Hello everyone welcome back to the Equinix Tech talk series. Hannah black here program senior analyst at Equinox. Today we're joined by Microsoft Unified Edge Specialist Global Black Belt, Jamie Schnitkey and Equinox Principal Solutions architect Microsoft Alliance. Brian patient to discuss managing hybrid workloads in a multi cloud environment before we begin. I want to just highlight a few housekeeping items as always. Equinox really appreciates our viewers, taking 20 minutes out of their busy day to spend with us. We'll have a short Q&A session at the end, so during the tech talk. Please submit any questions in the chat box. After the Q&A and the tech talk ends a survey will appear and the third item is to please check out the resources panel where you can download related content. Now I'll turn it over to you Brian to kick us off. Thanks, Hannah and welcome everyone to our session today. I appreciate Jamie joining us from Microsoft and together. We plan to provide you all with a deeper insight into how Microsoft and Equinix are helping customers manage their hybrid and multi cloud strategies. So Microsoft and Equinix have a long successful partnership in working with enterprise organizations, especially as they navigate their digital transformation journey. The reality of hybrid and multi cloud is really landing with most every organization that we talked to today as shown by the metric here from a recent Harris poll with Microsoft that revealed over 90% of enterprises are committed to a hybrid and multi cloud strategy. And we're seeing this everyday and meeting and talking with our customers enterprises need to transition to a like a best of both worlds kind of hybrid digital infrastructure, combining on premises edge computing infrastructure with private and or public clouds. There are a number of challenges. These customers face naturally as they transition towards operating a hybrid architecture across both public and private environments. And these include some of the things we've noted here really around compliance challenges due to you know loss of controls and regulatory compliance gaps. Architectural challenges that come with shifting IT from Siloed and fixed to more integrated and dynamic and connectivity challenges due to low latency requirements for critical applications and basically you know the big one. Overall, challenge of managing and maintaining multiple complex environments. That change for customers. Moving from you know their own data center into a hybrid or public cloud environment data center migration takes some work. So to overcome these challenges naturally enterprises require a new approach to managing their hybrid IT architecture. And now actually this creates a significant opportunity for our customers to leverage Equinix and Microsoft with the global scale to enable enterprises to simplify and accelerate their transition to hybrid cloud. With over 250 ibx data centers that Equinox has it provides access to nearly every Azure region. Globally, so we can really help. Our customers meet their requirements for scalability data sovereignty and you know, maintaining that control of their applications and data. So digging a little deeper into what that global scale might look like over the last decade. Equinix has really continued to increase our partnership with Microsoft and expanding a huge focus of ours around express route integration. Each of the dots on the map here are Equinix locations with the blue dots showing our connectivity to Azure Express route with nearly 50 deployments worldwide via our Equinix fabric platform. So a little bit about that. We serve both enterprise customers directly and we're also one of the largest providers to Azure Network Partners using Equinix fabric to provide similar express route connectivity to their end customers. Ethnic fabric provides a you know a private dedicated high speed network connection into Azure along with similar connectivity to all of the major cloud providers. So setup and provisioning. It's all API driven it was built for multi cloud access and our customers. You know continue today to leverage the software defined benefits of the platform. It helps them easily integrate and you know manage diverse hybrid cloud ecosystem that we're talking about today. So if you look at really you know a snapshot. I would say what a hybrid deployment can look like. And working with customers, as they work through their data center migration. There's always a need for an enhanced network strategy. That's always a big one along with the applications that maybe need to stay in the customers control and a security policy that could be maintained from on Prem through those hybrid cloud deployments and into public cloud. So some ideas around that there may be some you know major storage workloads that have compliance requirements to stay on Prem or legacy. Database applications that aren't able to move up into public cloud. And we've seen examples of this, you know really recently around applications like ERP or critical systems like epic and the healthcare space. These applications you know they're usually they have a need for low latency and they have a need for high performance that performance access into Azure? Which, naturally, equity can provide for those cloud adjacent workload deployments. And more than one cloud provider may be involved, oftentimes we see customers asking to migrate large datasets like petabytes of data from maybe an existing cloud provider over into Azure. And that's normally gonna have huge bandwidth and security requirements that we can meet with our integration of fabric and express route. So when you look at the you know, kind of a summary of all this. Equinix provides that ability for customers to have the flexibility and consistency to meet that cloud migration strategy. There's there's a lot to take on when customers are making these moves, but our partnership with Microsoft kind of completes that overall solution that enables that Digital Foundation for the enterprise. Naturally, that's really just a part of it, so there's a lot of discussions that go into that piece of it, sort of setting that foundation. But as customers build out the infrastructure and the applications. You know make the networking changes and kind of go from you know beginning to to end or work through the journey. Those you know workloads across multiple environments and managing all of that is a major challenge. So to talk a little bit about what Microsoft is doing today with that. I'll hand off to Jamie to dive deeper into the Azure piece of it thanks. Brian yeah again. My name is Jamie Schmitke. I'm with Microsoft. Part of the global black belt team and definitely want to expand on what you know, Brian is talking about regarding hybrid workloads and you know our vision and how we you'll help enable those hybrid workloads within the confines of a cloud management platform