 Hello and welcome to episode six in our third season of Rock to the Cloud. As ever, may offer a massive thank you for staying with us on this series, which I hope you're finding as insightful as I am. As we say every week, we really do love spending this time with you to discuss all topics around Windows Server 2022 and Microsoft Hybrid Cloud solutions. In each episode of From Rock to the Cloud, we bring in some of the world's most foremost figures in Windows Server and Hybrid to help you get whatever you need, or that just what you want to know about it. But the usual, if you have any questions about the episode, make sure you pop them into the comments section below. We'd love to hear from you. So today's episode is all about our recently announced single node HCI solution. And for the next 30 minutes or so, I'll be catching up with Ellen Kirby and Samantha Doherty, who I'll introduce in a moment. We also have some elements later that you guys can get involved with. So please do stick around. So if you've been following the series, you will know by now that we'd like to bring you the world's leading voices in Windows Server and Hybrid. And today is no exception. In fact, on today's episode, we're joined not by just one person, but two very special guests from Microsoft. And with that, I'd like to extend a very well-welcome to Ellen Kirby and Samantha Doherty. And those of course who watched the last episode will remember Ellen, of course. So welcome. How are you both? Oh, we're all thank you. That's good to hear. So let's start with Ellen, given it's a repeat performance. Thank you again for joining us, Ellen. Can you just introduce yourself for the audience watching, just in case people didn't see the last episode? Oh, I hope they go back and watch that because we had a great discussion on Azure Virtual Desktop. But I am part of the Azure Customer and Partner Engineering Team and we focus a lot on our customer engagement so that we can understand what we need to be doing to continue to improve and add value to the Azure Hybrid tools. So I'm very excited to talk to you guys today about some of the things that have been as a direct result of these customer engagements and understanding our signals so that we're directing our product teams toward making informed decisions on how we continue to evolve and build the products. Thank you, Ellen. Samantha, welcome. Thank you very much for having me on. And I am Samantha Dodie. That's fine. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say welcome. What can you tell us about your role at Microsoft? And you were actually going to tell us already. So you could get to my question. For sure. Hi, everyone. I am Samantha Dodie. I am responsible for the absent-infra product portfolio within the Device Partner Sales Organization here at Microsoft. So anything related to devices at the edge, that's currently my role. And I'm looking forward to this great discussion on single-node and all the great things that we have to share with you today. Super. Thank you, Sam. So again, let's go back to Ellen, given she was the first person to join us or to be introduced. So Ellen, can you tell us a bit about why Microsoft has extended the Azure Stack HCI to a single-node offering? Absolutely. So I've had a very fortunate position in being able to be engaged on multiple customer opportunities and engagements as folks try to adopt and modernize with their Azure Hybrid posture. And one of the things that we noticed was there was struggle, especially in those remote branch office scenarios, where the adoption was slower than we had hoped it would be. And part of the feedback we were getting is that cost associated with starting at a two-node offering and making those hardware investments and folks not really feeling like that was an easy thing to justify to their management. So what we did is we thought back as to what are the benefits we're bringing to Azure Stack HCI as a solution and how could we come up with a better introductory offering for these types of customer needs where we can focus in on providing the value of Azure Stack HCI, but maybe give them an opportunity to leverage some of the hardware in the catalog to be able to be a little bit more prescriptive in starting small and then ultimately scaling. Got it. So Samantha, Ellen mentioned the hardware catalog and having signal offerings. Are there any partners working to expand that hardware offering at the moment? Oh, absolutely, Jason. We have a number of partners. I mean, we're working with over 30 OEM partners today that has contributed to our catalog. And we are currently in the process of continuously updating that catalog. So it will be an evolving process. And in the catalog, you will see that in the solutions that we have, we will identify where single node is actually used for or capable with whichever partner that is associated. So the catalog is updated. It will be continuously be updated. And just one important point I want to raise on single node. Single node deployments are ideal for environments with no data center infrastructure. So make sure you visit our catalog at Azure Stack HCI catalog and look at our latest offerings in there. Great. I think moving back to Ellen, both of you actually, let's ask you both that would be good. What do you see as the best benefit for a customer choosing a single node deployment about Azure Stack HCI? Let's start with Ellen, shall we? Absolutely. So I think it's interesting. There's this concept