Private cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack

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Updates and Development

Microsoft has a clear plan as it updates and enhances Azure Stack in relation to the other Azure environments. The public cloud is the top priority. Features and bug fixes can be updated more quickly, because Microsoft has a firm grip on the cloud by collecting user feedback from all over the world; collecting telemetry data on the use, enjoyment, and frustration of features and the Azure portal; and implementing telemetry and suggestions directly into innovations. (See the box "The Customer Is Always Right.")

The Customer Is Always Right

Microsoft also runs a Feedback forum [10] for Azure Stack, where users can post suggestions for changes, improvements, or general feedback and vote on each others' comments. The development team at Microsoft manages the comments and takes into account the wishes of the users. The more votes a proposal receives, the more likely it is to be prioritized by the product team.

Azure Stack will receive updates twice a year to stay current with public Azure environments. As soon as Microsoft provides information about the next release (often referred to as a "Post-GA update"), it will appear on the official Azure Stack Roadmap [9]. At the time of print, version 1.0 (i.e., the GA release), update 1802, is current. Owners of Azure Stack are allowed to skip a version, but must install the next update to continue receiving Microsoft support. The IT manager can't wait too long to install updates, because the complete toolset for administration and usage is also updated. In the worst case, the consistency and concurrency of Azure Stack with Azure is lost.

For the development of applications, it is worth taking a look at the versioning of resources, because not all Azure versions of storage functions, VM extensions, and scaling definitions make it to Azure Stack. For this reason, all Azure resources are assigned a version number, which you can read with a PowerShell command for both Azure and Azure Stack:

> Get-AzureRmResourceProvider | Select ProviderNamespace -Expand ResourceTypes | Select * -Expand ApiVersions | Select ProviderNamespace, ResourceTypeName, @{Name="ApiVersion"; Expression={$_}}

Conclusions

With Azure Stack, Microsoft wants to offer more than just a platform for the private or hybrid cloud. With the "cloud as a model," Microsoft has learned from the past: If the integration of developer tools, test routines, rollout procedures, and processes does not work, customers will not migrate because of the high costs. Azure Stack tries to avoid this problem. As a small, albeit currently limited, Azure for your own data center, the focus is on integration and consistency of all available tools, which are also available for the public Azure; therefore, it is highly interesting for IT managers who want to take a closer look at Azure and support development, testing, and offline scenarios in a highly integrated way.

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