Microsoft has suspended its Windows 365 trial just a day after launch due to heavy demand. 

In a tweet, the company said it was experiencing “significant demand” for the service, which offers easy-access virtual desktops in the cloud accessible via a browser or Microsoft’s Remote Desktop application. It added it reached capacity for Windows 365 trials. 

This morning, Scott Manchester, director of program management for Windows 365, added that the company saw an “unbelievable response.” People should still sign up for the service to be notified when it resumes, he added. 

Microsoft announced Windows 365 on July 14 and took it live Monday, August 2, providing an easy way for smaller businesses to access virtual Windows desktops in the cloud. The service runs on a virtual machine Microsoft calls a Cloud PC, which is available in various configurations up to eight cores with 32GB of RAM. 

Windows 365’s Business Edition is configurable using a self-service portal, and the Enterprise Edition is configurable using Microsoft’s Endpoint Manager tool. The latter also features integrations with Azure Active Directory and Defender for Endpoint. 

Microsoft already offers a desktop as a service (DaaS) option in Azure Virtual Desktop, which the company used to call Windows Virtual Desktop. However, Microsoft sells this on a consumption-based pricing model, plus it’s more complex to administer. Windows 365 is available for a flat monthly fee.

Initial reactions to the service were mixed. “I’ve just had it for a day but it’s already been useful,” tweeted one user in response to Manchester. “Full coding on my iPad.” 

Another user was less impressed. “Is this why my Cloud PC refuses to reset? I’ve been waiting 30 hours for it to reset and no one from support has answered me,” they said. 

It’s still early days for Windows 365, which will receive more features over time. Microsoft promised support for offline working, along with potential GPU options for Cloud PC power users.

Google has reportedly approved 85% of staff requests to work remotely or relocate when its offices open again, as the firm and other companies try to better accommodate employee demands in a post-pandemic working world.

The tech giant is set to ask most of its staff to return to work in their previous office locations, but will let others carry out their duties elsewhere, according to Bloomberg. An internal email to staff highlighted that around 10,000 employees applied to transfer to a new office or work from home.

Fiona Cicconi, Google’s head of human resources, stated in the email that the company rejected around 15% of applicants as their jobs required specialised equipment or face-time with customers.

“And some organisations have made a commitment to invest in key growth sites and are working to build their teams and critical mass in those particular hubs,” Cicconi added. She also said that applicants who were rejected could reapply for remote work or a transfer.

Google’s return to the office policies have angered some of its employees, with CNET reporting last month that Google executive Urs Hölzle told employees he would be working remotely from New Zealand. This reportedly upset some workers as they claimed he had been unsupportive of remote work in the past.

Last week, Google and Facebook announced their employees in the US would need to be fully vaccinated before they return to the office. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees that the implementation of the policy would vary depending on local conditions and regulations. The new rule is set to be implemented in the US soon before expanding to other regions in the coming months. The company also announced it would push back its office reopening from 1 September to 18 October.

In February, Google warned that the new “hybrid working” model could affect its productivity and finances. The company was concerned that social distancing measures and hybrid work models would increase costs and potentially impact its “corporate culture”.

Welcome to issue 19 of IT Pro 20/20, our sister title’s digital magazine that distils the most important themes of the previous month into an easy-to-read package.

Maintaining robust cyber security is a difficult task for anyone, but smaller companies are increasingly finding themselves on the front line. At a time when almost a third of cyber attacks now involve a small business, we consider the dangers that this weak link could pose to the wider technology industry, and what steps SMBs and startups need to take to plug the gap.

Keeping with the theme of SMBs and startups, we also look at the tech startups that have thrived during lockdown, using their agility and flexibility to reshape business models and exploit unprecedented demand for services – something that every business can learn from.

The next IT Pro 20/20 will be available on 31 August – previous issues can be found here. If you would like to receive each issue in your inbox as they release, you can subscribe to our mailing list here.

Earlier this year, Google revealed it was testing pre-installed Meet and Chat web apps on Chrome OS and planned to release them to the public. Delivering on that promise, Google announced Meet is now a progressive web app (PWA).

PWAs are responsive websites that look and feel like native mobile apps.

Google further stated the PWA version of Meet has the same features as its app counterpart, except it is easier to use and far more accessible. The Meet icon will now appear on users’ shelves and launchers, providing easy access to video chat. As with other PWAs, Google Meet will update automatically during Chrome updates.

“We’ve launched a new Google Meet standalone web app. This Progressive Web Application (PWA) has all the same features as Google Meet on the web, but as a standalone app it’s easier to find and use, and it streamlines your workflow by eliminating the need to switch between tabs,” explained Google.

