Microsoft has expanded its commitment to bringing domestic cloud services to the United Kingdom. Yesterday, the company announced new services that are now available on Azure in the UK. In a blog post, Microsoft says this expansion brings new cloud services to the region. The expansion follows the opening of Azure and Office 365 data centers in the UK.
Among the new additions is SQL Server Stretch Database, which allows Azure customers to migrate cold data to the cloud. Microsoft says Stretch Database is cost effective and allows transparent and secure migrations.
Also making its way to UK customers is Azure Functions, a tool for running small pieces of code in the cloud. With Functions, users do not need to worry about using a designated application for running small code.
Power BI in Azure
Azure customers in the UK can now get Power BI and Power BI embedded natively in the region. Power BI is Microsoft's business analytics suite that allows data analytics and visualizations. The company has been updating Power BI throughout the year, making it a feature-rich experience.
Power BI Embedded is a development tool for creating visualizations and reports in customer-facing apps. The service gives dev's quick access tools to manage their customer interaction, with less coding and time needed. It was moved to general availability on July 11 and is now natively stored for UK customers.
Other new Azure UK services include:
- Azure DocumentDB: Azure DocumentDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service built for fast and predictable performance, high availability, elastic scaling, global distribution, and ease of development. As a schema-free NoSQL database, DocumentDB provides rich and familiar SQL query capabilities with consistent low latencies on JSON data
- Azure DevTest Labs: Azure Devtest Labs is a service that helps developers and testers quickly create environments in Azure while minimizing waste and controlling cost. The goal for this service is to solve the problems that IT and development teams have been facing: delays in getting a working environment, time-consuming environment configuration, production fidelity issues, and high maintenance costs.