Introducing Dell PowerScale for Azure: Now in Public Preview
We’re excited to announce the public preview of Dell PowerScale for Microsoft Azure – a fully managed, enterprise-grade file storage solution natively integrated into Azure. This offering brings Dell’s proven scale-out Network-attached storage (NAS) technology directly into Azure, delivering the performance and scalability enterprises expect with the simplicity of Azure-native management. Supporting up to 8.4PB in a single namespace, Dell PowerScale offers the scalability needed for demanding modern workloads. With multi-protocol support (NFS, SMB, S3), it ensures seamless access across diverse applications while maintaining the trusted Dell PowerScale user experience. This Dell-managed solution handles monitoring, maintenance, and updates, enabling organizations to streamline operations, optimize storage, and focus on business priorities with confidence in their data’s security and accessibility. This natively integrated solution uses purpose-built virtual machine infrastructure provisioned by Microsoft in the standard Azure hyper scaler environment. This special VM leverages cache to flash persistent memory technology using NVDIMM-N specifications suitable for the fast linked journaling transactions. These purpose-built VMs enable higher performance throughput and max capacity scale. Capabilities of Dell PowerScale for Azure Multi-protocol access – Global permission structure shared across users and protocols. Seamless scalability – Easily adjust to changing workloads with scale-out capacity. Operational consistency – Same experience as PowerScale on-premises. Smooth data mobility – Transfer data across environments without disruption. Advanced data protection – Safeguard critical information with comprehensive backup and recovery solutions. Snapshots – Fast data backup and recovery. Native replication – Asynchronous replication for data migration or disaster recovery. Why Dell PowerScale for Azure? Dell PowerScale is purpose-built for modern data-intensive workloads that require high performance and scalability — such as AI/ML pipelines, media & entertainment, EDA (electronic design automation), backup & recovery, and enterprise content management. Key Benefits of the Integration: Dell-Managed Service: Enjoy a streamlined storage experience, with Dell handling deployment, monitoring, maintenance, and upgrades — freeing your IT teams to focus on higher-value initiatives. Scalable & Elastic: As business requirements grow, PowerScale dynamically scales capacity and performance by adding nodes on demand, without any downtime. Enterprise-Grade Durability: Data is distributed across multiple nodes within the cluster, ensuring high durability and fault tolerance. Advanced Protection: Uses erasure coding for space-efficient protection and features like SyncIQ for asynchronous replication across sites — keeping your data available even during outages. Secure Private Access: PowerScale integrates into your Azure Virtual Network (VNet) through Vnet Injection, ensuring secure, high-performance data access. Azure-Native Experience: Provision, manage, and monitor PowerScale from within the Azure portal. It supports full integration with Azure Resource Manager (ARM), upcoming support for CLI/Powershell/Terraform, and supports native billing. How to Use the Integration: Mount shared volumes to Azure VMs or Kubernetes running in the same VNet. Run analytics or AI workloads that need parallel access to high-throughput file storage. Support backup, disaster recovery, and archival workflows across sites. Store and manage media assets or research data in regulated industries. Getting Started with Dell PowerScale for Azure Getting started with Dell PowerScale is simple: Navigate to Azure Portal Go to https://portal.azure.com and search for Dell PowerScale in the Marketplace. The offer is named Dell PowerScale for Azure - Dell managed (Public Preview). Contact Dell for a private offer and request a Dell Reference Number. Deploy the Storage Resource Follow guided steps here to configure your resource or cluster Connect Your Workloads Use standard NFS or SMB to mount volumes from Azure VMs or AKS. More Resources You can subscribe to the service through the Azure Marketplace online store or through the Azure portal. Search for it by name: Dell PowerScale for Azure - Dell managed (Public Preview) To learn more about the service, check out Microsoft docs as well as Dell docsPartner Blog | Unifying the data platform for real-time insights
Every organization is looking for quicker insights, stronger security, and new ways to drive innovation with AI. The real challenge lies in connecting and preparing the data that makes those outcomes possible. Across industries, customers are realizing that data sprawl and disconnected systems limit what AI can do. To unlock the potential of their data and deliver real-time impact, they need a modern data foundation that’s integrated, governed, secure, and ready for AI. This post is part three of our Cloud and AI Platforms blog series, detailing how partners can accelerate customer transformation across the Microsoft Cloud. In part one, we looked at the market opportunity created by AI and cloud innovation. Part two focused on migration and modernization as the foundation for AI-powered growth. Now we turn to the next phase of that journey: building a unified data platform that connects every source, fuels intelligent applications, and drives measurable outcomes. Microsoft partners are at the center of this opportunity. By enabling customers to unify their data estate with solutions like Microsoft Fabric, Azure Databricks, and Microsoft Purview, partners are critical in helping organizations turn information into action and insight into innovation. Unify the data estate Bringing all data together across on-premises, cloud, and industry-specific sources is the first step toward intelligence at scale. With Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks, partners can create an open, lake-centric foundation that simplifies analytics and operational data for AI. Continue reading herePartner Blog | Building Frontier Firms: How partner skilling accelerates innovation and growth
