HP and Microsoft announced their intention to work together on a Microsoft Windows Azure platform appliance that will enable large enterprise customers to confidently and rapidly adopt cloud-based applications as businesses needs change and grow.

The companies said they will work together to deliver a complete hardware, software, services and sourcing solution that will accelerate customers’ transition to the Windows Azure platform. Customers will be able to manage the appliance with HP Converged Infrastructure on-premises or choose HP data centre hosting services.

Enterprise customers adopting cloud services need a comprehensive approach, including application modernisation support, an optimised infrastructure platform as well as flexible sourcing options. With the new Windows Azure platform appliance, HP and Microsoft will help customers rapidly scale applications, deliver new online services and migrate Windows and .NET-based applications to the cloud.

This latest collaboration extends the $250 million Infrastructure-to-Application initiatives and will result in HP delivering data centre hosting services and converged infrastructure for Windows Azure.

The converged infrastructure for the Windows Azure platform appliance will include HP Networking, which delivers to customers a flexible network fabric that is simpler, higher-performing and more secure, and HP ProLiant servers, which are highly dense, highly scalable computing platforms that help customers speed application delivery, better utilise IT resources and achieve strong returns on investments.

The appliance can be deployed in HP performance-optimised data centres (PODs), which deliver improved power and data centre capacity as well as rapid data centre expansion. HP PODs allow customers to increase capacity without the capital expense of brick-and-mortar construction. They will be used in addition to traditional data centre deployments.