Microsoft Ignite 2025 – Hybrid and Azure catch up

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Unless you’ve been offline for the last couple of weeks, you’ll have seen a wide range of announcements, updates and developments within the Microsoft ecosystem, as Microsoft Ignite has taken place. I’ve been keeping an eye on many of these, specifically related to the technical areas I focus on:

  • Hybrid Cloud
  • Core Azure Technologies
  • Azure AI

Remember to check out the Book of News – which provides an overview of all the key announcements and news to catch up on! https://news.microsoft.com/ignite-2025-book-of-news/

Catch up on any sessions you missed in the catalogue here: https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/

You can also browse key topics below, click on each area to explore more – and then you can also review the sessions related to that topic that may be of interest.

My Must Watch Sessions and Key Announcements! 

Note – I’ve only included the sessions available (at the time of writing) for online watching. Also just to note, this is not an exhaustive list, just a few I’ve enjoyed reading about and catching up on – please do check out all of the sessions to get a full overview! 🙂

  • What’s new in Azure Local – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK147?source=sessions
    • This session covers updates to Azure Local – including aspects like Sovereign Private Cloud, disconnected operations, multi rack deployment, external storage, and more. In particular the update around Local Identity without Active Directory is one of particular interest as this is something I’ve been discussing with numerous clients. The slides from this session are also awesome and well worth reviewing – they are available on the session page linked above.
Local Identity without Active Directory for Azure Local
Local Identity without Active Directory for Azure Local
  • Preparing and modernizing Windows Server workloads in Azure – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK142?source=sessions
    • This session examines how the technologies and tooling available in Azure helps to optimize Windows Server workloads. Modernization, migration, and enhancements to security and monitoring are covered – as well as using Azure Migrate to understand migration scenarios, benefits, and ROI in detail. In particular – this slide really resonated with me:
Cloud is the engine of innovation
Cloud is the engine of innovation
  • Cloud Native Innovations with Mark Russinovich – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK431?source=sessions
    • Mark’s sessions are always awesome in my view, and this session covers a range of topics related to the latest innovations and developments in Cloud computing. In particular updates and developments around Kubernetes network performance, and container storage will be of interest to those working with these technologies.
  • Azure Arc: Extending Azure for hybrid and multi-cloud management – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK183?source=sessions
    • This session runs through Azure Arc, and the unified hybrid and multi-cloud offering available within. Hybrid and multicloud management is a key focus – with control, governance, and operations across these platforms. In this session we’re shown how Arc can unify these operations across platforms and locations. Check out the slides for additional detail and overview – they are available on the session page linked above.
  • Architecting for resiliency on Azure Infrastructure – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK178?source=sessions.
    • This session runs through how to architect resiliency on Azure Infrastructure – covering aspects like Shared Responsibility, Advancing Resiliency, Customer Scenarios and examples, and multi-region strategies for deployment. This slide really resonated with me, and helps to frame why discussing resiliency is so important – it’s absolutely key to every organisation working in Azure today that these eventualities and aspects are considered:
Why do bad things happen? Many of the things we need to consider!
Why do bad things happen? Many of the things we need to consider!
  • Architect resilient apps with Azure backup and reliability features – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK148?source=sessions
    • This session covers aspects like resiliency, and areas like infrastructure, data, and cyber resiliency. Introducing the Resiliency tooling in Azure and how it can help manage this across your environment with an application centric experience. Demos in this session highlight how Azure Copilot can help shape these decisions and assist with resiliency. Also shown is the ability to create an Availability Zone down drill, allowing you to simulate the failure of a Zone. Recovery orchestration is also demonstrated – and will significantly help recover entire applications in the event of a failure.
  • From cloud to edge: Building and shipping Edge AI apps with Microsoft Foundry – https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions/BRK199?source=sessions
    • This session highlights the opportunities available when utilising Foundry with Edge devices. Such scenarios as the need for privacy and security, latency, cost efficiency, and bandwidth constraints are discussed – and these highlight the need for Local AI use cases. Foundry Local updates are covered in this session, as well as a detailed technical demo of Foundry Local on Arc-enabled Kubernetes.

Thanks for reading – until next time!

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