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Microsoft To Offer Local Version of Azure Cloud Service (reuters.com)

Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new service that allows customers to use its cloud technology on their own servers, part of the company's efforts to refocus its product line to compete more effectively with rivals Amazon and Google. From a report: "One of the key differentiations we have with Azure versus our two biggest competitors in the cloud platform space is our ability to support true hybrid solutions," Judson Althoff, Microsoft's executive vice president of worldwide commercial business, told Reuters. Microsoft is hoping to carve a niche among customers who cannot or do not want to have to move all their computing operations to the massive shared data centers that are collectively known as the cloud. Azure Stack could serve companies in highly regulated industries or in parts of the world where using the cloud is not yet feasible, Althoff said.

75 comments

  1. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No!!!

    1. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Acceptance is the beginning of peace of mind. Open yourself to the possibilities of local Azure.

  2. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by Powys · · Score: 1

    Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  3. Invasive by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 0

    Brings a whole new meaning to "Invasion of privacy"!

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
  4. I can haz my own cloud by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Funny

    I shall keep it in a jar and call it betty

    1. Re:I can haz my own cloud by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      We have a guy like that here--hides everything for job security. The coffee maker is also a server. When bleep happens, we use names much more colorful than "Betty".

  5. Drip computing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OK, so what do we call this local version? Puddle?

    1. Re:Drip computing. by bobbied · · Score: 0

      MS Haze... Vapor-ware computing in your home town.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    2. Re:Drip computing. by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure it should be called MicroBur$t.

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
    3. Re:Drip computing. by green1 · · Score: 1

      A hard drive?

    4. Re: Drip computing. by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Youzure

  6. Local cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Also known as a regular server.

    1. Re:Local cloud by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

      to compete with amazon and google, lol. more like trying to find a way to worm out of hosting azure so they can shut it down.

    2. Re:Local cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if it's getting enough fiber.

    3. Re:Local cloud by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 0

      It's not a just a regular server. It's a server which won't run unless you constantly pay Microsoft!

    4. Re:Local cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So it's a server that runs a Microsoft OS? Weird! I know they're planning to make Windows a subscription, but why would anyone run a gaming OS on a server?

    5. Re:Local cloud by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

      Also known as a regular server.

      But it has synergized separation of cloud docker containers so you can de-synchronize when your docker containers need decontained hypervisors re-docked and revirtualized. And, you can blockchain your deep-learning for an ambient UX experience.

      In other words, it's buzzwordified so they can charge more.

    6. Re:Local cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it has a additional benefit of customer paying MS a monthly fee and duplicating the server data and its usage information to MS for monetizing purposes. No wonder MS got rid of their salesmen when they have features like this which will practically sell itself.

  7. What exactly makes a private cloud different from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a server? Serious question. I've recently shut down my servers because after all these years of problems and headaches and constant babysitting, and making no money and getting no traffic to speak of anyway, it just wasn't worth it anymore. What exactly is a "private cloud" if not a server? What am I missing?

    I hate performance-related or otherwise complicated configuration files more than anything, and I hate babysitting computers. Does a private (or non-private) "cloud" abstract this away somehow, or what?

  8. You know what else has a local version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MY BALLS!!! Suck 'em, nerds!

  9. old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Azure Stack was publicly announced over a year ago - not a big surprise that it would get a big push at the MS Partner show this week...

  10. My local cloud: by DogDude · · Score: 2, Funny

    Right click folder.
    Click "share".

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:My local cloud: by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Right click folder. Click "share".

      I accidentally clicked "share" on my Android and got NO feedback about what just happened. As far as I know, there's now a public Google site with all my phone shit on it.

      Google has already been "leaky" with anything I did on or near Google. My call-answer avatar is a gargoyle that I once used as an icon but never approved as an avatar. Not a good look for job hunting. When I explain it, they say, "We'll, we only hire people who can figure out Google Sharing." I guess I deserve it. I'll call the guy who got my job and ask him how to scrub my avatar.

