MS-700 certification - Managing Microsoft Teams Updated: 2023 | ||||||||
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Exam Code: MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams certification November 2023 by Killexams.com team | ||||||||
MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams EXAM ID : MS-700 EXAM NAME : Managing Microsoft Teams The Microsoft Teams Administrator configures, deploys, and manages Office 365 workloads for Microsoft Teams that focus on efficient and effective collaboration and communication in an enterprise environment. The Teams Administrator must be able to plan, deploy, and manage Teams chat, apps, channels, meetings, audio conferencing, live events, and calling. The Teams Administrator is also responsible for upgrading from Skype for Business to Teams. Candidates for this exam should be proficient at managing Teams settings by using PowerShell. The Teams Administrator has a fundamental understanding of integration points with apps and services, including but not limited to SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, Azure AD, and Office 365 Groups. The Teams Administrator understands how to integrate external apps and services. The Teams Administrator collaborates with Telephony engineers to integrate advanced voice features into Microsoft Teams. This role is not responsible for configuring direct routing, configuring call routing, or integrating telephony. The Teams Administrator may work with other workload administrator roles, including security and compliance, messaging, networking, identity, and devices. - Plan and configure a Microsoft Teams environment (45-50%) - Manage chat, calling, and meetings (30-35%) - Manage Teams and app policies (20-25%) Plan and configure a Microsoft Teams environment (45-50%) Upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams choose an appropriate upgrade path and coexistence mode to meet specific requirements plan and troubleshoot meeting migration configure Microsoft Teams upgrade notification and meeting app preferences configure coexistence mode for the organization and per-user use Teams Advisor to assess and identify steps to roll out Microsoft Teams Plan and configure network settings for Microsoft Teams plan for successful network deployment by using Network Planner calculate network bandwidth capacity for Microsoft Teams voice, video, meetings and Live Events assess network readiness by using the Network Testing Companion configure network ports and protocols used by Microsoft Teams client application configure media optimizations by using QoS configure and manage locations including reporting labels, emergency addresses, and network topology, and networks & locations Implement governance and lifecycle management for Microsoft Teams create and manage team templates set up policies for Microsoft 365 group creation configure Microsoft 365 groups, expiration policy, and naming policy archive, unarchive, delete, and restore a team configure and manage update policies Configure and manage guest access configure guest users for Microsoft Teams configure guest permissions for a team configure meeting and live events experiences for guests configure messaging and calling options for guests remove guests manage Azure AD access review for guests configure guest access from Azure AD portal Manage security and compliance assign Microsoft Teams Admin roles create and manage compliance features, including retention policies, sensitivity labels, and data loss prevention (DLP) policies create security and compliance alerts for Microsoft Teams create an information barrier policy interpret security reports for Microsoft Teams Deploy and manage Microsoft Teams endpoints deploy Microsoft Teams clients to devices, including Windows, VDI (Virtual Desktop), Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), MacOS, and mobile devices manage configuration profiles manage Microsoft Teams device tags manage device settings and firmware configure Microsoft Teams Rooms Monitor and analyze service usage interpret Microsoft Teams usage reports interpret Microsoft 365 usage reports optimize call quality by using Call Analytics analyze organization-wide call quality by using Call Quality Dashboard use Power BI to identify call quality issues Manage Chat, Calling, and Meetings (30-35%) Manage chat and collaboration experiences configure messaging policies manage external access manage channels for a team manage private channel creation manage email integration configure external access for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business manage cloud file storage options for collaboration Manage meeting experiences configure meeting settings create and manage meeting policies configure settings for live events create and manage policies for live events configure conference bridge settings Manage phone numbers recommend a PSTN connectivity solution based on specific business requirements order phone numbers manage service numbers add, change, or remove an emergency address for your organization assign, change, or remove a phone number for a user manage voice and audio conferencing settings for users configure dynamic emergency policies Manage Phone System manage resource accounts create and configure call queues create and configure auto attendants manage call park policies manage calling policies manage caller ID policies interpret the Direct Routing health dashboard Manage Teams and app policies (20-25%) Manage a team create a team upgrade an existing resource to a team manage privacy levels for a team manage org-wide teams customize and apply policy packages Manage membership in a team manage users in a team configure dynamic membership manage access review for team members Implement policies for Microsoft Teams apps manage Org-wide app settings create and manage app permission policies create and manage app setup policies manage apps store customization | ||||||||
Managing Microsoft Teams Microsoft Microsoft certification | ||||||||
Other Microsoft examsMOFF-EN Microsoft Operations Framework Foundation62-193 Technology Literacy for Educators AZ-400 Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions DP-100 Designing and Implementing a Data Science Solution on Azure MD-100 Windows 10 MD-101 Managing Modern Desktops MS-100 Microsoft 365 Identity and Services MS-101 Microsoft 365 Mobility and Security MB-210 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales MB-230 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service MB-240 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service MB-310 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Financials (2023) MB-320 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Manufacturing MS-900 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals MB-220 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing MB-300 Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Core Finance and Operations MB-330 Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, Supply Chain Management AZ-500 Microsoft Azure Security Technologies 2023 MS-500 Microsoft 365 Security Administration AZ-204 Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams AZ-120 Planning and Administering Microsoft Azure for SAP Workloads AZ-220 Microsoft Azure IoT Developer MB-700 Microsoft Dynamics 365: Finance and Operations Apps Solution Architect AZ-104 Microsoft Azure Administrator 2023 AZ-303 Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies AZ-304 Microsoft Azure Architect Design DA-100 Analyzing Data with Microsoft Power BI DP-300 Administering Relational Databases on Microsoft Azure DP-900 Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals MS-203 Microsoft 365 Messaging MS-600 Building Applications and Solutions with Microsoft 365 Core Services PL-100 Microsoft Power Platform App Maker PL-200 Microsoft Power Platform Functional Consultant PL-400 Microsoft Power Platform Developer AI-900 Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals MB-500 Microsoft Dynamics 365: Finance and Operations Apps Developer SC-400 Microsoft Information Protection Administrator MB-920 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals Finance and Operations Apps (ERP) MB-800 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Functional Consultant PL-600 Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect AZ-600 Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack Hub SC-300 Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator SC-200 Microsoft Security Operations Analyst DP-203 Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure MB-910 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM) AI-102 Designing and Implementing a Microsoft Azure AI Solution AZ-140 Configuring and Operating Windows Virtual Desktop on Microsoft Azure MB-340 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce Functional Consultant MS-740 Troubleshooting Microsoft Teams SC-900 Microsoft Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals AZ-800 Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure AZ-801 Configuring Windows Server Hybrid Advanced Services AZ-700 Designing and Implementing Microsoft Azure Networking Solutions AZ-305 Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals PL-300 Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst PL-900 Microsoft Power Platform Fundamentals MS-720 Microsoft Teams Voice Engineer DP-500 Designing and Implementing Enterprise-Scale Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI PL-500 Microsoft Power Automate RPA Developer SC-100 Microsoft Cybersecurity Architect MO-201 Microsoft Excel Expert (Excel and Excel 2019) MO-100 Microsoft Word (Word and Word 2019) MS-220 Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Online | ||||||||
