Power Up Kubernetes based Azure Data Services with Pure

SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters and Azure Arc enabled Data Services are data platforms that are both underpinned by Kubernetes. The simple mention of the word ‘Data’ implies the need for storage and the Kubernetes storage platform and plug-in landscape for it are vast. Just look at the number of available Kubernetes CSI drivers. With this multitude of options, what makes Pure Storage® the ideal choice when selecting a storage solution for Azure Data platforms ? Two Pure solutions integrate seamlessly with Azure data platforms running on Kubernetes: FlashArray™ with Pure Cloud Block Store and Portworx®.

Data Mobility Between On-Premises and Cloud

The industry’s leading all-flash storage platform, FlashArray provides Kubernetes integration via Pure Service Orchestrator™, a CSI 1.2–compliant storage plug-in. It also offers a consistent data platform and data mobility to the cloud, including Microsoft Azure.

Figure 1: Pure Service Orchestrator fully integrates with Kubernetes and delivers smart provisioning, elastic scaling, and transparent recovery.

With Pure Service Orchestrator, you can federate multiple FlashArray devices behind a single storage class with the smart provisioning of persistent volumes based on array health, capacity, and performance. This capability alone differentiates Pure from other Kubernetes storage options. In addition to providing persistent-volume expansion and snapshots, Pure Service Orchestrator also offers:

• Ease of management to extend the pool of FlashArray devices by simply adding array endpoints and API tokens to a YAML file followed by a single invocation of Helm. Plus, CockroachDB tracks persistent-volume array placement across worker nodes, enabling you to avoid the complexity created by other solutions that require installation and configuration.
• Topology-aware persistent-volume placement enables you to select the storage device where you want to create a persistent volume based on labels and annotations. While the Container Storage Interface defines only five labels, Pure Service Orchestrator enables you to create an unlimited number of topology labels.
• Pure Service Orchestrator creates a consistent storage-as-a-service experience across Pure’s on-premises block, public-cloud block, and scale-out file/object storage platforms.

And of course, FlashArray is one of the most battle-hardened and easy-to-manage storage platforms for SQL Server.

Cloud-native Storage with Portworx

Already have your own storage solution that you want to use for Kubernetes apps? Looking for a software-defined storage platform that will work across all the popular public clouds and most other vendors’ storage platforms, including Pure? Looking to seamlessly integrate data services such as disaster recovery, backup, and data security into your Kubernetes environment? Then Portworx—the latest addition to the Pure family—is for you.

With Portworx, you can run:

• Any app: stateless or persistent, local or geo-distributed, and with security, high availability, backup, and disaster recovery
• Any Kubernetes distribution: vanilla Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, VMware Tanzu, Google Anthos, Rancher, and managed Kubernetes services (AWS EKS, Azure AKS, Google GKE)
• Any cloud: multiple public clouds, on-premises, or hybrid; core to edge
• Any infrastructure: cloud storage infrastructure, bare-metal servers with SSDs or HDDs, or enterprise arrays
• At every stage of the cloud-native journey: from development to test to production to containers-as-a-service at global scale.

The Portworx Enterprise platform includes everything you need to run Kubernetes apps with the same performance, availability, and security of traditional apps:

• PX-Store: Scalable persistent storage and HA for Kubernetes on any cloud or storage hardware
• PX-DR: Data protection for mission-critical apps
• PX-Backup: Backup and recovery designed for Kubernetes
• PX-Secure: Container-granular encryption and access controls
• PX-Migrate: Easily move entire applications across clusters, racks, and clouds.
• PX-Autopilot: Automated capacity management lets you cut your cloud storage bill in half

Portworx is a Microsoft SQL Server High Availability and Disaster Recovery Partner and offers a free trial and flexible pay-as-you-go pricing.

Summary

Whether your organization uses the public cloud or an underlying storage platform, Pure provides a comprehensive set of Kubernetes storage capabilities to support your Azure data journey with SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters and Azure Arc-enabled data services. Don’t just take our word for it—Pure is a leader in the GigaOm Radar for Data Storage for Kubernetes for both our all-flash storage platform and software-defined storage platform capabilities.

And we’re not going to stand still when it comes to continuing to develop new solutions that support Azure data platforms running on Kubernetes. If you would like to see what the combination of cloud block store and Pure Service Orchestrator look like in action, be sure to check out this demonstration of data mobility between an on-premises Kubernetes cluster and the Azure Kubernetes Service involving a SQL Server database.