MS Ignite 2024 Recap | Gregor Reimling

On my way home from a very inspiring Microsoft Ignite, which I was able to attend in person for the first time. Microsoft Ignite 2024 took place in Chicago at McCormick Place, a very large convention center near Lake Michigan.

The conference started on Monday with a Preday, where Microsoft Ignite attendees had the opportunity to attend various workshops after registering. I took the opportunity to get to the venue, get my badge and meet some people from the community. In the evening, Microsoft had organized an MVP Meet and Greet where MVPs had the opportunity to meet other MVPs who were also attending Ignite. It was a great evening and I saw many people from all over the world again.

Microsoft Ignite itself opened on Tuesday morning with the keynote from Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft). This year the keynote was very early in the morning and started at 8am. So I woke up at 5:30am to catch the bus to the venue and took the opportunity to get in the early group that could go into the large keynote room, which had space for 6000 attendees.

Satya started the keynote with various announcements and, as usual, some renaming.

For example, Azure Stack HCI is now called Azure local and has some improvements for hybrid cloud scenarios and also for disconnected secarios.

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Azure

There was a lot of news about how Microsoft wants to minimize its carbon footprint, for example with data centers built from wood. In the area of infrastructure. Microsoft renamed Azure Stack HCI to Azure local which also offer significant improvements for local and disconnected scenarions.

Microsoft announced the new Azure integrated HSM module, which now offers full encryption of data streams in transit and at rest and the ability to encrypt data all the way from client to server within RAM. This brings more good use cases for Azure Confidential Computing.

There are some additional announcement as part of the Microsoft strengthen in build own silicon solutions which brings Azure Boost DPU to live. Azure Boost is a performance boost which Microsoft announced last year at Ignite. To improve this performance offering, Microsoft now create a own DPU to optimize the Azure Boost performance.

This optimization brings the new High performance VM size HBv5 to live, which is optimized for memory bandwith-intensive workloads and use Azure Boost for the performance requirements.

Environmental friendliness was also a big topic at Ignite. Microsoft will invest heavily in carbon-neutral data centers and reusable energy.

Copilot

As you would expect, there was a lot of news about Copilot. One of the most interesting announcements in this area are the agents that allow external systems to be connected to Copilot to leverage data from third party systems for analysis and get better value from that data.

In addition, the most exciting topic announced was the Sharepoint agents, which are directly available and can be used for better integration of Microsoft 365 data.

For developer Microsoft announced Azure AI Foundry, which is a new SDK to build AI solutions faster.

Mirosoft also announced Copilots Analytics which to measure adoption and business impact of Copilot in the organization.

Windows (365)

A surprise for me were the many announcements for Windows 11 and also for Windows 365. Microsoft announced a new security initiative for Windows 11, mentioning the upcoming end of support for Windows 10, which will be in October 2025.

A new hardware for Windows 365 called Windows 365 Link was also unveiled, a cloud computer with a small form factor of 12 x 12 cm. This enables users to connect seamlessly to Windows 365. The computer itself only has a small operating system without local data storage. It will be available from April next year.

Security

In addition to the security initiative for Windows 11, Microsoft announced several innovations in the security area, which for me were given too little space during the keynote. One of the most exciting new features from my perspective is the general availability of Microsft Security Exposure Management. This new solution scans and analyzes all existing assets and can display the critical assets and available incidents in your digital estate. In addition to these new features, I was also surprised by the price, as the solution is free within the Microsoft environment. There is a usage fee for additional third-party solutions.

Networking

In addition to all the technical topics, Microsoft Ignite is a perfect place for networking. I’ve had several conversations with product managers from Azure to Security. I met a lot of great community people at the expo that I haven’t seen in a long time. The theater session was super interesting from my perspective, lots of great topics that the speakers dive into for 15-30 minutes. This gave a comprehensive technical overview of the state of many different features and also time for short questions directly to the presenters after the presentation.

And I met several clients there that I’ve worked with on various projects in the past. This was also a great opportunity to meet customers and discuss their experiences and challenges.

It was my first Microsoft Ignite that I was able to attend in person. Many thanks to adesso for supporting me in this journey. I think it was a great conference from different angles and gives us valuable insights into what topics will be important in the coming months.

Cloud Inspires Podcast

Thomas Naunheim and I speak with Eric Berg in our Cloud Inspires podcast about the latest Ignite announcement and our highlights. Please note Podcast is in german.

Ignite Recap 2024 Meetup

We from the AzureBonn team have organized a meetup “Microsoft Ignite 2024 recap”, which will take place in person in Bonn on December 9, 2025.

Gregor Reimling

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