Users can find the PWA installation prompt on the top-right corner of Chrome’s address or URL bar. Once downloaded, Meet will load into a standalone window. Users can run Google Meets PWA on Windows, macOS, Chrome OS 73 and up, and Linux.

The Google Meets service is available to anyone with a Google account, including G Suite Basic and Business customers. Administrators can manage PWA access or automatically install progressive web apps for users.

Among the Meet software updates are cross-domain live streaming, live stream captions, and hand raise updates for desktops and laptops.

Google has confirmed the Google Meets PWA will arrive starting today, but some features could take up to 15 business days to appear.

Salesforce-owned MuleSoft has announced it will buy robotic process automation (RPA) company Servicetrace for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition will complement MuleSoft’s application composition platform, explained executives.

MuleSoft sells Anypoint, an application programming interface (API) development platform for building reusable connections between applications and data so developers can compose applications more easily. Salesforce acquired MuleSoft in 2018.

Servicetrace offers the XceleratorOne RPA tool. RPA helps companies to automate manual processes by copying human activities, cutting down on manual labour and human error.

The Servicetrace tool enables companies to identify processes that would benefit from RPA and model them for automation. Servicetrace says that the tool can automate long, complex processes and connect artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for automated decisions. It also organises those automations across a company and enables managers to assess the return on investment from automated processes.

The RPA product will integrate with Salesforce’s Einstein Automate solution, which already handles automation tasks for the company’s clients.

“Our platform makes it easy to unlock and integrate data from anywhere — wherever it resides — and manage, monitor, secure, and govern that data at scale,” said MuleSoft CEO Brent Hayward in an announcement.

“MuleSoft will now also make it easy for line of business and knowledge workers to automate business processes and dramatically increase efficiency and speed.”

Servicetrace also offers automated software testing tools and application performance monitoring tools that use bots to monitor users’ experience across complex software architectures.

The acquisition will close by the third quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year, ending October 31, 2021.

Rishi Sunak has warned young workers against falling into the trap of permanent remote working, suggesting that going into the office can be beneficial to building their careers.

Speaking about his own experiences with LinkedIn News, the chancellor said that working from home wouldn’t have allowed him to build strong relationships and argued that video conferencing is not an adequate substitute.

He also warned against remote working becoming the norm for businesses in the UK.

“I was telling them that the mentors I found when I first started my job I still talk to and they have been helpful to me even after we have gone in different ways,” he said, according to the Times.

“I doubt I would have had those strong relationships if I was doing my internship or my first bit of my career over [Microsoft] Teams and Zoom.

“That’s why I think for young people, in particular, being able to physically be in an office is valuable.”

Before becoming a politician, the chancellor enjoyed a career in finance, including working for Goldman Sachs.

He added that the government has stopped saying people should actively work from home, and has left it up to businesses to figure out the right approach.

In terms of a return to the physical workplace, Sunak said it will be gradual, cautious, and careful, but that there should be an eventual full return to normal working.

His comments echo the government’s longstanding messaging around remote working, with government ministers and the prime minister, Boris Johnson, periodically encouraging workers to return to offices.

In Autumn last year, the government embarked on a public messaging campaign for workers to abandon remote working and return to the workplace.

This was immediately prior to a significant rise in COVID-19 cases and a subsequent lockdown. This was largely spurred by the loss in economic activity due to workers not being out and about in town and city centres during the day.

Contrary to the government’s messaging, many office-based businesses, particularly those in the tech industry, have embraced remote working and are enjoying the benefits of cost reductions and productivity gains. This has been made possible due to an array of technologies such as cloud computing and virtual private networks (VPNs).

Most workers, too, have enjoyed the flexibility that remote working brings, with research conducted in August last year suggesting 90% of Brits wanted to continue working remotely.

However, a significant proportion of office-based workers have equally expressed a desire for a return to in-person working, however, due to the benefits of in-person collaboration and the office culture that’s missing from home-based working.

It’s why many businesses are opting for a hybrid model, which borrows from both remote and in-person working to create a flexible approach that most employees can get behind. KPMG, for example, has offered staff a ‘four-day fortnight’ as part of its remote working strategy, while the Bank of England has told staff to come into the office one day a week.

Google has opened a new Google Cloud Dedicated Interconnect location in New Zealand as part of its new investment in the region.

Based in Auckland, the site will also create new engineering roles that will contribute to some of the research and development work being done by Google, as well as work with local institutions to raise the importance of machine learning and AI in the country’s tech landscape.

​

Google is investing in expanded cloud infrastructure in response to local customer demand, which includes the Google Cloud Dedicated Interconnect location that connects the country to the company’s private secure network. This will ensure customer data “never traverses the public internet”, according to the firm.