    2. Re:My local cloud: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Boot up macOS.

  11. Just like my Netgear NAS... by spywhere · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...except it will weigh forty pounds, require a 220V 3-phase feed, and cost $4900 per year.

    1. Re: Just like my Netgear NAS... by bn-7bc · · Score: 0

      220v 3 phase, hmm that seems like a non standard setup to me, but Iâ(TM)m no electrician sp corrections will be apreciated, ehat ivâ(TM)ve heard about 3-phase it is usuale 360/400V unless it is a very latrhe instalation in which case voltagrs mey be way larger (this is in eiope mine you so if ypu commented on us systems please dissregard) itâ(TM)s becoming thr norm for new buildings ( even domestic instalstions to get 400v 3-phase to the main fuse box snd for 230V surquits to be split from there ( phase +N and of corse grounf, puting up abn outlet without ground is eligal)

  12. Makes Sense, Really by EndlessNameless · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Azure offers a lot of features that are not available in Windows clustering. It can appeal to enterprises that want highly available services without dependency on internet or hosted storage.

    On Microsoft's side, this product is just repackaging and selling code that is 99% the same as what they run internally, so it has a lot of potential and relatively little cost.

    Between this and VMware supporting Linux containers natively, mid-tier and smaller enterprises are getting a lot of new options thrown at them.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    1. Re:Makes Sense, Really by kriston · · Score: 1

      The only problem is that Hyper-V is really bad at sharing memory among VMs. You'd be wasting money compared to VMware, honestly.

      --

      Kriston

    2. Re:Makes Sense, Really by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Funny I found the opposite. Vmware doesn't use shared memory under Windows hosts

    3. Re:Makes Sense, Really by kriston · · Score: 1

      Yes, VMware does use shared memory on Windows hosts.

      in VMware, the VM balloon driver tells all its "guest" VMs that it has all its allocated memory available even when it isn't (when it is shared).

      Hyper-V, though, tells its "guest" VMs that the true amount of memory is exactly what is available right now. This means that Linux VMs on Hyper-V invoke the out-of-memory-killer since these so-called "8 GB" VMs are actually getting "1 GB" on an over-subscribed host.

      --

      Kriston

  13. There is no cloud. by Xoc-S · · Score: 0, Troll

    There is just other people's computers. What this does is make it easier to move your data between your computers and the other people's computers. Seems like a good move by Microsoft.

    1. Re:There is no cloud. by nnet · · Score: 1

      Where do you want your data to go today?

  14. Want more than Win 10 abuse? Pay for SERVER ABUSE. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."

    When you calculate the Azure Cloud Service cost of losing control, you will be connected to 13 web sites, not just one.

    Will the new Azure Cloud Service make sure that secret U.S. government agencies have a copy of everything?

    Microsoft Cloud? 1) Micro, small thinking. 2) Soft, sloppy thinking. 3) Cloud, clouded thinking.

  15. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    shut up faggot or i will smite you with my army of pro trump twitterbots

  16. Vuja De by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    1981: "It's a PC, it's like a mainframe on your desktop."

    1995: "It's an Application Server, it's like a PC on a mainframe."

    2011: "Cloud: it's like an Application Server on a mainframe."

    2017: "Local Cloud: it's like a mainframe on your Application Server."

    2025: "It's a Metatizer, it's like an X on a Y, where YOU define what an X and Y is. Good luck figuring it out; we can't. Oh, and thanks for the check!"

    1. Re:Vuja De by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A cheque, in 2025?

    2. Re:Vuja De by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      It's "check" here across the pond. E-check?, Cloud-check?, MS-Check? Oh sh8t!

    3. Re:Vuja De by bobmajdakjr · · Score: 1

      why pay for managed azure hosting monthly when you can pay for unmanaged azure licensing yearly and spend too much money with dell to keep up every year.

    4. Re:Vuja De by najajomo · · Score: 1

      Haaa .. nice ...

