- Microsoft Azure Stack HCI operating system is factory installed on all the AX nodes and does not include upfront license cost. The factory install also enables the following Windows features:
- Hyper-V
- Failover Clustering
- FS Data Deduplication
Note: Deduplication is supported but based on your requirement check whether it is necessary or not.
- Bit locker
- Azure Stack HCI licensing is billed monthly like other Azure services and only enabled cores are billed, allowing customers to disable cores in the BIOS to reduce costs. This is a great technique for early cost savings with the ability to enable more compute capability as the node utilization grows.
- Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022 data centers continue to be available on systems (VMs) with Azure Stack HCI experience as a Secondary operating system. Enough licenses should be included to cover all cores configured in the node.