Microsoft has announced the hardware requirements needed to run its Azure Stack – the upcoming on-premise hybrid version of the Azure cloud.
The Azure Stack first gets installed on a server and delivers Azure services in a customer’s datacentre, enabling developers and IT professionals to build, deploy and operate cloud applications using consistent tools, processes and artifacts.
Here’s what it’s comprised of:
- Cloud-inspired infrastructure, which includes: Software-defined infrastructure platform -- SDS | SDN | Compute, Software-Defined Security and Infrastructure management -- Provisioning and Operations
- Azure portal
- Azure-based IaaS services
- Azure-based PaaS services
- Azure Resource Manager -- a declarative, template-based approach that helps specify and configure applications for automated deployment
The focus of the product will be on enterprise applications like SQL Server, Exchange and SharePoint.
Basically, it’s something of a private cloud -- it simplifies the app scaling process across current data centers, but if need be, extra resources can be pulled from the cloud.
Here’s how it will work: Users will need a single server (Microsoft says Hewlett-Packard’s Enterprise DL 360 Gen 9 would be the best choice. Or a Dell R630) with at least 96GB of RAM and 12 cores -- 128GB of RAM and 16 cores are recommended.
It needs at least Hyper-V Enabled (with SLAT support), Windows Server 2012 R2, and an OS disk with minimum of 200 GB available for system partition (SSD or HDD). Concerning disk drivers, Microsoft says four disks with a minimum of 140GB of capacity is needed, while 250GB is recommended.
Full specifications can be found on this link.
Through Azure Stack, Microsoft is trying to be more competitive in regards to Amazon Web Services and Google’s clouds. SiliconAngle has noticed how none of the two provide options for hosting your own service.
The Azure Stack is similar to the hybrid cloud angle VMware has been chasing since 2013, when it launched its vCloud Hybrid Service, promising a virtual extension of customers' on-premise environments to the cloud.
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