Your missing much of the point of Azure and Cloud Computing.

>Azure and 'the Cloud' are my current Microsoft pain points. All of Microsoft's new servers and applications are designed to move users into 'the Cloud' so Microsoft can suck $$ from them monthly. Their certifications are now heavily 'cloud' centric as well.
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>I'm assuming Microsoft has devoted too many resources in this blitz to back off any time soon, so that is why my company is really, really looking for alternatives (not finding them though).