Microsoft’s premiere technology conference Ignite is underway and Allcloud is on site in Orlando.

The following cloud highlights have been announced:

Azure

• New tools and capabilities for Azure Machine Learning, including new AML Workbench client
• Azure Policy, Azure Security Center, and other services expand support for hybrid workloads
• PowerShell comes to Azure Cloud Shell
• General Availability of several Cognitive Services
• Service Fabric for Linux now Generally Available
• Compliance Manager in preview for Azure, Dynamics 365, and Office 365
• Microsoft starts testing Azure Databox for bulk transfers up to 100TB

Office 365

• Bing for Business provides integrated search across the Microsoft Graph
• Microsoft Teams adding voice and video communications, to supplant Skype for Business
• Office 365 adds F1 SKU to serve 2 billion “Firstline Workers”
• LinkedIn profile cards coming to Office 365 and Outlook
• Microsoft Graph and client SSO improvements coming soon
• SharePoint, Exchange, and Skype for Business Server 2019 and updated Office clients coming in 2018

Other

• Microsoft outlines roadmap for quantum computing
• SQL Server 2017 launches for Windows and Linux next week

You can follow along with live and archived video.

Here are the ten Microsoft cloud conferences we’re most looking forward to this year:

1. Global Azure Bootcamp (April 22, 2017) National - Azure community conference.
2. Microsoft Build (May 10-12, 2017) Seattle, WA - Developer conference.
3. SharePoint Virtual Summit (May 16, 2017) Online - SharePoint pro conference.
4. DEVintersection Spring (May 21-24, 2017) Lake Buena Vista, FL - .NET developer conference.
5. Microsoft Inspire (July 9-13, 2017) Washington, DC - Microsoft partner conference.
6. Visual Studio Live (September 18-21, 2017) Chicago, IL - Developer conference.
7. Microsoft Ignite (September 25 - 29, 2017) Orlando, FL - IT professional conference.
8. SPTechCon (November 12-15, 2017) Washington, DC - SharePoint technology conference.
9. Office and SharePoint Live (November 12-17, 2017) Orlando, FL - SharePoint pro conference.
10. Collab365 Global Conference (TBD, Q4 2017) Online - Online Office 365 conference.

We’re looking forward to Chicago Code Camp, the 8th annual Chicagoland technology conference for and by developers. The event takes place Saturday April 30, 2016 at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Bert Johnson will present Automating Private and Hybrid Cloud Deployments with Azure Stack. The session will outline DevOps strategies and tools for orchestrating infrastructure with Azure Stack.