Azure Local is a hyperconverged infrastructure solution that provides storage, network, and compute resources in on-premises or edge locations. It supports the creation and management of Windows and Linux virtual machines (Azure Local VMs), AKS clusters for containerized workloads, and other Azure Arc-enabled services, such as SQL Managed Instance (MI) and Arc-enabled machine learning (ML). Azure Local is connected to Azure for streamlined deployment and management, which provides a unified and consistent management experience using Azure portal and Azure Update Manager for updates, and the Arc Resource Bridge for workload orchestration and provisioning operations.
You can use Azure Local and Azure Arc capabilities to keep business systems and application data on-premises to address data sovereignty, regulation & compliance, and latency requirements. For more information, please see What is Azure Local?
The Azure Well-Architected Framework (WAF) provides prescriptive guidance and recommendations for architects to use when creating or reviewing cloud solutions. The WAF guidance is organized into five pillars, Reliability, Security, Cost Optimization, Operational Excellence, and Performance Efficiency. Incorporating the recommendations into platform and workload designs helps to ensure reliable, scalable, and performant architecture patterns are implemented for cloud solutions.
Today I am announcing Architecture best practices for Azure Local. Like other service guides, this guide for Azure Local contains design checklists, and detailed configuration recommendations that can assist cloud architects in designing and deploying Azure Local in line with the guiding tenets of the Well-Architected Framework: Reliability, Security, Cost Optimization, Operational Excellence, and Performance Efficiency.
When you're designing a new Azure Local deployment, this guide offers advice to make sure your platform is set up effectively. Use the design checklists for tailored recommendations during planning. Each recommendation includes a rationale and a link to product documentation for more details. If you've already implemented Azure Local, this guide can direct you to enhance your platform or workload designs in line with the WAF pillars.
Updated Azure Architecture Center pattens
To accompany the new Azure WAF architecture best practices service guide for Azure Local, we have published new and updated Azure Architecture Center (AAC) reference architectures, as detailed below:
1. Azure Local - baseline reference architecture for guidance and recommendations for configuring Azure Local infrastructure as a reliable platform to deploy and manage highly available virtualized, and containerized workloads.
2. Azure Local – storage switchless architecture for guidance and recommendations for deploying Azure Local using a three or four node storage switchless network architecture.
3. Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Local reference architecture for guidance and recommendations for deploying Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Local.
We plan to publish more Azure Local Infrastructure and Workload reference architectures and design patterns in the Azure Architecture Center in the coming months, which will provide additional guidance and recommendations.
If you have any feedback or comments in relation to the Azure Local WAF content, please send an email to AzS-WAF-Feedback@microsoft.com
Author Bio
Neil Bird is a Principal Program Manager in the Azure Edge & Platform Engineering team at Microsoft. His background is in Azure and Hybrid Cloud infrastructure, operational excellence, and automation. He is passionate about helping customers deploy and manage cloud solutions effectively using Azure and Azure Edge technologies.
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