Flexible hyperconverged infrastructure delivered as a hybrid service Azure
Azure Stack HCI is a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) cluster solution that hosts virtualized Windows and Linux workloads and their storage in a hybrid environment combining local infrastructure with cloud Azure services.
Azure Because Stack HCI is designed as a virtualization host, most applications and server roles must run in virtual machines. Exceptions include Hyper-V, the domain controller, and other components required for Software Defined Networking (SDN) or for management and integrity of hosted virtual machines.
Azure Stack HCI is delivered as a service Azure and billed on a subscription basis Azure. Hybrid Services Azure enhances the cluster with features such as cloud based monitoring, Site Recovery and virtual machine backups as well as a centralized view of all your Azure Stack HCI deployments in the Azure portal. You can manage the cluster with your existing tools, namely Windows Admin Center and PowerShell.
Features and architecture Azure Stack HCI
Azure Stack HCI is a high-end integrated virtualization stack built on proven technologies that have already been deployed at scale, including Hyper-V, direct storage and Azure inspired SDN. It is part of the Azure Stack family and uses the same software-defined compute, storage and networking software asAzure Stack Hub.
Each Azure Stack HCI cluster consists of 2 to 16 validated physical servers. The clustered servers share a common configuration and resources by leveraging the failover clustering functionality of Windows Server .
Azure Stack HCI combines the following elements:
- Operating system Azure Stack HCI
- Validated hardware from an OEM partner
- Hybrid services Azure
- Windows Admin Center
- Hyper-V based computing resources
- Virtualised storage based on direct storage spaces
- SDN-based virtualised network using a network controller (optional)
