In a significant move, Microsoft has introduced Azure Local, a cloud-connected infrastructure solution that enables organizations to deploy and manage distributed infrastructure at their physical locations. Powered by Azure Arc, Azure Local allows businesses to unify their hybrid, multicloud, and edge infrastructure in Azure, providing a unified approach to cloud resources and distributed locations.

Key Features and Benefits

Azure Local offers a range of features and benefits, including:

• Operate and scale with the power of the cloud: Azure Local enables organizations to treat physical machines like cloud resources, using Azure portal and APIs to perform lifecycle operations like deployment, configuration, updates, and monitoring.
• Flexibility to meet requirements and budget: Azure Local works with over 100 validated hardware platforms, providing flexibility to meet specific requirements and budget constraints.
• Extend cloud security to distributed locations: Azure Local enables organizations to extend cloud security practices to their distributed locations, safeguarding applications and data, and protecting against advanced threats.
• Unified observability: Azure Local integrates natively with Azure Monitor for unified observability across cloud resources and distributed locations, providing a single pane of glass for monitoring and management.
• Support for a wide range of applications: Azure Local includes the foundational Azure compute, networking, storage, and Kubernetes services needed to run all applications, VMs, and containers.

Getting Started with Azure Local

Existing customers of Azure Stack HCI can continue to apply the latest updates to transition seamlessly to Azure Local. New production deployments can explore the solutions catalog to find hardware from their preferred vendor and read the deployment overview to get started today. For evaluation purposes, a dedicated Azure Local sandbox can be obtained with Azure Arc Jumpstart.

Conclusion

Azure Local is a significant addition to the Azure family, providing a unified approach to cloud resources and distributed locations. With its flexibility, scalability, and security features, Azure Local is poised to revolutionize the way organizations deploy and manage distributed infrastructure.

Here is the Azure Local announcement, from the Microsoft Ignite conference, Fall 2024