Today marked the announcement of Windows Server 2016 general availability, another milestone in Microsoft’s commitment to hybrid cloud. You can start using Windows Server 2016 today with the availability of Windows Server 2016 images in the Azure Marketplace.

Hybrid cloud is the reality for all enterprise customers we work with, even those with the most ambitious cloud plans. Some applications should and will move quickly to public cloud, while others face technological and regulatory obstacles.  As such, we’ve built-in hybrid capabilities across the Microsoft portfolio, covering data, identity, management, applications, and the infrastructure platform overall.

Figure 1: Hybrid cloud capabilities built-in across Microsoft products and services

True hybrid cloud enablement goes beyond connectivity and provides consistency. Great network connectivity and the ability to “lift and shift” virtual machines are basic requirements. Consistency goes a step further, providing IT professional, developer, and end user experiences that don’t change based on the location of the resource. Consistency across a hybrid cloud environment enables uniform development, unified dev-ops and management, common identity and security, and seamless extension of existing applications to the cloud. Consistent hybrid cloud helps customers execute on their cloud strategy faster, in a way that makes the most sense for their business.

Read more about Microsoft’s Hybrid Cloud and Windows Server 2016.