of bringing a control plane forward where customers are going to be able to utilize unified management tools up in Azure through Arc. And they want to start taking advantage of multi cluster management and utilizing some of these rich Arc features for servicing. But the challenge always is scale and how do they continue to grow with that? And one of the things I think is the best thing about deploying a single node solution to Azure Stack HCI is that a customer gets an opportunity to utilize all these great investment Microsoft has made in Azure Arc and management tooling. But they're doing it in a way where they can really get off the ground. And ultimately, because of the way we've designed Azure Stack HCI and the single node entry level, you can scale. So you can add more nodes to the cluster as you grow and then start to take full advantage of the additional functionality that comes with two nodes and beyond of an Azure Stack HCI solution. Got it. Samantha, have you got anything to add to that? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think one of the biggest advantages of single node is addressing that cost-sensitive deployments. You know, a lot of the organizations that we're seeing specifically in retail is looking for a cost-sensitive deployment scenario where they can really reduce the number of hardware that they have in a location and address some of the support capabilities that they need at specific locations or multiple locations for that matter. We also see that there's a lot of requests on environmentally challenging environments such as high dust and humidity. Those things can be addressed by single node. And then, of course, there's also a VM per location. Therefore, the need, the number of cores are reduced. So it's significantly cost-saving for customers looking at a single node deployment. But with the horizon in mind that they could potentially extend that at a later stage. So you just mentioned retail there, Sam. Which other sort of key industries would you think this really fits or is it ubiquitous across everywhere, do you think? I think it can be applied to any industry. It's not unique to a specific scenario or a specific use case. It's ultimately about the problem that the customer is trying to solve for. And it can be easily adapted. Got it. But I do know that Ellen does have a couple of scenarios that she could potentially share with you and customers that we've done deployments on. Please share, Ellen, if you can. Without that, my question remains, of course. I can talk a little bit about where we saw the signal and really escalated to our engineering teams to make the determination that single node needed to happen. A lot of them have been in the retail and restaurant chains because there's really this idea of being able to deploy something very cost-effective across hundreds and thousands of locations. It became very cost-prohibitive for those customers to take full advantage of the Azure Tech HCI solutions with a two-node entry point. So we definitely found, and I saw it over and over again and have had several customer examples, especially in retail, where they want to start taking advantage of those concepts of store of the future and where are we actually going with these technologies as they're adopting a containerization approach. And this gives them a good, stable, reliable platform to start building and growing with the products. Got it. So when do you think I should use a single-node solution rather than Windows Server? Great question. And I don't think it is rather than Windows Server. I think it is with Windows Server. I think there is scenarios where Windows Server plus Azure Stack HCI single-node actually coexist. And when we look at the scenarios in Azure Stack HCI single-node versus Windows Server, they both address two different key needs. As an example, for HCI, it's the best virtualization host to modernize your infrastructure, either for existing workloads in the core data center or emerging requirements for branch and offers and edge locations, where if you look at Windows Server as a guest operating system inside the virtual machines or containers and you can run a server for a Windows application. So it just depends on the use case and it depends on the scenario that the customer is looking to support. I feel that it is a and and not a versus. Great answer. Thank you, Sam. So I suppose this is kind of a rhetorical question, really. I think I kind of know the answer myself, but, you know, is this single-node solution managed in the same way as all our other Azure Stack HCI solutions? Yeah, and that's, I think, the differentiator between utilizing another platform versus a single-node HCI is that you are getting that benefit of the Arc tooling and the management of scale. And you're doing that at an entry point that is, again, cost-effective and is something that customers can really get their feet wet when starting to embrace these hybrid technologies, especially in these remote branch office solutions where they're looking to try to drive the edge. Super. So just before we close out, anything else you may want to add because we're going to move on to the next part of our show. Otherwise, thank you so much for the content so far. Very insightful, as always, but anything else you may want to add or do you think we've kind of covered the key points around our single-node solution? In fact, actually, one key point. When is this available? Are we available now or is