Microsoft’s Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Solution is Now Available

Microsoft has today announced the availability of Azure Stack for purchase. The company has been running the solution in preview for some time. Azure Stack is Microsoft's cloud platform offering specifically designed for on-premises data centers. The company had previously pledged to deliver the platform by the middle of this year. Azure Stack reached its third technical preview back in March. Over the preview timeframe, Microsoft says customers have shown huge interest in adopting the on-premises offering. At Microsoft Inspire this week, the company will connect Stack with more partners. As part of its announcement today, Microsoft is rolling out the following services to customers:

• Orderable Azure Stack integrated systems: We have delivered  software to our hardware partners, enabling us to begin the certification process for their integrated systems, with the first systems to begin shipping in September. You can now order integrated systems from Dell EMC, HPE, and Lenovo. 
• Azure Stack software pricing and availability: We have released pricing for the pay-as-you-use and capacity-based models today, you can use that information to plan your purchases.
• Development Kit (ASDK) availability: ASDK, the free single-server deployment option for trial purposes, is available for web download today. You can use it to build and validate your applications for integrated systems deployments.

With the platform, organizations can enhance the way they manage IT infrastructure by leveraging the numerous features of Azure. Like Microsoft's full cloud offering, Stack gives customers a self-service portal that can run on privately owned servers.

Building Azure for Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft has been pushing the Stack solution through preview as customers increasingly demand a hybrid cloud product: “As an extension of Azure, Azure Stack will deliver continuous innovation with frequent updates following the initial release. These updates will help us deliver enriched hybrid application use cases, as well as grow the infrastructure footprint of Azure Stack.” The company says the platform delivers a consistent experience with Azure. This allows Azure Stack to remove inconsistencies often found in hybrid cloud solutions. Initially, the platform will come with a core set of Azure services, Azure Marketplace, and DevOps tooling. For a full look at Azure Stack, check out our guide to the new hybrid cloud offering.