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MS-700 Dumps MS-700 Braindumps MS-700 Real Questions MS-700 Practice Test MS-700 dumps free Microsoft MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams http://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/MS-700 Question: 4 Section 7 Introductory Info Case study - This is a case study. Case studies are not timed separately. You can use as much exam time as you would like to complete each case. However, there may be additional case studies and sections on this exam. You must manage your time to ensure that you are able to complete all questions included on this exam in the time provided. To answer the questions included in a case study, you will need to reference information that is provided in the case study. Case studies might contain exhibits and other resources that provide more information about the scenario that is described in the case study. Each question is independent of the other questions in this case study. At the end of this case study, a review screen will appear. This screen allows you to review your answers and to make changes before you move to the next section of the exam. After you begin a new section, you cannot return to this section. To start the case study - To display the first question in this case study, click the Next button. Use the buttons in the left pane to explore the content of the case study before you answer the questions. Clicking these buttons displays information such as business requirements, existing environment, and problem statements. If the case study has an All Information tab, note that the information displayed is identical to the information displayed on the subsequent tabs. When you are ready to answer a question, click the Question button to return to the question. Overview - Contoso, Ltd. is a pharmaceutical company that has 3,000 users in offices across North America. Existing Environment - Active Directory - The network contains an on-premises Active Directory domain. All user accounts are in departmental organizational units (OUs). Microsoft Office 365 - All users are assigned a Microsoft Office 365 E5 license and are enabled for the following services: Microsoft Yammer Microsoft Exchange Online Microsoft SharePoint Online Microsoft OneDrive for Business Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Azure AD dynamic group membership Microsoft Skype for Business - Contoso has an on-premises deployment of Microsoft Skype for Business Server 2015. All the latest cumulative updates are installed on all the servers. The following services are used in Skype for Business Server 2015: Meetings PSTN calling Instant messaging (IM) Federation to external companies Departments - Contoso has the following departments: IT Sales Human resources (HR) Research and development (R&D) All groups are created by using dynamic group membership that use the department attribute. Requirements - Business Goals - Contoso identifies the following business goals: Migrate the maximum number of users to Microsoft Teams. Minimize administrative effort. Device Requirements - Contoso identifies the following device requirements: Replace Skype for Business IP phones with Microsoft Teams phones. All Microsoft Teams phones must be set to lock automatically after 60 seconds. Meeting and Live Event Requirements Contoso identifies the following meeting and live event requirements: Requirement1: Guest users must be able to join live events. Requirement2: Guest users must always wait in a meeting lobby. Requirement3: Contoso users must always bypass the meeting lobby when they join meetings by using the Microsoft Teams client. Requirement4: After the upgrade to Microsoft Teams, all meetings must be scheduled by using Microsoft Teams. Calling Requirements - Contoso identifies the following calling requirements: Migrate all existing auto attendants and response groups to Office 365. Minimize the on-premises PSTN infrastructure. Technical Requirements - Guest users must be prevented from making private calls. Security Requirements - Contoso has the following security requirements for the Microsoft Teams deployment: The number of ports allowed on the companys firewall must be limited. Team names must be prevented from containing the name of any products produced by Contoso. Users in the R&D group must be prevented from sending chat messages to users in other departments. To meet the companys compliance policy, users in the sales department must continue to use on-premises Skype for Business for IM and calling only. Pilot Project - Contoso begins a pilot project for the upgrade to Microsoft Teams. You identify the following issues during the pilot project: Microsoft Teams users report that they often receive continuous notifications from the Microsoft Teams client for 20 minutes. Two pilot users in the HR department report that they are not members of the HR team. Question DRAG DROP - You need to recommend a voice topology for the departments. The topology must meet the calling requirements and the security requirements. What should you recommend for each department? To answer, select the appropriate options in the answer area. NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point. Select and Place: Answer: Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/direct-routing-landing-page https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/calling-plan-landing-page https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/skypeforbusiness/skype-for-business-hybrid-solutions/plan-your-phone-system-cloud-pbx-solution/plan-skype-for-business- cloud-connector-edition Question: 1 Section 8 Introductory Info Case study - This is a case study. Case studies are not timed separately. You can use as much exam time as you would like to complete each case. However, there may be additional case studies and sections on this exam. You must manage your time to ensure that you are able to complete all questions included on this exam in the time provided. To answer the questions included in a case study, you will need to reference information that is provided in the case study. Case studies might contain exhibits and other resources that provide more information about the scenario that is described in the case study. Each question is independent of the other questions in this case study. At the end of this case study, a review screen will appear. This screen allows you to review your answers and to make changes before you move to the next section of the exam. After you begin a new section, you cannot return to this section. To start the case study - To display the first question in this case study, click the Next button. Use the buttons in the left pane to explore the content of the case study before you answer the questions. Clicking these buttons displays information such as business requirements, existing environment, and problem statements. If the case study has an All Information tab, note that the information displayed is identical to the information displayed on the subsequent tabs. When you are ready to answer a question, click the Question button to return to the question. Overview - General Overview - Litware, Inc. is an international manufacturing company that has 4,000 users. The company has the following five departments: IT HR R&D Sales Compliance Physical Locations - Litware