Azure Local and its Impact on IT Operations and Infrastructure

Microsoft recently released Azure Local, a way to provision, manage, and monitor resources on-premises using the same portal and tools as in Azure.  This enables organizations to use the same tools and processes for deploying and managing workloads in the cloud and on-prem.  From a budgeting perspective, consumption-based pricing allows billing for resources as they are used or deployed, converting spend to OpEx rather than CapEx.  Adding in Azure Arc, existing physical servers and VMs can be managed using the same Azure platform, helping to mitigate and remove tech debt.  Beyond just virtual machines, other workloads such as Docker containers can be run locally with built-in Kubernetes services.  

As organizations continue their cloud journey, there are several considerations that lead to keeping some workloads on-prem.  Some of these include regulatory/compliance concerns, hardware dependencies such as peripherals, or latency/bandwidth needs.  These workloads are often manually provisioned or managed by administration tools that are geared to manage only on-prem workloads.  Meanwhile, their cloud counterparts are benefiting from ease of deployment via a user interface, templatization, and API calls from system management software.  Azure Local allows companies to leverage those same cloud tools for their on-prem workloads.  This simplifies IT Operations by having fewer tools to contend with, and a single pane of glass for management and monitoring.  

Budgeting has typically been a challenge when it comes to software and hardware lifecycle management.  Operating system licenses are typically purchased at the same time as server hardware, leading to operating systems falling out of date as the underlying hardware ages.  The cost of purchasing new servers, hypervisor management licenses, and operating system licenses can become a large capital expenditure for organizations.  Moving to Azure Local allows organizations to have consistent monthly billing based on what’s consumed.  The platform can stay up to date regardless of the hardware lifecycle. 

Many organizations still have a small number of physical servers.  This can be due to peripheral requirements, such as USB or PCIe devices, or capacity/performance needs that would be difficult to virtualize.  Enrolling these devices in Azure Arc enables the same central management of these systems as their Azure and Azure Local counterparts.  Many of these same systems struggle with technical debt in the form of older operating systems to support the additional hardware they run.  Azure Arc has an optional extended security update service that can help keep organizations secure until these workloads can be migrated to current hardware and operating systems.    

When we think about local workloads and cloud, virtual machines typically come to mind.  However, more and more workloads are being containerized, and some of those may need to be run on-prem.  Rather than building and maintaining a Kubernetes cluster, Azure Local provides the infrastructure to run containers on local hardware.  As these workloads become more common, IT teams can deploy them at greater speed to help meet business needs.    

These are just some of the benefits of running Azure Local.  It’s a platform that allows IT teams to focus on delivering services to users and the business rather than focusing on the underlying infrastructure.  It can also help mitigate technical debt and manage legacy workloads.  With implementations starting at just a single host, organizations should give it a try and see the benefits for themselves.