In recent years we have all been hearing about cloud transformation. Many organizations already adopt such a strategy, but we still don’t see the large organizations move to all or full cloud strategies.
For some businesses, cloud is a cost saver when they move or run the workload from the cloud. For many other organizations, especially the large ones, an all-cloud strategy is not the best fit. Many things force them to keep and run most of their workload from an on-premises data center. If we look at today’s data centers, we realize that the data center is mostly running on top of a virtualization layer which introduces the basics of the hybrid cloud. Still, running workloads on the cloud will add a complexity layer to the overall manageability of the data center. Some of the challenges are:
Operations & manageability
Imagine an organization running and managing two data centers and how challenging the overall operational cost associated with managing running such an architecture. Probably this organization will need two teams to manage each data center (on-premises and cloud) for the everyday data center tasks. Two teams with two different skill sets. The finance department will need to control and manage the costs of operating such an architecture. I think you have the idea by now.
Not every workload can be a good candidate or compatible to run in the cloud due to security risk, privacy acts and regulations. This forces many organizations to keep this kind of workload running on the on-premises data center which brings us back to the first challenge we already discussed.
Protection
The last challenge for our discussion today is the protection or backup and recovery of data. Running two different workloads on two different deployments will mandate two different protection strategies, again back to challenge point one. But what if you can run one backup product which will help you protect all your types of workload anywhere with cost in mind?
All the above challenges can be solved by adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, particularly Microsoft Azure Stack on-premises. I can’t hide my excitement about the Azure Stack, after deploying the development kit in my lab and playing with it for some time I can see the potential of such a hybrid cloud deployment. My excitement elevated when Veeam announced the support for Azure Stack.
What is Azure Stack
On the Azure Cloud website, Azure Stack is defined as an extension of Azure cloud bringing the agility and fast-paced innovation of cloud computing to on-premises environments. Only Azure Stack lets you deliver Azure services from your organization’s data center, while balancing the right amount of flexibility and control for truly consistent hybrid cloud deployments.
The first edition of Veeam’s support for Azure Stack comes in the form of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows and Veeam Agent for Linux which you can deploy, configure and manage remotely from a centralized console.
As you know, Veeam’s strength is a focus on data recovery diversity, extending Availability for any application, and any data, across any cloud infrastructure. And with Azure Stack, Veeam Agents are designed to securely transfer backups to an on-premises Veeam Backup and Replication server or for that matter to the Azure public cloud.
And for Veeam Cloud and Service providers (VCSPs) who want to provide Azure Stack as a managed/hosted service, the Veeam Availability Console, will enable those service providers to support real-time monitoring and chargeback on tenant usage for Veeam Agents on Azure Stack, allowing them to easily manage and accurately bill their customers for usage.
How Veeam simplifies your Azure Stack hybrid cloud adoption?
With all the cool product features that you are probably already aware of, Veeam can address the challenges we listed above:
Operations & manageability
No more need for two different teams with two different skill sets to manage your hybrid cloud. As the concept and the presentation of Azure Stack is the same as the Azure cloud, one team will be able to manage both clouds seamlessly, which in return will reduce the operational and manageability costs.
Security
Security is one of the most common reasons against adopting cloud strategy. If an organization adopts Azure Stack, it becomes easy to control where each workload will be deployed and run from. And if security requirements change for any workload, that workload can seamlessly be moved between Azure on-premises and cloud. More than workload locality, Veeam’s product will help you implement your security measurements even when you are backing up the workload. Veeam implemented data location tagging where the admin can assign tags to Veeam components and objects for automatic labelling of backup data to provide data sovereignty handling and make sure there are no security breaches even when you back up and store your backup data.
Protection
One product, one interface, one strategy to back up and recover your workload whether it is running on-premises or in the cloud.
Conclusion
At a first glance, Veeam’s integration with Azure Stack looks like an introductory step for a complete integration in the form of installing agents on each virtual machine — yes, I also thought the same during the Veeam Azure Stack announcement. But when you start thinking about hybrid cloud adoption and the benefit this integration introduces to your technical and business teams, you will realize the power of the integration. As this is the first alteration of the integration, we know Veeam always adds more surprises to its products on every release.