Last time I hosted this show I got the challenge  of telling you what happened in the week after   Microsoft Build, which was nothing. So this week  I get the 4th of July weekend edition. And again,   nothing. Fret not dear viewer though,  'cause instead I pose this question to you:   are cloud computing resources truly infinite?   Welcome to Azure This Week with me,  your host Lars "news desert" Klint. Back in 2020, when everyone suddenly had to spend  a bunch more time at home, we started looking   for in-house activities. For a lot of people this  meant buying new laptops, smartphones, and gaming   consoles. For businesses, they realized that a  lot could be accomplished with cloud computing.  

So they invested heavily in online services in  the cloud. Companies like Zoom, Hello Fresh,   and even A Cloud Guru all grew rapidly as people  stayed at home. All this focus on computing power   put pressure on microprocessor manufacturers, such  as Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and many more. This in   turn resulted in huge wait times for cars, graphic  cards, networking equipment, well, anything using   microprocesors. And that was the super short  version of why we have a chip shortage. Now there   are a lot more variables and nuances, which I  won't cover here though. What I do want to discuss  

on this week's episode is where does this leave  cloud computing platforms, Azure in particular? And what is the impact on you - the consumer of  the services they offer. So let's start with the   first part, the cloud platforms themselves. I read  an article this week, linked below, about how we   are starting to see the chip shortage having  a real impact on the availability of services.   And this matters a lot, like A LOT. Think of  the main sales line we are fed to buy cloud   resources. Exactly it's "infinite" or "limitless".  Don't have enough computing power on your VM?  

Upgrade to a bigger one. Don't  have enough storage? Well just   increase the size of your account. Now this is  the promise, indeed one of the main benefits of   cloud computing. When resources aren't available  on demand, well much of that benefit disappears.   This is real problem for cloud vendors  and they seek to limit the impact. Now,   when it comes to you, dear viewer, you can expect  to experience this in the near-term as well.

I recently taught an Azure workshop in Copenhagen  where the students relied on having access to an   Azure account and then create several resources.  We used a number of regions, geographically   close to Copenhagen and services such as Cosmos  DB, certain VM sizes, and API management, which   all failed more than once. To be honest, this was  quite unexpected, but gave me a first-hand insight   into the problem. And this was only a handful of  people and services too. So if we scale up and   talk about companies, the problem is much bigger  than a few services for teaching in a workshop.   If you, as a company, have invested in  cloud computing and rely on the services   to create new products, improve existing  ones, and run your day-to-day operations,   suddenly being denied access to this limitless  flow of resources, well it's bad for business.  

Not only is it bad for business, but you start  thinking about other ways of delivering your   product. Now this hit to the branding of cloud  computing is real and it'll take time to restore. Sorry. My phone is going off. This hit to the  branding of cloud computing is real and it'll take   time to restore. Now you could argue that it isn't  the fault of Azure and other cloud providers,   but consumers don't care about that. They care  about having access to the services and resources   they need to make a profit for their business.  And if cloud computing isn't the answer for them,  

well other solutions must be found. Microsoft has  moved to address this by opening and announcing a   bunch of new regions and datacenters. And this  is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't   solve the problem right now. Regions take time,  years in fact, to build and existing customers   won't see that benefit for quite a while.  So one small improvement I'd love to see is   some sort of indication if a region  is at capacity when I choose it.

And when I choose a specific service.   Currently, there is no way for me to know if I'll  wait 25 minutes for my Cosmos DB to fail, or not.   Microsoft has indicated that this resource crisis  isn't likely to be solved until at least 2023,   which asks the question "can you wait?"  So let me know in the comments, what you   think is the solution and how you are dealing  with the cloud computing resource shortages. Every month at A Cloud Guru we have  a number of totally free courses,   which change over time. So this month is "security  month". So perhaps you could try out Introduction   to Azure Security. It's tasty. We've also got  a few other Azure courses available as well.  

Such as Intro to Serverless on Azure, and  Azure Storage Deep Dive. A free account is   genuinely free as well, no credit card or  anything needed, just content delivered. All right, in case you don't believe me  that this week had no Azure news in it,   let me share the most interesting announcement  from the week. And this is the most interesting.   Updates to Microsoft Cost Management. And  if you're already asleep, I don't blame you.   Well, there might even be those among you that  do find this useful as well. I can only hope. So  

first the Azure mobile app can now show costs  for a resource. To be honest, I thought that   was in their ages ago, but guess not. Well it is  now. Yes, there is a new API for configuring cost   alerts. So if you integrate Azure Cost Management  into your own app, there is now a cost alerts part   to that. Cost Management budget alerts now support  the Azure Monitor common alert schema, which I'm   not entirely sure what means. And finally, there's  now specific cost management training within the  

cost management service itself. Okay. I'll  stop before you fall off your chair snoring. And that is the news for this week. There really  wasn't anything interesting announced. So I hope   you appreciate my opinionated piece on cloud  computing resource shortages. Let me know in   the comments what you think. Next week, the show  is hosted by Brian Roehm of river kayaking fame.   So take good care of him and we'll see you  in the cloud. Keep being awesome Cloud Gurus.

Did I have spinach in my teeth? Hope not.