      Tablizer:

      - quote -

      1981: "It's a PC, it's like a mainframe on your desktop."
      1995: "It's an Application Server, it's like a PC on a mainframe."
      2011: "Cloud: it's like an Application Server on a mainframe."
      2017: "Local Cloud: it's like a mainframe on your Application Server."
      2025: "It's a Metatizer, it's like an X on a Y, where YOU define what an X and Y is. Good luck figuring it out; we can't. Oh, and thanks for the check!"

      - unquote -

    5. Re:Vuja De by TuringTest · · Score: 1

      2025: "It's a Metatizer, it's like an X on a Y, where YOU define what an X and Y is. Good luck figuring it out; we can't. Oh, and thanks for the check!"

      You're aware you've just created a category of products called Metatizer, right? The name is incredibly catchy.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
  17. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Informative

    At this point Linux servers are mostly for small blogs and criminal organizations.

    Hmm..I dunno what rock you live under, but most any server room I've worked in for the past few decades, is about 99% Linux...with only the token windows server in the mix here and there.

    That was mostly Federal systems....

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  18. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The shills never die, at least not while their untraceable bitcoin payments keep flowing.

  19. Re:What exactly makes a private cloud different fr by darkain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On-demand scalability of local resources. You have 100x servers running a collection of VMs that can scale up and down across these servers as demands change for each application. One particular module starts to get hit hard, that app can spawn more instances across your local cluster, and possibly also downscale lesser used apps to give it more resources.

    This is essentially what Docker or VMWare is, but for the Microsoft world.

  20. Re:What exactly makes a private cloud different fr by Nkwe · · Score: 5, Informative
    A real cloud solution is much more then just running a single virtual machine in someone else's data center. With a real cloud solution you specify to your cloud provider the workload you want to run along with your performance and availability requirements. The cloud provider then provisions and manages whatever hardware is necessary to meet your requirements. Assuming that you have asked for (and paid for) redundancy, hardware failures are transparent to you as failing hardware is automatically detected and replaced for you. If you need more (or less performance) you can adjust your declared requirements and the cloud provider will either swap out your existing (potentially virtual) machines for larger or smaller ones (or add / remove machines from your pool); they will do this without you having to redeploy your workload, in some cases you can do this with no downtime.

    Azure (and other cloud providers) don't just offer pure virtual machines, they also offer virtual components that you can use to build applications with. Components include storage (relational, non-relational tables, basic blob), communication (queues, message routing, load balancing), compute component hosting, web content component hosting, authentication services, etc. By developing a cloud based application, you can worry about your logic and architecture, and not have to worry about deploying and maintaining basic infrastructure services.

    What exactly is a "private cloud" if not a server? What am I missing?

    A private cloud (a real private cloud, not just a single server offering file storage over the Internet) is a set of management tools that takes a pool of hardware and offers it up as logical computing components that can be leveraged by application developers with the goal of being able to develop your applications against a generic model and leaving the hardware and resource allocation and maintenance to the cloud management software (which is typically operated by people other than your development staff.)

  21. Re:What exactly makes a private cloud different fr by silas_moeckel · · Score: 1

    Only if you do it right wich is something very very few places actually do. Making something scale still takes good design.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  22. Local Cloud = Fog by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should be called "fog service", after all, a localized cloud is called fog.

    I know I'd want to run my apps in the fog.

  23. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do you even care which REPLY anyone else but you write ?
    If you had a feeling of fulfillment in your own life you would not care.
    The truth hurts, doesn't it?

    FTFY

  24. This makes no sense... by mark-t · · Score: 2

    To the best of my admittedly limited understanding of the matter, Azure is a cloud storage service that you pay for as you use.... this makes sense when you are using somebody else's resources (Microsoft's), but are we supposed to pay Microsoft now to use our own servers instead?

    Then again, maybe it does make sense... but strikes me as so self-evidently pointless as to defy any sense of reason why Microsoft would expect people to pay for it.

    1. Re:This makes no sense... by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      To the best of my admittedly limited understanding of the matter, Azure is a cloud storage service that you pay for as you use.... this makes sense when you are using somebody else's resources (Microsoft's), but are we supposed to pay Microsoft now to use our own servers instead?