has two main offices. The offices are located in New York and London. All offices connect to each other by using a WAN link. Each office connects directly to the Internet. Existing Environment - All user accounts have an Azure Active Directory Premium Plan P1 license. Litware has a Microsoft 365 subscription that has Office 365 Enterprise E3 licenses for all users. All the E3 products and services are enabled for each user. Litware uses Microsoft Skype for Business Online. Requirements - Planned Upgrade - Litware identifies the following requirements for a planned upgrade from Skype for Business Online to Microsoft Teams: Provide high quality audio, video, and online meeting experience for Microsoft Teams end users. Implement a data retention solution in Microsoft Teams. Minimize costs and administrative effort. Use the principle of least privilege. For the sales department, Litware plans to create a team that dynamically updates its membership when users leave and join the department. Department Upgrade Requirements - Litware plans to implement upgrade requirements for the departments as shown in the following table. Microsoft Teams Requirements - All teams must meet the following requirements: Only users in a partner company that uses a domain named fabrikam.com must be able to collaborate in teams by using guest accounts. Only users in the compliance department of Litware must be able to create teams. Planned Network Tasks - Litware identifies the following network validation tasks: An administrator named Admin5 must be able to review the required bandwidth to support audio conferencing, video conferencing, and screen sharing in Microsoft Teams. An administrator named Admin6 must be able to review network issues that cause poor call quality reported by users. Data Retention Requirements - Litware identifies the following data retention requirements: Requirement1: All messages in team collaborations must be deleted after seven years. Requirement2: all files used in team collaborations must be retained for five years. Requirement3: All files used in personal chats must be retained for five years. Device Requirements - You provide Microsoft Teams-certified IP phones to users in the IT and R&D departments. Each device must meet the following requirements: The time zone on the phones used by the R&D department must be set to UTC-8. The time zone on the phones used by the IT department must be set to UTC-5. All phones must lock automatically after 60 seconds of inactivity. Voice Pilot Requirements - Litware wants to pilot Phone System as a calling solution for 20 IT department users. The pilot project will receive phone numbers from Microsoft. Collaboration and Meeting Requirements Litware identifies the following collaboration and meeting requirements: Cloud recording must be disabled for all Microsoft Teams meetings organized by users in the HR departments only. Meeting email invitations must be customized to include the Logo URL, Legal URL, and Help URL of Litware. Question You need to identify the requirements for the voice pilot project. Which two actions should you perform? Each correct answer presents part of the solution. NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point. A. Assign an additional license and phone number to each user. B. Deploy a Session Border Controller (SBC) for Litware. C. Purchase a Phone System license for each user. D. Create a dial plan for Litware. E. Purchase a Calling Plan for Litware. Answer: AC Question: 2 Section 8 Introductory Info Case study - This is a case study. Case studies are not timed separately. You can use as much exam time as you would like to complete each case. However, there may be additional case studies and sections on this exam. You must manage your time to ensure that you are able to complete all questions included on this exam in the time provided. To answer the questions included in a case study, you will need to reference information that is provided in the case study. Case studies might contain exhibits and other resources that provide more information about the scenario that is described in the case study. Each question is independent of the other questions in this case study. At the end of this case study, a review screen will appear. This screen allows you to review your answers and to make changes before you move to the next section of the exam. After you begin a new section, you cannot return to this section. To start the case study - To display the first question in this case study, click the Next button. Use the buttons in the left pane to explore the content of the case study before you answer the questions. Clicking these buttons displays information such as business requirements, existing environment, and problem statements. If the case study has an All Information tab, note that the information displayed is identical to the information displayed on the subsequent tabs. When you are ready to answer a question, click the Question button to return to the question. Overview - General Overview - Litware, Inc. is an international manufacturing company that has 4,000 users. The company has the following five departments: IT HR R&D Sales Compliance Physical Locations - Litware has two main offices. The offices are located in New York and London. All offices connect to each other by using a WAN link. Each office connects directly to the Internet. Existing Environment - All user accounts have an Azure Active Directory Premium Plan P1 license. Litware has a Microsoft 365 subscription that has Office 365 Enterprise E3 licenses for all users. All the E3 products and services are enabled for each user. Litware uses Microsoft Skype for Business Online. Requirements - Planned Upgrade - Litware identifies the following requirements for a planned upgrade from Skype for Business Online to Microsoft Teams: Provide high quality audio, video, and online meeting experience for Microsoft Teams end users. Implement a data retention solution in Microsoft Teams. Minimize costs and administrative effort. Use the principle of least privilege. For the sales department, Litware plans to create a team that dynamically updates its membership when users leave and join the department. Department Upgrade Requirements - Litware plans to implement upgrade requirements for the departments as shown in the following table. Microsoft Teams Requirements - All teams must meet the following requirements: Only users in a partner company that uses a domain named fabrikam.com must be able to collaborate in teams by using guest accounts. Only users in the compliance department of Litware must be able to create teams. Planned Network Tasks - Litware identifies the following network validation tasks: An administrator named Admin5 must be able to review the required bandwidth to support audio conferencing, video conferencing, and screen sharing in Microsoft Teams. An administrator named Admin6 must be able to review network issues that cause poor call quality reported by users. Data Retention Requirements - Litware identifies the following data retention requirements: Requirement1: All messages in team collaborations must be deleted after seven years. Requirement2: all files used in team collaborations must be retained for five years. Requirement3: All files used in personal chats must be retained for five years. Device Requirements - You provide Microsoft Teams-certified IP phones to users in the IT and R&D departments. Each device must meet the following requirements: The time zone on the phones used by the R&D department must be set to UTC-8. The time zone on the phones used by the IT department must be set to UTC-5. All phones must lock automatically after 60 seconds of inactivity. Voice Pilot Requirements - Litware wants to pilot Phone System as a calling solution for 20 IT department users. The pilot project will receive phone numbers from Microsoft. Collaboration and Meeting Requirements Litware identifies the following collaboration and meeting requirements: Cloud recording must be disabled for all Microsoft Teams meetings organized by users in the HR departments only. Meeting email invitations must be customized to include the Logo URL, Legal URL, and Help URL of Litware. Question You need to configure Microsoft Teams to meet the collaboration and meeting requirements. Which two actions should you perform from the Microsoft Teams admin center? Each correct answer presents part of the solution. NOTE: Each correct selection is worth one point. A. Modify the Meeting settings. B. Create a teams policy. C. Create a meeting