Windows Azure is already sold in boxes

Though there is a big deal of debates around the "private cloud" term (if it's correct to call own data center, optimized with virtualization technology, a "cloud") - no one can deny that these things called "private cloud" are already selling well. The fact is that many companies are still not ready to move their IT infrastructures to public cloud platforms like Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure. But when they are told that "you can take the advantage of Cloud Computing (cost-efficiency, scalability) without any risk for data security, because the cloud will be locked in your office" - they like this. Obviously, private clouds are the necessary intermediate stage of transition companies to "real clouds" and cloud providers have to take a step back so that the process started. So it was with Microsoft.

Their cloud platform Windows Azure is not very successful. At the moment this service is used only by 10,000 companies (including those that host their sites on Azure). Meanwhile, Microsoft's competitors - IBM and Cisco with VMWare earn money by selling "private clouds".

Today, Microsoft unveiled the Azure Platform Appliance - the cloud platform in a box, which can be installed in own data center. In addition to a strategic partner HP, Microsoft partnered with Dell, and Fujitsu that provide hardware for these boxes. It is interesting that Microsoft decided to deliver boxes, but not a software solution based on Windows Azure and Hyper-V virtualization (which could be deployed on the existing data center hardware). Because the software solution would become a competitor for its own Windows Server.

See also: Top 10 Private Cloud platforms