Editor's note 9.25.2024: This post has been updated to define deprecation and provide clarity on how this impacts WSUS. As part of our vision for simplified Windows management from the cloud, Micr...
Updated Sep 24, 2024
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Dear Karl-WE ,
> in a previous posting you outlined your requirements for a 4 digit number of VMs.
I am not sure to what exact posting you refer to, but:
1. IT environments tend to grow.
2. 9000 or 10000 doesn't make much difference.
3. I, of course, don't share an exact number, just a ballpark one.
> Usually you would be using Windows Server Datacenter with Software Assurance. This covers Azure Stack HCI licensing entirely. Nothing else is required on the licensing side.
> Zero cost for Azure Stack HCI, Windows Server and no requirements for WS CAL (except RDS or Exchange when not otherwise licensed).
Could you please point me out where in the official documentation it says that Az Stack HCI can be free? The only page with the pricing I know about is https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/azure-stack/hci/ and there it costs $10/core/month
> Does this help you?
Unfortunately, no, because we see no sense in paying for something (and doubling our infrastructure costs + getting a new external dependency) that's already available for free (included in the WS license) and is completely on-prem.
> Yes Azure Stack HCI requires a bit of different hardware for networking but this depends on different design decisions and cluster size. I would be glad to discuss your situation. It's a very performant and cost effective solution.
Sorry, I have to disagree: it cannot be a cost effective solution, because it adds additional licensing cost on top of WS licenses. WS is a cost-effective solution.
"requires a bit of different hardware for networking" - i.e. throw out our network switches and NICs. Thank you, the ones we currently have work just fine and make us money.
> Especially at the time of HW renewals.
We buy new hardware literally all the time. At the same time we'd like to preserve our investments in already existing hardware: it works perfectly - no reason to throw it away, just because MS wants us to.
> For large data requirements Dell, currently exclusively offers an external dHCI solution on top of the Azure Stack HCI S2D.
No need for S2D in this shop, thank you. Regular trusted stable hardware-backed RAID on PERC is enough and trouble-free.