Telecom
Microsoft Unveils New Opportunities to App Developers with Apache® Spark™
By peter oluka
At Connect(); 2017, Microsoft Corp.’s annual event for professional developers, Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, announced new Microsoft data platform technologies and cross-platform developer tools.
Guthrie outlined the company’s vision for what’s next for developers across a broad range of Microsoft and open source technologies, and how Microsoft is helping them get more done across any app or platform.
He also touched on key application scenarios and ways developers can use built-in artificial intelligence (AI)to support continuous innovation and continuous deployment of today’s intelligent applications.
“With today’s intelligent cloud, emerging technologies like AI have the potential to change every facet of how we interact with the world,” said Guthrie. “Developers are in the forefront of shaping that potential. Today we’re announcing new tools and services that help developers build applications and services for the AI-driven future, using the platforms, languages, and collaboration tools they already know and love.”
Any dev, any app, any data, any platform
Microsoft is continuing its commitment to delivering open technologies and contributing to and partnering with the open source community.
New tools and partnerships are designed to help developers build intelligent, enterprise-ready and cloud-scale apps — regardless of their platform, and to give them the peace of mind with the built-in security, performance, compliance, support and SLAs available in Azure.
Azure Databricks Preview
Designed in collaboration with the founders of Apache® Spark™, Azure Databricks is a fast, easy and collaborative Apache® Spark™-based analytics platform that delivers one-click set up, streamlined workflows, and an interactive workspace.
Native integration with Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Azure Storage, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Active Directory and Power BI, simplifies the creation of modern data warehouses that enable organizations to provide self-service analytics over all data with enterprise-grade performance and governance.
Cassandra API preview for Azure Cosmos DB
Expands on the multi-model capabilities of Azure Cosmos DB to offer Cassandra as-a-service over turnkey global distribution, multiple consistency levels and industry-leading SLAs.
GitHub Roadmap for Git Virtual File Systems (GVFS)
GitHub will announce GVSF adoption and roadmap for GVSF integration making GVSF the open source industry standard for enterprise scale Git Repositories.
Microsoft Joins MariaDB Foundation
Microsoft joins MariaDB foundation as platinum member and announces upcoming preview of Azure Database for MariaDB for a fully managed MariaDB service in the cloud.
Helping developers get more done
Microsoft is releasing tools designed to help developers, developer teams, data scientists and business decision makers, collaborate and work together more efficiently for application development, deployment and management.
New tools and feature improvements help to streamline essential tasks, so developers can focus more on getting apps to market across multiple platforms, andfor any scenario — whether cloud, data or AI.
Visual Studio App Center GA
New cloud service for developers to ship higher quality applications more frequently. Objective-C, Swift, Android Java, Xamarin and React Native developers can use App Center to increase productivity and accelerate application lifecycle, freeing them to spend more time on new features and better user experiences.
Visual Studio Live Share
Unique new capability for developers to collaborate in a seamless and secure way with full project context. Developers can share projects with teammates, or other developers, to edit and debug the same code in their personalized editor or IDE.
Azure DevOps Projects
Lets developers configure a full DevOps pipeline and connect to Azure Services in less than 5 minutes for faster app development and deployment.
With just a few clicks in the Azure portal developers can setup Git repositories, wire up completely automated build & release pipelines without any prior knowledge of how to do so.
Transforming business through analytics and AI
Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are placing the seemingly impossible within reach. New tools and APIs from Microsoft are designed to help developers create apps that harness analytics in the cloud and data on the network’s edge, empowering business with new capabilities.
Azure IoT Edge
Azure IoT Edge preview availability, enabling artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and machine learning at the Internet of Things (IoT) edge.
Visual Studio Tools for AI
Developers and data scientists can develop AI models with all the productivity of Visual Studio, on any framework and language. Updates to .NET make it easier for .NET developers to consume AI models from their applications.
Azure SQL Database Machine Learning services preview
Support for R models inside SQL Databasemakes it seamless for data scientists to develop and train models in Azure Machine Learning and deploy those models directly to Azure SQL Database to create predictions at blazing-fast speeds.
