Microsoft’s Windows Azure 2014 – Largest Cloud Conference in India!
“India is the fastest growing and largest Azure Market”, said Karan Bajwa, the Managing Director, Microsoft India and that’s the reason why Microsoft did organize the largest Cloud Conference here! The conference spreads over two days in Lalit Ashok, Bangalore. Did you get a chance to attend the event? If not, here’s the complete recap of the first day at Windows Azure 2014 Conference. Get ready to Think Aloud and Think Cloud!
Microsoft could manage to keep the event tag “The Largest Cloud Conference”. The event was large, grand and good enough to promote Windows Azure to every individual out there! Yes, the event attracted – IT Pros, Developers, Business analysts, Technology analysts, Corporates, Startups, Service Providers, end users and Cloud enthusiasts. Don’t believe me? Probably a below picture shot during the registration desk says it all.
The registered attendees were presented with an 8GB Cloud shaped USB drive with label as Windows Azure – it contained information and training materials about Azure. Of course, you can download those materials here.
Event Information and Speakers
Microsoft made that easy. You can download the WAC2014 app for Android and Windows devices – which contains the complete agenda of the event.
Events were classified into categories.
- Open – This event hall provided information about the depth of Windows Azure, which trains you on Infrastructure (Iaas) and Platform (Paas) for open source technologies.
- Broad (Developers) – This track takes you into the development platform of Windows Azure, where building, deploying and managing the applications were focused.
- Flexible (Deploy & Manage) – This track encouraged the startups and businesses to enter Cloud infrastructure.
- Startup Conclave (on 21st)
- MIC Champs Connect
- Hands-on Lab
Flying Drones
Stunning Drones flew over the head to welcome the attendees of Windows Azure Conference 2014, I would say that it was a grand welcoming! What do you say?
Keynote – Cloud Power – Bhaskar Pramanki
“Microsoft sees Cloud as the most promising future in India”, said Bhaskar, the country’s Chairman for Microsoft. “We are adding over 2000 commercial cloud customers every month in India and these are customers across all industry sectors – banking, manufacturing, healthcare and media, and across large, mid-sized and small companies.”, said Bhaskar during his short presentation.
Bhaskar also said, Azure’s revenue grew over 200 percent with over 1000 new customers signs-up everyday. His presentation had plenty of stats – The company operates around 1 million servers worldwide (no datacenter at India) and have invested around $15 billion to build cloud infrastructure. There are 10,000 partners joined with Microsoft and over 1.6 million developers in India.
The Customers are from various industries and sectors including manufacturing, banking, media, healthcare, startups etc…which totals up to 2000 commercial customers signing-up every month in India.
Special speech from Satya Nadella
“Customers from India leapfrog to the cloud, and accrue cost savings. Windows Azure is a powerful platform for the IT professionals, developers and startups to bring their business to global market and lets them scale their business. I believe the opportunities ahead for India with the Azure cloud platform are tremendous”, said Satya Nadella during his brief appearance in a video.
Offers on Nokia Lumia Devices
There were plenty of stalls displaying Nokia Lumia’s 1520, 1320 and 1020 smartphones. The stalls claimed to offer great discount offers on all range of Nokia Lumia phones. I could get a chance to write down those prices on a piece of paper. Wait! Bare with my handwriting (It was quite tough to write in a rushing crowd).
Note: The prices were not that competitive (except Lumia 1520). You get the phones for same or lesser price in Flipkart.
Fun and Crazy Promotions
Get Selfie Photo framed, but you just need to like Microsoft Developer Page @ FB. What a way to get Facebook likes Microsoft? Probably, my tweet says it all.
free selfie photo framed for a fb like! way to go microsoft, for the marketing strategy! #azure4sure
— Mahalakshmi Kabilan (@MahaKabilan) March 20, 2014
Free Certification Offers
As an attendee, you get a voucher for Free Private Cloud Certification & more!
Tweet with #Azure4Sure and win prizes
Attendee who tweets more about the Azure event with #Azure4Sure will get some crazy goodies at the end of the two day event. And I’m also into this competition of crazy tweeting!
Crack the code and win Lumia 1320
Every attendee got a card with a Crack code in it and that has to be entered in a Crack box. If you are lucky and if the box opens, you get the phone for free!
Here’s the recap of Day-1
Day 2
Day 2 of the Windows Azure event had a banging opening with keynote from Joseph Landes, General Manager, DPE Microsoft India. Then followed keynotes and various success stories. And this day, I had a chance to go to Siddartha 2 – where the hands-on session was happening. The session was explanatory and there were many Azure experts always around to help when someone stuck in the mid. I should say, that the session was totally helpful and was a big source to say everyone around how easy it was to deploy and debug applications with the Azure interface. Documentation of the procedures can be found in the Azure Website.
Session which were about the Microsoft Openness and Linux workload on Cloud were also cool.
The closing note was again a pleasure to eyes with Drones flying and Tyler Bryson, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft India entering the hall, tapping feet to loud Indian music.
Final note was a Panel Discussion with the Azure heros – Anand natraj,Rahul Chitale,Prasanna Raghavendra and Venki Muthanna. They shared their experiences with Windows Azure and how it acted as an ecosytem and how it was helpful in running their business.
Then it was prize distribution for the luck draw winners and top tweeters. And I was one among the top tweeters! Ofcourse you can see to my tweets to get the gist of the whole event too. #Azure4Sure.