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Microsoft recently launched Azure Stack at the Microsoft Inspire conference, which gives you the ability to run Azure in your own premises. One of the leaders of this strategically important product is Vijay Tewari, a Principal Group Program Manager for Microsoft Azure Stack and hybrid cloud infrastructure and solutions. Vijay kindly agreed to answer some questions about Azure Stack, so our readers could learn a bit more.
[Aidan] You’ve announced the availability of the Azure Stack Development Kit and pre-orders of Azure Stack. What is Azure Stack and why does it exist?
[Vijay] Azure Stack is an extension of Azure and facilitates running Azure Services in a customer’s data center. Customers are adopting Azure for a variety of different scenarios and use cases but we have identified three patterns where Azure Stack provides a solution.
Edge and disconnected solutions: You can address latency and connectivity requirements by processing data locally in Azure Stack and then aggregating in Azure for further analytics with common application logic across both. Consider the case of an oil rig or a cruise line, which has computational capacity and would like to have cloud applications provide services to these environments. Customers are desirous of developing cloud applications which can then be deployed to these edge environments.
Cloud applications that meet every regulation: You can develop and deploy applications in Azure. This is with full flexibility to deploy on-premises with Azure Stack to meet your regulatory or policy requirements. Code changes are not needed.
Modern applications across cloud and on-premises: Apply Azure web and mobile services, containers, server-less, and micro-service architectures to update and extend existing applications with Azure Stack, while using a consistent DevOps process across on-premises and cloud.
A Hybrid or Private Cloud that You Run On-Premises — Azure Stack [Image Credit: Microsoft]
This Is All You Need to Know About Azure Stack Architecture [Image Credit: Lenovo]
Before I share what I think of Azure Stack, I would like to take the time to thank Vijay Tewari for taking the time to answer these questions. Between attending Microsoft Inspire, launching Azure Stack, and the continued development/improvement of the hybrid cloud solution, you can be sure that he is a busy man!
So, what do I think of Azure Stack? I think Azure Stack is a game changer. It has been a long time (12 years) since I was last an on-premises “sys admin” and “owned” on-premises infrastructure. The experiences I had before then still shape my opinions, how I advise, and what I do/teach today. I remember the endless expansion of hardware, the long hours, and the endless fights with the app-dev department. I still warmly remember them for their 2 year project to write their own version of SQL Server Reporting Services using Java (seriously!). Imagine a world where the sys admin spends less time on infrastructure. A private cloud could be wheeled in and operational in days. All you Hyper-V admins who have driver/firmware induced baldness (thank you VMQ on 1GbE and Emulex) should know that Microsoft is forcing the Azure Stack partners to properly configure and QA the hardware. Think of this as a super HCL and variations are not allowed. Imagine that this private cloud was treated like an individual server. I do not have to know how it works. It just works and my job is to manage services. New ways of working, self-service capabilities, cross-charging, and an ability to burst to or use Azure for additional capacities or services would be revolutionary. I think that if I could deploy Azure and Azure Stack into a large enterprise (this is not for small/medium businesses) and change the mindset about ways of working, things would be a lot easier for that enterprise.
Am I going to learn Azure Stack? No. I do not see the point of “learning” Azure Stack. As Jeffrey Snover has joked (above) and Vijay has commented, we do not need to know how Azure Stack works. What is more important is:
The reality is that my last three and half years of learning Azure mean that I have already learned a lot of Azure Stack. Do not deploy the Azure Stack Development Kit to learn how to use Azure Stack. Use Azure. Instead, use the Development Kit to prove the concept of Azure Stack.
The Azure Stack Portal Is Visually Identical to the Azure Portal [Image Credit: Aidan Finn]
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