Companies, start your (hybrid) clouds: Azure Stack's first beta is coming

Microsoft is releasing the first technical preview of its Azure Stack private cloud platform on Friday, which will allow customers to bring capabilities from the Azure public cloud into their own data centers.

Microsoft announced Azure Stack last spring at its Ignite conference, but it didn't offer many details about how the system would work. With this first technical preview, IT professionals and developers with powerful enough hardware will be able to spin up an Azure Stack instance and give it a shot themselves before Microsoft makes it generally available later this year.

Azure Stack is an attempt to bring the utility of Microsoft Azure to customers’ data centers and expand its reach to regions of the globe that Microsoft's cloud service hasn't yet touched. Companies will be able to install it on compatible hardware and then use that to run a private instance of Microsoft Azure, using some of the same tools they’re used to working with in the public cloud. 

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here