Google also hopes that this, along with the new Google Cloud region in Melbourne, will “deliver geographically distributed and secure infrastructure to customers across New Zealand”.

“As we approach 15 years on the ground here our new home will foster the creativity and collaboration that inspires the team to use innovation and technology to solve problems for Kiwi businesses, schools, teachers, communities and more,” said Caroline Rainsford, Google New Zealand country director. “As New Zealand moves through the next phase of economic recovery we’ll continue to find ways to bring the best of Google to Aotearoa.”

A new office is set to accompany the Dedicated Interconnect site, described as a “uniquely-Google space” containing “an experiential ceiling, kayaks for a reception desk, a cafe that takes its likeness from a chilly bin and an event space where the Google team plan to host business leaders, technologists and the wider community over the coming years”. 

The office, which will accommodate around 50 employees from Auckland and Wellington, is also designed to suit Google’s new hybrid approach to work.

Google’s SVP of cloud infrastructure Urs Hölzle, who recently announced he would move to New Zealand to work remotely from the country, said that the Dedicated Cloud Interconnect would “hardwire” New Zealand into the company’s global infrastructure backbone.

He added that “Kiwi organisations of all sizes will benefit from the speed, scalability and security of our expanded Cloud region footprint in AUNZ as they continue to drive their digital transformation agenda”.

Google Cloud also announced yesterday it was opening a new cloud region in Melbourne, the firm’s second region in Australia and 11th in APAC overall. The company said its cloud customers operating in Australia and New Zealand would benefit from low latency and high performance of their cloud-based workloads and data thanks to the new initiative.

​

Google Cloud is set to open a new cloud region in Melbourne, which will be the firm’s second region in Australia and its 11th in the APAC region overall.

The tech giant revealed that Melbourne joins the existing 26 Google Cloud regions worldwide connected via its high-performance network.

“With this our second region in Australia, customers benefit from improved business continuity planning with distributed, secure infrastructure needed to meet IT and business requirements for disaster recovery, all the while maintaining data sovereignty in-country,” said Alister Dias, Google Cloud vice president of Australia & New Zealand.

The company stated that its cloud customers operating in Australia and New Zealand will benefit from low latency and high performance of their cloud-based workloads and data. 

Furthermore, the region opens with three zones to protect against service disruptions and offers a portfolio of key products like Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Spanner, and Compute Engine.

Google Cloud stated that it will continue to invest in expanding connectivity across Australia and New Zealand by working with partners to establish subsea cables and new Dedicated Cloud Interconnect locations and points of presence in major cities including Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Auckland.

This aims to deliver geographically distributed and secure infrastructure to customers across the region, which it said is especially important for those in regulated industries like Financial Services and the Public Sector.

Earlier this month, Google Cloud opened its second region in India in Delhi, four years after the launch of its Mumbai cloud region in 2017. The company said this new region would better support customers and the public sector in India and across the Asia Pacific. 

Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO, said that the company had seen “enormous growth in demand for Google Cloud services in India” so wanted to be able to offer more capacity with the new region. He called it a “large commitment” from Google Cloud in terms of capital and infrastructure investment and was designed to allow the company to capture the opportunity it sees around growth.

​AWS has announced that it’s retiring its flagship Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform after 15 years in operation, with customers given until 2022 to migrate their services to its successor.

EC2-Classic, widely considered a foundational cloud computing technology, was launched in 2006 as a virtual computing environment that organisations could use to host scalable applications. These ‘instances’ provided layers of security, different hardware configurations, as well as pre-configured templates.

This technology was eclipsed with the launch of AWS’ Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) platform in 2009, which serve as virtual networks of isolated EC2 instances. It was again followed by the launch of Virtual Private Clouds for Everyone in 2013.

AWS has now decided to retire EC2-Classic, giving customers two years to complete all migrations away from the older technology and towards VPC.

“EC2-Classic has served us well, but we’re going to give it a gold watch and a well-deserved sendoff,” said chief evangelist for AWS, Jeff Barr, in an in-depth blog post.

“We are not planning to disrupt any workloads and we are giving you plenty of lead time so that you can plan, test, and perform your migration. In addition to this blog post, we have tools, documentation, and people that are all designed to help.”

When is AWS retiring EC2-Classic?

AWS has begun notifying all current EC2-Classic customers through their account teams, and will soon begin issuing notices in the Personal Health Dashboard.

From 30 October 2021, AWS will disable EC2-Classic in Regions for AWS accounts that have no active EC2-Classic resources in the Region. The firm will also stop selling one-year and three-year Reserved Instances for EC2-Classic.

