Microsoft releases ‘local’ version of Azure

Microsoft will offer organizations the option to run Azure in their own data center. Microsoft has announced that. Users can switch between their own Azure installation and Microsoft’s Azure environment.

Until now, Microsoft’s Azure cloud service only offered users the option to run instances of Microsoft servers, but at its own Ignite conference, the Redmond company announced that that was about to change. Users will soon be able to run virtualized instances in their own data centers with the help of Azure.

In addition, users from the same environment can choose to run instances in their own data center as well as on Microsoft servers. Companies could therefore choose to run a limited number of instances locally, and switch to the Azure cloud service when the local instances can no longer handle the load. The Azure Stack, as Microsoft calls the new software, can be tested from this summer. It is still unclear what licenses will cost.

In addition, System Center will be expanded with what Microsoft calls the Operations Management Suite, a module that manages not only Windows installations but also instances on Azure and Amazon Web Server. Linux installations and VMware and OpenStack instances are also supported. Later this week, Microsoft will release a ‘technical preview’ of the new System Center. In addition, Microsoft has released a second technical preview of Windows Server 2016.