and the way that we do that. Microsoft is really through something called Azure arc, which is really that conduit to be able to take what you have on premise and project. Those resources into Azure. So then you could not only add value added services to them, but also. Be able to you know set different you know policies and and and security to those workloads with regardless if they're you know, VM's data services or Kubernetes clusters so. That's really how we break things down when looking about the Azure. Arc enabled infrastructure. We could take a small lightweight agent and deploy those on top of virtual machines whether they're windows, virtual machines. Linux it doesn't matter which flavor of Linux or it could be either a VM or a physical. You know on premise server that you're running a particular workload on, but you still want to be able to you know get visibility into what's actually going on potentially push you know other services to that the next pillar that we look at is the data services side where you when you are enable a SQL Server. You could get you know visibility from the Azure Portal of what's actually going on within that SQL Server, and get into SQL security SQL governance. And also take advantage of some programs that we have where when you arc enable SQL Server, and it might be an older version like 2012. Let's say you're able to take advantage of those extended security updates that are heavily discounted rate. One just by arch, enabling installing that R agent on those SQL servers as customers kind of look at you know modernizing their applications and looking at that container based solution whether it's. Rancher openshift canonical or even Azure Kubernetes Service, coming straight from Microsoft. You're able to arc enable those and you know get insights and start to interact with those lifecycle management products to be able to you know, not only manage them from a day-to-day perspective, but also to be able to deploy again. You know security updates and also you know set policies to those so as you are looking at. Creating more of a cloud based mentality to your IT infrastructure. Arc is going to allow you to do that. The same way that you would do it within the Azure regions that you would deploy workloads in today but now to on premise So what does that look like exactly if I build this slide out real quick? So a lot of what's available today within Azure. It's managed by something called Azure Resource manager and that's what arc is really extending back down to on premise where each one of these agents of whether it's a VM a Kubernetes cluster or depending it doesn't matter where it's at or even a data service. They're seen within Azure Resource manager and you know that's done by what's called a resource provider so through this resource provider. You now have access to be able to do things like you know. Monitor those resources that are on premise in a centralized fashion. You could back them up. You could update them through your own policies that you would control from within Azure and also secure them so whether it's. You know, Microsoft defender for cloud or editor. Sentinel you're able to take those resources on premise. You know throw that agent on them and then now be able to centralize the the visibility and the management all from within Azure. So you don't have to use you know a bunch of different tools to be able to do so now that said, You know, we're trying to drive value. In doing something from one location being the Azure portal. But you could still get access to your native tooling that you would normally use on premise. Like a Windows Admin Center or you know, logging into individual. Linux VMS or you know things like rancher or open shift from a Kubernetes you know management and life cycle side of things or individual. Git repos that you may have on on premise or accessing you know SQL. Data through the Azure Data Studio for that matter. You can still use those tools. This Azure arc. Just allows you to portray those images into the cloud and be able to get access to a lot of the functionality from a management perspective, that you would normally use within an Azure region, and a lot of these workloads are currently in Equinox facilities today and a lot of those data centers that you probably seen you know through Brian slide earlier and all those locations that they have globally. So being able to you know take those resources that you have sitting right next to you know, those high speed connections. Using express route and you know being able to communicate and also extend what you're doing within Azure. To those on premise locations as well. So here's another way of looking at a couple of things I would want to call out here. Is again all of these services across the top if I you know? Pull up my little pointer here whether it's Azure policy. Monitor you know, we talked about defender and Sentinel. You know arm templates being able to Automate. The deployment of resources or even using things like Azure Bicep to be able to you know, do the automated scripting to be able to push that down or just as simple as you know being able to do resource inventory being able to do tagging being able to you know set different. Resource groups and role based access control from Azure Active Directory, which most people have if they use windows or you know, Microsoft 365 and also you know if they're existing Azure customer today. So again the arc integration really is allowing you to push those types of you know that type of functionality to on premise regardless of which platform on doesn't necessarily have to be Microsoft. So you know, we've got our own virtualization platform like Azure stack. HCI or even hyper V Management System Center Virtual Machine Manager. You know, we got the ability to run arc via VMware vSphere and the vcenter integration or if you know, those VMS or even the Kubernetes. Clusters are in different clouds like AWS or GCP so regardless of where these workloads are or which workloads they are Azure. Arc can be able to centralized all of that management that you would normally do through five or six or maybe even more portals and be able to do it all from one spot. So outside of the management there's also the ability to deploy resources as well. We talked about some of the security side of things like with defender and Sentinel. But there's also other other platform as a service resources such as functions app services event grid. SQL machine learning and and SQL managed instance. Postgres is another platform service that can deploy on Prem so regardless of where these workloads need to be. Push to you don't have to worry about it being far away from where your workloads are that you need the power of those platform services. Arc can be able to you know centrally deploy and manage those from Azure and deploy that to your on premise workload, but how does this you know