
• Azure Hybrid – Learn about Azure Hybrid Cloud with features and services like Azure Stack, Azure Arc, and many more.
• Azure Security – Learn about Azure and security
• Azure compliance – Get an overview of compliance in Microsoft Azure, with more than 90 compliance offerings
• Azure pricing – learn about how Azure pricing works and how you can save costs and get the best value at every stage of your cloud journey.

I hope you enjoy the interview. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments.