Metered Usage for Azure Stack Infrastructure
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 00:00:00 -0000
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Metered Usage for Azure Stack Infrastructure
When it comes to building modern applications and adopting a cloud operating model, Azure Stack is an extension of Azure. While the primary focus is the ability to develop and run Azure services in a Hybrid Environment, Microsoft has also brought the Azure economic model to Azure Stack with usage-based billing. At Dell EMC, our goal is to complete that experience by providing a metered usage consumption offering for the Dell EMC Cloud on Microsoft Azure Stack. Now with the recent introduction of Flex on Demand from Dell Financial Services (DFS), you have the option to pay for your Azure Stack Infrastructure based on the usage data from your Azure Stack Usage API Endpoint.
Capacity Planning and Flex capacity
An important consideration for many of our Hybrid Cloud customers is the ability to scale applications and services rapidly. This could apply to the ability to accommodate bursty workloads as well as scenarios where you see rapid growth yet keep some buffer capacity to cushion the impact of that growth. Our goal at Dell EMC is to provide you with the business model that accommodates both options softening the impact of time related to capacity planning.
Usage based billing consistent with Cloud Economics
Most of target personas for Hybrid cloud are focused on the application developer or the IT operator. As Hybrid Cloud adoption grows, a company’s finance, accounting along with procurement stakeholders are realizing the benefits of cloud economics. Eliminating the need to manage un-planned capital expenses, while benefiting from procurement of equipment as a service enables you to simplify accounting, free up cash flow and make procurement of new services more streamlined.
With Flex on Demand from DFS, consistent with Azure, your infrastructure charges are tied to usage and aligns with the OPEX type consumption models that customers desire. You pay Dell EMC for the services you consume plus a pre-negotiated fixed cost monthly. This covers the usage costs associated with the Hardware, Lifecycle Management SW and Maintenance while you continue to pay your subscription costs to Microsoft for the Azure Services running on Azure Stack.
Meters consistent with Azure
While metered service is a key tenet of Cloud computing, picking the right resources and meters is equally important. In discussing options with our customers, the consistency with Azure and the Cost transparency were highlighted as key goals. In keeping with the notion that Azure Stack is an extension of Azure, we applied a similar approach to the usage measurements and billing of the Azure Stack Infrastructure.
To do this, we extract and report back the per-subscription resources leveraging the usage API endpoints from Azure Stack Provider Resource API. Consistent with Azure Stack, we measure the VM Hours and capture the VM Type. From this data, we compute the resource consumption. Based on the Scale Unit Type (Balanced/All Flash), we then assign a rate and a bill is generated.
Whether you are looking for a financial model consistent with Azure or looking to keep some buffer capacity to accommodate growth, working with Dell Financial Services, we are delighted to bring this Measured Service capability to the full stack and in a way completing the final piece of the Hybrid cloud puzzle. For more information you can go to Flex On Demand from DFS.
Related Blog Posts
Azure Stack with PowerScale
Tue, 04 Aug 2020 14:52:59 -0000
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Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack Hub has been at the forefront in bringing Azure to customer datacenters, enabling customers to operate their own region of Azure in a secure environment that addresses their data sovereignty and performance needs.
As data growth explodes at the edge, many of our customers are looking to process PB scale data in the context of file, image/video processing, analytics, simulation, and learning. With Azure Stack Hub, built on hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), the need for external storage to handle this growth in data was critical. Additionally, for applications that use file storage with CIFS/NFS today, Azure files storage service is currently not supported.
As we set out to identify the right storage subsystem that met our customers’ needs (with performance, multi-tenancy, multi-petabyte scale-out storage, and advanced data management features), we did not have to look far. Dell Technologies has a large product portfolio that enables us not only to integrate with other infrastructures but to innovate in other areas to deliver the Azure consistent experience our customers expect.
With newly announced Azure Stack Hub integration with Dell EMC PowerScale, customers can run their Azure IaaS and PaaS on-premises while connecting to data that is generated and stored locally. In the context of Azure consistency, depending on your application needs, there are two ways to consume this storage.
- Azure Consistent Storage (ACS): Applications that are using Azure Block Blob storage
- Integrated NAS (File Storage): NFS and CIFS
Here are some highlights about the choices and differences:
Regardless of your protocol of choice, you have two personas engaged:
- The Azure Stack Hub Cloud administrator (screen below) is responsible for creating offers, quotas, and plans to offer the underlying storage, via subscriptions, to Azure tenants.
