Extending the Unified Data Plane: Pure Storage Cloud Azure Native is Generally Available

Blog written by Dan Kogan, VP, product management, FlashArray BU, Pure Storage published Sep. 25, 2025

Pure Storage Cloud Azure Native, jointly developed with Microsoft is GA. This first-of-its-kind fully managed block volume as a service delivers Pure Storage enterprise-grade storage to Microsoft Azure, extending the benefits of the Pure Storage Cloud into Azure with a seamless native experience. 

Helping Enterprise Move Data to the Cloud
Enterprises everywhere are moving data into the cloud to take advantage of the latest in AI innovations and cloud-native services. Yet the journey is rarely straightforward. Cloud migration projects often run over budget and behind schedule. McKinsey reports that 75% of cloud migrations exceed cost estimates and 38% experience delays, leaving IT teams scrambling to reconcile business goals with infrastructure realities.

Most on-premises virtual and physical server deployments are built on the foundation of storage. Having a seamless path to bring your data to the cloud is paramount to successful cloud migrations. 

Over the past seven years, Pure Storage has partnered with Microsoft to bring industry-leading storage and data management services to the public cloud and make cloud migrations easier. Together, we’ve helped organizations like Perdoceo Education build a modern, flexible, and cost-effective storage solution in Azure – reducing database restores from eight hours to just five minutes, achieving 12:1 data reduction, and lowering total cost of ownership by 40%. We’ve enabled a major manufacturer to cut cloud storage costs by 50% and redirect those savings into AI and innovation. And we’ve supported a financial services organization in migrating VMware to the cloud – improving both ROI and security along the way.

Now, we take a giant leap forward – providing all these benefits to our customers through a new Azure Native experience.

A Seamless, Native Solution in Azure
Let’s be clear – this isn’t a bolt-on solution. Pure Storage Cloud Azure Native is the product of joint development with Microsoft. Built as part of the Azure Native Integrations program – an exclusive partnership program – this service integrates directly into the Azure portal and Azure Resource Manager infrastructure as code framework, delivering a seamless experience that is managed and consumed as a native Azure service.

“Organizations looking to embrace AI and next-gen cloud services with Microsoft must first move data to Azure. For many, migrating storage-intensive VMware workloads has been a significant challenge,” said Aung Oo, VP, Azure Storage. “That’s why we’re thrilled to partner with Pure Storage to provide a new Azure Native service built for Azure VMware Solution. Together, we’re making it easier for customers to migrate data-heavy VMware workloads into Azure and quickly leverage the latest cloud innovations in AI and analytics.”

For Microsoft customers, this translates into a simpler, more secure, and fully native cloud storage experience:

• Deployed and managed from directly within the Azure Portal. Just like native Azure storage, you can directly deploy, provision, and manage your storage
• Enhanced security. With native VNet integration, it’s accessible privately from your virtual network using Azure-native tools, without exposing any public endpoint
• Zero egress costs into your connected VNet. This is also made possible by VNet injection and is exclusively available with Azure Native Integrations
• Centralized billing through Azure. Billing is centralized, and your consumption counts toward your Microsoft Azure Customer Commit

Beyond that, it’s the industry’s first fully managed, enterprise-grade block volume as a service – with no virtual arrays to configure, size, or maintain. Capacity and performance are controlled with a simple slider, while upgrades, capacity expansions, and plugin updates are all handled by Pure Storage.

Tackling VMware First
VMware environments represent a substantial portion of most IT teams’ data footprint, making them a natural first target for cloud migration. More than 80% of VMware environments rely on external storage, while most managed VMware cloud services use hyper-converged architectures. Without enterprise-grade external storage in the cloud, organizations face costly refactoring, operational blind spots, and prolonged timelines. The result? Lift and shift becomes a half measure, leaving teams stuck in a hybrid limbo and undermining time to value.

The first solution supported by our new service – Pure Storage Cloud Azure Native for Azure VMware Solution – tackles this challenge head-on and redefines what’s possible for VMware workloads in the cloud, delivering massive cost savings, unmatched scalability, and dramatically lower migration risk.

This service doesn’t just deliver storage in the cloud – it transforms how enterprises move, scale, and operate VMware workloads. IT teams can unlock massive cost savings: Customers deploying on AV36 nodes can realize 20%-40% reductions in cloud storage costs in the first year, with potential to reach up to 50% in year five. And because storage is fully decoupled from compute, teams can scale capacity independently. In a typical VMware deployment requiring 206TB of storage, 3,840GB of memory, and 72 CPU cores, scaling storage with Pure Storage Cloud can reduce Azure VMware Solution (AVS) nodes by three times, cutting both costs and operational overhead.

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Beyond cost and scalability, migration risk is substantially reduced. Unlike traditional hyperconverged cloud approaches that require extensive refactoring, Pure Storage Cloud for AVS provides enterprise-grade external storage in Azure, replicating the on-premises environment. This creates a true like-for-like migration path, allowing VMware workloads to move seamlessly without redesigning applications or storage architectures. With AVS alone, organizations are only halfway there – Pure Storage Cloud for AVS ensures lift and shift is fast, predictable, and low risk, preserving the performance, protection, and data services that VMware workloads rely on.

What once took months of planning and complex manual provisioning can now be deployed in hours, giving IT teams the freedom to accelerate cloud adoption, focus on innovation, and realize time to value faster than ever before. For enterprises looking to modernize VMware workloads, scale efficiently, and migrate confidently, this is a groundbreaking moment.

The Power of a Unified Data Plane
The launch of Pure Storage Cloud Azure Native is a big step toward a truly unified data plane. Public cloud can’t be treated as a disconnected island; it needs to be part of a virtual pool of resources that spans on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.

And it’s all part of the Pure Storage vision to help organizations build an Enterprise Data Cloud – virtualizing and unifying data, breaking down silos, eliminating inefficiencies, and giving infrastructure teams the consistency they need to keep pace with business demands. With a single platform, customers can run any application – from mission-critical enterprise systems to AI and analytics – knowing their data services are secure and available from anywhere. With Pure Storage Cloud Azure Native and the broader Pure Storage platform, your data becomes a strategic advantage: always accessible, always protected, and always ready to power the next wave of innovation.