Announcing general availability of Azure NetApp Files datastores for Azure VMware Solution

The general availability of Azure NetApp Files datastores for Azure VMware Solution is a complete game changer. Azure NetApp Files has enabled customers to migrate latency-sensitive, business-critical workloads to the cloud so successfully that it has become one of the fastest-growing Azure services ever. Now, Azure NetApp Files datastores for Azure VMware Solution will do the same—and more—for your storage-heavy VMware workloads in Azure.

Enterprises have told us they want to augment the Azure VMware Solution local instance storage with external storage that can scale independently of compute resources. We listened, and now they can, simply and quickly.

The addition of datastore support provides enhanced functionality and increased scalability for enterprises to migrate and run storage-heavy VMware workloads in Azure. In short, it has never been easier—or more cost-effective.

Data storage can be the prickly pear when you’re migrating enterprise applications to the cloud, especially VMware workloads. Because these applications have commonly required significantly more storage than CPU and memory, cloud adopters tend to purchase more nodes than needed, merely to accommodate for storage. Scalability, yes; cost savings, maybe.

When building out on-premises IT infrastructures in the past, enterprises have commonly overcompensated by buying the storage infrastructure needed way down the road, not the one needed today.

Cloud computing turned “overcapacity as a practice” on its head. The whole point of cloud is to buy only what you need, when you need it—to have elasticity in demand and usage and pay accordingly. But with virtualized environments in the cloud for storage-capacity-skewed workloads—such as big data and AI—overcapacity and underutilization could blow up your TCO.

With Azure NetApp Files, even your most storage-intensive, previously unmigratable workloads—including enterprise-scale Oracle, SQL Server, and other complex databases—can migrate and run efficiently in the cloud. The service combines the flexibility of the cloud with the scalable capacity and low latency for large datastores that you thought were only possible on premises. Azure NetApp Files can offload and directly host file services for both VMware and other customer environments, reducing the number of virtual machines to optimize service costs.

Azure VMware Solution is an easy way to migrate existing VMware private clouds so that they run natively on Azure. By offering symmetry with on-premises environments, the solution accelerates data center migrations and lets you realize the benefits of the cloud sooner.

The new integration between Azure NetApp Files and Azure VMware Solution allows you to create NFS datastores and mount them on your Azure VMware Solution clusters. For storage-intensive workloads running on Azure VMware Solution, the integration with Azure NetApp Files helps to easily scale storage capacity independently of compute resources, lowering your TCO. How much could you save, exactly? Find out for yourself with the Azure NetApp Files datastore TCO estimator.

If you’re already a NetApp customer, you have even more to gain, because you can use the same VMware datastores with Azure VMware Solution that you’re using on premises now. This means that you leverage the skills and experience of your team and create a positive user experience as well as significant operational efficiencies.

“Azure NetApp Files and Azure VMware Solution combine to provide the flexibility and simplicity enterprises need to migrate business-critical VMware workloads cost-effectively to Azure, disaggregating storage from compute and providing the benefits of the most powerful file storage solution in the cloud.”
—Andrew Chen, Principal Group PM Manager, Azure Storage, Microsoft

“The addition of Azure NetApp Files to the expanding capabilities of Azure VMware Solution opens a range of customer use cases enabled by its high-performance cloud-scale storage. Disaster recovery, backup, and large database workloads are now all candidates for easy cloud migration and app modernization on Azure VMware Solution with the compelling economics and flexible storage capacity provided by Azure NetApp Files.”
—Narayan Bharadwaj, Vice President of Cloud Solutions, VMware

We know that there have been obstacles to wider cloud adoption. But at NetApp^®, we’ve been constantly at work with our cloud partners—including Azure—to remove those obstacles and deliver services that support your digital transformations.

The cloud wait is over, and the time is now for your VMware workloads. Azure NetApp Files datastores for Azure VMware Solution is a truly viable and affordable option. We’d love to talk and help you surpass your cloud goals—so book a 1:1 VMware strategy session with one of our specialists to get started.

If you want more information, try the Azure NetApp Files datastore TCO estimator to see how much you can save, watch our on-demand webinar, or read the Microsoft announcement blog.