Microsoft Azure is soon to offer virtual machines with 12TB of RAM for developers looking to run workloads that require lots of memory.

The company made the announcement along with the launch of a number of other VM types that are specifically geared towards running high-memory workloads, such as those running in SAP’s HANA in-memory database service, that need to process huge chunks of data extremely quickly.

Along with the new 12TB VM, Microsoft now also offers a newer M-series range of VMs stretching between 192GB and 4TB capacities certified for HANA, with Microsoft pushing its cloud infrastructure as the ideal place to run your SAP workloads. They are all based on Intel Xeon Scalable (Skylake) processors.

Microsoft will reveal more details on the new VM capacities in the coming months.

They come as Microsoft extends its private cloud, Azure Stack, around the world, doubling the number of countries in which its cloud-in-your-datacentre will operate to 92.

Initially, Azure Stack was launched in 46 countries, but its expansion has been put down to customer demand, spreading to a number of African countries, China and across Europe.

«When I talk with many of our customers about their cloud strategy, there is a clear need for choice and flexibility on where to run workloads and applications,» said Corey Sanders, corporate VP of Azure. «Like most customers, you want to be able to bridge your on-premises and cloud investments.»

«The inclusion of Microsoft Azure Stack services into our portfolio enhances our value proposition in a number of ways, from DevOps tools, a true hybrid cloud offering, access for customers to Azure services like business intelligence and AI, to fully managed service for any customer who wants it,» said Tiberiu Croitoru, CEO of BinBox a Romanian startup telecom service provider.

«Microsoft Azure Stack will bring us customers’ who want to exploit public cloud but were holding back due to data location concerns, In fact, our pipeline already includes about 60 customers we couldn’t have targeted pre-Azure Stack.»

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