policy. D. Create a live events policy. E. Modify the Teams settings. Answer: AC Question: 1 Section 9 Introductory Info Case study - This is a case study. Case studies are not timed separately. You can use as much exam time as you would like to complete each case. However, there may be additional case studies and sections on this exam. You must manage your time to ensure that you are able to complete all questions included on this exam in the time provided. To answer the questions included in a case study, you will need to reference information that is provided in the case study. Case studies might contain exhibits and other resources that provide more information about the scenario that is described in the case study. Each question is independent of the other questions in this case study. At the end of this case study, a review screen will appear. This screen allows you to review your answers and to make changes before you move to the next section of the exam. After you begin a new section, you cannot return to this section. To start the case study - To display the first question in this case study, click the Next button. Use the buttons in the left pane to explore the content of the case study before you answer the questions. Clicking these buttons displays information such as business requirements, existing environment, and problem statements. If the case study has an All Information tab, note that the information displayed is identical to the information displayed on the subsequent tabs. When you are ready to answer a question, click the Question button to return to the question. Overview - Contoso, Ltd. is a pharmaceutical company that has 3,000 users in offices across North America. Existing Environment - Active Directory - The network contains an on-premises Active Directory domain. All user accounts are in departmental organizational units (OUs). Microsoft Office 365 - All users are assigned a Microsoft Office 365 E5 license and are enabled for the following services: Microsoft Yammer Microsoft Exchange Online Microsoft SharePoint Online Microsoft OneDrive for Business Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Azure AD dynamic group membership Microsoft Skype for Business - Contoso has an on-premises deployment of Microsoft Skype for Business Server 2015. All the latest cumulative updates are installed on all the servers. The following services are used in Skype for Business Server 2015: Meetings PSTN calling Instant messaging (IM) Federation to external companies Departments - Contoso has the following departments: IT Sales Human resources (HR) Research and development (R&D) All groups are created by using dynamic group membership that use the department attribute. Requirements - Business Goals - Contoso identifies the following business goals: Migrate the maximum number of users to Microsoft Teams. Minimize administrative effort. Device Requirements - Contoso identifies the following device requirements: Replace Skype for Business IP phones with Microsoft Teams phones. All Microsoft Teams phones must be set to lock automatically after 60 seconds. Meeting and Live Event Requirements Contoso identifies the following meeting and live event requirements: Requirement1: Guest users must be able to join live events. Requirement2: Guest users must always wait in a meeting lobby. Requirement3: Contoso users must always bypass the meeting lobby when they join meetings by using the Microsoft Teams client. Requirement4: After the upgrade to Microsoft Teams, all meetings must be scheduled by using Microsoft Teams. Calling Requirements - Contoso identifies the following calling requirements: Migrate all existing auto attendants and response groups to Office 365. Minimize the on-premises PSTN infrastructure. Technical Requirements - Guest users must be prevented from making private calls. Security Requirements - Contoso has the following security requirements for the Microsoft Teams deployment: The number of ports allowed on the companys firewall must be limited. Team names must be prevented from containing the name of any products produced by Contoso. Users in the R&D group must be prevented from sending chat messages to users in other departments. To meet the companys compliance policy, users in the sales department must continue to use on-premises Skype for Business for IM and calling only. Pilot Project - Contoso begins a pilot project for the upgrade to Microsoft Teams. You identify the following issues during the pilot project: Microsoft Teams users report that they often receive continuous notifications from the Microsoft Teams client for 20 minutes. Two pilot users in the HR department report that they are not members of the HR team. Question You need to resolve the membership issues for the two pilot users. What should you do? A. Modify the department attribute of both users. B. Invite both users to the HR team. C. Add both users to the HR group. D. Modify the privacy level of the HR team. Answer: A For More exams visit https://killexams.com/vendors-exam-list Kill your exam at First Attempt....Guaranteed! | ||||||||
Microsoft is best known for its Windows operating systems and Office software. But the company has a much broader product portfolio that includes online services (Bing, MSN, advertising), gaming (Xbox 360), hardware (tablets, PCs, keyboards and mice) and more. The company also has a sizable certification program that turns out qualified administrators and technicians to support its system and application products. Achieving IT certifications through the Microsoft Certification Program shows a person’s competence in a specific IT role, and it can result in all kinds of work-related and personal benefits. For example, studies show that IT certifications increase the chances of landing a job (or getting a promotion), and over 80 percent of hiring managers report IT certifications are medium to high priority in hiring decisions. Microsoft certification program overviewCurrently, the Microsoft Certification Program is divided into seven main categories:
Certifications within the Microsoft Certification Program include the following credentials:
After you pass your first qualifying Microsoft certification exam, you are deemed a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). MCP status provides access to a benefits and exams dashboard, with certificates and transcripts, downloadable certification logos, promotional offers and lots more. You also get the MCP designation on your Microsoft transcript. It’s important to understand that only the MCSA, MCSD and MCSE qualify as MCP certifications. Neither MTA nor MOS certifications qualify for MCP status, and none of those exams are prerequisites for MCSA, MCSE or MCSD certifications. In addition to the certifications outlined above, Microsoft offers its MCT: Microsoft Certified Trainer and MCE: Microsoft Certified Educator credentials to those interested in teaching others about Microsoft technologies and products. Microsoft recently released a new set of role-based certifications focused on Azure and Microsoft 365 developers, administrators, and solution architects. Microsoft Cloud certificationsThe Microsoft Cloud certification track includes MTA and MCSA credentials. Within the MTA program, there is one relevant certification: Cloud Fundamentals. To earn the MTA: Cloud Fundamentals credentials, candidates must pass a single exam that validates knowledge and skills using basic Microsoft cloud services. Candidates should have experience using firewalls, network ports, Office 365, network topologies and devices, and Microsoft Intune. The MCSA Cloud track includes BI Reporting, SQL 2016 BI Development certs, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016 credentials. The Windows Server certifications require three exams each while BI Reporting and SQL 2016 BI Development require only two exams. Microsoft Mobility certificationsThe Microsoft Mobility certification track includes MTA, MCSA and MCSE certifications. The MTA program has just one relevant certification – MTA: Mobility and Device Fundamentals. —The MTA: Mobility and Device Fundamentals certification is earned by passing a single exam that attests to a candidate’s knowledge of mobility and Windows devices. Candidates should possess practical experience with Active Directory, Windows devices, Windows-based networking, network topologies and ports, firewalls, and antimalware products. MCSA: Windows 10 is the only MCSA Mobility track credential available. Earning the MCSA: Windows 10 requires passing two exams. The