this something that's pending release? We actually made the announcement for it at Build a few weeks back. So this is an availability today, but it is also hinged on the availability and the validation in the catalog. So, like Sam was talking a little bit about the different OEM partners that we have, they're adding single-node offerings into the catalog. As we grow that, as was stated earlier in the conversation, that's going to make it even more effective for customers to be able to choose the right solution for them and get this out the door and deployed. Super. And also, Jason, one important point to highlight, as Ellen just said, from a local perspective, for what we see in the catalog may not necessarily be the reality at country level or in local level. So make sure that you align with your OEM and understand what their portfolio of products is that is available. And if you have any questions related, support, just reach out to the team and we'll happily answer that. Super. Thank you both. Thank you very much indeed. So look, we're going to move on to the next part of the show, which is, let's call it the fun part of the show, which is called the server acronym review. And now, like everyone involved in the tech world, I just love a long, confusing acronym that doesn't make any sense. But luckily for us, as every week, the producers have found a few server acronyms to show us. We're going to put ourselves on the spot. In fact, I'm going to put you two on the spot this week. I'm going to keep out of this one because I don't seem to get them right anyway, so at least I don't have to embarrass myself. And let's see what we can guess what they are. So producers, would you like to put something down there? And look, by the way, if you've got any thoughts, please put them in the comments section below. Tell us what you think about these acronyms, if they're nonsense, if they make any sense, if it's something you're learning, please put the comments in there. We'd love to hear from you. So let's start with the first one, shall we? Who wants to take this one? Ellen, it's competition time, shall we say. Come on, 10 points for the first answer. Oh my goodness. So I always think of an MCT as a Microsoft Certified Trainer, but I'm probably way off. And I was hopping in around thinking MTC, maybe Microsoft Technology saved it, but it's not that. So I actually don't know. Here we go. Oh my goodness. We've got 10 points to Ellen. I think we may only have two or three, so let's see how many we can get the point. See if we can even it up. SPLA, I think I know this one. Well, you have that one, Samantha, because we talk about squads a lot. Do you know what? I don't. But Jason, you know the answer, right? I think I do. Service provided license agreement. Yes, because it's actually something, this is actually something we have challenges with when it comes to supporting it on Azure Stack HCI because of the way we license the model. There we go. Do we have any more, Mr. Producer? Are we done? Have we got another one? Ooh, I can. Oh, we do. I can. Well, I can't because I have no idea. I can't either. I've got no idea. 10 points for you, Ellen, because you're going to take the lead here. Clearly, Sam, you can't pull the one back here. No idea. The only thing I can remember with that is I think it has to do with how you do the domain name registration. I can't remember what the different acronyms are for. In today? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, she says confidently. Yeah, I knew all of that. She says, thank you. Well done. No, I didn't know the name, but I know when people talk about ICANN, they're talking about that specific registration process for registering their domain names. I couldn't have told you all the letters. So look, if you have any comments, of course, don't forget to put them in the window below. But look, before we wrap up, again, thank you for the time today, but let's just recap on what we've covered with both Ellen and Sam. So I think I've been making some notes while you were speaking, by the way, as I always do every week. I think cost-being prohibitive was one of the reasons why we came up with this solution to make it simpler, more cost-effective for those small edge-type solutions. And I think one of the key benefits, as well, would be the fact we've got the single control plane that's managing those edge solutions across a unified infrastructure, obviously utilising as your arc. And environmentally, if there is certain issues in terms of edge locations where having a full-blown infrastructure will be prohibitive, of course, this makes it really cost-effective for our customer to do that. Would that be a fair statement? Yeah, I think so. Perfect. My recapping is still capping. So, look, again, thanks again to both of you. It's been absolutely super, super insightful as always. Thanks everybody for tuning into this episode of From Rock to the Cloud. Keep an eye out right here on docs.microsoft.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft Server Partner Club and the IT Ops Thought Channel on YouTube for the next episode. Remember, as I keep saying, drop your thoughts in the comments below. It's been an absolute pleasure having everybody today. And like always, Ellen, you remember this from last week. If we can have our little thumbs up or silly face or whatever it means to be to get a thumbnail for the episode, that would be very welcome. There we go. Thanks, everyone. Thanks again. Cheers.