Azure Stack Hub vs HCI: A Comprehensive Comparison Guide

As we dive into the world of Azure Stack Hub and HCI, it's essential to understand the core differences between these two technologies. Azure Stack Hub is a hybrid cloud platform that brings Azure services to on-premises environments, allowing for seamless integration with the cloud.

Azure Stack Hub is built on the same architecture as Azure, ensuring that applications and services run consistently across both environments. This consistency is a significant advantage for businesses that want to maintain a hybrid cloud strategy.

One key benefit of Azure Stack Hub is its ability to support a wide range of workloads, including virtual machines, containers, and serverless computing. This flexibility makes it an attractive option for organizations with diverse IT needs.

In contrast, HCI (Hyper-Converged Infrastructure) is a type of infrastructure that converges compute, storage, and networking resources into a single system.

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Azure Stack Hub and Azure Stack HCI both offer unique features that cater to different needs. Azure Stack Hub integrated systems are comprised of 4-16 servers built by trusted hardware partners and delivered straight to your datacenter.

Azure Stack Hub is built on industry-standard hardware and managed using the same tools as Azure subscriptions, allowing for consistent DevOps processes. This means you can apply the same management processes whether you're connected to Azure or not.

Azure Stack HCI is a hyperconverged infrastructure solution that integrates with Azure for services like cloud-based backup, recovery, and monitoring. It's focused on being the best virtualization host, using Microsoft-validated hardware for optimal performance and reliability.

Here are the key features of Azure Stack Hub and Azure Stack HCI:

Azure Stack Hub's architecture is built on industry standard hardware, making it a reliable choice for your datacenter.

This means you can expect a consistent performance from your Azure Stack Hub solution, without worrying about proprietary hardware limitations.

The integrated system is comprised of 4-16 servers, which are delivered straight to your datacenter by trusted hardware partners.

A solution provider will work with you to deploy the integrated system and ensure it meets your business requirements.

A unique perspective: Azure Vmware Services

You'll need to prepare your datacenter by ensuring all required power and cooling, border connectivity, and other required datacenter integration requirements are in place.

Azure Stack Hub is managed using the same tools you already use for managing Azure subscriptions, making it easy to apply consistent DevOps processes.

This flexibility is especially useful for remote locations or intermittent connectivity, where you can provide Azure services at the edge and process data locally in Azure Stack Hub.

Foundational resource providers are the building blocks of Azure Stack Hub IaaS and PaaS services. They form the foundation for all Azure Stack Hub services and are relied upon by Azure Resource Manager.

The Compute Resource Provider is one of these foundational providers, allowing tenants to create their own VMs, including VM extensions. This enables IaaS capabilities for both Windows and Linux VMs.

The Network Resource Provider delivers a series of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) features for the private cloud. It enables the creation of resources like software load balancers, public IPs, network security groups, and virtual networks.

A unique perspective: Azure Subscription vs Resource Group

The Storage Resource Provider delivers four Azure-consistent storage services: blob, queue, table, and Key Vault account management. This provides management and auditing of secrets, such as passwords and certificates.

Here are the three foundational IaaS resource providers:

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a game-changer for businesses, especially those with remote sites. Azure Stack HCI is a great example of this technology in action.

Azure Stack HCI utilizes a hyper converged infrastructure architecture to run Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) workloads on-premises. This allows businesses to deploy virtualized workloads based on Hyper-V that can be controlled using Windows Admin center.

Azure Stack HCI is designed to be self-sufficient, functioning independently from the Azure cloud just like a standalone server or data center solution. It's essentially a self-sufficient compute cluster that provides compute and software-defined storage.

Azure Stack HCI is ideal for remote site management, and its use cases include branch office and edge sites, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), and high performance Microsoft SQL Server. It's also great for trusted enterprise virtualization and scale out storage.

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Here are some of the key benefits of Azure Stack HCI:

Azure Stack HCI's ability to host Azure Kubernetes Service is a notable feature, enabling customers to easily leverage container services via Azure Stack on-premises. It's also worth noting that Azure Stack HCI can deploy and consume various other services, such as container workloads and PaaS solutions on Azure.

Consider reading: Azure Kubernetes Service vs Azure Container Apps

Azure Stack Hub is a hybrid cloud solution that offers flexibility and control, allowing you to innovate from the cloud. An Azure Stack Hub integrated system can range in size from 4-16 servers, called a scale unit.

You can manage Azure Stack Hub using the administrator portal, user portal, or PowerShell, with the administrator portal being the primary tool for operators. This portal is backed by a separate instance of Azure Resource Manager.

As an Azure Stack Hub operator, you can deliver VMs, web apps, highly available SQL Server, and MySQL Server databases, and manage capacity and respond to alerts. Tenant users can subscribe to multiple offers, and offers can have one or more plans, and plans can have one or more services.

Take a look at this: Azure Sql Database vs Sql Server

When deploying Azure Stack Hub, you have two connection models to choose from: connected and disconnected.

A connected deployment model allows you to deploy Azure Stack Hub with internet access, enabling you to take advantage of Azure services and updates. This model is ideal for environments that require seamless integration with Azure.

You can deploy Azure Stack Hub disconnected from the internet, which is suitable for environments with limited or no internet connectivity. For more information, see the considerations for connected and disconnected deployment models.

Azure Stack Hub relies on an identity provider to manage user access and authentication. Microsoft Entra ID is a cloud-based, multi-tenant identity provider that's commonly used in hybrid scenarios with internet-connected deployments.

For most hybrid scenarios, Microsoft Entra ID serves as the identity store. This allows for seamless integration with Azure Stack Hub resource providers and other apps.

In disconnected deployments, however, you'll need to use Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) as the identity provider. AD FS is specifically designed for use in offline environments.

Azure Stack Hub includes its own Active Directory instance and an Active Directory Graph API, which work similarly with AD FS or Microsoft Entra ID. This ensures that user authentication and access are managed consistently across the platform.

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Azure Stack Hub uses the same operations model as Azure, allowing operators to deliver a variety of services and apps to tenant users.

You can manage Azure Stack Hub with the administrator portal, user portal, or PowerShell, each backed by separate instances of Azure Resource Manager.

The administrator portal is used by operators to manage Azure Stack Hub, create tenant offerings, and maintain the health and monitor status of the integrated system.

Operators can also manage capacity and respond to alerts using the administrator portal or PowerShell.

Tenant users can subscribe to multiple offers, which can have one or more plans, and plans can have one or more services.

Users can provision, monitor, and manage services that they've subscribed to, like web apps, storage, and VMs, using the user portal or PowerShell.

To learn more about managing Azure Stack Hub, review Azure Stack Hub administration basics.

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Azure Stack Hub integrated systems can range in size from 4-16 servers, called a scale unit, and are jointly supported by the hardware partner and Microsoft.

You have flexibility and control with Azure Stack Hub, along with the ability to innovate from the cloud.

Azure Stack Hub allocates and handles storage capacity automatically, so you don’t have to make configuration decisions.

The Stack Hub infrastructure ensures these decisions align with your solution’s requirements, considering resiliency.

An operator can choose between two storage configurations: all flash or hybrid.

Azure Stack Hub supports a subset of the VM sizes available on Azure, with resource limits to prevent overconsumption.

Bandwidth limits govern networking egress (outbound data transfer) from VMs.

Azure Stack Hub’s placement engine distributes tenants (VMs) across multiple hosts to ensure high availability.

VM placement involves two considerations: whether the host has sufficient memory for the VM, and whether the VMs are part of a scale set or availability set.

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Azure Stack Hub is an extension of Azure that brings the agility and innovation of cloud computing to your on-premises environment.

Azure Stack Hub operates under the customer's control, offering IaaS, PaaS, and optional SaaS capabilities, which include Azure VMs, Azure Web Apps, and Azure Key Vault among others.

Azure Stack Hub extends Azure services to customer data centers and lets applications run on-premises, addressing latency issues by running workloads completely or partially disconnected from the internet and public cloud.

Azure Stack Hub is built on top of Azure Stack HCI, and almost all Azure services in the public cloud are available on Azure Stack Hub.

You can access these services through the Azure console or PowerShell.

Azure Stack Hub utilizes IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) with Azure Virtual Machines, which supports DevOps methodologies, including infrastructure as code, and CI/CD pipelines.

Azure Stack Edge devices are purpose-built and optimized to run specific edge services, such as hardware-accelerated machine learning for local data analysis.

Azure Stack Edge devices address latency and connectivity issues by processing data close to the source where it is generated.

Azure Stack Edge devices are equipped with NVIDIA T4 Tensor Core GPUs and Intel VPUs for machine learning workloads, or ruggedized hardware with battery-operated backup for harsh environments and disconnected remote environments.

Curious to learn more? Check out: Azure Stack Hci Hardware Requirements

The four types of edge devices offered by Azure Stack Edge solutions are: Azure Stack Edge Pro, Pro2, Pro R, and Mini R, each purpose-built for specific use cases such as machine learning, remote and branch office (RoBo), remote data center, and ruggedized use cases.

Here's a summary of the main Azure Stack Edge use cases:

Capacity planning is crucial for a successful Azure Stack Hub deployment. You need to make informed decisions about provisioning CPU, memory, and servers to ensure your cloud's capacity meets your needs.

The hardware configuration will directly impact your cloud's capacity, so it's essential to get it right. Azure Stack Hub's converged configuration allows you to share physical devices for storage, which can be a game-changer for capacity planning.

You can share the infrastructure, temporary VM storage, and supporting storage for blobs, queues, and tables. This shared infrastructure reduces the need for separate storage devices, making it easier to manage capacity.

Worth a look: Block Level Storage

Azure Stack Hub allocates and handles storage capacity automatically, so you don't have to make configuration decisions. However, you can choose between two storage configurations: all flash and hybrid.

Here are the two storage configurations:

To prevent overconsumption at the local and service levels, Azure Stack Hub supports resource limits. For example, bandwidth limits govern networking egress (outbound data transfer) from VMs.

The placement engine distributes tenants (VMs) across multiple hosts to ensure high availability. This involves considering whether the host has sufficient memory for the VM and whether the VMs are part of a scale set or availability set.

Azure Stack Hub allows up to three fault domains per availability set, which are availability sets that operate as individual nodes in a scale unit. The VMs in an availability set physically spread out across these nodes, ensuring that if the hardware fails at one node, the VMs can be started in another node (fault domain).

Consider reading: Windows Azure High Availability

Azure Stack Hub is designed to support on-premises cloud services, internet-connected or disconnected environments, and is consistent with Azure services. This makes it a great choice for branch office systems and virtual desktop infrastructure.

Some common use cases for Azure Stack Hub include financial modeling, IoT device analytics, and predictive maintenance. These use cases are also relevant to Azure Stack HCI, which is designed to support business-critical applications.

Azure Stack HCI is particularly well-suited for use in branch office systems and virtual desktop infrastructure, where reliability and performance are critical. Some key use cases for Azure Stack HCI include financial modeling, IoT device analytics, and predictive maintenance.

Here are some common use cases for Azure Stack technologies:

Data residency is a top concern for businesses that handle sensitive data. Azure Stack Hub allows customers to fully own and control their data, with no data sent to Microsoft when deployed disconnected from global Azure and the internet.

In a disconnected deployment, customers have complete control over data location. This is ideal for businesses that require strict data protection.

Customers can choose to connect their Azure Stack Hub appliance to global Azure or the internet for hybrid workload scenarios. However, they must validate whether the online services used satisfy their data residency concerns.

Data residency is a critical aspect of Azure Stack Hub, and customers can rest assured that their data is secure and under their control.

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Azure Stack is designed to support financial modeling, IoT device analytics, and predictive maintenance, among other use cases. These solutions cater to customers who can't or won't move entirely to the Azure cloud.

Azure Stack Hub is one of the services in the Azure Stack family, but the article doesn't provide specific details about it. However, we do know that Azure Stack HCI and Azure Stack Edge are part of the family.

Azure Stack HCI and Azure Stack Edge are designed to address different sets of hybrid cloud requirements/use cases. However, the article doesn't specify what these cases are.

The most common use cases for Azure Stack technologies include financial modeling, clinical and claims data, IoT device analytics, retail assortment optimization, industrial IoT, predictive maintenance, smart city solutions, and citizen engagement solutions.

Here are some of the key use cases for Azure Stack: