Across industries, companies are investing in hybrid and multicloud technologies to ensure they have the flexibility to innovate anywhere and meet evolving business needs. Customers tell us a key challenge with hybrid and multicloud adoption is managing and securing their IT environments while building and running cloud-native applications.
To enable the flexibility and agility customers are seeking to innovate anywhere while providing governance and security, we created Azure Arc—a set of technologies that extends Azure management and services to any infrastructure. Today, we are announcing new Azure Arc innovation that unlocks more scenarios.
Run machine learning anywhere with Azure Arc
Azure Arc enables customers to run Azure services in any Kubernetes environment, whether it’s on-premises, multicloud, or at the edge. The first set of services enabled to run in any Kubernetes environment was Azure data services. We continue to enhance Azure Arc enabled data services based on feedback from customers such as KPMG, Ford, Ferguson, and SKF.
Today, we’re excited to expand Azure Arc enabled services to include Azure Machine Learning. Azure Machine Learning is an enterprise-grade service that enables data scientists and developers to build, deploy, and manage machine learning models. By using Azure Arc to extend machine learning (ML) capabilities to hybrid and multicloud environments, customers can train ML models directly where the data lives using their existing infrastructure investments. This reduces data movement while meeting security and compliance requirements.
Customers can sign up for Azure Arc enabled Machine Learning today and deploy to any Kubernetes cluster. In one click, data scientists can now use familiar tools to build machine learning models consistently and reliably and deploy anywhere.
Build cloud-native applications anywhere, at scale with Azure Arc
More than ever, organizations are building modern applications using Kubernetes containers across cloud, on-premises, and the edge. Last fall, we released Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes in preview to help manage and govern Kubernetes clusters anywhere. Right from the Azure portal, customers can deploy a common set of Kubernetes configurations to their clusters wherever they are, consistently and at scale. Azure Arc also enables developers to centrally code and deploy cloud-native applications securely to any Kubernetes cluster using GitOps. Today, we are announcing Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes is now generally available.
“We are excited to see Microsoft bringing Azure Arc to manage cloud-native applications on any infrastructure. With Azure Arc, we can easily deploy our applications across the cloud and on-premises to meet regulatory and compliance requirements while ensuring consistent management and governance, delivering a huge benefit to our business.” —Martin Sciarrillo, Multicloud Expansion Lead, EY Technology
Use any Kubernetes conformant with CNCF
We are committed to providing customers with choices and supporting their existing Kubernetes investments. Azure Arc is built to work with any cloud native computing foundation (CNCF) conformant Kubernetes distribution. To give customers more confidence, we’ve collaborated with popular Kubernetes distributions including VMware Tanzu and Nutanix Karbon, which join Red Hat OpenShift, Canonical’s Charmed Kubernetes, and Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) to test and validate their implementations with Azure Arc. We look forward to validating more partners in the future.
“VMware believes Kubernetes will become the dial-tone for modern applications. This can only be achieved through a thriving ecosystem that promotes interoperability. By certifying Tanzu Kubernetes Grid with Azure Arc, we’re teaming with Microsoft to help enterprises achieve the full potential of Kubernetes through a consistent experience.” —Craig McLuckie, Vice President, R&D, Modern Applications Business Unit, VMware
“Microsoft and Nutanix are collaborating to let customers manage and govern their on-premises Kubernetes clusters, deployed with Nutanix Karbon, alongside their Azure resources through the common control plane provided by Azure Arc. This integration provides customers with a consistent and reliable hybrid and multicloud solution, extending the Azure experience and Azure PaaS services to Nutanix HCI.”—Thomas Cornely, SVP, Product Portfolio Management, Nutanix
Modernize your datacenter with Azure Stack HCI and Azure Arc
Hyperconverged infrastructure has been an ideal way for organizations to modernize datacenters and deploy key workloads for remote offices and branch offices (ROBO). Azure Stack HCI provides a performant and cost-effective hyperconverged infrastructure solution that can be managed right from Azure. Customers can run Azure services and cloud-native applications on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on Azure Stack HCI. Azure Stack HCI works with multiple systems co-engineered for simplicity and reliability from partners such as Dell, Lenovo, HPE, Fujitsu, and DataON.
“SKF is proud to be at the forefront of the hybrid cloud revolution. Azure Hybrid Cloud Solutions enable us to maximize our efficiency, grow our digital platform for world-class manufacturing, and empower the SKF factories of the future to innovate towards data-driven manufacturing.” —Sven Vollbehr, Head of Digital Manufacturing, SKF Group
We look forward to sharing even more updates on our innovation in hybrid and multicloud at Microsoft Ignite this week!
Learn more about Azure Arc
- Watch the Microsoft Ignite session on innovating across hybrid and multicloud with Azure Arc
- Read more about Azure Arc enabled Machine Learning and sign up to try it
- Review quick start guides, tutorials, and more
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