Azure Services.
On Your Hardware.

Validated Hardware Foundation

Azure Stack HCI runs on Microsoft-validated Integrated System hardware from Dell, HPE, Lenovo, Cisco, and others — listed in the official Azure Stack HCI hardware catalog. Each node contributes local NVMe, SSD, or HDD drives that are pooled across the cluster by Storage Spaces Direct. Using catalog-validated hardware eliminates compatibility risk and enables joint vendor-Microsoft support.

Managed from the Azure Portal — Wherever the Hardware Lives

Azure Stack HCI clusters appear in the Azure portal alongside your cloud resources — same resource groups, same RBAC, same Azure Monitor dashboards. Update policies, view cluster health, manage VMs, and deploy AKS clusters from a single pane of glass — regardless of whether the hardware is in your server room or a remote branch office.

• Azure portal cluster overview — health, nodes, storage, alerts
• Windows Admin Center for on-premises operations
• Arc-enabled VM management from Azure — create, resize, migrate
• Azure Monitor dashboards and alerting for HCI metrics

• Local storage (L1): $0.33 per core per day, about $10 a month
• External SAN or disaggregated (L2): $0.667 per core per day, about $20 a month
• Every physical core is billed; hyperthreads are not
• 60-day free trial after registration
• AKS enabled by Azure Arc included
• Windows Server guest licences not included

• $0.775 per core per day ($23.25 for a 30-day month)
• Charged in addition to the host fee, not instead of it
• Unlimited Windows Server guest VMs on the cluster
• Latest Windows Server versions as they release
• No Windows Server CALs needed
• 60-day free trial

• Datacenter with Software Assurance (EA) or a CSP subscription
• One core licence for every physical core in the cluster
• Waives both the host fee and the Windows Server subscription
• Local-storage (L1) clusters only, not with external SAN storage
• Cannot be switched off once activated
• 180 days to run the licences on-premises and on Azure Local together

• Bought with new Premier Solutions, Integrated Systems or Validated Nodes
• Covers Azure Local plus Windows Server Datacenter 2025 guests
• Every physical core licensed; no renewal
• No reassignment to other hardware and no next-version rights
• Every node needs it, or the whole cluster is billed monthly
• With external SAN storage a host fee applies; Microsoft currently quotes two different rates

Azure Services On-Premises

Run AKS, Arc VM management, Defender for Cloud, Azure Monitor, and Azure Policy on your on-premises hardware — the same Azure services your cloud teams use, no re-training required.

Per-Core Billing Through Azure

A host fee of about $10 per physical core per month with local storage, or about $20 with external SAN storage, billed daily to your Azure subscription. Windows Server guests are extra: about $23.25 per core per month (30-day month) by subscription, or covered by Azure Hybrid Benefit or an OEM licence.

VMware Migration Ready

Azure Migrate and Azure Stack HCI provide tooling to lift VMware VMs to Hyper-V on Azure Stack HCI — capitalising on Broadcom licence cost concerns with a Microsoft-backed, Azure-managed alternative.

Data Sovereignty + Cloud Ops

Keep sensitive data on-premises in your own data centre while accessing Azure-native management, security, and CI/CD pipelines — ideal for UK regulated sectors (financial, healthcare, government).

Edge to Data Centre Scale

Deploy single-node edge clusters in branch offices or scale to 16-node all-NVMe clusters in the data centre — all managed from the same Azure portal under a single subscription.

Validated Partner Ecosystem

Dell, HPE, Lenovo, and 20+ hardware vendors offer Microsoft-validated Integrated Systems — pre-tested, catalog-certified nodes that ship ready to deploy with joint vendor-Microsoft support.

Dell Integrated System for Azure Stack HCI (AX-770)

Dell's latest Microsoft-validated Azure Stack HCI node combines 6th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (up to 86 cores per socket), 8 TB DDR5 memory, and 245 TB all-NVMe storage with NVIDIA GPU acceleration support — all pre-validated for Azure Stack HCI deployment.