As we continue to see the exponential growth of data through a variety of edge ecosystems, multi-cloud and infrastructures alike, it is fast becoming obvious that the effective management of such diverse data sources will be critical to the success of an organization. Many customers we work with have shared the complexity of balancing fast-paced innovation, while ensuring consistent security and governance of their data estates. For many, reduced agility can result from the lack of a cohesive, seamless data management layer across on-premises data centers, the edge, and multi-cloud.
Following the launch of Azure Arc at Ignite last year, we are announcing the public preview of Azure Arc enabled data services. Customers can now bring Azure data services to any infrastructure across on-premises data centers, edge, and third-party clouds using Kubernetes on their hardware of choice. The initial set of Azure data services now in preview on Azure Arc are SQL Managed Instance and PostgreSQL Hyperscale. See what KPMG Japan has to say about their experience with Azure Arc.
“With Azure Arc, we are able to distribute solutions and workloads across multiple clouds and data centers to support our clients that would have otherwise been bound to a data center.”
-- Aram Lauxtermann, Director, Cloud at KPMG
Unified Management
With the growing need for unified management, customers want the ability to see all the data services running on-premises alongside those running on Azure or in a multi-cloud format. Azure Arc enables the management of these data services through a single pane of glass using familiar tools like Azure Portal, Azure Data Studio, and Azure CLI.
In addition, customers will also be able to access Azure’s security and governance capabilities on their on-premises infrastructure using Azure Security Center, Azure Policy, and Azure Role-Based-Access-Control. With these capabilities, customers can protect their data workloads on-premises with valued features like Advanced Threat Protection and Vulnerability Assessment in the same way they do on Azure.
Always Current
Bringing Azure Arc enabled data services to your workloads means you will be always current with the latest updates and upgrades which are fully automated across any infrastructure. As such, the deployment of these updates will be centrally governed by your predetermined policy. Staying always current, you will benefit from evergreen SQL with no-end-of-support on Azure SQL Managed Instance, and can avail of unmatched, horizontal scale-out with Azure PostgreSQL Hyperscale.
Elastic Scale
Keeping in mind the cloud value our customers are looking for on Azure Arc, we are bringing cloud elasticity on-premises so customers can optimize performance of data workloads with the ability to dynamically scale up/down or scale-out their data workloads without any application downtime. This capability brings the agility and scalability of the cloud to data workloads on any infrastructure.
With Azure Hybrid, customers have the freedom to operate any infrastructure of their choice with cloud capabilities and innovations. Responding to this need, Azure Hybrid is a key investment area for Microsoft as we believe that data stories should thrive regardless of infrastructure constraints. Our customers are looking to unlock the potential of their data, wherever that data resides. I am excited to learn about how you’re using Azure Arc enabled data services to take your data to the next level.