all communicate most of it's done via 443 over the Internet? But you're actually able to take advantage of the partnership that Microsoft has with Equinox and the private connectivity space with express route where you're able to communicate to these Azure arc. Management services like extensions or guest configuration policy or even pushing those platform services down to on premise you're able to set something what's called a private link or private endpoint within your Azure Virtual Network. That's in one of those Azure regions, like us E US West UK South. Anywhere globally and be able to set a private IP to it, and then have it routable over that private connection. That is express route using the equinox fabric. So then not only Could you get access to those resources that would be an Equinix facility, but also others that maybe are part of your internal network. You know around you know, either a continent or really globally so private link is something that is very popular amongst you know, not only regulated. Ministry customers but really any customers looking for predictable performance and private connectivity that does not go over the Internet. For some of these Azure services, so with that. I think I'm going to hand it back over to Hannah and go into Q&A. Thank you. Thanks Jamie and Brian's audience if you haven't already please submit questions in the chat box looks like we have a few that just came in the first question is from staff. If you are arc enable if you arc enable VMware and V Center does it automatically install the arc agent good question. That's a good question. I'll go back to this slide here where we'll talk a little bit about the V Center integration so the way that actually works. Is it's it's known as a resource bridge within arc terminology and a resource bridge? Is something that basically translates you know a platform that's on premise to Azure via arc, so whether it's Azure stack, HCI or VMware V center. Well, that Resource Bridge is actually deployed as a virtual appliance so with from within the Azure portal. You're able to you know create this virtual image and it has all of the appropriate. You know, scripting done for your subscription. So you could register appropriately setting it to resource groups. All that good stuff and then you could set things like tagging and role based access control. You know to individual components within Vcenter as well so once that's done. It actually pulls virtual center and you're able to see things like you know VMS. You're able to see networks. You know your data stores and also be able to do crud functionality on top of those VMS like you know, turning them on and off and and things like that. And restarting them or even templates and looking at those resource pools, so arc, the arc. Vcenter integration allows that to happen and what you can also do is arch enable the individual VMS themselves and that's really a best practice. You could do that right from the vcenter integration in the Azure Portal is once you have that stood up. You're able to push down the scripting for the agents so again. It gets registered to the right place and the right resource groups and push that down right from the Azure. Portal and it'll work through that resource bridge. That's configured with VMware vcenter and implement that agent across all of those VMS in that environment now. The reason you want to do that. Is to what we're talking about earlier where you've got a lot of these resources up here like you know, tagging policy. You're pushing things like Defender Sentinel. You know guest extensions policy. You're able to do that. Once you have the agent installed and the VMS themselves so it's really a matter of doing both and you know you do it all in one spot right from the Azure Portal and that Vcenter Integration. Good question. Great explanation the next question is from Eduardo. How did how do some of the Azure platform services actually get deployed on premise? That's another good question so it doesn't magically just happen basically how that works is we use Kubernetes as the foundation for those platform services so regardless of which distribution you're using as long as it's CNCF certified it could be Azure. Kubernetes service it could be. You know rancher or open chef. Let's say you're you're able to you know arch enable those Kubernetes clusters and you'll see them within the Azure Portal as what's called a custom. Location so typically you're deploying a platform service like SQL managed instance or Azure. App service to us east or us. West right so one of those regions that we have you know available out in the Azure portal. But once you arc enable these Kubernetes clusters. You just set a custom location to that and you can name it. Whatever you'd like fitting your own naming conventions, but be able to push. Those platform services down to that custom location, so again whether it's SQL managed instance Postgres. You know, Azure App Services functions event grid and there's more machine learning for that matter too. And there's more. That's going to be pushed down that to on premise via Azure arc, so that music. Kubernetes is the foundation for that and it could be any Kubernetes distribution, but our can you know definitely help push that down to you know get those workloads to where they need to be? Fantastic I think we have time for one more here and the rest will take offline. Manish asks what specific industries do you see adopting a hybrid multi cloud approach? Yeah, I'll actually I'll jump into that I think yeah. I think Jamie mentioned you know, he had a regulated example there and naturally, the regulated industries are are definitely in that camp, but I mean, I would say our discussions are with a lot of industries. It really spans. Most we I've seen a little bit of an uptick nowadays in finance. You know the finance sector and Healthcare. I think those industries are starting to embrace that bigger move to cloud and and the ability for Azure to you know really. Provide solutions for them across the whole host applications and naturally. There's some real you know sensitive either compliance or regulatory type. You know coverage that they need that a lot of times. We'll see them. You know have a database or or maybe storage or something that's going to remain you know on site Internet facility and and naturally take advantage of that low latency cloud adjacency to Azure to leverage everything they can do in cloud. That keep that sensitive information in their control and and inside the you know their own hardware. Fantastic OK that wraps it up for today. I just wanna thank Jamie and Brian for the wonderful insight, and especially thank our audience. Thanks everyone for attending today. You can access this replay tomorrow and you'll be receiving communications for future webinars. Please do stay on for the survey have a great day and take care. _1722040735176
