Microsoft Rolls Out Edge Pay-As-You-Go Hardware, Compute, and Storage

Microsoft jumped onboard the compute-and-storage-box-for-data-at-the-edge train with its aptly named Azure Data Box Edge, which is now generally available.It’s an 1U rack-mountable device designed for edge locations, but customers don’t buy the hardware. Instead it has a pay-as-you-go model like other Azure cloud services. And it comes with local compute, a built-in storage gateway (and the ability to automatically transfer data between the local device and Azure cloud storage), and an Intel Arria field programmable gate array (FPGA) built for machine learning.It’s also cloud-managed, which is another key edge consideration. Customers can order the device and manage these capabilities remotely from the Azure portal.If this all sounds familiar, it is. Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its edge storage and compute device, called AWS Snowball Edge, in 2016. It also includes on-board storage and compute, and it allows customers to transfer data between the edge and the AWS public cloud.