For the next two days, Microsoft is streaming more than 36 live, engineering-led training sessions that are designed to give developers hands-on experience with the tools and technologies featured throughout the keynote presentations.
Nigeria will criminalize the destruction of broadband fiber cables following repeated complaints by MTN Nigeria Communications Plc and other telecommunications companies that they are losing billions of naira, according to people familiar with the matter.
Federal ministry of works, which supervises federal road constructors, is finalizing the regulation that will be signed as an executive order by President Bola Tinubu, said the people, asking not to be identified as they weren’t authorized to comment.
While there are presently laws against vandalism, the authorities are aiming to regulate construction firms more closely.
The order will enforce stiff penalties on offenders, said the people, declining to provide more details or say when it will be signed.
“Telecom assets are critical backbone that supports the economy across sectors,” said Temitope Ajayi, a senior presidential aide, who noted that the Association of Telecommunications Companies (ATCON) has been demanding the classification for years.
New rules will provide “further assurance that the Nigerian government will protect their investments against vandals and criminal elements.”
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) estimates that the sector will make up more than a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product by the end of 2027, up from 13.5% in the third quarter of last year.
The move will help alleviate pressure on the telecoms sector, which is facing increased operating costs and sales pressures from a sharp depreciation in the currency and a threefold increase in energy prices.
Repairs and revenue losses from damaged cables is estimated to have cost the sector almost 27 billion naira ($23 million) last year alone, documents seen by Bloomberg show.
MTN Nigeria, the biggest wireless operator in Africa’s most-populous nation, and Airtel Africa Plc bore the brunt of the costs, the documents show.
MTN suffered more than 6,000 cuts on its fiber cable last year, the documents show. On Feb. 28, a cut on its network in three different locations by a road construction firm, an oil serving company and someone burning rubbish in a manhole meant customers faced more than five hours of data and voice outages.
The operator relocated 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) of vulnerable fiber cables between 2022 and 2023, at a cost of more than 11 billion naira – enough to build 870 kilometers of new fiber lines to areas without coverage.
A presidential order on the matter would be welcomed, said Tony Izuagbe Emoekpere, president, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria.
“When it comes to communication infrastructure, they are destroyed at will, so we are eagerly awaiting the president’s order,” he said. “It would be a great boost to the industry, and it will also encourage investment.”
Telegram, the messaging giant founded by Pavel Durov and headquartered in Dubai, anticipates hitting a remarkable milestone of one billion active monthly users within the next year.
Durov’s departure from Russia in 2014, prompted by governmental pressures to stifle opposition communities on his VK social media platform, underscores Telegram’s commitment to neutrality despite geopolitical challenges.
With 900 million active users currently, Telegram stands as a beacon of free speech in the digital realm, particularly influential in former Soviet Union republics and pivotal during conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine standoff.
Durov’s staunch advocacy for freedom of expression and opposition to censorship by tech giants like Apple and Google reinforces Telegram’s status as a neutral platform.
Opting for the UAE as its base, Durov cites its neutrality and openness as conducive to Telegram’s ethos, serving both opposition groups and governments alike while maintaining impartiality.
In Durov’s vision, the pursuit of freedom eclipses material gain, shaping Telegram’s trajectory as a bastion of digital liberation.
To further strengthen Nigeria’s digital economy in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) have announced a collaboration on National Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to enhance and create synergy between digital identity, payment ecosystem, and secure & seemless data exchange capabilities for Nigeria.
During the meeting between the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, and Director General of NIMC, Engr. Bisoye Coker-Odusote, with some management staff of both organisations, they discussed various initiatives, which include building DPI stacks for a secured and seamless data exchange and forming partnerships to transform the national identity system.
This collaboration also aims to harness the potential of the innovative ecosystem and emphasise the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to drive digital transformation in Nigeria.
To ensure a smooth implementation, a 12-man committee was set up. This committee will play a crucial role in kickstarting and harmonising the initiatives. It is expected to deliver a comprehensive implementation report within the next 4 weeks
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