How to utilise Azure stack hci for on premises?

Hi Johnkhizer,

Azure Stack HCI is a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform meaning it combines compute, storage, and networking on the same hardware. However, it still connects to Azure services.

Azure Arc provides a centralized, unified way to:

• Manage your entire environment together by projecting your existing non-Azure and/or on-premises resources into Azure Resource Manager.
• Manage virtual machines, Kubernetes clusters, and databases as if they are running in Azure.
• Use familiar Azure services and management capabilities, regardless of where your resources live.
• Continue using traditional ITOps while introducing DevOps practices to support new cloud native patterns in your environment.
• Configure custom locations as an abstraction layer on top of Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes clusters and cluster extensions.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-arc/overview

Yes, you will need physical switches for production-level four-node Azure Stack HCI clusters. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/networkingblog/physical-switch-requirement-changes-for-azure-stack-hci/3767001

• If your workloads require four or more nodes: You can't deploy and use a switchless configuration for storage network traffic. You need to include a physical switch with support for Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) to handle storage traffic. For more information on Azure Local instance network architecture, see Network reference patterns overview.
• If your workloads require three or less nodes: You can choose either switchless or switched configurations for storage connectivity.
• If you plan to scale out later to more than three nodes: You need to use a physical switch for storage network traffic. Any scale out operation for switchless deployments requires manual configuration of your network cabling between the nodes that Microsoft isn't actively validating as part of its software development cycle for Azure Local.https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-local/plan/cloud-deployment-network-considerations?view=azloc-2504

Hope it helps!

Let me know if you have any further queries!

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