For partners, skilling is more than a support function. It’s the economic engine helping you grow, compete, and differentiate your business in the age of AI. New Microsoft research shows that project-ready and workload-aligned training directly accelerates partner success by increasing win rates, improving deal velocity, and unlocking higher margins. Skilling also serves as the foundation for building Frontier Firms, organizations that are defining the next wave of AI-led innovation through IP development, co-creation, and outcome-based solutions. Through the Partner Skilling Hub, Certification Weeks, LevelUp, and regional initiatives, partners are building the expertise needed to lead AI transformation and deliver measurable customer impact. Continue reading herePartner Blog | Transforming customer engagement into growth with Copilot and agentic AI
For Frontier Firms, every customer engagement is an opportunity to drive transformation. Each interaction creates space to unlock innovation, accelerate outcomes, and deliver lasting value. We’re entering an era where intelligence is becoming an on-demand utility. Just as the cloud transformed access to computing power, AI is now embedded into the flow of work. Customers expect insight and action in real time. They want faster results, stronger security, and continuous innovation. Meeting those expectations requires more than people alone; it requires an ecosystem that can scale intelligence and deliver outcomes with speed and precision. Microsoft partners are at the center of that transformation. You are the architect of change, realizing customer ambition with a full stack of technology. Through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, you have access to the technology, skilling, and go-to-market resources that make this transformation achievable. Together, we’re enabling every organization to operate with greater intelligence and agility than ever before. The journey to Frontier transformation AI transformation doesn’t happen in a single project. It’s a sustained journey that moves customers from pilots to full-scale adoption and long-term value. This is what we call always-on selling, where every engagement builds trust, adoption, and expansion. We’ve seen the impact of this approach firsthand at Microsoft. By embedding Copilot into daily workflows, our own Customer Zero experience increased revenue per seller by 9.4 percent and boosted deal closures by 20 percent. Continue reading herePartner Blog | Highlights from the Migrate & Modernize Summit: Accelerating customer transformation through AI
Modernization is one of the biggest technology opportunities of our time. Across industries, organizations are looking to move faster, operate more securely, and scale innovation. But legacy systems, technical debt, and fragmented infrastructure continue to slow progress. IDC reports that more than 37% of application portfolios require modernization today, and that need will remain high for years to come. It’s a challenge that demands deep technical expertise, and it’s your opportunity to lead. As a Microsoft partner, you’re central to enabling customer transformation and shaping what comes next. At the recent Migrate & Modernize Summit, we introduced new tools and programs that combine AI-powered automation with expert-led deployment support. These innovations make it possible to deliver faster outcomes, reduce complexity, and unlock long-term value for your customers. You can register or watch the summit on demand. Modernization is becoming faster, smarter, and more scalable At the summit, we introduced several key updates that support how partners accelerate migration and modernization across workloads and industries. Continue reading herePartner Blog | Microsoft & Oracle: The future of enterprise cloud data for partners
In today’s fast-changing cloud and AI landscape, our partnership with Oracle represents the power of collaboration to drive customer transformation at scale. Microsoft and Oracle share a common goal: to enable organizations to modernize their data estates, accelerate AI innovation, and deliver measurable business outcomes. Oracle Database@Azure brings this vision to life by combining the best of both platforms and putting our partners at the center of that transformation. Announcements from Oracle AI World At Oracle AI World, we introduced a new set of advancements that expand what’s possible for our customers and partners. Azure Accelerate, within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, support now includes Oracle Database@Azure workloads, offering partners funding, credits, and the Cloud Accelerate Factory for zero-cost deployment assistance. This allows partners to move customers to Azure faster, reduce migration risks, and increase delivery speed. Partners will also be able to resell Oracle Database@Azure directly through Microsoft Marketplace, making it easier to package, license, and deploy solutions globally while building new revenue streams. The platform itself also continues to evolve quickly. Oracle Database@Azure now supports Oracle Base Database Service, Exadata Exascale 19c, and Oracle Database 23ai across more than 28+ regions worldwide, enabling a broad multicloud hyperscaler reach. Native Oracle GoldenGate integration with Oracle Database@Azure now connects directly to Microsoft Fabric, making it easier to unify data across systems, reduce latency, and activate AI and analytics at scale. Partners can also use Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry to create and deploy custom agents and low-code AI solutions powered by more than 1,900 models. Security and operations are integrated across Microsoft Defender, Sentinel, and Entra ID, giving customers AI-driven threat detection, real-time monitoring, and unified identity management. Azure Arc integration adds full visibility, policy management, and automation across hybrid and multicloud environments, allowing partners to deliver consistent governance from a single control plane. The partnership between Microsoft and Oracle builds on years of co-engineering, centered on helping customers modernize mission-critical workloads without compromise. Together, we’ve brought Oracle Exadata infrastructure directly into Azure datacenters, unifying Microsoft and Oracle ecosystems through shared networking, identity, and governance. The result is a seamless cloud experience that combines Azure’s scalability and security with Oracle’s trusted database performance. Continue reading here!Azure Kubernetes Service Automatic: Fast and frictionless Kubernetes for all
AKS Automatic simplifies Kubernetes by offering a fully managed, opinionated experience that abstracts away from infrastructure complexity, while keeping the full power of Kubernetes at your fingertips. Learn how production-ready clusters and automated infrastructure operations can accelerate your time to delivery and simplify operations for you! Check out the announcement blog here!Partner Blog | Azure updates for partners: October 2025
AI is reshaping industries—and fast. Partners like you are at the center of this transformation, helping customers modernize, innovate, and scale with confidence. To help you stay ahead, we’re launching the Azure Partner Update, a recurring update designed to keep you up to date with the latest developments and accelerate your business. Expect curated insights, bold perspectives, and the latest tools to help you lead with cloud solutions and AI and build what’s next. Spotlight One of this month’s top updates is the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace, now a trusted central source for cloud solutions, AI apps and agents for customers, and a scale engine for partners. Marketplace continues to evolve as an extension of the Microsoft Cloud, connecting your innovations directly to customers where they work. The new AI Apps and Agents category empowers customers to discover AI solutions that integrate seamlessly with Microsoft products, creating new paths for partners to reach buyers and scale impact. We also announced several technical updates designed to make cloud deployments faster and more flexible: Broadcom’s VMware licensing changes now enable Azure VMware Solution (AVS) customers to bring their own VMware Cloud Foundations license, giving them more control and potential cost savings. Azure AI Foundry continues to advance, and now features GPT-5-Codex, gpt-realtime, and new browser automation tools that make it easier to build and deploy intelligent applications. AKS Automatic has reached general availability, simplifying Kubernetes management and reducing time to production. Oracle Database@Azure now spans 23 regions, expanding global reach and resilience for your customers. New integrations across data sources, CI/CD capabilities, and agent automation within Fabric were introduced at FabCon. Continue reading herePartner Blog | What's new for Microsoft partners: October 2025 edition
Your voice is instrumental in shaping the future of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. In our latest quarterly update, we share key enhancements driven by partner feedback, along with expert insights, new skilling resources, and the latest benefits to help you grow, innovate, and lead in the AI era. Continue reading here!Microsoft Blog | Microsoft Ignite: Shaping what’s next with our partner ecosystem
In just a few weeks, we’ll gather at Microsoft Ignite 2025 to focus on four pillars that define successful AI transformation: improving employee experiences, reinventing business processes, deepening customer connections, and bending the curve of industry innovation. Across every sector, organizations are asking how to realize these outcomes with speed and confidence, and Microsoft partners are the ones who can make it possible. Join us in San Francisco or online November 18–21 to see the latest innovations, connect with Microsoft leaders and peers, and learn how to deliver even greater impact for your customers. Registration is open, and there is still time to reserve your spot today. What to expect at Microsoft Ignite Learn how to unlock the most value from your Microsoft partnership through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Continue reading here
