19
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Announcing Microsoft Azure GA and New Azure Billing Option

Sophia Lopez
Founder & President
February 3, 2020
Announcing Microsoft Azure GA and New Azure Billing Option
Update
Since this post was written, Hyperledger FireFly has reached 1.0. Learn more here!

We are excited to announce the General Availability of Azure as a cloud option in Kaleido’s Blockchain Business Cloud, including direct Azure billing and full support now available for customers using Kaleido’s Pay-As-You-Go plans.

Moving out of tech preview, the selectability of Azure is now in Kaleido and available for production use across Azure.  As enterprise blockchain adoption continues to rise, organizations going into production need a seamless blockchain solution that spans multiple cloud providers, including Azure, and different geographic regions to grow their global consortia.  And with the addition of the new Azure billing option, consortia members who choose to deploy their solution on Azure can now use set up payment directly through Azure on any of Kaleido’s Pay-as-You-Go plan.

As enterprises look to accelerate their blockchain initiatives from proof-of-concept into production, the value of those networks increases as the number and diversity of its participants expand. Decentralized ownership of the network across clouds and regions is a foundational enterprise blockchain requirement, and Kaleido’s new Azure borderless blockchain capability uniquely enables an accelerated pace of adoption by diverse members of a blockchain business network or consortium.  

“We are focused on solving the challenges involved in forming these modern, more collaborative business networks. With this announcement, Kaleido makes it easier for these business networks to grow and scale.  Doubling down on our capabilities and integration into Azure and the Azure ecosystem brings their proven value to our users.” said Steve Cerveny, Founder and CEO of Kaleido.

Today, entities running a consortium on Kaleido can have their participating members join on the cloud platform of their choice, or even on-premise behind their company firewall while participating seamlessly with other network members.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are using Kaleido on Azure for their Learning Coin application.  To explore some concepts behind Central Bank Digital Currencies, The World Bank teamed up with the IMF to create a token, dubbed “Learning Coin”.  Employees can earn tokens by consuming curated content about digital currencies and blockchain.  

“Microsoft continues to work deeply with the Ethereum community to advance enterprise blockchain applications," said Yorke Rhodes, principal program manager, Blockchain Engineering at Microsoft. "We're happy to have Kaleido as part of Microsoft Azure, so enterprises can realize the business value of blockchain faster. With the new Azure billing option available on Kaleido, consortia members and other customers can manage billing directly through Azure, providing even greater flexibility and choice to Kaleido's users."

Kaleido’s expansion of its capabilities on Azure help existing consortia in production on Kaleido scale and grow, making it easier to onboard new members by providing choice and flexibility for which cloud provider they use.  

Kaleido on Azure and the new Azure billing option are both available today, try it for free.

How to Enable Azure Billing on Kaleido

1. Login to your Azure portal and search for “Kaleido”.  You will see “Kaleido Enterprise Blockchain SaaS” as a Marketplace service.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 1


2. Select “Kaleido Enterprise Blockchain SaaS” and proceed to configure your service instance with a name, email address and preferred phone number for your Azure account.  After populating the required fields, click SUBSCRIBE at the bottom of the screen to finalize the subscription.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 2



3. Access your subscription by searching for “SaaS” (Software as a Service) in the search bar at the top of the portal.  Click Software as a Service (SaaS).

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 3



4. Click on your Kaleido Enterprise Blockchain SaaS instance.  From your SaaS instance, click the Configure Account Button to complete the subscription signup.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 4



5. This will redirect you to Kaleido, log you in through your Azure account and automatically generate your Kaleido organization.  It will also bind your Azure billing details to your newly created Kaleido org. You should see the following screen within the Kaleido console.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 5



6. Click ACCOUNT -> SUBSCRIPTION within the console to see the status of your billing details.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 6



7. Note that, by default, all newly created Kaleido organizations are on-boarded to the Starter Plan subscription.  This an entirely free tier that comes with certain resource limitations.  You can unlock additional resources and functionality by clicking the UPGRADE button and subscribing to a higher tiered plan.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 7



8. To update the name of your Kaleido organization click ACCOUNT -> ORG SETTINGS and expand the dropdown ellipsis next to “My Company Organization.”  This is the default placeholder applied to auto-generated organizations. From the dropdown, click the “Rename Organization” option and input your desired name.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 8



9. You can now login to Kaleido via the web console or directly through your Azure portal.  A Kaleido login will redirect to Azure for SSO, at which point you will need an active Azure session or will be required to provide your Azure login details.

Example web console flow:


Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 9a

Redirects to:

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 9b


To login through your Azure portal, navigate to your Kaleido SaaS instance and click the Manage Account option.  This will redirect to the Kaleido console.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 9c


10. Existing Kaleido accounts that were generated through the Kaleido web console can also attach Azure billing, however the flow is slightly different.  From the Kaleido console click ACCOUNT -> SUBSCRIPTION. If you have no billing information associated with your subscription, click the ADD A PROVIDER button.  If you have billing attached, skip down to step 12.

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 10



11. Select the “PAY WITH A MICROSOFT AZURE SUBSCRIPTION” option and click the LINK ACCOUNT button.  This will redirect you to the Kaleido SaaS offering within the Azure Marketplace. Follow the same flow outlined above to provision the SaaS instance.  NOTE: When you perform the Configure your Account operation (Step 4) Kaleido will emit an important message. Follow the enumerated steps on the screen to finalize your billing.  

12. If you already have Stripe billing attached, please use the Contact Us hyperlink and request a detachment of billing.  

Enable Azure billing on Kaleido step 12

13. After you receive a confirmation from Kaleido acknowledging completion of this action, return to Step 10 and follow the steps.

14. At any point you can use the “Contact Us” help window within the Kaleido console to receive assistance from our support team.

Kaleido on Microsoft Azure and the new Azure billing option are both available today, try it for free.

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