Pure Storage Offers First External Block Storage for Azure VMware Solution

Now Generally Available (GA), Pure Cloud Block Store for AVS dramatically improves TCO by independently scaling storage and compute and bringing years of VMware enterprise storage features to the cloud.

Cody Hosterman

Mar 12, 2024

The Pure Storage Platform delivers the first 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.

The Benefits of Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution

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. Pure Cloud Block Store helps bridge this gap:

Allows you to optimize your storage footprint and spend on Azure VMware Solution
Unblocks VMware migrations to Azure
Brings the on-premises VMware experience to the public cloud

Get Better Efficiency and Cost Optimization in the Cloud

Pure Cloud Block Store decouples storage and compute resources, allowing you to scale storage capacity independently of compute nodes. Sophisticated data reduction with deduplication, compression, and pattern removal to the cloud, along with thin provisioning, ensures efficient, optimized storage.

One Pure Storage customer projects they will optimize their costs by 50% with Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution.

One Pure Storage customer, a leading US-based beverage manufacturer, projects they will optimize their costs by 50% with Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution. It will enable them to deploy a complete disaster recovery solution for their on-premises VMware workloads.

Unblock 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 500TiB+ 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.

Enable Hybrid Deployments and Data Mobility

Pure Storage 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 disaster recovery. An existing Pure Storage customer, they knew they would get the same features they love from using FlashArray on premises. Using Pure Cloud Block Store for Azure VMware Solution will allow them to replicate the data while reducing the necessary number of compute nodes until needed for a disaster recovery event. This solution will provide them truly on-demand, scalable disaster recovery.

Get Premium Storage in the Public Cloud

Pure Storage data reduction and thin provisioning provide efficient storage that optimizes your cloud storage footprint and spend.

Protect your data with ease using Pure Storage 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 first external block storage offering available for Azure VMware Solution. It is a software-defined storage 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 Pure Storage® 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.

How to Get Started

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.