As digital transformation pushes into greater depths, enterprises will further use agile IT systems to improve customer experience, share the benefits brought by the digital transformation with stakeholders, and explore and utilize the development opportunities in new markets. On future-facing IT platforms, hybrid cloud will become the new engine driving enterprise digital transformation. At CEBIT 2018, Huawei and Microsoft released the hybrid cloud solution based on Microsoft Azure Stack, which is positioned to help enterprise IT systems transform to hybrid clouds. Recently, Huawei held two technical forums in Shenzhen and Jinan on the Huawei Azure Stack hybrid cloud solution, aiming to demonstrate the features and advantages of the Huawei Azure Stack hybrid cloud solution to customers and channel partners.

What Is Azure Stack?

Azure Stack is an extension of the Microsoft Azure public cloud. Azure Stack provides the same application models, self-services, and APIs as the Azure public cloud. Leveraging the same architecture, Azure Stack natively supports the rich resources and innovative services of the Azure public cloud to be deployed locally. This addresses the connection problems as well as the customer concerns about critical data security caused by the inconsistency between the public cloud and private cloud architectures, and effectively catalyzes the process of digital transformation.

In the Huawei Azure Stack hybrid cloud solution, Huawei provides the new-generation FusionServer V5 servers powered by Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors and Huawei CloudEngine switches. The server supports up to 16 data disks and works with Huawei high-performance NVMe SSDs to cache data, improving the overall performance of the solution. The switch provides a 10GE/25GE unified switching network to implement a low-latency, lossless, and connect-once deployment mode, reducing the number of interface cards, connections, and ports. In addition, Huawei eSight management software provides efficient and unified management for the servers and switches. eSight integrates a Fault Diagnosis and Management (FDM) mechanism to provide an intelligent fault diagnostics system. FDM automatically diagnoses and analyzes faults related to components such as CPUs, memory modules, and PCIe cards, and provides handling solutions, giving the overall O&M efficiency a boost.

Azure Stack Application Scenarios

Edge and Disconnected Environments

Imagine your system cannot stay connected to the Internet all the time? This will not be a problem at all with Azure Stack. The Azure environment on the Internet and the Azure Stack in the offline environment use the common application logic. When there is no network connectivity, you can use Azure Stack to process data locally. After the network is connected, you can then aggregate the Azure Stack data to the Azure for further analysis. This perfectly solves the delay and network connectivity problems. The following scenarios may have discontinuous network connections: ship fleets, container freights, factory workshops, submarines, racing cars, retail outlets, wind turbines, and oil and gas drilling platforms. Azure Stack is an ideal option for deploying private clouds in such scenarios.

Cloud Applications Meeting Various Regulations

According to the supervision requirements of each country or region, the same application may be deployed in different ways. Applications that have been completely developed in Azure can be flexibly deployed in local environments through Azure Stack in compliance with regulatory or policy requirements without changing the code.

Cloud Application Models Implemented Locally

Azure Stack has a modernized agile architecture and provides various applications, such as: Azure application services (mobile applications, web applications, and API applications), Cloud Foundry (open source), Mesos (DC OS), Azure Functions serverless computing, and Azure Service Fabric microservices. Users can use Azure Stack to develop applications locally and use the same programming models, skills, and processes as Azure. After the applications are evaluated as viable for the public cloud, users can quickly migrate the applications to Azure without changing the code, meeting the quick release requirements of applications.

Leveraging Huawei’s leading competitiveness in server hardware and Microsoft’s professional software capabilities, the Huawei Azure Stack hybrid cloud solution will help customers better implement their hybrid cloud strategies and gain advantages in agility, elasticity, and efficiency brought by cloud technologies while ensuring solid security of critical data. Huawei provides high-performance and easy-to-manage computing solutions to continuously improve computing efficiency and agility, provide innovative computing products and solutions for customers, and help customers accelerate digital transformation.

(Contributed by Wang Chao, IT Product Line)

The post Intelligent Computing Supernova, Huawei Azure Stack Hybrid Cloud Solution appeared first on Huawei Enterprise Blog.

Source: Huawei Enterprise Blog
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