Collaboration with NTT Comm creates data center safe space.

Dell and cloud managed services provider NTT Communications have launched a specialized server that lets IT departments test apps for Microsoft’s Azure Stack.

As an on-premises version of Azure, Redmond’s new platform is designed to reduce cloud-native app latency while better addressing sovereignty and security, à la VMware’s offerings.

While you could order Azure Stack on Dell servers today, naturally it is “highly recommended” to check and see whether your applications are compatible first.

With the new testing server, IT departments can do exactly that. Well, at least for “non-production virtual workloads at limited scale,” NTT said.

For a “low” fee covering engineering services and rented runtime, customers get to test their apps on a node server in an NTT data center. If they later decide to sign up for NTT’s managed Azure Stack solutions, the testing fee is refunded.

It’s “particularly worth considering if one of your objectives for implementing Azure Stack includes re-platforming one or more existing critical applications,” Dale Vile, CEO and research director at Freeform Dynamics, told The Register, and it may indeed “accelerate adoption of Azure stack critical workloads.”

But it’s “not going to be right for everyone,” he said.

If you’ve committed to Azure Stack, then instead of paying for NTT’s platform, “you may be better off just biting the bullet, putting the environment in place in your own data center, then managing the testing in house,” he added.

via: theregister