Feb 24, 2020
Difinity
Monday and Tuesday of last week I attended Difinity (https://difinity.co.nz/), the largest Data, AI, Power BI, Power Platform and Business Applications conference in New Zealand. There were over 50 technical sessions delivered by speakers from all around the world, including Microsoft RD (Regional Director), MVP (Most Valuable Professional), MCM (Microsoft Certified Masters), and from the Microsoft Corporate product groups. Sessions were organised into tracks for Data Platform, Business Intelligence, and Analytics.
I presented two sessions:
Azure MLOps: Bring your DevOps to Machine Learning
MLOps empowers data scientists and app developers to bring ML models to production. This session presents how to use MLOps in Azure to track, version, audit, certify and re-use every asset in your ML lifecycle and streamline the use of each resource. With practical examples on asset management and orchestration services for your ML model training and deployment workflows, you will learn about the Azure DevOps Machine Learning extension, best practices for data scientists to work in topic branches off master, when code is pushed to a Git repo, how to trigger a CI (continuous integration) pipeline, and how to provision ML workspaces, compute targets, datastores as infrastructure-as-code.
Slides: https://difinity2020.sched.com/event/ZPOd/azure-mlops-bring-your-devops-to-machine-learning
Video: https://youtu.be/wRJ6kw2hcEw
Digital Innovation in the Blockchain Age
With blockchain, we can imagine a world in which contracts are embedded in digital code and stored in transparent, shared databases, where they are protected from deletion, tampering, and revision. The technology at the heart of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way. But a true blockchain-led transformation of business and government is still many years away, though. Please join Stefano Tempesta in this session for an open conversation on the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems based on trust, where every agreement, every process and every payment would have a digital record and signature that could be identified, validated, stored, and shared. Intermediaries may no longer be necessary. Individuals, organizations and machines would freely transact and interact with one another with little friction.
Slides: https://difinity2020.sched.com/event/ZPPM/digital-innovation-in-the-blockchain-age
Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-innovation-blockchain-age-stefano-tempesta/
Video: A previous presentation at “Spark the Change” in India (Internet 4.0: The Age of the Blockchain)
The three use cases I presented in my sessions are also better described in the following articles:
· Secure Your Supply Chain with the Azure IoT and Blockchain Cloud
· Verify e-Documents with Smart Contracts in Azure Blockchain Development Kit
· Secure Multi-Party Machine Learning with Azure Confidential Computing
And the relevant videos:
· Digitally Sign and Verify Documents on Blockchain
· Azure Confidential Computing
I also had the great pleasure to meet 3 other fellow Microsoft Regional Directors: Suzanne George, Reza Rad (one of the organisers of Difinity) and Mihail Mateev.
What do 4 Microsoft RDs do in the same place? *Difinity* something cool…
LinkedIn Pulse
I enjoy occasional writing on LinkedIn Pulse. I started this year with two articles already. I try to position my writing on Pulse as thought leadership, rather than technical articles. My two recent articles are:
2020 Resolutions for Blockchain
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2020-resolutions-blockchain-stefano-tempesta/
Sometime in 2017, I posted on LinkedIn “ICO Advisor: a job that didn’t exist last year, a job that won’t exist next year”. Never prediction was more accurate. Year 2018 has passed, and we have seen a growing interest in blockchain applications besides cryptocurrency, but a common struggle on technology readiness. Year 2019 came by with the promise of addressing such struggle, but little has happened and the use cases of adoption of blockchain in the enterprise space are still limited. So, where is blockchain going in 2020?
The rise of the distributed team
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-distributed-team-stefano-tempesta/
Working remotely is part of the modern work culture. Sounds good in theory, but when it comes to implementing a distributed team and managing it successfully, it’s a lot easier said than done. If you have a resolution of building a better team, start thinking outside the confines of your region to search for talent. Leaders around the world are preparing for an incredibly competitive global market this decade, and one way in which they can gain an edge is through the normalisation of remote work.
Microsoft Certified: Azure for SAP Workloads Specialty
I recently completed the “AZ-120: Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads” Microsoft exam. This is an exam, currently in beta, required to achieve the “Azure for SAP Workloads” specialty.
Architects of Azure for SAP Workloads have extensive experience and knowledge of the SAP Landscape Certification process and industry standards that are specific to the long-term operation of an SAP solution. This exam measures your ability to accomplish the following technical tasks:
· Migrate SAP Workloads to Azure
· Design an Azure Solution to Support SAP Workloads
· Build and Deploy Azure for SAP Workloads
· Validate Azure Infrastructure for SAP Workloads
· Operationalize Azure SAP Architecture
I prepared for this exam by taking the two learning paths available on Microsoft Learn:
Planning Azure for SAP workloads
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-au/learn/paths/plan-azure-sap-workloads/
In this learning path, you see how to plan for a deployment of SAP solutions on Azure. You will also consider the preparation required for migrating SAP workloads to Azure.
SAP certified offerings for Azure
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-au/learn/paths/sap-certified-offerings/
As an IT Professional experienced in SAP solutions, you need to understand how to leverage Azure resources that include virtual machines, virtual networks, storage accounts, and Azure AD. These modules will provide the basis for running SAP workloads in Azure.
I strongly recommend that candidates for this exam have an Azure Administrator or Azure Architect certification, in addition to SAP HANA and Linux certifications.
For more information about this Microsoft certification:
As I believe I’m one of the few Microsoft Certified on the Azure for SAP Workloads specialty, at least in Australia, I’m available for any inquiry on how you can use Azure to reliably run your mission-critical SAP workloads and scenarios on a scalable, compliant, and enterprise-proven platform.
But why SAP on Azure? Microsoft and SAP have participated in an alliance for more than two decades. That alliance has been focused on one goal: to provide businesses with a clear roadmap so they can confidently drive innovation in the cloud. With Azure, Microsoft helps bring unparalleled performance to your entire SAP estate. Azure enables you to run and deploy popular SAP products and solutions within minutes, on a secure, scalable, and business-proven cloud platform. The joint Microsoft and SAP ecosystem provides unique insights and rich product integration to help you make the most of running SAP solutions and applications in the cloud, accelerating your performance, productivity, and innovation with seamless enterprise-class support.
You can now safely plan your migration of SAP workloads to the cloud, and feel free to get in touch with me directly and leverage an extensive experience and knowledge of the SAP Landscape Certification process and industry standards that are specific to the long-term operation of an SAP solution. You get the usual scalability, security and cost savings of Azure, along with a proven process for design and validation of the operational Azure infrastructure to support your SAP solution.
Moving your SAP workloads to the Cloud may not be a trivial task. Your business runs on SAP. You can’t afford downtime and you can’t afford mistakes. You could make the journey on your own, or you could follow the path of others who have successfully made the journey and learn from their experience. Leveraging the SXiQ and Acclimation strategic partnership, organisations, large and small, can successfully move their SAP workloads to the cloud. Along the way, we’ve learned some lessons and developed some best practices that apply to businesses of all sizes, lessons and best practices that we put together into a repeatable process that may help with your migration as well.
