Compare Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, and Azure Stack Edge
While Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack HCI, and Azure Stack Edge have their distinct use cases, it may be difficult to determine which of them is optimal in a given scenario. You might have a good idea by now how to address Contoso's challenges, but before making the final decision, let's review their similarities and differences in this unit.
Azure Stack portfolio
The three products of the Azure Stack portfolio help you address the following needs:
- Azure Stack Hub: Run your own private, autonomous, cloud-native applications in the cloud—connected or disconnected on-premises environment.
- Azure Stack HCI: Consolidate and modernize virtualized workloads by using on-premises hyperconverged infrastructure and integrate them with Azure.
- Azure Stack Edge: Get immediate insights into your on-premises data with an Azure-managed, edge computing appliance by using hardware-accelerated machine learning.
To compare the three products, review the following table:
| Characteristic | Azure Stack Hub | Azure Stack HCI | Azure Stack Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of nodes | 4-16 | 1-16 | 1 |
| Hardware | OEM | OEM | Microsoft |
| Support disconnected scenarios | Yes | No | No |
| Modernize aging storage | No | Yes | No |
| Cloud billing for on-premises data workloads | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Provide Azure Consistent IaaS and PaaS | Yes | No | No |
| Build modern apps across cloud and on-premises using Azure services | Yes | No | No |
| Small-footprint branch office scenarios | No | Yes | Yes |
| Ruggedized form-factors in harsh or remote environments | No | No | Yes |
| Support for repurposed hardware | No | Yes. Customers have the option of reusing their existing hardware if it provides the required capabilities, as defined by the Azure Stack HCI catalog. | No |
| Trusted enterprise virtualization | No | Yes | No |
| High availability for virtual machines | Yes | Yes | No |
| Built-in disaster recovery capabilities | No | Yes | No |
| Local Azure Resource Manager control plane | Yes | No | No |
| Built-in multi-tenancy and tenant isolation | Yes | No | No |
| Form-factor choice | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Preconfigured private cloud | Yes | No | No |
| Azure VMs supported through IaaS | Yes | No | No |
| Support for Kubernetes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GPU support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| FPGA support | No | No | Yes |
| Azure-managed appliance | No | No | Yes |
Choose the best response for each of the following questions, and then select Check your answers.