      Then again, maybe it does make sense... but strikes me as so self-evidently pointless as to defy any sense of reason why Microsoft would expect people to pay for it.

      Azure is a cloud service - storage, compute, etc. With this, they can host their own internal Azure cloud.

      Why? Well, perhaps you have enough servers to run your applications normally, so you run it in house and not run up cloud service bills. But if you're coming to a peak period, you can ramp up and deploy to Microsoft's servers, expanding your internal Azure "cloud" easily without modifying the software. Then when it settles down again, you can migrate back off from Microsoft's servers and back top internal hosting, saving time and money.

      And since you've deployed to Azure internally, Microsoft captures you as a client for their services. What? You think you're going to develop for Azure and deploy to AWS?

    2. Re:This makes no sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Azure Stack is free. They want you to use the tech so that one day you may use "real" Azure

    3. Re:This makes no sense... by enjar · · Score: 1
      This actually makes a fair amount of sense for what we do, for a few use cases:
      • For cloud to on-prem: You have something that has started small on Azure but has now grown to the point that your Azure bill is so large that it makes sense to just put it on a local server. You can migrate it to a local server and not have to change any code over. This is assuming that running Azure in-house is significantly less expensive than running it on Azure itself.
      • You have a pile of data that you don't want to move to Azure for $reasons. $reasons might be "data is too big to move", "data should never leave company network", etc. But you could develop using Azure locally and then if it becomes feasible in the future, you move the application and data with no code changes
      • Developing Azure applications, then deploying them to paying customers. If you have on-prem servers and a pile of software development infrastructure (IDEs, regression tests, debugging tools, version control, etc) keeping that stuff local can offer better performance for your dev staff, but then when you put it on Azure you ship the application but you don't need the "extras" behind it
      • Gets foot in the door at customers who are not ready to move to cloud, but whose developers want to use cloud stuff. Or it allows developers to develop for Azure in parallel with security audits and design for Azure, and move when the company is ready. This removes a significant barrier to entry for a lot of organizations that aren't willing to move to Azure just yet, and might be spending a lot of time on security questions -- those projects can now roll in parallel with those discussions, and even if you never go to the cloud you haven't lost anything.
    4. Re:This makes no sense... by LordWabbit2 · · Score: 1

      There are a lot of industries (banks, insurance, betting etc.) who have to keep control of their data. Some of them can move to the cloud, but don't trust the security enough. Then where I live hosting on American servers is SLOW - to the point that we all play on EU or UK servers when playing online games (where we can). I know there is probably an Azure cluster in the EU etc. but the point remains, network speed could be another reason to host your own cloud on your own network backbone. You get all the advantages of the cloud with none of the drawbacks.

      --
      There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
    5. Re:This makes no sense... by mark-t · · Score: 1

      I agree that there are good reasons to host your own cloud, but why would Microsoft expect people to pay for it? To use a metaphor, it seems that instead of selling fish to people and profiting from that, MS is now giving people their own license to freely fish as much as they want or at least have the ability to do.

    6. Re: This makes no sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you need a Windows server license to legally run your software, and you need it for only eight hours a day, five days a week, then you can:
      A) spend a thousand dollars per for server 2016, as CAPEX
      B) spend ~$15/mo, no contract obligation, as OPEX

      That's why. Plus the whole scalability if you need a lot of servers once in while, but usually your pile of old hardware is adequate.

    7. Re:This makes no sense... by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

      Azure is a cloud storage service

      That's about 2% of what Azure is. I'd just say start with Wikipedia, I can't summarize it any better than they do.

  25. Uh, what? by hackel · · Score: 0

    Local cloud servers are just...servers, right? I mean, how is this any different from what Microsoft (software-wise) has done since they launched NT? I don't get it. Obviously people can run their own servers. Are they just talking about some kind of management software on top of people's own hardware? Or are they actually providing the hardware as well? People would still be pretty crazy to risk putting their data on Microsoft products like this. I don't understand how they are even still in business.

