Pure Storage unveils first external block storage for Azure VMware Solution

Pure Storage, a global provider of advanced data storage technology and services, has introduced the world's first generally available external block storage for Microsoft's Azure VMware Solution. This innovation improves the total cost of ownership (TCO) for VMware workloads in Azure, offering customers the flexibility to align their Azure VMware Solution compute needs with their storage capacity needs, thereby optimizing their cloud spending.

As more businesses shift to cloud services, many aspire to migrate part or all of their VMware environments, most of which utilise block-based storage, into the cloud. However, this move often comes with challenges, such as inconsistent management of the storage layer compared to on-premises deployment and the unfulfilled requirement to scale storage and compute independently to match data growth. Pure Storage's solution addresses this issue, opening avenues for optimizing storage use and spending on the Azure VMware Solution, facilitating VMware migrations to Azure, and replicating the on-premises VMware experience to the public cloud.

The new Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution decouples storage and compute resources, allowing customers to scale storage capacity independently of compute nodes. This enables cost-effective and efficient storage optimization. Pure Storage's advanced data reduction with deduplication, compression, pattern removal, and thin provisioning further ensure optimised storage.

One Pure Storage customer, a major US-based beverage manufacturer, is set to optimize their costs by approximately 50% by using Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution. This service will support them in implementing a comprehensive disaster recovery solution for their on-premises VMware workloads. Another client is planning on moving VMware workloads with over 500TiB of storage to Azure by using this solution, which they believe will accelerate their migration plans while keeping costs manageable. They expect savings of around 50% once these workloads are migrated.

Furthermore, the use of Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution allows customers to achieve data mobility and a hybrid VMware deployment with the use of Pure Storage both on-premises and on Azure. A national healthcare organisation chose Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution for disaster recovery owing to the same features available from using FlashArray on-premises. This solution will offer them on-demand, scalable disaster recovery.

Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution is a ground-breaking result from the expanded partnership between Pure Storage and Microsoft, says Nathan Hall, Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Pure Storage. The two tech giants have co-engineered automated integrations to ensure storage is correctly allocated to a customer's Azure VMware Solution environment, guaranteeing consistent management without any additional adjustment.