What is Microsoft Azure Stack?

Microsoft’s Azure Stack is a seamless, on-premises version of its public cloud, giving customers a way to use a popular and familiar cloud platform without shipping their sensitive data into a multi-tenant environment.

Because Azure Stack is offered as an integrated system of hardware and software, you are given the right amount of flexibility and control, while still adopting innovation from the cloud. Azure Stack integrated systems range in size from 4-12 nodes, and are jointly supported by the hardware partner and Microsoft. Use Azure Stack integrated systems to enable new scenarios for your production workloads.

“One of the key things we truly believe is that hybrid is a key differentiator for us and a steady state for our customers,” Mike Neil, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Azure Infrastructure and Management, told me. “We don’t believe every customer will move to the public cloud.” The reasons for this are pretty varied, but for quite a few companies, it’s simply a matter of remaining in control of their data — often for regulatory and/or data sovereignty reasons. “Many of them have their roots in their environment today — in their data centers or their hosting partners’ data centers,” Neil said. “We wanted to provide a solution that met these different needs.”

Key Features of Microsoft Azure Stack

One of the key Azure Stack features is the Azure Resource Manager (ARM). This offers the ability to build application templates and use them to easily deploy and manage compute, network, and storage resources.

Whether you choose to run Stack within your own datacentre or with a Managed Service Provider, you’ll able to reap the benefits that Microsoft Azure offers with none of the drawbacks, including:
• Data sovereignty and regulation
• Portability and consistency across platforms
• RBAC (Role Based Access Control), usage and audit capabilities
• Scalability and high availability
• Secure data transfer across private networks
• Predictable, reliable and high-throughput connections

This is aligned with an on-going program of investment from Microsoft to ensure their offering matures over time.

Looking to get started with Azure Stack?

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