Microsoft Private Cloud in a Box

Microsoft has partnered with Taiwan's Quanta Computer to design a Windows-based system that aims to get business customers up and running quickly on a private cloud.

The effort is part of what Microsoft calls its Private Cloud Fast Track program, in which it works with hardware makers to design private, or on-premise, cloud computing systems. It's already developed similar systems with at least two companies, Dell and Fujitsu.

The Quanta system includes servers, storage and network hardware combined with Microsoft's Windows Server, Hyper-V and other software. The companies design "pre-validated configurations" that customers can then deploy.

"This is the ability to take our server technologies, marry them with the hardware from our ecosystem of providers and build essentially a private cloud in a box," Steve Guggenheimer, the vice president in charge of Microsoft's OEM business, said in a keynote address at Computex Wednesday.

The systems are supposed to make it faster and less risky that assembling a custom private cloud. Private clouds are typically built from virtualized hardware and allow companies to provision new applications and services more quickly than using dedicated hardware.

Microsoft didn't give a price or release date for the Quanta cloud, or provide technical specifications. Quanta is best known as a contract manufacturer of laptops for the big U.S. brands, but it also makes servers and even containerized data centers.