This year’s SIGGRAPH 2016 Conference that took place July 24-28 in Anaheim, CA at the Anaheim Convention Center marked the return of Microsoft as an exhibitor. The return was carefully aligned with the official public preview announcement of GPU support on Azure with the new N-series VM’s. While the presence was not as splashy as other competitors’ was, it was a well calculated presence that seemed to hit the right spot and showcase the power of the new N-series GPU VM’s via partners that have been part of the private preview of the N-series, like teradici.
In addition to the GPU announcement, the Microsoft booth promoted Azure-based workloads by several partners (like Pixar, teradici, and Jellyfish) and hosted NVIDIA, who happen to be the ones supplying the Silicon chips on the N-series M60 and K80 GPUs. This helped highlight the fact that Microsoft Azure represents a great environment for large render jobs and render farms. Also present was Azure Batch that many customers use today to run gigantic render jobs.
I was lucky enough to be there helping out a little bit at the booth by virtue of being local to the event location. Here are some photos from around the Microsoft booth and the conference:
Everyone has to start by writing something on the SIGGRAPH Graffiti wall.
The Microsoft Booth showcased Azure as well NVIDIA-powered demos on Azure’s new N-series VMs.
The teradici pod enjoyed a constant flow of visitors during the show.
The Qlik pod in the Microsoft Booth was probably the busiest as everyone wanted to try out the HoloLens that Qlik had on display.
The theater area was a hit. Here, Pixar are demonstrating their render tools on Azure.
Of course, Qlik’s presentation was a hit with some cool visualization capabilities that they presented in addition to a cool demo that showcased the HoloLens.
teradici also had several popular presentation in the theater area.
And it would not be a complete show without NVIDIA talking about their partnership with Microsoft Azure to deliver the GPUs for the N-series VMs.
Jellyfish was another partner that demoed in the booth and presented in the theater.
Microsoft’s own Joel Sloss presented Microsoft engagements with top tier partners to deliver solutions on Azure.
Gerald Tiu and Eoin Bailey from Microsoft DX demonstrated the value of Microsoft Azure for rendering. Very cool!
This is it for this year. Looking forward to a much stronger presence at next year’s SIGGRAPH 2017 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. See you there. 
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