Dell EMC opens up Azure Stack to partners

Vendor confirms deal at Microsoft Ignite event

Dell EMC will now offer the Azure Stack through channel partners after sealing an agreement with Microsoft.

In an announcement at Microsoft's Ignite event, Dell EMC said it has been approved to offer the Azure Stack to the channel via Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider programme.

Early this year Dell EMC was announced as one of three hardware vendors launching the Azure Stack, alongside Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo. Cisco has since been added.

The Azure Stack is an extension of Microsoft Azure, bringing the cloud capabilities to on-premise environments.

The solution started shipping earlier this month, with Dell EMC now opening up the 'Dell EMC Cloud on Microsoft Azure Stack' solution to partners.

Dell EMC also announced a range of services and updates around backup, data protection and hyperconverged infrastructure management.

"Dell EMC values the strong collaboration we have had with Microsoft for more than 30 years, which has resulted in world-class, innovative solutions delivered to customers worldwide," said Armughan Ahmad, senior VP at Dell EMC.

"The innovations we're announcing today are evidence of how our work with Microsoft has truly changed how our customers conduct their day-to-day activities, enabling them to gain greater value from their IT infrastructures and, more importantly, develop and deliver services to help achieve their ultimate business goals."

Eamon Moore, managing director at Dell EMC and Microsoft partner EMIT, said the partnership means partners can offer a solution to customers no matter how they want their infrastructure to look.

"A lot of customers will have been very pro Microsoft and pro Azure but might not have been able to adapt for certain reasons," he said. "Now companies that partner with both [Dell EMC and Microsoft] can give a solution no matter what the requirements are," he said.

"If you look at the future of cloud, we're seeing, for various reasons, that customers might need to go with a hybrid approach, so it fits perfectly into that. We all see that hybrid is the future, so this will give all the advantages and solutions available on Azure in a hybrid platform.

"It's almost the missing piece to now give an overall solution to customers and not be hindered by certain assets [that need to remain on-premise] that you might have been hindered by in the past."