Unveiling the first fully-managed block Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) offering for Azure VMware Solution, Pure Storage platform reduces complexity of cloud VMware migration for global customers.
Pure Storage has announced Pure Storage Cloud for Microsoft Azure VMware Solution (AVS), a new fully managed block storage-as-a-service (STaaS) offering available for AVS. This new solution, soon to be in preview, will be offered as an Azure Native integration.
The Azure Native Integrations Pure Storage service provides customers with a seamless management and deployment experience across both the Azure Portal and their Pure Storage environment, with the ability to use services against their existing Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACC). The first service that will be made available is a fully managed service for AVS to remove storage infrastructure barriers for enterprise customers migrating VMware workloads to the cloud.
Industry significance:
Enterprises migrating their on-premises VMware environments to AVS can face challenges due to storage costs and complexity. Today, there is no data storage option in the cloud that perfectly mirrors existing on-premises setups, and organisations risk refactoring their infrastructure to make the transition. Storage-intensive workloads call for a storage architecture that can scale storage independently from compute nodes to employ those resources most effectively. Enterprises benefit from options to scale compute and storage separately to avoid paying for excess compute and storage.
Pure Storage Cloud for AVS supports seamless migrations, optimises costs and simplifies management by decoupling storage and compute. Pure Storage’s fully-managed service provides an external storage option for enterprises to migrate storage volumes and VMs, providing the same block storage experience to power cloud VMware environments that Pure Storage customers rely on today with on-premises enterprise-grade storage.
News highlights:
With the Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution, enterprise customers can now seamlessly migrate scaled VMware workloads to AVS. Benefits include:
- Seamless migration of VMware Workloads to the cloud: Enterprises can migrate storage-heavy, on-premises VMware workloads to the Azure cloud. This service is the first to bring support for VMware vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) and VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols) to Azure VMware Solution to enable communication between VMware vSphere hosts and storage devices while relying on the same protocols across on-premises and cloud storage. Data can live where it’s needed most while optimising for performance, availability and cost.
- Improved cost efficiencies to drive innovation: Enterprises can now optimise and streamline cloud storage to realise savings that can be reallocated to innovation to grow their business. The Pure Storage platform enables customers to manage cloud storage costs and decrease TCO for AVS with a premium storage service that eliminates unnecessary compute resources, while gaining budget predictability. In fact, customers can save up to 40% on their Azure VMware Solution costs when using Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution.
- Enterprise-grade data resilience: Organisations gain enterprise-class security and data protection in the cloud, far exceeding the basic security features available today. With Pure Storage Cloud for AVS, data protection comes built-in with industry-leading Pure Storage SafeMode Snapshots. As a result, if an organisation experiences data loss in their AVS environment, Pure Storage platform enables systems to be back up-and-running in minutes instead of hours or days without losing data.
- Reduced storage complexity: With a fully-managed storage service that decouples compute and storage, the Pure Storage platform helps customers reduce complexity and eliminate the overhead of managing their storage. Leveraging the Pure Storage platform on-premises and in the cloud, organisations create a seamless hybrid data plane and optimise cost of moving data to meet the changing demands of applications. IT teams can centrally manage their storage, monitor usage, and take control of their infrastructure without the operational headaches of siloed data.
Shawn Hansen, GM, Core Platform, Pure Storage, said: “Enterprises have struggled for years with the inefficiencies and high costs tied to migrating VMware workloads to the cloud. Pure Storage Cloud for Microsoft Azure VMware Solution eliminates these obstacles by providing seamless, scalable storage as-a-service that scales efficiently and independently with business needs. With Microsoft, we’re committed to helping customers unlock the full potential of their Azure cloud journey, while optimising costs and maintaining the enterprise-grade resilience they expect.”
Scott Hunter, VP Microsoft Developer Division, said: “We’re pleased to see Pure Storage’s integration with Microsoft Azure Native service. Through this collaboration, Pure and Microsoft can better serve customer needs by enabling them to provision, use and manage Pure Storage on Azure just like other Azure services. With this integrated offering, Pure and Microsoft are helping customers to quickly leverage Pure’s enterprise-grade storage with Azure cloud services securely to open up a whole new set of possibilities for customers bringing enterprise-scale environments to the cloud. Together, Pure and Microsoft are helping customers save time and operational overhead while driving innovation.”