remaining credential in this track is the MCSE: Mobility. This requires earning the MCSA: Windows 10 plus passing one more exam, from a list of two possibilities that deal with Windows desktops and enterprise applications, or administering System Center Configuration Manager and Cloud Services Integration. Both the MCSA: Mobility and MCSE: Mobility credentials retire on March 31, 2019. If earned prior to the retirement date, the credentials will continue to show as “active” certifications on your transcript. The MCSA: Windows 10 will be replaced by a new role-based credential – the Microsoft Certified: Modern Desktop Administrator Associate. Two exams are required to earn this credential. At present, no announcement has been made regarding whether the Modern Desktop Administrator Associate credential will become a prereq to the MCSE: Mobility. There’s a lot of ongoing ferment in MS certification programs right now. We expect 2019 to see major changes in MS’s cert programs and offerings. Next year’s update should be a big one! Microsoft Data certificationsMicrosoft’s Data certification track includes the MTA, MCSA and MCSE. (To see the Data track, go to the Microsoft Certification page and click Data from the Category dropdown menu.) The MTA program requires one exam on database fundamentals. There are six certifications in the MCSA Data track– namely, Data Engineering with Azure, Machine Learning, SQL 2016 BI Development, SQL 2016 Database Administration, SQL 2016 Database Development, and SQL Server 2012/2014. All certs require two exams except for SQL Server 2012/2014, which requires three. The Data Engineering with Azure and Machine Learning certifications both retire on June 30, 2019. The MCSE Data category includes a single certification, the MCSE: Data Management and Analytics. The prerequisite MCSAs that qualify for MCSE: Data Management and Analytics are SQL Server 2012/2014, SQL 2016 Database Administration, Database Development, BI Development, Machine Learning, BI Reporting, or Data Engineering with Azure. One additional exam from a list of 13 possibilities must be passed to earn this credential. courses covered include cloud data platform solutions, big data analytics solutions, developing or designing SQL Server databases, implementing data models and reports, designing business intelligence solutions, implementing a data warehouse, developing SQL data models, analyzing big data with Microsoft R, cloud data science with Azure machine learning, data engineering with Azure HDInsight, and implementing with Azure Cosmos DB solutions. Microsoft Productivity certificationsCertifications in the Microsoft Productivity category vary widely, from proving competency in using a single Office product to managing Office 365 services and user login credentials. This track is also fairly large; it includes an MCSA and MCSE certification as well as Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) offerings. The MCSA Productivity track includes a single certification – the MCSA: Office 365. Two exams are required to obtain the credential. This credential is targeted to retire on Mach 30, 2019. The MCSE: Productivity certification requires candidates possess either the MCSA Office 365, Windows Server 2012, or Windows Server 2016 credential as a prerequisite. Candidates must also pass one additional exam, from a list of eight possibilities. courses covered include Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and Skype for Business, for multiple versions of these platforms. Microsoft offers a MOS Office 2016 certification for each Office application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and Outlook). Office 2013 credentials are still available, but unless you have a specific reason for achieving them, focus on Office 2016. The MOS 2016 Expert certification identifies individuals with advanced Office skills and requires candidates to pass two exams. The MOS 2016 Master certification is the pinnacle of the MOS Certification Program and requires successful completion of six exams. Microsoft App Builder certificationsThe Microsoft Developer certification path includes MTA, MCSA and MCSD certifications. The MTA program recognizes individuals who are entry-level software developers. The certification requires candidates to pass one of five exams. Possible courses include software development fundamentals, HTML5 app development fundamentals, and intro to programming using block-based languages, Python or JavaScript, and using HTML and CSS. There are two credentials in the Microsoft App Builder MSCA track. The MCSA: Universal Windows Platform (UWP) credential prepares candidates to tackle professional development projects. They must pass two exams, one on programming in C#, the other on developing mobile apps. The MCSA: Web Applications credential prepares candidates for building web-based applications. They must pass two exams, one of which is required while candidates may choose from two possibilities for the second exam. All candidates must take the exam relating to developing ASP.NET MVC Web applications. courses for the second exam include programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 or programming in C#. The MCSD Developer track consists of the MCSD: App Builder certification. It requires earning either the MSCA: Web Applications or MCSA: UWP as its prerequisite, followed by your choice of one exam from a list of five possible options. courses covered in include architecting and developing Azure solutions, developing Azure and web services, developing mobile apps, programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, programming in C#, developing ASP.NET MVC Web apps, or developing MS Azure and Web services. Microsoft Business Applications certificationsThe Microsoft Business Applications certifications include MCSA and MCSE certifications. There are two MCSA options: MCSA: Microsoft Dynamics 365 and MCSA: Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations. Each requires passing two exams. The plain vanilla Dynamics 365 certification draws from a list of two exams, both of which are needed to meet its requirements. One exam covers Dynamics 365 customer engagement online deployment, while the other covers Dynamics 365 customization and configuration. The MCSA: Microsoft Dynamics 365 credential retires on April 30, 2019. The Dynamics 365 for Operations draws from a list of three exams, one of which is required while candidates may choose the subject for the second exam. courses covered include administering a Microsoft SQL database infrastructure, provisioning SQL databases, and development, extensions and deployment for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (required). The MSCE: Business Applications credential is the sole MCSE item for this certification track. It takes either of the Microsoft Dynamics MCSAs covered in the preceding paragraph as its prerequisite, then requires candidates to pass another exam drawn from a list of eight possibilities. courses covered include Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales, customer service, marketing, distribution and trade, trade, financial management (finance and operations), retail, talent, and field service. Core InfrastructureMicrosoft offers a single credential focused on core infrastructure – MCSE: Core Infrastructure. The MCSE: Core Infrastructure certification validates a candidate’s knowledge and skills related to data centers, virtualization, systems management, storage, networking and identity management. The credential requires either the MCSA: Windows Server 2016 or MCSA: Windows Server 2012 as a prerequisite. In addition to the MCSA, candidates must pass a single exam from seven topics. exam courses include designing and implementing Cloud Data Platform solutions, designing and implementing Big Data Analytics solutions, securing Windows Server 2016, implementing software-defined datacenters, designing and implementing server infrastructures, implementing advanced server infrastructures, and configuring and operating a hybrid cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack. Microsoft Trainer and Educator certificationsMCT: Microsoft Certified TrainerFolks who teach others about Microsoft technologies and products should consider (and are often required to have) the Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) certification. The MCT can be obtained by submitting an application to Microsoft that proves that you hold a current Microsoft certification, one year of instruction experience (supporting reference