- The Azure Stack tenant can consume storage and be metered and billed consistent with other Azure Services. All of this, without having to manage anything in PowerScale.
With this strategy, our customers can tap into external PB storage to consume Azure Block Blob or Files via CIFS/NFS while maintaining the Azure consistent experience. Additionally, for customers looking to keep their applications in the public cloud while maintaining their data on-premises, Dell Technologies Cloud PowerScale extends OneFS running on-prem to Azure.
To read more about it, see this solution brief:
Dell Technologies Cloud PowerScale: Microsoft Azure
With the work Dell Technologies has been doing with Azure and Azure Stack Hub, your data is secure and compliant. You also have the choice to run your application in Azure or Azure Stack Hub and connect to your on-prem data without sacrificing bandwidth or latency.
Dell Hybrid Management: Azure Policies for HCI Compliance and Remediation
Mon, 30 May 2022 14:13:15 -0000
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Dell Hybrid Management: Azure Policies for HCI Compliance and Remediation
Companies that take an “Azure hybrid first” strategy are making a wise and future-proof decision by consolidating the advantages of both worlds—public and private—into a single entity.
Sounds like the perfect plan, but a key consideration for these environments to work together seamlessly is true hybrid configuration consistency.
A major challenge in the past was having the same level of configuration rules concurrently in Azure and on-premises. This required different tools and a lot of costly manual interventions (subject to human error) that resulted, usually, in potential risks caused by configuration drift.
But those days are over.
We are happy to introduce Dell HCI Configuration Profile (HCP) Policies for Azure, a revolutionary and crucial differentiator for Azure hybrid configuration compliance.
Figure 1: Dell Hybrid Management with Windows Admin Center (local) and Azure/Azure Arc (public)
So, what is it? How does it work? What value does it provide?
Dell HCP Policies for Azure is our latest development for Dell OpenManage Integration with Windows Admin Center (OMIMSWAC). With it, we can now integrate Dell HCP policy definitions into Azure Policy. Dell HCP is the specification that captures the best practices and recommended configurations for Azure Stack HCI and Windows-based HCI solutions from Dell to achieve better resiliency and performance with Dell HCI solutions.
The HCP Policies feature functions at the cluster level and is supported for clusters that are running Azure Stack HCI OS (21H2) and pre-enabled for Windows Server 2022 clusters.
IT admins can manage Azure Stack HCI environments through two different approaches:
- At-scale through the Azure portal using the Azure Arc portfolio of technologies
- Locally on-premises using Windows Admin Center
Figure 2: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - onboarding Dell HCI Configuration Profile
By using a single Dell HCP policy definition, both options provide a seamless and consistent management experience.
Running Check Compliance automatically compares the recommended rules packaged together in the Dell HCP policy definitions with the settings on the running integrated system. These rules include configurations that address the hardware, cluster symmetry, cluster operations, and security.
Figure 3: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - HCP policy compliance
Dell HCP Policy Summary provides the compliance status of four policy categories:
- Dell Infrastructure Lock Policy - Indicates enhanced security compliance to protect against unintentional changes to infrastructure
- Dell Hardware Configuration Policy - Indicates compliance with Dell recommended BIOS, iDRAC, firmware, and driver settings that improve cluster resiliency and performance
- Dell Hardware Symmetry Policy - Indicates compliance with integrated-system validated components on the support matrix and best practices recommended by Dell and Microsoft
- Dell OS Configuration Policy - Indicates compliance with Dell recommended operating system and cluster configurations
Figure 4: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - HCP Policy Summary
To re-align non-compliant policies with the best practices validated by Dell Engineering, our Dell HCP policy remediation integration with WAC (unique at the moment) helps to fix any non-compliant errors. Simply click “Fix Compliance.”
Figure 5: Dell HCP Policies for Azure - HCP policy remediation
Some fixes may require manual intervention; others can be corrected in a fully automated manner using the Cluster-Aware Updating framework.
Conclusion
The “Azure hybrid first” strategy is real today. You can use Dell HCP Policies for Azure, which provides a single-policy definition with Dell HCI Configuration Profile and a consistent hybrid management experience, whether you use Dell OMIMSWAC for local management or Azure Portal for management at-scale.
With Dell HCP Policies for Azure, policy compliance and remediation are fully covered for Azure and Azure Stack HCI hybrid environments.
You can see Dell HCP Policies for Azure in action at the interactive Dell Demo Center.
Thanks for reading!
Author: Ignacio Borrero, Dell Senior Principal Engineer CI & HCI, Technical Marketing
Twitter: @virtualpeli