Microsoft stuffed its Azure cloud environment with a spate of updates that tap into its Arc control plane, provide deeper integration with its managed Kubernetes service, and expand the availability of its integrated VMware service. Those moves come as the cloud giant continues to push a differentiated message in the hybrid cloud market.

As part of its virtual Ignite event, Microsoft added Arc to its Azure SQL Managed Services and PostgresSQL Hyperscale in a move that allows those services to run across on-premises data centers, in a multicloud environment, or at the edge. Those services can also run in connected and disconnected modes to save on resources.

Azure Arc-enabled servers is also now generally available, which allows users to manage Windows and Linux servers across multicloud and multi-edge environments from the Azure portal. This includes both virtual machines (VMs) and physical servers.

Microsoft unveiled Arc at last year’s Ignite event. From a high level, it extends the Azure control plane across rival cloud provider and on-premises locations. That cross-cloud management includes data and services running in virtual machines (VMs), containers, or Kubernetes, and also allows enterprises to enforce a single security posture across those data sources or applications.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella heavily hyped the product by stating it marked a “new era of hybrid computing where there is a control plane built for multicloud and multi-edge.”

The company has since infused Arc into a number of its platforms, including its Kubernetes system, and more recently extended Arc to Red Hat’s Kubernetes-focused OpenShift and Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environments to simplify the management of applications running across those platforms.

Microsoft remains adamant that its Arc-based multicloud approach is different from its rivals. Those would include Google’s Anthos and Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Outposts.

“I hope this year people really understand our hybrid approach is about multicloud, multi-edge, and that's different, and there's a lot of hybrid washing going around; a lot of confusion around what hybrid really is; and our view of multicloud, multi-edge, and how do we systematically enable that,” said Julia White, corporate VP for Microsoft Azure, as part of the virtual Ignite event.

Sid Nag, VP of cloud services and technologies at Gartner, said that he thinks Microsoft is developing its Arc and multicloud strategy in the right direction.

“I think it is headed in the right direction to support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft estates,” explained Nag, in an email to SDxCentral. “Microsoft realizes the world is going hybrid, multi, and they want to be the guardian of these combined estate via their own control plane.”

Nag added that Microsoft continues to target Arc at similar offerings from rivals, explaining that “features and functionalities are being built with a similar approach. Question is: who is the customer going to trust? In the case of Azure customers, they will go with Arc.”

Microsoft today also launched a preview of its Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) running on the Azure Stack HCI in a data center. This allows users to deploy and manage containerized applications on Azure Stack HCI similar to running AKS in Azure.

Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution is also now generally available, bringing to market a number of updates to that platform that were launched earlier this year. The platform itself allows users to migrate their existing on-premises VMware applications to Azure without needing to re-architect them first.

The service is built on Azure and provides customers with the same VMware experience they are used to in their private data centers but in the Azure environment. Customers can provision a full VMware Cloud Foundation environment on Azure for greater elasticity of services typical from a public cloud. This includes access to VMware products like vSphere, the HCX application mobility platform, the NSX-T data center product, and vSAN hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). Customers can also add access to the VMware HCX Enterprise platform that will allow older versions of vSphere running on premises to work on newer versions of vSphere running on the Azure VMware Solution platform.

The Microsoft Azure Arc updates come on the heels of a general slowdown on that segment’s growth. Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business unit, which includes its Azure public cloud, Windows Server, SQL Server, and GitHub, posted a 17% year-over-year increase in revenues to $13.4 billion for the company’s most recent fiscal quarter. That accounted for more than 35% of Microsoft’s $38 billion in total revenues for that fiscal Q4.

Focusing in a bit tighter, Microsoft reported that Azure revenues increased 47% year over year. However, that rate of growth was less than the 61% increase posted for fiscal Q3, which is the stat that drew analyst concerns.

“While I am not yet concerned with the declining Azure numbers as the revenue base is growing, it’s something to keep our eyes on,” wrote Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights and Strategy, in a comment on Microsoft’s latest results.

BMO Capital Markets Analyst Keith Bachman also expressed some concern on the Azure growth rate, which he noted was “at the low end of investor expectations.” But, he added that “we look at the current challenges as more transitory and we think [Microsoft] is very well positioned for the long term.”