Organizations continue to look for practical ways to manage growing volumes of unstructured data while maintaining the performance, resiliency, and familiar filesystem capabilities their applications require. Customers with existing PowerScale environments also want options for extending those investments to Azure without taking on the work of deploying and operating the underlying infrastructure.
Today, we are pleased to announce the general availability of Dell Managed PowerScale for Microsoft Azure. Developed through collaboration between Microsoft and Dell Technologies, the service brings Dell PowerScale and OneFS to Azure as an Azure Native ISV Service. It expands the file storage options available to Azure customers with large-scale unstructured data environments and existing PowerScale investments.
A Dell-managed experience in Azure
Dell Managed PowerScale for Microsoft Azure combines the OneFS file system with an integrated Azure experience. Customers can create and manage a PowerScale resource through the Azure portal and use familiar interfaces including Azure CLI and PowerShell. The service is transactable through Azure Marketplace, providing consolidated billing through an existing Azure account.
Dell implements and operates the underlying infrastructure and is responsible for platform upgrades, maintenance, and support. This allows customers to consume PowerScale as a managed service while retaining access to the file services and data-management capabilities they use in their PowerScale environments. The service integrates with a customer's Azure virtual network to provide private access from connected workloads.
Customers continue to have a choice between customer-managed Dell PowerScale for Azure and this Dell-managed service. With the customer-managed option, infrastructure resources run in the customer's Azure tenant and the customer operates the software and infrastructure stack. With Dell Managed PowerScale for Microsoft Azure, Dell operates that stack in a Dell-managed environment while customers provision and manage the Azure resource through Azure interfaces.
Supporting unstructured data at scale
Dell Managed PowerScale for Microsoft Azure provides up to 8.4 PB in a single namespace and supports simultaneous access over NFS, SMB, and S3. PowerScale capabilities such as replication, compression, deduplication, and file tiering to Azure Blob Storage with Cloud Pools can help customers manage data across on-premises and Azure environments. With PowerScale deployed in Azure, customers can also more easily make their data available to Azure services for analytics and other data-intensive workflows.
These capabilities provide another option for organizations extending existing PowerScale environments to Azure, building hybrid data architectures, supporting cloud-based disaster recovery, or running data-intensive applications that depend on shared file access.
With general availability, we look forward to seeing how customers use Dell Managed PowerScale to extend their existing data environments and make more of their unstructured data available to applications and services on Azure.
Availability and next steps
Dell Managed PowerScale for Microsoft Azure is generally available today in the East US Azure region. In the Azure portal, search for Dell PowerScale for Azure - Dell managed to create a resource.
To learn more:
Microsoft