Microsoft has launched the public preview of Azure Stack, something that has been in TAP for several months now. You can find the download on MSDN right now.
This is the first time that you can run services in Azure, a hosting partner, or on premises … with the same consistent experience. ARM (Azure Resource Manager) is at the heart of that consistency. On prem, you get Azure Stack (without requiring System Center) which integrates into resource providers for storage networking, etc in WS2016. Hyper-V, storage accounts, and the network fabric (Network Controller) are all in WS2016.
I’ve been told by folks in the TAP that MAS is gooood, and much easier to deploy than Windows Azure Pack (WAPack).
I doubt I’ll ever see MAS on any of my customers’ sites, but this is still a big day. And it puts Microsoft in a unique position ahead of VMware (the failed vCloud Air), Amazon and Google (public cloud only).
Looks good but tough to find some spare kit to test it out on with those sysreqs!
Aidan, any idea when the final version will be available? Are we talking months or years?
I suspect months. Maybe as soon as September.
You can edit the powershell code to run it on lesser hardware. I installed on an i7 with 32gb of ram. Its a little slow though.
Aidan, are you aware of any guides to building just the networking vms? I think I could make a cool low cost lab for students studying the MCSA.