Microsoft Announced Turnkey Windows Azure Appliance

At Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft today introduced a Windows Azure platform appliance, the first turnkey cloud services platform for deployment in customer and service provider datacenters. Dell Inc., eBay Inc., Fujitsu Ltd. and HP are early adopters of a limited production release of the appliance.

Bob Muglia, president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft, outlined how Microsoft provides a comprehensive and integrated service and server platform that allows customers and partners to deploy clouds when and where they want. The Windows Azure platform offers a standardized service platform; the customizable Windows Server platform lets customers and partners build public and private clouds that leverage existing investments with maximum flexibility.

“Microsoft is the first and only company that offers customers and partners a full range of cloud capabilities and the flexibility to deploy these services where and how they wish — whether that is with Microsoft, a service provider, in a customer datacenter or a combination of all three,” Muglia said. “Today’s introduction of the Windows Azure platform appliance ushers in a new era of cloud computing, and we are looking forward to working with our partners to bring all the benefits of the appliance to our customers and the business technology industry.”

The new Windows Azure platform appliance combines Windows Azure and Microsoft SQL Azure with Microsoft-specified hardware, enabling on-demand IT capacity and faster delivery of new applications. Large enterprises and service provider partners deploying the appliance in their datacenters will have the benefits of the cloud services that Microsoft offers today, while maintaining physical control of location, regulatory compliance and data. In addition, Muglia disclosed new details regarding Microsoft code name “Dallas,” an information service powered by the Windows Azure platform that provides developers and information workers access to third-party premium data sets and Web services.

Muglia also elaborated on several new enhancements to the Microsoft server platform that make it easier for customers and partners to build cloud solutions, including the Release Candidate of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self Service Portal 2.0. The company also introduced the Microsoft Management and Virtualization Solution Incentive and the Private Cloud Deployment Kit, which offers financial rewards and guidance to partners as they build virtualization and private cloud solutions. More information is available at https://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog.

You can read our press release and watch the keynote here.

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation

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