Microsoft sets guidelines for private cloud

BERLIN, GERMANY: Just two weeks after announcing major updates to Windows Azure, at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft Corp. recently unveiled Hyper-V Cloud, a set of programmes and offerings to build private cloud infrastructures using Windows Server platform.

Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft’s server platform, already delivers virtualization and management capabilities through Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

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“Many of our customers have told us they want the benefits of cloud-computing – fast deployment, increased agility, lower costs – but with tight control over things like physical infrastructure and security policies,” said Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Management and Security Division. “Our new private cloud offerings fulfill that need at the infrastructure level, while providing a clear migration path to cloud services at the platform level.”

Microsoft has also enhanced its Azure cloud service by giving customers the ability to launch and control Hyper-V based virtual machines and SQL Server instances. These two options were not available in earlier editions.

With the new Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program, Microsoft and its partners will deliver a broad choice of predefined, validated configurations for private cloud deployments, comprising compute, storage, networking resources, virtualization and management software.

Dell Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., HP, IBM Corp. and NEC Corp. have already signed on as Hyper-V Cloud partners.