The new services from Microsoft will include innovation possibilities via IoT technology, bots and other emerging tech, as well as providing added security for UK organisations operating within the Azure ecosystem.

“Microsoft continues to invest in our UK Azure regions to meet the growing needs of our customers,” said Michael Wignall, Azure business lead at Microsoft UK. “Azure is helping organisations, both large and small, adapt to a new way of working, and our cloud experts continue to help them at this challenging time.”

Security services

Three of the new Microsoft platforms focus on providing security. These are as follows:

• Azure Bastion, a service that allows for connections to virtual Azure machines without the use of public IP addresses, reducing exposure to the public Internet and risk of cyber attacks;
• Azure Confidential Computing, which involves the ability to secure data as it’s being used, meaning that multiple companies can combine and analyse their data sets without being able to access each other’s data;
• Azure Private Link, which offers secure connection to Microsoft’s cloud without the need for public Internet access, as well as allowing for completion of compliance regulations for certain markets worldwide.

Other launched services

Alongside these, the availability of five other new services has been announced:

• Azure App Configuration, which allows users to manage applications centrally, meaning that companies can save money that would otherwise be spent on redeployments;
• Azure Bot Service, a virtual assistant development platform that assists connections to users;

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• Azure IoT Central, a new IoT suite that connects the user with devices, partners, app templates and experts;
• Time Series Insights, which allows for collection, processing, storing, analysis and queries of data;
• Virtual Network NAT, a service that simplifies outbound-only Internet connectivity via virtual networks.

Updates on Linux plans

In addition, two plans for Linux applications have been updated:

• Consumption Plan Linux, which now allocates compute power when code is running;
• Premium Plan Linux, which now has enhanced performance for production apps.

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The new UK Azure services were announced via a blog post today.