Microsoft Cloud-in-a-box & VMMSSP for Private Cloud

Windows Azure platform appliance is a turnkey cloud platform that customers can deploy in their own datacenter, across hundreds to thousands of servers. The Windows Azure platform appliance consists of Windows Azure, SQL Azure and a Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage and server hardware. This hardware will be delivered by a variety of partners. This will be preconfigured "cloud-in-a-box" appliances designed to run Microsoft's Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering from own premises.

The appliance is designed for service providers, large enterprises and governments and provides a proven cloud platform that delivers breakthrough datacenter efficiency through innovative power, cooling and automation technologies.

"For enterprise and government infrastructure and operations professionals, this announcement brings greater degrees of freedom in using Windows Azure, but it won't bring Azure in-house for more than the few very largest companies...at least not yet," said Forrester’s James Staten.

Dell, HP and Fujitsu will offer Azure services out of their own data centers to enterprise customers under undisclosed terms. The appliance is highly managed by Microsoft; buyers reportedly will pay Microsoft for services, as well as the hardware and software stack to run Azure in-house. Microsoft has been secretive about the underlying technology in Azure and clearly plans to remain firmly in control as Azure deploys outside its walls.

Microsoft is covering other bases in private cloud, as well. It also announced the release of its System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self Service Portal (VMMSSP), formerly the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit, which is an infrastructure and automation toolkit designed to run in a Windows Server 2008 data center and allow self-service for virtualized servers, monitoring and other features associated with cloud computing.

VMMSSP includes a pre-built web-based user interface that has sections for both the datacenter managers and the business unit IT consumers, with role-based access control. VMMSSP also includes a dynamic provisioning engine. VMMSSP reduces the time needed to provision infrastructures and their components by offering business unit “on-boarding,” infrastructure request and change management. The VMMSSP package also includes detailed guidance on how to implement VMMSSP inside your environment.

Any one has more information or hasve used this? Post comments.

-Cheers