Microsoft’s New Private Server Offering

It seems like every major cloud service provider is launching something new for their users. Microsoft is among one of the cloud giants to offer new services. Its cloud platform Azure now has a new service that offers users the capability to run virtual machines (VMs) to run single-tenant physical servers. This new feature allows people to use Azure’s cloud storage to run a private server. Microsoft is calling it the Azure Dedicated Host. 

For businesses who seek to store data on a server but do not want to share the information with other servers, Azure Dedicated Host is for them. The idea is that with the option for a private server, data leaks will be prevented, ultimately protecting the livelihood of the company. Microsoft Azure currently offers an isolated virtual machine that essentially does a similar job. The Dedicated Host just does that job, but only better and more efficient. Computers that run Windows, Linux, and SQL Server will all be supported by Microsoft’s Dedicated Host. How is this priced? It will vary per-host basis, so the more computers connected to the server, the higher the cost. 

Of course, security is always something that needs to be accounted for. Microsoft is certain that its users will meet security compliance requirements that are for monitoring, physical and data security and more. 

Microsoft’s Azure Dedicated Host is not the only one with these capabilities. Other cloud providers have their own version of this. Both Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud have similar features that do the job almost the same. Amazon calls its versions Dedicated Hosts systems, while Google named its version sole-tenant nodes on Google Cloud. Even though Azure Dedicated Host has some major competitors, it is not doing so bad for itself. It is able to support huge servers, so much so that Sony trusts Microsoft to manage its cloud-based gaming platform for PlayStation. This decision surprised many, including fans of the company, but also the internal team as well. Sony decided on entrusting Microsoft without its whole PlayStation team’s say. For right now, Microsoft is just entering the private data server industry. Eventually, it will establish itself as a legitimate business app provider.