Announcing HCIBox support for Azure Stack HCI 23H2

Since HCI 23h2 was announced, HCIBox users have been asking me and the Jumpstart team, "when will HCIBox be ready?" Some are interested in the new cloud deployment features, others are curious about a refreshed AKS on HCI. The wait is over. At last, HCIBox 23H2 is here and ready for you to get hands-on. :cool:

HCIBox now supports Azure Stack HCI 23H2 and is ready to offer the latest capabilities of Azure edge environments with native Azure Arc and AKS integration in a self-contained sandbox. This sandbox deploys easily into an Azure subscription, and uses nested virtualization to emulate an HCI cluster inside an Azure VM. This allows users to experience many Azure Stack HCI 23H2 features like the new cloud deployment feature with minimal manual effort. HCIBox automatically generates a ready-to-go ARM template that can be used to deploy a new HCI cluster. The cloud deployment also automatically provisions Arc resource bridge and AKS components, and HCIBox comes with additional modules to showcase cloud VM management and AKS on HCI.

As part of this release, most aspects of the HCIBox codebase were refactored to simplify and streamline the deployment experience. The network configuration has also been redesigned, with dedicated subnets for both guest VM management and AKS.

In response to user feedback the HCIBox documentation has also been revised and simplified, with dedicated guides for deploying with either Azure Developer CLI (azd) or Azure CLI. This is a direct continuation of our investment in azd, following the release of azd support in Jumpstart Agora and the Retail industry scenario. But we aren't stopping here! There is much more in store for HCIBox in the coming months. Join the discussion on the Azure Arc Jumpstart Github repository to contribute!

Many aspects of the HCIBox provisioning process have changed with this release and we encourage all users to thoroughly review the updated documentation. Be sure to also check out our new Jumpstart Lightning video where we discuss the new release. Get started with HCIBox today!

Published on: January 30, 2024

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