Azure Local : A Game-Changer in Hybrid Cloud Integration
At Microsoft Ignite 2024, Microsoft announced Azure Local, a revolutionary hybrid cloud solution that brings the power and scalability of Azure Cloud to your on-premises infrastructure.
Azure Local allows organizations to seamlessly extend Azure’s flexibility, security, and scalability into their distributed environments, simplifying management and reducing costs.
What is Azure Local ?
Azure Local is a hybrid cloud solution that allows businesses to run Azure Cloud services on their own on-prem hardware. Whether you’re in a regulated industry, have budget constraints, or need more control over infrastructure, Azure Local integrates seamlessly with your existing environment, offering full lifecycle management via the Azure portal and APIs.
Why Azure Local is a Game Changer
Azure Local tackles the complex challenge of hybrid cloud integration by offering a unified solution for managing both on-premises and cloud resources. It provides the flexibility to Deploy,Scale, Secure, and Monitor infrastructure from a single interface. Whether you’re handling sensitive data, facing budget constraints, or seeking a more efficient cloud solution, Azure Local offers the tools to transform your hybrid cloud strategy.
Key Features of Azure Local
1. Disconnected Operations
The simplest way to use Azure Local is connected to the Azure cloud. However, for organizations that cannot maintain continuous cloud connectivity due to regulatory or other constraints, Azure Local now offers disconnected operations.
This feature allows you to manage infrastructure locally by hosting the backend Azure portal, Azure Resource Manager, and Azure services (like Key Vault) within your own environment, packaged as a VM appliance.
This ensures you have the same operational experience without the need for a connection to an Azure region.
2. Low-Cost Edge Solutions
With Azure Local, you can choose hardware from a wide variety of over 100 validated platforms, including leading vendors. This ensures you have the flexibility and scalability to meet your specific needs (Explore solutions catalog).
This broad selection allows you to tailor your infrastructure for optimal scalability, performance, and cost-effectiveness. Whether you need high-end performance or budget-friendly solutions, Azure Local offers a range of hardware and software options, empowering you to build the perfect solution for your business.
3. Security by Default
Azure Local is designed with Azure’s security baseline, ensuring a hardened infrastructure security posture by default. Key security features include:
- Secured-Core settings are automatically applied.
- Data encryption is enabled by default.
- Application control is enforced to protect critical assets.
Machines configured for Azure Local comply with Azure’s security baseline and offering enhanced security compared to general-purpose servers.
4. Local Identity Management
Azure Local also works with or without Active Directory. If you’d prefer not to manage an on-premises Active Directory, choose the new Local identity option that uses local accounts and certificates to achieve all the same functionality as when your infrastructure is AD-joined, like VM live migration. In this option, Azure Local uses Azure Key Vault to back up your local secrets and recovery keys.
5. Simple Migration
With Azure Local, you can seamlessly migrate VMs to your new infrastructure using Azure Migrate. Leveraging the same Azure portal and APIs as cloud region migrations, you can copy and convert your VMDKs to Azure Local VMs entirely on-site, with only metadata being transmitted to the cloud. This allows for a smooth transition while minimizing cloud data transfer.
6. PaaS Services Locally
This foundation enables many Paas Azure services to work with Azure Local, including app services, data services, and AI services, e.g: SQL Managed Instance.
7. One-Click Infrastructure Updates
No more worrying about updates across multiple nodes. Azure Local enables a simple, one-click update feature that applies to the entire infrastructure stack, ensuring consistency and minimizing disruption.
Azure Local simplifies updates with a unified monthly package that covers the entire infrastructure stack, including OEM content like drivers and firmware for Premier solutions.
You can easily view and manage updates directly through Azure Update Manager. With just a few clicks, you can apply updates to one or multiple Azure Local instances. Behind the scenes, Azure Local ensures updates are non-disruptive by orchestrating workload migrations and updating each physical machine in sequence, keeping your systems running smoothly.
8. Centralized Monitoring with Azure Monitor
Azure Local integrates natively with Azure Monitor, enabling you to centrally manage and monitor all resources, whether on-prem or in the cloud.
It provides metrics, insights, and alerts for VMs, Kubernetes clusters, and infrastructure, with customizable data collection and visualizations.