required), plus verifiable instructional skills in the form of an acceptable instructor certification (such as CompTIA CTT+, Microsoft Certified Trainer Instructional Skills Certification (MCT-ISC) or IAMCT Approved Technical Trainer). To renew, credential holders must possess at least one current Microsoft credential, meet the minimum instruction requirements of teaching at least one class, and maintain a Metrics that Matter quality score of at least seven. (Check the MCT website for a list of qualifying certifications and instructor certifications.) As an MCT, you have access to the MCP benefits and exams dashboard, prep kits, the MCT community, Microsoft Online Labs and much more. MCE: Microsoft Certified EducatorThe Microsoft Certified Educator (MCE) credential is aimed at educators in academia, such as colleges, universities and training facilities. To become an MCE, you must demonstrate technology literacy by passing at least one exam. The literacy competency is mapped to the UNESCO ITC Competency Framework for Teachers, Technology Literacy and includes education policy, curriculum and assessment, pedagogy, ICT/technology tools, organization and administration, and professional development. Training and certification preparation materialsMicrosoft offers training to candidates directly, both in the classroom and online. The company’s Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is a great place to start poking around: it offers a huge range of free training courses, many of them at least relevant to various certification courses if not directly focused on such topics. There’s also a huge aftermarket for Microsoft training, self-study and certification preparation. Pearson operates Microsoft Press on Microsoft’s behalf, where you can find self-study guides for all the popular Microsoft cert exams (and many of the not-so-popular exams as well). Pearson’s IT Certification imprint (online at PearsonITCertification.com) also offers study guides, exam crams (a series I invented), practice tests, video training materials and much more for Microsoft certification candidates. Wiley/Sybex and Osborne/McGraw-Hill also offer certification focused imprints, book series and generally provide good coverage of major cert courses as well, also including most popular Microsoft certifications and related exams. Pearson’s mindhub online store also offers “official” practice exams approved by Microsoft. There’s a wealth of excellent material available to help candidates prepare. Look to online and peer reviews, study groups and rating sites to separate the wheat from the chaff. Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here. Microsoft is moving to strengthen its computing infrastructure play with the announcement of two new in-house chips for enterprises: Azure Maia 100 and Azure Cobalt 100. Showcased at this week’s Microsoft Ignite 2023 conference in Seattle, the tech giant’s largest annual global event, the chips provide enterprises with efficient, scalable and sustainable compute to take advantage of the latest cloud and AI breakthroughs. Microsoft says they represent the final piece of the puzzle in its mission to deliver flexible infrastructure systems – with its own and partner-delivered hardware and software – that can be optimized to meet different workload requirements. Maia, as the company explained, is its AI accelerator, designed to run cloud-based training and inference for generative AI workloads. Meanwhile, Cobalt is an Arm-based chip designed to handle general-purpose workloads with high efficiency. Both offerings will be deployed in Azure next year, starting with Microsoft’s own data centers driving its Copilot and Azure OpenAI services. VB EventThe AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “We are reimagining every aspect of our data centers to meet the needs of our customers,” Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Group, said in a statement. “At the scale we operate, it’s important for us to optimize and integrate every layer of the infrastructure stack to maximize performance, diversify our supply chain and supply customers infrastructure choice,” he added. What to expect from Azure Maia and Cobalt?While Microsoft has not shared specific performance stats, the company does note that the Maia AI chip can handle some of the largest AI workloads running on Microsoft Azure, right from training language models to inferencing. The silicon has been designed specifically for the Azure hardware stack, which enables it to achieve absolute maximum utilization of the hardware when handling the workloads. It developed the accelerator over the years by working in conjunction with OpenAI. Specifically, the company tested it on models built by the Sam Altman-led generative AI unicorn and used the feedback to make necessary changes. “We were excited when Microsoft first shared their designs for the Maia chip, and we’ve worked together to refine and test it with our models. Azure’s end-to-end AI architecture, now optimized down to the silicon with Maia, paves the way for training more capable models and making those models cheaper for our customers,” Altman said in a statement. Like Maia, the capabilities of Cobalt are also largely under the wraps. However, one thing’s pretty clear: this chip will handle general-purpose workloads on Azure with a focus on energy efficiency. The Arm-based design ensures it is optimized to maximize performance per watt, making sure that the data center gets more computing power for each unit of energy consumed. “The architecture and implementation are designed with power efficiency in mind. We’re making the most efficient use of the transistors on the silicon. Multiply those efficiency gains in servers across all our data centers, it adds up to a pretty big number,” Wes McCullough, corporate vice president of hardware product development at Microsoft, said. More importantly, since both of the chips have been designed in-house, Microsoft will install them on custom server boards, placed within tailor-made racks that fit easily within existing company data centers. For the Maia rack, the company has also designed “sidekicks” that direct cold liquid to the cold plates of the chips, ensuring that it does not heat up when dealing with heavy power usage situations. Partner integrations expandedAs part of its flexible systems approach, Microsoft is also backing its custom chips with expanded support for partner hardware. The company said it has launched a preview of the new NC H100 v5 virtual machine series built for Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs and will soon add the latest Nvidia H200 tensor core GPUs to its data center fleet. It also plans to add AMD MI300X accelerated VMs to Azure to accelerate the processing of AI workloads for high-range AI model training and generative inferencing. This approach gives customers of the company multiple options to choose from, depending on their performance or cost needs. As of now, Microsoft plans to roll out the new chips next year. It has already started working on their second generation. VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings. Microsoft has announced a project it has been "refining in secret for years;" Its own custom silicon in the form of two new server chips. The company unveiled the fruits of its labor at Microsoft Ignite, showing off the Azure Maia AI Accelerator and the Azure Cobalt CPU. The latter of which, at least, the company is happy to admit is ARM-based, which can still feel unthinkable to eyes so used to Microsoft and Intel's hand-in-glove dominance of the computing market. The company turned to OpenAI to receive feedback on Azure Maia and to use the company's models for testing. