Premier Solutions for Azure Stack HCI

Microsoft just announced the launch of Premier Solutions for Azure Stack HCI which further exemplifies the success of the collaborations Microsoft has with our infrastructure partners. Microsoft Azure enables customers to bring just enough of Azure’s cloud-born capabilities to wherever they need them via a portfolio of services, tools, and infrastructure with Azure Arc. For customers looking for an end-to-end Azure experience for hybrid cloud and at the edge, Azure Stack HCI provides a comprehensive curated infrastructure stack that is Azure Arc-enabled by design.

In this blog post I will go through to explain the Premier Solutions for Azure Stack HCI and highlight some of the benefits of Azure Stack HCI you might haven’t heard of yet. But first let’s quickly go through what Microsoft Azure Stack HCI is.

What is Azure Stack HCI

Azure Stack HCI is a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) cluster solution that hosts virtualized Windows and Linux workloads and their storage in a hybrid cloud and edge environment that combines on-premises infrastructure with Azure cloud services.

Azure Stack HCI is a world-class, integrated virtualization stack built on proven technologies that have already been deployed at scale, including Hyper-V, Storage Spaces Direct, and Azure-inspired SDN. It also allows you to run Azure Arc-enabled services such as AKS hybrid (Azure Kubernetes Services) and Azure Arc-enabled data services. This allows customers to run and modernize their workloads at the edge, running in virtual machines, containers on Kubernetes, as well as different Azure PaaS offerings on-premises and at the edge.

To learn more about Azure Stack HCI check out Microsoft Learn.

Azure Hybrid Benefit for Azure Stack HCI

There are many advantages of using Azure Stack HCI, but one I want to highlight right now in this blog is the Azure Hybrid Benefit for Azure Stack HCI and the Azure Hybrid Benefit for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Hybrid Benefit is a program that helps you reduce the costs of running workloads in the cloud. With Azure Hybrid Benefit, you can maximize the value of your on-premises licenses and modernize your existing infrastructure to Azure Stack HCI and AKS hybrid at no additional cost.

In a nutshell, If you have Windows Server Datacenter licenses with active Software Assurance, you are eligible to activate Azure Hybrid Benefit for your Azure Stack HCI cluster which allows you to run Azure Stack HCI and AKS hybrid on-premises and at the edge at no additional cost.

* Disclaimer: all licensing information needs to be verified on the official websites.

Extended Security Updates for Windows Server and SQL Server on Azure Stack HCI

Another huge benefit of running Azure Stack HCI is the Extended Security Updates for Windows Server and SQL Server on Azure Stack HCI program. The Extended Security Update (ESU) program enables you to get important security patches for legacy Microsoft products that are past the end of support. You can get ESU through Azure Stack HCI for free.

If you have Windows Server and SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2, 2012, or 2012 R2, you get Extended Security Updates for these products at no additional cost if you run them on Azure Stack HCI.

* Disclaimer: all licensing information needs to be verified on the official websites.

What are Premier Solutions for Azure Stack HCI

Premier Solutions is a new type of Azure Stack HCI products that offers customers a better operational experience, quicker time to value, and more flexibility with as-a-service purchasing options. Working together with leading partners, such as Dell Technologies and Lenovo, Microsoft is combining the best of our technologies into a highly integrated and complete edge infrastructure solution that connects hardware, software, and cloud for customers seamlessly.

All Premier Solutions include:

• The most complete integration between hardware, software, and cloud services, so customers can reduce time spent managing infrastructure and instead focus on innovation.
• Continuous testing by Microsoft and our partners to ensure higher reliability and less downtime.
• End-to-end deployment workflows that make it easy to deploy one cluster, dozens of clusters, or a thousand clusters, repeatedly and reliably.
• Automated and jointly tested full-stack updates that provide seamless updates with a single click.
• Flexible purchasing models and a variety of available value-added services to reduce the friction of getting started.
• Global availability for a consistent solution across a customer’s global estate.

As part of the Azure Stack HCI offering, Microsoft also offers Azure Stack HCI solution categories Integrated Systems and Validated Nodes depending on your business needs. Microsoft partners already offer more than 200 Azure Stack HCI solutions in the Azure Stack HCI catalog.

You can compare the different solution categories here.

Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure

A couple of months ago Dell Technologies and Microsoft announced the Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure, which is the first Premier Solution for Azure Stack HCI in the market. To learn more, check out my blog post: Azure Stack HCI – The Dell APEX Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure – Thomas Maurer

Conclusion

To learn more about the announcement, check out the blog by Douglas Philips (Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Azure Edge + Platform) to learn more about the announcement on the Azure blog.

Whether you want to modernize your data center, migrate your legacy applications, or enable hybrid scenarios such as disaster recovery and edge computing, Premier Solutions can help you achieve your goals with Azure Stack HCI.