HPE will allow customers to pay for Azure Stack deployments on its own servers on a consumption model, claiming this makes it as cost-effective to run as a public cloud.
The tech giant's ProLiant servers are available now to run Microsoft's cloud-in-a-box, which aims to replicate Azure's capabilities in a company's own data centre.
With it, HPE allows customers to deploy HPE Flexible Capacity, meaning they can scale up and down and pay only for what they use - though there is a minimum fee commitment.
HPE said this provides "cloud speed and economics on-premises, on par with the cost of public clouds".
ProLiant also takes advantage of HPE OneView, an infrastructure management dashboard, to manage software updates and monitor system status.
McLeod Glass, VP and general manager for HPE's software-defined and hyperconverged offerings, said: "Our customers live in a complex hybrid world that requires tools to simplify and optimise their hybrid IT environments.
"HPE and Microsoft have a shared vision for making it easier to manage hybrid clouds. By extending our software-defined capabilities to Microsoft Azure Stack, we are simplifying and speeding-up deployment of on-premises cloud capabilities, enabling customers to succeed in their digital transformation initiatives."
IT departments that deploy HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack can choose from between four to 12-node configurations, either in single increments or blocks of four, as well as processors designed for specific types of workloads.
DXC Technology - the result of a merger between CSC and HPE's Enterprise Services division - is offering to manage firms' Azure Stack deployments, while Veeam will provide a data availability platform from the first quarter of 2018.
Other partners include Capgemini subsidiary Sogeti, NTT Communications, PwC and Wipro.
"Customers are looking to build modern applications across cloud and on-premises environments that meet business policies and regulatory requirements," said Mike Neil, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Azure infrastructure and management. "With HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack, customers can innovate on a truly consistent, high-performance hybrid cloud platform that will increase agility, enhance innovation and control costs with the right mix of cloud and on-premises that is under their complete control."
Dell EMC unveiled its own support for Azure Stack back in May, expected to launch before the end of the year, allowing customers to build and share applications across on-premise and public cloud environments.
Microsoft rival Oracle recently added SaaS services to its own data centre-dwelling cloud, Cloud at Customer. Nirav Mehta, VP of product management at Oracle, told Cloud Pro at the time that Azure Stack "fell short" of a comprehensive cloud service by relying on partners to provide the hardware infrastructure.
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