Pure Storage Introduces External Block Storage for Azure VMware Solution

By Cody Hosterman, technical director, VMware solution engineering, Pure Storage, Inc.

Now generally available, Pure Cloud Block Store for AVS improves TCO by independently scaling storage and compute and bringing years of VMware enterprise storage features to the cloud.

The Pure Storage platform delivers the 1st generally available external block storage for Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution to improve TCO for VMware workloads in Azure. For customers with storage-intensive VMware workloads, Pure Cloud Block Store provides the flexibility to match your Azure VMware Solution compute needs with your storage capacity needs – optimizing your spend in the cloud. 

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Microsoft’s Azure VMware solution allows customers to move or extend VMware-based workloads from on-premises data centers to Azure. Yet, some existing storage-intensive VMware workloads can be cost prohibitive to move. The firm’s solution helps bridge this gap, allowing you to optimize your storage footprint and spend on Azure VMware Solution, unblocking VMware migrations to Azure, and bringing the on-premises VMware experience that customers have relied on for decades to the public cloud.

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Better efficiency and cost optimization in cloud
Gain efficiency and better cost optimization when running your VMware workloads on Azure VMware Solution. Pure Cloud Block Store decouples storage and compute resources (video), allowing to scale storage capacity independently of compute nodes. The company also brings data reduction with de-duple, compression, and pattern removal to the cloud. That, along with thin provisioning, ensures efficient, optimized storage.

One of the company’s customers, a US-based beverage manufacturer, projects they will optimize their costs by 50% with Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution. And it will enable them to deploy a complete DR solution for their on-premises VMware workloads.

Unblocking VMware migrations to Azure VMware solution
With the ability to decouple storage and compute resources, you can move VMware workloads to Azure VMware Solution that may have been cost-prohibitive to migrate in the past. This allows you to take advantage of the benefits of Azure VMware Solution, without overextending costs.

Another customer is planning to use Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution to move VMware workloads with 500TB+ of storage to Azure. They chose this joint solution because it will accelerate their migration plans while effectively managing costs. They estimate approximately 50% savings once these workloads are migrated.

Enabling hybrid deployments and data mobility
Realize true data mobility and create a hybrid VMware deployment when you use Pure Storage both on premises and on Azure. The company’s customers can leverage their Evergreen//One subscription to relocate capacity from on-premises FlashArray systems to Pure Cloud Block Store in Azure as needed.

A national healthcare organization chose Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution for DR. An existing company’s customer, it knew it would get the same features they love from using FlashArray on premises. Using Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution will allow the end user to replicate the data while reducing the necessary number of compute nodes until needed for a DR event. This solution will provide them on-demand, scalable DR.

Premium storage in public cloud
Get access to premium storage features in the public cloud. The firm’s data reduction and thin provisioning provide efficient storage that optimizes your cloud storage footprint and spend.

Protect your data with ease using the company’s snapshot capabilities – including instantaneous snaps and clones, immutable snapshots, snapshot scheduling, continuous replication, active-active replication, and offload to Azure blob storage. And with always-on data-at-rest encryption and SafeMode, your storage is secure by default. 

How it works
Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution is the 1st external block storage offering available for Azure VMware Solution. It is a SDS array built on native Azure resources. Pure Storage and Microsoft co-engineered automated integrations to ensure storage is correctly provisioned to your Azure VMware Solution environment, ensuring consistent management without any customer tuning. Native Azure services such as a database volume can be hosted in parallel with Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution. In addition, replication connectivity to an on-premises the company’s FlashArray or additional Pure Cloud Block Store instances is fully supported.

Azure customers can leverage their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) to purchase and attach Pure Cloud Block Store capacity to their Azure VMware Solution environment. 

Pure Cloud Block Store is available through the Azure Marketplace and the standard channel. You can reach out to your Pure Storage channel partner or account manager to learn more.