Azure Arc will enable Microsoft cloud users to manage resources across AWS and the Google Cloud

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Azure Arc will bring 'Azure services and management to any infrastructure', claims Microsoft

Microsoft has unveiled Azure Arc, a set of technologies intended to bring Azure cloud services and management to any infrastructure, extending Microsoft's support for hybrid cloud.

Azure Arc was revealed at the company's Ignite conference in Orlando, Florida.

The aim of Azure Arc is to unify the orchestration and governance of cloud infrastructure and services, also encompassing on-premise systems, too.

"Hundreds of millions of Azure resources are organized, governed and secured daily by customers using Azure management. Azure Arc extends these proven Azure management capabilities to Linux and Windows servers, as well as Kubernetes clusters on any infrastructure across on-premises, multi-cloud and edge," wrote Julia White, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure in a blog posting explaining the new service.

The aim, she added, is to provide a consistent and unified approach to managing disparate environments - not just cloud environments - enabling organisations to enforce security and other policies across these environments. In addition to simplifying management, it is also intended to reduce training overheads for organisations running applications on-premise and on different cloud services.

"With Azure Arc, developers can build containerized apps with the tools of their choice and IT teams can ensure that the apps are deployed, configured, and managed uniformly using GitOps-based configuration management. Finally, Azure Arc makes it easier to implement cloud security across environments with centralized role-based access control and security policies. Learn more about Azure Arc.

White also promised "dynamic scalability on any infrastructure", and suggested that, in practical terms, it would mean that IT teams could deploy Azure SQL Database or PostgreSQL Hyperscale "where they need it, on any Kubernetes cluster".

They will also get a unified and consistent view of all Azure data services, regardless of where they are running, "and can apply consistent policy, security and governance of data across environments".

Microsoft also revealed an expansion to Microsoft's Azure Stack portfolio, adding Azure Stack Edge, which Microsoft has described as an artificial intelligence enabled appliance "that brings compute, storage and intelligence to any edge", bringing cloud capabilities, it claims, to devices in even harsh environments with poor network connectivity.