Question on Azure Local, around new Hyper-V based deployments. As of now, yes, SCVMM is still around it seems so for on-prem workloads, Hyper-V with SCVMM is an option (not saying a good one, just that it is one). Now, Azure Local comes to the picture. Leaving costs discussions aside, as of today what would you go for between these two options and why? Also if anyone has experience with Azure Local, what is the dependency on Azure (meaning, if Azure control plane is down, I know workloads keep going, but what else is lost)? I know PowerShell can be used and maybe Arc but what can be done/cannot be done if the mothership control plane is unavailable? Any comments on the PROs and CONs of using one vs another?

With Azure Local you pay a lot more then if you just did a Windows install and use hyper-v and scvmm.

Other than costs, why SCVMM while everything else in this scenario is on Azure? Would it be worth the two platforms hassle? Also need to understand how offline can Azure Local be

SCVMM is required for interaction with the machines. You can't connect to Azure Stack directly yet.

So let me get this straight. To use Azure Local I need to deploy SCVMM?

Correct. Azure Stack support is coming in the future, but not sure when.

So what can be really done with Azure Local? LOL

Spend more money than necessary? Really the only benefit is managing your non-vdi environments from the portal.azure.com website.

Now if the portal is down, given this is SCVMM under the hood, can you then manage it that way if needed in case of an outage as an example?

Yeah. Unless you really really need Win10 or win11 multi-session Azure Stack would be my LAST option due to costs, upkeep, and functionality.

Given our experience with customers deployments, Azure Local is great is you are ready to move to a much closer relationship with your vendors support staff (MS/Dell in these cases) as you will inevitably be spending a lot more time communicating with them.

Congrats, 5:45 AM EST and you already won the internet Aaron.

Azure Local is "cloud native". SCVMM is not. That's the short answer. You can also manage Azure Local via SCVMM though I'm not sure I'd recommend it. You can also use Azure Arc with either.

If you are looking to use Citrix on Azure local, you still require SCVMM I believe.