Then, from 15 August 2022, AWS expects all migrations to be complete, with no remaining EC2-Classic resources present in any AWS account.

All AWS accounts created after 4 December 2013 were already VPC-only, unless EC2-Classic was enabled as a result of a support request, meaning the change is likely only to affect longstanding AWS customers.

How to migrate from EC2-Classic to VPC

Although AWS will notify customers they will need to migrate, there are several steps that businesses running EC2-Classic instances will need to take. To prepare, ahead of any migration, the firm has put together guidance available on the AWS site.

To fully migrate, customers need to find, examine, and migrate several resources. These comprise running or stopped EC2 instances, running or stopped RDS database instances, Elastic IP addresses, Classic Load Balances, Redshift clusters, Elastic Beanstalk environments, EMR clusters, AWS Data Pipelines, ElastiCache clusters, Reserved Instances, Spot Requests, and Capacity Reservations.

Customers may also need to create, or recreate if deleted, the default VPC for their account. In some cases, they’ll need to be able to modify the existing resources, but in other cases, customers will need to create new and equivalent resources in VPC.

The task may seem daunting, but AWS has launched the EC2 Classic Resource Finder script so customers can find all EC2-Classic resources in their accounts. This can either be run directly in a single AWS account or can be used against all accounts within an organisation.

Customers, at this stage, can use a variety of migration tools that AWS has developed including AWS Application Migration Service, Support Automation Workflow, IP Address Migration, and Class Load Balancers.

Comprehensive support is available through Barr’s post hosted on the AWS site, including a more in-depth overview of each of these migration tools, as well as guidance for updating instance types as businesses move from EC2-Classic to VPC.

​AWS has announced that it’s retiring its flagship Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform after 15 years in operation, with customers given until 2022 to migrate their services to its successor.

EC2-Classic, widely considered a foundational cloud computing technology, was launched in 2006 as a virtual computing environment that organisations could use to host scalable applications. These ‘instances’ provided layers of security, different hardware configurations, as well as pre-configured templates.

This technology was eclipsed with the launch of AWS’ Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) platform in 2009, which serve as virtual networks of isolated EC2 instances. It was again followed by the launch of Virtual Private Clouds for Everyone in 2013.

AWS has now decided to retire EC2-Classic, giving customers two years to complete all migrations away from the older technology and towards VPC.

“EC2-Classic has served us well, but we’re going to give it a gold watch and a well-deserved sendoff,” said chief evangelist for AWS, Jeff Barr, in an in-depth blog post.

“We are not planning to disrupt any workloads and we are giving you plenty of lead time so that you can plan, test, and perform your migration. In addition to this blog post, we have tools, documentation, and people that are all designed to help.”

When is AWS retiring EC2-Classic?

AWS has begun notifying all current EC2-Classic customers through their account teams, and will soon begin issuing notices in the Personal Health Dashboard.

From 30 October 2021, AWS will disable EC2-Classic in Regions for AWS accounts that have no active EC2-Classic resources in the Region. The firm will also stop selling one-year and three-year Reserved Instances for EC2-Classic.

Then, from 15 August 2022, AWS expects all migrations to be complete, with no remaining EC2-Classic resources present in any AWS account.

All AWS accounts created after 4 December 2013 were already VPC-only, unless EC2-Classic was enabled as a result of a support request, meaning the change is likely only to affect longstanding AWS customers.

How to migrate from EC2-Classic to VPC

Although AWS will notify customers they will need to migrate, there are several steps that businesses running EC2-Classic instances will need to take. To prepare, ahead of any migration, the firm has put together guidance available on the AWS site.

To fully migrate, customers need to find, examine, and migrate several resources. These comprise running or stopped EC2 instances, running or stopped RDS database instances, Elastic IP addresses, Classic Load Balances, Redshift clusters, Elastic Beanstalk environments, EMR clusters, AWS Data Pipelines, ElastiCache clusters, Reserved Instances, Spot Requests, and Capacity Reservations.

Customers may also need to create, or recreate if deleted, the default VPC for their account. In some cases, they’ll need to be able to modify the existing resources, but in other cases, customers will need to create new and equivalent resources in VPC.

The task may seem daunting, but AWS has launched the EC2 Classic Resource Finder script so customers can find all EC2-Classic resources in their accounts. This can either be run directly in a single AWS account or can be used against all accounts within an organisation.

Customers, at this stage, can use a variety of migration tools that AWS has developed including AWS Application Migration Service, Support Automation Workflow, IP Address Migration, and Class Load Balancers.

Comprehensive support is available through Barr’s post hosted on the AWS site, including a more in-depth overview of each of these migration tools, as well as guidance for updating instance types as businesses move from EC2-Classic to VPC.