    1. Re:Uh, what? by swb · · Score: 1

      I'd guess this is some kind of a management layer that enables portability for Hyper-V workloads between Azure and on-site Hyper-V at a minimum, but maybe it's also some collection of VMs that will also run other Azure services and allows them to migrate to Azure, too.

      I think this is probably a pretty decent idea, personal feelings about Microsoft software not withstanding. I think a lot of people are looking for easy portability of Windows VMs and Microsoft software services between on-premise and cloud.

    2. Re:Uh, what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the point is that it allows you to get the scalability and dynamic resource allocation of cloud, and puts you in a position where later migration to the real cloud is simple.

  26. What exactly makes Antsle different? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://antsle.com/

    Antsle essentially does the same with it being an all-in-one local solution.

  27. What exactly makes SDN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Software Defined Networking is a part of most clouds. Something you're normally not going to see locally.

  28. Language? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What language are you writing in?? Spanglish? Chinglish? Punjabiglish? Pashtunglish? Slavglish? Europeglish??

    1. Re:Language? by bn-7bc · · Score: 1

      Well blem my ADD and english beeing my second languae, tbh my spelling anfd grammar is equlay shit in my first language

  29. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    do it or ur FAKE NEWS!

  30. We called it On-Premises-as-a-Service, or OPaaS by kriston · · Score: 2

    We called it On-Premises-as-a-Service, or OPaaS.

    I shih tsu you not.

    --

    Kriston

    1. Re:We called it On-Premises-as-a-Service, or OPaaS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OPaaS Gangnam Style...

  31. Re:What exactly makes a private cloud different fr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This, Although I haven't RTFA it could have potential especially if it can be centrally managed, seamlessly integrate any products between cloud & on prem, etc.

  32. Even older news: Azure Pack by cshay · · Score: 2

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

    This private Azure technology been around for 4 years. MS deprecated their Web Farm Framework in favor of it.

  33. Not happening, unless... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I could see this working if they brought the equivalent of VMware VSAN into Hyper-V natively for free. The parts are already there in Storage Spaces with their pseudo-RAIDZ. Slap down Azure API endpoints in a docker container and you are halfway there.

    The final kicker would be microsoft slithering their Azure management tentacle in from the cloud side, so you provide the CAPEX on 1U/2U racks and they operate like a managed service provider stepping into your DC. Orchestrating this stuff is painful enough, leave it to Microsoft. Would require some SDN hardware, but teaming up with some whitebox OEM's like Supermicro and Quanta would cover that.

  34. Eucalyptus is already there by bobm · · Score: 1

    This has been around for some time, although more like a - run AWS locally - and it works pretty well.

              https://github.com/eucalyptus

    It's sad that this hasn't taken off more, it's pretty nice to be able to jump back and forth between a private/local bunch of vms and then throw them out on AWS if the need arises. Note that it doesn't have 100% of the AWS functionality but works for my smaller projects.

  35. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PLS DO ET shut him tf up

  36. Re:The year of Linux on the desktop by WallyL · · Score: 1

    with only the token windows server in the mix here and there.

    That sounds difficult! Did you ever try TCP/IP?

  37. This is great, but maybe too late? by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

    I work for a company that is in the heavily-regulated medical industry. 3 years ago we would have jumped on the idea of "local cloud" but now it might be too late.

    3 years ago Microsoft offered to replace many of our servers (physical and VMWare) with Azure and the company basically said "No way, we can't have FDA regulated PHI and corporate secrets in the cloud." Fast forward to today, where the company is moving to all Azure. Our corporate Outlook servers are now Outlook 365, our local "FTP" site has been replaced with OneDrive. Yearly upgrades of Office are now replaced with Office 365.

    Corporate America is slashing IT departments because they overcharged and underdelivered. They charged a fortune for basic email servers and could barely get Microsoft Office installed and working. Azure just made more corporate sense - gut the IT staff and move to the cloud. The theoretical security concerns melted away in the face of saving money and getting better service.

    Where it might still make sense is for companies selling informatics software to other companies in regulated fields. You could offer your software in the cloud, or tell the company they can install their own local Azure and run the software on that. We wanted that 3 years ago and instead basically made our own.