Pure Storage Launches Cloud for Azure VMware Solution

Pure Storage®, the IT pioneer that delivers the world’s most advanced data storage technology and services, today 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 organizations 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, optimizes 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 optimizing for performance, availability, and cost. 
• Improved Cost Efficiencies to Drive Innovation: Enterprises can now optimize and streamline cloud storage to realize 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: Organizations 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 organization 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, organizations create a seamless hybrid data plane and optimize 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.

Executive Insight:

"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 optimizing costs and maintaining the enterprise-grade resilience they expect."

–Shawn Hansen, GM, Core Platform, Pure Storage

"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."

–Scott Hunter, VP Microsoft Developer Division

"We’re excited about the transformative potential of the new Pure Storage Cloud on Microsoft Azure VMware Solution that we recently previewed with Pure Storage. By leveraging Pure’s advanced deduplication and compression capabilities compared to our current process, we anticipate significant savings in our Azure storage costs. This efficiency will allow us to allocate our resources more wisely and invest in other strategic areas of the credit union. The fully-managed service provides us the opportunity to concentrate more on innovation and less on operational complexities."

–Joe Ervolino, IT Infrastructure Manager, Dupaco Community Credit Union

"The new Pure Storage Service on Microsoft Azure VMware Solution has been instrumental to Insight's AVS deployment.  By separating storage from compute, this solution enables more efficient utilization of our AVS infrastructure, resulting in better optimization of our cloud resources. The additional storage options are seamlessly managed within the same familiar Pure Storage tools, allowing our teams to oversee both on-prem and cloud storage in one place."  

–Shana Meyers, Director of IT, Insight 

"The new Pure Storage Cloud on Microsoft Azure VMware Solution will significantly simplify our joint customers' cloud strategies while alleviating operational burdens. Now they can transition their VMware workloads to the cloud smoothly, enjoying the same robust, on-prem storage capabilities they rely on, while also reducing costs. It’s an exciting step forward that empowers customers to invest more in the future of their businesses and less in management."

–Raphael Meyerowitz, Partner Go to Market VP, Presidio