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the updated Microsoft's Azure will also provide the opportunity for training improved models and making them more affordable for customers. The custom-designed chips can further optimize Microsoft's infrastructure instead of relying on third-party options. "Much like building a house lets you control every design choice and detail, Microsoft sees the addition of homegrown chips as a way to ensure every element is tailored for Microsoft cloud and AI workloads," a blog post from the company explained. "The chips will nestle onto custom server boards, placed within tailor-made racks that fit easily inside existing Microsoft datacenters. The hardware will work hand in hand with software — co-designed together to unlock new capabilities and opportunities." The company plans to use the new Maia 100 AI Accelerator to power some of Microsoft Azure's biggest internal AI workloads. Microsoft claims both the accelerator and Azure Cobalt CPU will Strengthen efficiency and performance. The chips will make their way to Microsoft's data centers early next year for powering services like Microsoft Copilot (now encompassing Bing Chat) and Azure OpenAI Service. Microsoft is expanding its policy to protect commercial customers from copyright infringement lawsuits arising from the use of generative AI -- but with a caveat (or several). Today during Ignite, Microsoft said that customers licensing Azure OpenAI Service, the company's fully managed service that adds governance layers on top of OpenAI models, can expect to be defended -- and compensated -- by Microsoft for any "adverse judgements" if they're sued for copyright infringement while using Azure OpenAI Service or the outputs it generates. Generative AI models such as ChatGPT and DALL-E 3 are trained on millions to billions of e-books, art pieces, emails, songs, audio clips, voice recordings and more, most of which come from public websites. While some of this training data is in the public domain, some isn't -- or comes under a license that requires citation or specific forms of compensation. The legality of vendors training on data without permission is another matter that’s being hashed out in the courts. But what might possibly land generative AI users in trouble is regurgitation, or when a generative model spits out a mirror copy of a training example. Microsoft's expanded policy won't apply by default to every Azure OpenAI Service customer. To be eligible for the new protections, subscribers are on the hook for implementing "technical measures" and complying with certain documentation to mitigate the risk of generating infringing content using OpenAI's models. TechCrunch asked Microsoft to elaborate on these measures, but the company declined to provide specifics ahead of the announcement this morning. It's also unclear if the protections extend to Azure OpenAI Service products in preview, like GPT-4 Turbo with Vision, and whether Microsoft is offering indemnity against claims made over the training data used by customers to fine-tune OpenAI models. We asked for clarification. Late this afternoon, a Microsoft spokesperson told TechCrunch via email that the policy applies to all products in paid preview and Microsoft's -- but not a customer's -- training data. The new policy comes after Microsoft's announcement in September that it’ll pay legal damages on behalf of customers using some -- but not all -- of its AI products if they’re sued for copyright infringement. As with the Azure OpenAI Service protections, customers are required to use the "guardrails and content filters" built into Microsoft's AI offerings in order to retain coverage. Perhaps not coincidentally, OpenAI recently said that it would begin paying the legal costs incurred by customers who face lawsuits over IP claims against work generated by OpenAI tools. Microsoft's new Azure OpenAI Service protections would appear to be an extension of this. Beyond indemnity policies, a partway solution to the regurgitation problem is allowing content creators to remove their data from generative model training data sets -- or to supply those creators some form of credit and compensation. OpenAI has said that it'll explore this with future text-to-image models, perhaps the follow-up to DALL-E 3. Microsoft, in contrast, hasn't committed to opt-out or compensation schemes. But the company has developed a technology it claims can help "identify when [AI] models generate material that leverages third-party intellectual property and content." A new feature in Microsoft's Azure AI Content Safety tool, it's available in preview. We asked for background on how the IP-identifying tech works, but Microsoft demurred -- simply pointing to a high-level blog post. We'll keep our eyes peeled for more details at Ignite. Why it matters: Microsoft had been rumored to be working on custom silicon for its data center needs for years. As it turns out, the rumors were true and this week the company unveiled not one but two Arm-based processors. The new chips will be integrated into Azure server farms starting in early 2024, to be used as the workhorses of AI services like Microsoft Copilot. This week, Microsoft announced it has built two "homegrown" chips that will handle AI and general computing workloads in the Azure cloud. The announcement was made at the Ignite 2023 conference and confirms previous rumors about the existence of "Project Athena" – a custom-designed Arm-based chip that would reduce Microsoft's reliance on off-the-shelf hardware from vendors like Nvidia, especially in the area of artificial intelligence training and inference. The first chip is called the Microsoft Azure Maia 100 AI Accelerator and is the direct result of Project Athena. As its lengthy name suggests, the Redmond giant designed the chip specifically for running large language models such as GPT-3.5 Turbo and GPT-4. Built on TSMC's 5nm process and featuring no fewer than 105 billion transistors, the new chip supports various MX data types, including sub-8-bit formats for faster model training and inference times. For reference, Nvidia's H100 AI Superchip has 80 billion transistors, and AMD's Instinct MI300X has 153 billion transistors. That said, we have yet to see any direct performance comparisons between the Maia 100 AI Accelerator and the existing chips used by most companies building AI services. What we do know is that each Maia 100 compute unit has an aggregate bandwidth of 4.8 Terabits thanks to a custom Ethernet-based network protocol that allows for better scaling and end-to-end performance. Also read: Goodbye to Graphics: How GPUs Came to Dominate AI and Compute It's also worth noting that Microsoft developed the Maia 100 chip using extensive feedback from OpenAI. The two companies worked together to refine the architecture and test GPT models. For Microsoft, this will help optimize the efficiency of Azure's end-to-end AI architecture, while OpenAI will be able to train new AI models that are better and cheaper than what is available today. The second chip introduced by Microsoft at Ignite is called the Cobalt 100 CPU. This one is a 64-bit, 128-core Arm-based processor based on the Arm Neoverse Compute Subsystems and brings performance improvements of up to 40 percent for more general Azure computing workloads when compared to current generation hardware found in commercial Arm-based servers. Cobalt 100-based servers will be used to power services like Microsoft Teams and Windows 365, among other things. Rani Borkar, who is the head of Azure infrastructure systems at Microsoft, says the company's homegrown chip efforts build on top of two decades of experience in co-engineering silicon for Xbox and Surface. The new Cobalt 100 CPU allows the company to control performance and power consumption on a per-core basis and makes it possible to build a more cost-effective cloud hardware stack. The cost part of the equation is particularly important. In the case of the Maia 100 AI Accelerator, Microsoft had to come up with a new liquid cooling solution and a new rack design that provides more space for power and networking cables. That said, the cost of using the new chip is still significantly lower than using specialized hardware from Nvidia or AMD. Microsoft seems determined to make a Copilot "for everyone and everything you do," and that is reflected in the release of Copilot for Windows, GitHub, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Security, and Microsoft 365. The company just rebranded Bing Chat to "Microsoft Copilot," so it's clear it wants to bolt ever more advanced AI models into every service it offers moving forward. AI training and inference get expensive fast, and running an AI service is estimated to be up to ten times more expensive than something like a search engine. Making custom silicon could also alleviate supply issues and help Microsoft get a competitive advantage in a crowded landscape of AI cloud providers. Some like Amazon, Meta, and Google also have their own homegrown silicon efforts for the same reasons, and companies like Ampere that once dreamed of becoming the go-to suppliers of Arm-based data center chips will no doubt be forced to adapt to these developments if they want to survive. That said, the Redmond company says it will keep using off-the-shelf hardware in the near future, including the recently announced H200 Tensor