Accelerate migration and modernization with agentic AI

By Dustin Ward

Every organization has an innovation agenda. Whether it’s building AI-native applications, creating more engaging customer experiences, or unlocking new efficiencies—ambition is never the problem. But for many teams, it’s their technical debt that stands in the way. Legacy systems, outdated codebases, and fragmented infrastructure slow progress and drain resources. In fact, over 37% of application portfolios require modernization today—and that number will remain high over the…

Agent Factory: Creating a blueprint for safe and secure AI agents

By Dustin Ward

This blog post is the sixth out of a six-part blog series called Agent Factory which shares best practices, design patterns, and tools to help guide you through adopting and building agentic AI. Trust as the next frontier Trust is rapidly becoming the defining challenge for enterprise AI. If observability is about seeing, then security is about…

Azure mandatory multifactor authentication: Phase 2 starting in October 2025

By Dustin Ward

As cyberattacks become increasingly frequent, sophisticated, and damaging, safeguarding your digital assets has never been more critical, and at Microsoft, your security is our top priority. Microsoft research shows that multifactor authentication (MFA) can block more than 99.2% of account compromise attacks, making it one of the most effective security measures available. As announced in August…

Microsoft Cost Management updates—July & August 2025

By Dustin Ward

Whether you’re a new student, a thriving startup, or the largest enterprise, you have financial constraints. You need to know what you’re spending, where your money is being spent, and how to plan for the future. Nobody wants a surprise bill—and that’s where Microsoft Cost Management comes in. We’re always looking for ways to learn…

Project Flash update: Advancing Azure Virtual Machine availability monitoring

By Dustin Ward

Previously, we shared an update on Project Flash as part of our Advancing Reliability blog series, reaffirming our commitment to helping Azure customers detect and diagnose virtual machine (VM) availability issues with speed and precision. This year, we’re excited to unveil the latest innovations that take VM availability monitoring to the next level—enabling customers to…

Introducing Azure Accelerate: Fueling transformation with experts and investments across your cloud and AI journey

By Dustin Ward

As technology continues to reshape every industry, organizations are transforming with cloud, data, and AI—ultimately resulting in smarter operations, better outcomes, and more impactful customer experiences. From global enterprises to fast-scaling startups, customers are putting Azure to work in powerful ways. To date, more than 26,000 customer projects have leveraged our offerings—Azure Migrate and Modernize…