Microsoft and partners extend integrated private cloud services

Unveils a set of reference architectures called Hyper-V Cloud at TechEd Conference in Berlin

Microsoft and its partners aim to ease access to the cloud

Microsoft today launched a set of reference architectures called Hyper-V Cloud that make it easier for businesses to build their own private cloud infrastructures using the Windows Server Platform.

The announcements were made at the TechEd Conference in Berlin.

Microsoft has partnered with HP, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi and IBM on one of these architectures, called Hyper-V Fast Track.

The partners will work together to provide an integrated infrastructure that promises to reduce risk and increase speed of migration to the private cloud.

“There is still a degree of complexity when considering datacentres,” said Lucas Searle, Microsoft UK’s head of virtualisation.

“Working with our partners we are able to provide a clear migration path,” he added.

Another element of the Fast Track programme is the HP Cloud Foundation for Hyper-V developed in partnership with HP.

This aims to help customers reduce deployment time, enable dynamic flexing of physical and virtual resource pools and deliver management of virtualised infrastructure and applications.

Mark Potter, senior vice president and general manager, Industry Standard Servers and Software, HP, said: “Private cloud environments based on the HP Cloud Foundation for Hyper-V address the challenges of IT sprawl and a siloed infrastructure by enabling domain experts to configure IT resources once, and IT service owners to provision and reconfigure resources as needed.”

The Fast Track sits with three other architectures under the Hyper-V Cloud label. The others comprise Service Provider Programs, Deployment Guides and Accelerate.

Hyper-V Cloud Accelerate will see Microsoft help customers and partners with their assessments, proofs of concept and production deployments. The service will be delivered by Microsoft Consulting Services.

The Service Provider Program involves 70 service providers offering infrastructure as a finished, fully hosted service built on Microsoft technology, while Deployment Guides are available for customers who want to use Microsoft tools to build their own private clouds on top of their existing infrastructure.