Pure Storage Enhances Microsoft Partnership for Faster Enterprise Cloud Adoption

Discover how Pure Storage’s extended collaboration with Microsoft is poised to drive rapid enterprise cloud adoption. Explore the strategic partnership’s innovations and solutions for seamless integration in the evolving cloud computing landscape.

Pure Storage®, a pioneering IT company renowned for its advanced data storage technology and services, has officially unveiled an extended strategic partnership with Microsoft, spanning multiple years. This collaborative venture aims to integrate Pure Storage’s cutting-edge storage capabilities with Microsoft Azure’s native services. This integration will leverage Azure’s newly introduced Premium SSD v2 and will also introduce these capabilities to the Azure VMware Solution (AVS) in Preview.

Key Highlights of the Announcement:

Now available for Preview in 16 Azure regions across the globe, the Pure Cloud Block Store™ for Azure VMware Solution offers customers the following advantages:

1. Enhanced Cost Optimization for AVS: Pure Storage’s compression and deduplication technology enable organizations to achieve substantial data reduction rates for VMware workloads on Azure. This, combined with the ability to separate block storage expenses from compute costs, leads to significant savings on storage-intensive workloads.
2. Incorporating Azure Innovations: Pure Storage is committed to continuous innovation and will leverage Azure’s latest storage solution, the Premium SSD v2 disk. Through this collaboration with the Azure Storage team, Pure Storage is poised to help mutual customers achieve up to one-third of the infrastructure cost compared to its previous platform, without compromising performance or capabilities. These cost savings can now extend to AVS users.
3. Streamlined Cloud Migrations: Organizations can seamlessly migrate their applications to the cloud without sacrificing capabilities. They have the flexibility to scale storage and compute independently based on their requirements.
4. Ransomware Data Protection: Pure Storage provides Safemode®, a policy-driven snapshot creation and protection mechanism that ensures data sets are safeguarded against ransomware threats. This functionality, previously available for on-premises VMware environments with FlashArray, is now also accessible for Azure VMware Solution and Pure Cloud Block Store users.
5. Robust Disaster Recovery Options: Purity’s data protection features, such as zero-RPO ActiveCluster, near-zero RPO ActiveDR, and Purity CloudSnap™, enable organizations to implement flexible and effective disaster recovery strategies. These capabilities ensure the right data is protected in the right manner, at the right time and place.
6. Efficient Disaster Recovery Sizing: Pure Storage’s high availability and cloud replication capabilities allow for disaster recovery targets on AVS to be configured with minimal compute and storage resources, which can then be scaled on-demand. This approach adds further cost efficiency to customers’ disaster recovery plans.
7. Unified Storage Strategy: Utilizing the same data management platform both on-premises and in the cloud, organizations can seamlessly track, manage, deploy, and ensure consistent multi-cloud governance for their data.

Insights from Executives and Customers:

Ajay Singh, Chief Product Officer at Pure Storage, expressed excitement about the expanded partnership, noting its potential to revolutionize cloud migration and accelerate the adoption of cloud services.

Jurgen Willis, Vice President of Azure Specialized Workloads and Storage at Microsoft, highlighted the commitment to providing fast and cost-efficient pathways to the cloud through strategic partnerships like the one with Pure Storage.

Narayan Bharadwaj, Vice President of Cloud Solutions at VMware, welcomed Pure Storage to the Azure VMware Solution partner ecosystem, emphasizing the benefits of seamless VMware and Pure Storage migration and modernization.

Industry Significance:

Gartner’s projections indicate a substantial growth of 20.7% in worldwide public cloud spending, reaching $591.8 billion in 2023. As cloud adoption accelerates, enterprises are eager to migrate VMware environments, often reliant on block-based storage, to the cloud. However, challenges arise due to inconsistent storage management compared to on-premises setups, along with the need to independently scale storage and compute to match data growth. The extended partnership between Pure Storage and Microsoft seeks to address these challenges, offering organizations the ability to integrate robust features, mitigate deployment risks, and ensure optimal scaling based on workload demands.

In conclusion, the expanded strategic partnership between Pure Storage and Microsoft marks a significant step forward in the realm of cloud technology and data management. By seamlessly integrating Pure Storage’s advanced storage capabilities with Microsoft Azure’s native services, this collaboration not only addresses the challenges of cloud migration but also presents a comprehensive solution for organizations seeking to optimize performance, reduce costs, and enhance data protection across diverse cloud environments. As the cloud computing landscape continues to evolve, this partnership stands as a testament to the power of innovation, strategic collaboration, and the shared commitment of industry leaders to empower enterprises in their journey toward a more efficient, secure, and adaptable future.