Microsoft Inspire, the vendor’s big global partner conference, is in full swing in Las Vegas, and so are the vendor’s ecosystem partners, such as Barracuda Networks, Blue Prism, BehrTech and Corent Technology, which are making their own news this week.

Here’s another roundup of news from Las Vegas.

Barracuda Networks

Barracuda Networks on Tuesday said it has improved the functionality of its CloudGen Firewall to enforce Office 365 local breakout policies in Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN and improve connectivity to Office 365 and the Microsoft Azure Cloud.

More specifically, the vendor said the new enhancement allows Barracuda’s customers to optimize their Office 365 user experience while increasing security and reducing network costs.

Barracuda’s Klaus Gheri

“Customers want to optimize their Office 365 traffic, but security is still a top priority,” said Klaus Gheri, vice president of network security at Barracuda Networks. “By using our integration with Azure Virtual WAN, customers get the benefits of a high-performance, branch-to-branch network with enhanced security from Barracuda CloudGen Firewall.

The new functionality enables Azure Virtual WAN customers to specify the Office 365 traffic categories that they trust for direct internet breakout. This trusted Office 365 traffic will bypass proxies and route directly from the user location to the nearest Microsoft network location, optimizing the user experience and reducing WAN costs by avoiding traffic backhauling and hairpinning, according to the vendor.

BehrTech

BehrTech, a provider of a wireless connectivity software platform built for industrial internet of things (IIoT) networks, announced Mythings Central, a low-power wide area network (LPWAN) and device management software platform powered by the ETSI standard MIOTY WPLAN technology.

Mythings Central is a network management tool for connecting, configuring and managing thousands of sensors for IIoT applications, such as environmental monitoring, worker safety, and infrastructure and facility management. Based on a customer’s requirements, it can be deployed on a base station, customer premises or in the cloud.

“Mythings Central provides the flexible integration needed to streamline the costs and complexities of massive scale IoT network depoyments and management,” said Wolfgang Thieme, chief product officer at BehrTech. “Its modular, scalable and secure design allows customers to easily transition from proofs of concept to full-scale IoT deployments.”

Microsoft Azure cloud connector is natively embedded in the Mythings Central software design. Through Azure resources, such as the IoT Hub, customers can collect large amounts of data from thousands of devices for real-time analysis and visualization.

The all-in-one platform provides device on- and off-boarding, cloud/backend integration, data monitoring and network troubleshooting. The vendor uses an open, API-driven approach which allows users to architect their end-to-end IoT application with minimal resources, the company said.

Blue Prism

Blue Prism, a robotic process automation vendor, has plans to deliver intelligent automation solutions and cognitive services on Microsoft Azure, the company said. This news follows a previous announcement that Blue Prism is offering a free, fully functional enterprise trial of its connected RPA platform on Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace.

The solution will enable an on-demand digital workforce and contribute to Blue Prism’s goal of delivering its connected RPA platform in a flexible SaaS platform on Azure, allowing customers to accelerate automation projects, increase productivity and improve the customer experience.

“Partnering with Microsoft gives Blue Prism a road map for evolving digital-worker capabilities with broader AI and cognitive capabilities,” said Dave Moss, chief technology officer and cofounder of Blue Prism. “We want to drive consumption and adoption of connected RPA with all users by providing a full range of intelligent automation possibilities. The future of work lies with those who embrace …

… a digital workforce and empower people to do the things only people can do.”

Last month, Blue Prism signed an agreement to acquire Thoughtonomy, whose SaaS solution leverages Microsoft Azure to enable an on-demand virtual workforce and intelligent automation platform.

Corent Technology

Corent Technology, a provider of a cloud migration platform, and Microsoft gold partner, announced it has integrated its SurPaaS technology with Microsoft Azure Migrate as a solution for scanning/discovery/analysis and migration to Azure.

Corent, which partners with service providers to leverage its SurPaaS platform and white-label its solutions, helps customers optimize and modernize their cloud journeys through a path that begins on-premises with scan/analyze/plan functionality through steps including migrate, cloudify, PaaSify and SaaSify.

“Microsoft Azure Migrate offers a unified center for everything related to migration, including end-to-end migration progress tracking for your data-center migrations. We are excited to have Corent SurPaaS featured on Azure Migrate,” said Sean Jazayeri, senior executive of strategic alliances and initiatives at Corent.

This latest integration allows users to select Corent’s SurPaaS for assessment and/or migration from Azure Migrate to simplify scanning, discovery and analysis.