Microsoft this week unveiled something lots of its customers has been looking ahead to: assist in getting them into cloud computing — hybrid cloud computing, to be exact. Whether large enterprises or small business, it is going to become easier to utilize auxiliary cloud services through standard Windows Server management.

Businesses which were reluctant to get the cloud journey underway on their lonesome — not enough IT staff, no budget for off-premises public cloud use — can now turn to the familiar Windows Server and System Center, the Windows Server systems management console, and find an embedded roadmap to the cloud. The enhancements would be present in the 2012 Release 2 versions of every, which become available Oct. 18.

Some people thought Microsoft’s naming of its Windows Azure cloud services meant that Windows was now inside the cloud. Actually, it is the wrong way around. It means the Azure cloud will soon be in Windows, the server operating system already occupying 70% of the info center floor, in lots of cases.

And the Azure service pack if you want to sit on top of Windows Server and Microsoft System Center is itself not only a fixed of stray code modules but what Microsoft loves to call “a cloud operating system” that works along side Windows within the data center.

[ Wish to learn more about System Center’s evolution toward hybrid cloud? See Microsoft Enhances System Center For Hybrid Cloud. ]

“Azure is a brand new operating system, designed not only for our cloud, but for anybody to construct a cloud with,” said Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s executive VP for cloud and enterprise. In other words, customers who need to build out a personal cloud on premises come Oct. 18 could have the tools and familiar management console with which to take action. The Azure modules working as a part of Windows Server and System Center will automatically be capable to connect with a number of of the 13 major Azure data centers worldwide.

Nadella made the announcements while averting questions on whether he was into account as Microsoft’s next CEO. He chose as his setting the trendy, open San Francisco offices of Yammer, an internet enterprise social networking service, which Microsoft acquired for $1.2 billion in July 2012.

The CEO question wasn’t entirely apocryphal. Every time Nadella has spoken publicly during the last three years, he’s spoken directly and intelligently. Beneath his pattern of speech is an undaunted habit of positive expression that plows through audiences and critics alike as though there have been nothing to fret about. The mix seems both relentless and ready to shed a transparent light on a given subject in what will be otherwise drab circumstances. Nadella’s answer to the question, incidentally, was that the Microsoft board is seeking a CEO and Steve Ballmer remains hard at work within the CEO’s office. “I’m enthusiastic about my [current] job and that is the reason all i will say about that.”

Azure modules that generate Hyper-V virtual servers balance workloads, maintain automated operations and move workloads (round the local data center or to a remote data center) will sit as a service pack on top of Windows Server and System Center. Through their use, the Windows Server administrator will use the System Center management console to go into the unfamiliar territory of hybrid cloud computing.

Nadella claimed that Microsoft is healthier suited for function a foundation for hybrid cloud computing than competing vendors not only since it can supply the Azure code for both environments, but in addition because customers can also use the familiar tools to construct cloud applications. Visual Studio 2013 and .Net 4.5.1, also available Oct. 18, are updated versions designed to produce applications that make the most of single sign-on, cloud-based Active Directory, load balancing and elastic scaling.

Microsoft is in an unusually strong position to make the claim. Azure started as platform-as-a-service in 2010 — a cloud environment aimed toward developers — and didn’t move into general availability infrastructure-as-a-service until April 2013. Microsoft’s Visual Studio will bring lifecycle management capabilities to cloud app development. Software going into production is getting modified, retested and relaunched more frequently than it was once, and lifecycle management attempts to scale back the risk of causing a production failure.

Nadella also made the more familiar argument that enterprises would be capable of finding cloud versions of familiar Microsoft applications, including Active Directory and SharePoint. But ERP and CRM applications within the cloud aren’t merely relocated versions of its existing packaged software. “We definitely needed to reinvent our software” for the cloud environment, he said.

“We’ve taken all of the capabilities available on Azure and stood them up on Windows Server … Early feedback is that it’s far quite robust,” he claimed.

VMware is likewise bidding to become the supplier of hybrid cloud services through its virtualization software and vCloud Suite. OpenStack vendors think they’re the logical alternative, especially in case you are a customer who’s uninterested in vendor lock-in. And Amazon Web Services would just as soon you employ Eucalyptus Systems on premises and its Amazon public cloud for hybrid operations.

Microsoft is offering licensing discounts to exploit Azure and most likely marshaling its arguments to make a bolder bid for what many vendors view because the largest future IT market. Windows Server and System Center will not be everyone’s route to the hybrid cloud. But if you happen to haven’t started their journey yet, it just became clear that Microsoft is set to make it easier for them to get there.

Cloud Connect, happening Oct. 21-23, 2013, offers three days of in-depth boot camps, panel discussions and access to a number of industry experts, all designed that can assist you weigh your cloud options and transform what you are promoting. Register for Cloud Connect now.