Core GPU from Nvidia. Scott Guthrie, who is executive vice president of the Microsoft Cloud + AI Group, says this will help diversify the company's supply chain and supply customers more infrastructure choices. Today at Microsoft Ignite, the company unveiled two custom-designed chips and integrated systems resulting from a multi-step process for meticulously testing its homegrown silicon, the fruits of a method the company's engineers have been refining in secret for years, as revealed at its Source blog. The end goal is an Azure hardware system that offers maximum flexibility and can also be optimized for power, performance, sustainability or cost, said Rani Borkar, corporate vice president for Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure (AHSI). “Software is our core strength, but frankly, we are a systems company. At Microsoft we are co-designing and optimizing hardware and software together so that one plus one is greater than two,” Borkar said. “We have visibility into the entire stack, and silicon is just one of the ingredients.” The ChipsThe newly introduced Microsoft Azure Maia AI Accelerator chip is optimized for artificial intelligence (AI) tasks and generative AI. For its part, the Microsoft Azure Cobalt CPU is an Arm-based processor chip tailored to run general purpose compute workloads on the Microsoft Cloud. Microsoft said the new chips will begin to appear by early next year in its data centers, initially powering services such as Microsoft Copilot, an AI assistant, and its Azure OpenAI Service. They will join a widening range of products from the company's industry partners geared toward customers eager to take advantage of the latest cloud and AI technology breakthroughs. “Microsoft is building the infrastructure to support AI innovation, and we are re-imagining every aspect of our data centers to meet the needs of our customers,” noted Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Group. Guthrie emphasized, “At the scale we operate, it’s important for us to optimize and integrate every layer of the infrastructure stack to maximize performance, diversify our supply chain and supply customers infrastructure choice.” The Microsoft Azure Maia 100 AI Accelerator is the first chip designed by Microsoft for large language model training and inferencing in the Microsoft Cloud. The chip will power some of the largest internal AI workloads running on Microsoft Azure. Additionally, the company said its partner OpenAI is providing feedback on the Azure Maia platform as to how its workloads run on infrastructure tailored for its large language models, which will help to inform future Microsoft designs. “Since first partnering with Microsoft, we’ve collaborated to co-design Azure’s AI infrastructure at every layer for our models and unprecedented training needs,” explained Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Altman added, “We were excited when Microsoft first shared their designs for the Maia chip, and we’ve worked together to refine and test it with our models. Azure’s end-to-end AI architecture, now optimized down to the silicon with Maia, paves the way for training more capable models and making those models cheaper for our customers.” The Maia 100 AI Accelerator was designed specifically for use with the Azure hardware stack, pointed out Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow leading the Azure Maia team. That vertical integration – the alignment of chip design with the larger AI infrastructure designed with Microsoft’s workloads in mind – can yield huge gains in performance and efficiency, Harry said. “Azure Maia was specifically designed for AI and for achieving the absolute maximum utilization of the hardware,” he added. Importantly, according to Wes McCullough, Microsoft's corporate vice president of hardware product development, Microsoft's new Cobalt 100 CPU is built on an Arm architecture which embodies a new type of energy-efficient chip design, optimized to deliver greater efficiency and performance in cloud-native offerings. Choosing Arm technology was a key element in Microsoft’s sustainability goal, McCullogh said, adding that the company aims to optimize “performance per watt” throughout its data centers - which essentially means getting more computing power for each unit of energy consumed. “The architecture and implementation is designed with power efficiency in mind,” he said. “We’re making the most efficient use of the transistors on the silicon. Multiply those efficiency gains in servers across all our data centers, it adds up to a pretty big number.” Send In the NVIDIA GPUsTo complement its custom silicon efforts, Microsoft said it is also expanding on its industry partnerships to provide more infrastructure options for customers. For example, the company has launched a preview of its new NC H100 v5 Virtual Machine Series, built for NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs, offering greater performance, reliability and efficiency for mid-range AI training and generative AI inferencing. Microsoft also said it will add the latest NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPU to its fleet next year to support larger model inferencing with no increase in latency. New Racks with a Side of Liquid CoolingMeanwhile, no racks existed to house the unique requirements of the Maia 100 server boards, so Microsoft built them from scratch. These new racks are wider than what typically sits in the company’s data centers. That expanded design provides ample space for both power and networking cables, it said, essential for the unique demands of AI workloads. As duly noted by Microsoft's blog, such AI tasks come with intensive computational demands that consume more power, and traditional air-cooling methods often fall short for these high-performance chips. As such, liquid cooling employing circulating fluids to dissipate heat has emerged as the preferred industry solution for alleviating such thermal challenges, ensuring that chips run efficiently without overheating. But Microsoft’s current data centers weren’t designed for large liquid chillers. As a workaround, the company has developed a “sidekick”element that sits next to the Maia 100 rack. How the sidekick works is analogous to the operation of a car's radiator. Cold liquid flows from the sidekick to cold plates that are attached to the surface of Maia 100 chips. Each plate has channels through which liquid is circulated to absorb and transport heat. That flows to the sidekick, which removes heat from the liquid and sends it back to the rack to absorb more heat, in a circular process. Microsoft's McCullough said the tandem design of rack and sidekick underscores the value of a systems approach to infrastructure. "By controlling every facet — from the low-power ethos of the Cobalt 100 chip to the intricacies of data center cooling — Microsoft can orchestrate a harmonious interplay between each component, ensuring that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts in reducing environmental impact," he added. The Best Set of OptionsBefore 2016, most layers of the Microsoft cloud were bought off the shelf, noted Pat Stemen, partner program manager on the company's AHSI team. Then, the company began to custom build its own servers and racks, the better to reduce costs while furnishing a more consistent customer experience, before, over time, silicon became the system's primary missing piece. Today's announcements go a long way toward shoring up that gap. The silicon architecture unveiled today lets Microsoft not only enhance cooling efficiency, but also optimize the use of its current data center assets, whie maximizing server capacity within its existing footprint, the company said. Meanwhile, Stemen noted that Microsoft has shared design discoveries gleaned from its custom rack, which can be used those no matter what piece of silicon sits inside, with its industry partners. “All the things we build, whether infrastructure or software or firmware, we can leverage whether we deploy our chips or those from our industry partners,” he said. “This is a choice the customer gets to make, and we’re trying to provide the best set of options for them, whether it’s for performance or cost or any other dimension they care about.” Keep pace with the fast-moving world of data centers and cloud computing by connecting with Data Center Frontier on LinkedIn, following us on X/Twitter and Facebook, and signing up for our weekly newsletters using the form below. | ||||||||
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