Let’s face it, Microsoft is a software company and always has been.
They run a bunch of hardware in datacenters worldwide because they needed a place for their software to run so customers can use it.
Azure Services anywhere
Microsoft Build 2021 came along with new announcements which makes the direction more clear than ever. Microsoft sells software, no matter where it runs.
Satya Nadella announced the ability to run Azure Services anywhere, as long it’s a Kubernetes cluster managed by Azure. The management of these clusters is happening through the magical Azure Arc.
More appealing is what already has been disclosed to run on managed Kubernetes clusters or AKS clusters.
This is cool. These services were previously only available on Microsoft Azure and Azure Stack Hub.
I wrote this blog end 2019, and we’ve come a long way.
One quote I would like to highlight:
“On top of that Azure Stack HCI can run any Azure Services that has Kubernetes support.”
I surely wasn’t expecting that Microsoft would enable Azure services on any Kubernetes platform.
Cloud / Datacenter? irrelevant
Microsoft is making the physical place irrelevant. Azure isn’t a place, cloud isn’t a place. Cloud is a model.
With the above announcements you can stretch that model to any physical place that you’d like.
Don’t want a deadlock on a serverless platform in Azure? Deploy it to your VMware Tanzu platform and run the exact same software.
This is probably the first wave of services being enabled, can’t wait for the next wave!
Validated Solutions for Azure Kubernetes Services
Microsoft and their customers probably prefer validated solutions for Azure Kubernetes Services to run Azure Services.
At this point of time there are three solutions that you can use:
- Microsoft Azure
- Azure Stack Hub
- Azure Stack HCI
I dare to make the predication that Azure Stack Edge will be added to this list soon.
Conclusion
Do you want to make use of the cloud model? want to run Azure Services? prefer a specific physical location?
You want a solution that can run modern cloud services but also serve as a platform for your legacy virtual machines?
Azure & Azure Stack are here for you.
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Darryl van der Peijl