Normally, when we talk about FinOps, our first reaction is to think about cost and resource control from major cloud service providers such as Azure, AWS, and GCP.
However, the need to ensure management of on-premises resources is exponentially increasing every day, such as legal compliance in the contracting models for cloud computing services within the agencies and entities that are part of the Federal Executive's Information Technology Resources Administration System – SISP.
Learn more by clicking on this link. The impact of this new resource in the Brazilian Public Sector is undeniable and consolidates Microsoft's competitiveness in bidding and contracting processes for services.
Understand Azure Local
Azure Local can be understood as cloud-connected infrastructure that can be enabled on local servers and data centers under the user's control. Through this resource, it will be possible to operate and scale infrastructure using the Azure Portal and the APIs offered by Microsoft.
This resource allows for computing, networking, storage, and application services locally, as well as the ability to choose the ideal hardware according to your budget criteria and technical requirements of the applications.
As announced by Microsoft, with Azure Local we will be able to use physical machines as if they were cloud resources to perform operations such as deployment, configurations, updates, and monitoring. This removes the need for local management tools, increasingly unifying the management of cloud resources and on-premises resources. Thus, we can list the following characteristics:
- Ability to define and implement cloud infrastructure
- One-click updates with Azure Update Manager
- Centralized monitoring of the entire infrastructure
What are the main advantages?
- Use low-cost hardware for on-premises environments.
- Install Azure VMs directly on local hardware, in addition to the possibility of using Azure Kubernetes Services and Azure Virtual Desktop.
- Use local identities without the need for On-Premises Active Directory through Azure Keyvault.
- Natively configured with Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
- Machines configured in Azure Local have 100% compliance with the Azure Security Baseline.
- Has Access Control (IAM) for Least Privilege configuration.
- Absorbed Azure Stack HCI. The same tools and functionalities will continue to be offered without any price changes for current customers.
Minimum requirements:
- Compatible hardware, which can be found in the Azure Local solutions catalog
- An additional SSD besides the Operating System Boot Disk
- 1 Gigabit Ethernet Networking
How is it charged:
It is important to highlight that Azure Local offers a 60-day trial after registration. After that, you will be charged monthly for your usage.
The billing is based on all physical processor cores in the system, on a daily basis. In the core count, multithreading is not computed.
You may also be charged for Add-on environments, such as the Windows Server subscription for guests.
And what is the impact on FinOps management?
From all the above, it is clear that there are several benefits in the FinOps management of a company. The main one is the facilitation of on-premises resource management, considering the clear definition of service pricing, as well as Azure VMs or Azure Kubernetes Services. Thus, in managing the costs of a local data center, we will have a clear view of hardware costs, license costs (without Azure Hybrid Benefit), and costs of contracted virtual resources.
Additionally, we can consider the secondary cost reduction through the decreased need for a third-party tool to manage this on-premises environment in a unified view with other cloud environments.
Controlling the acquisition of compatible hardware with the actual needs of applications and the budget is a crucial point to be considered.
We must also not lose sight of the fact that FinOps goes far beyond thinking about costs and expenses, and we cannot disregard that the accuracy of information and clarity of data generated by a unified and simplified resource management is a significant factor to be considered.
We cannot overlook that the resource enables improved application performance and caters to an emerging audience that has adopted local servers to explore Artificial Intelligence solutions.
Finally, with Security as one of the related personas in the FinOps Framework, we cannot deny the importance of managing local servers that host critical information and sensitive data, as well as Brazilian regulatory requirements such as LGPD.
Learn more:
- Azure Local with low cost hardware
- Security in Azure Local
- Introducing Azure Local, cloud infrastructure for distributed locations enabled by Azure Arc
- Azure Local | Microsoft Azure
Check the original article in Portuguese here