Enabling hybrid solutions on any cloud, on any infrastructure, with Azure Arc partners

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

In support of the upcoming general availability of Azure Arc-enabled Azure SQL we are happy to announce expansion of the Azure Arc ecosystem of trusted partners and validated hardware and software platforms to help customers get started.

The “anywhere” solution for Azure data services at scale

Businesses today are increasingly adopting hybrid and multicloud technologies for their data workloads. Complexity grows as they adopt modernization and migration principles while also responding to data sovereignty, industry regulation, and on-premises latency constraints.

To meet the needs of customers today and solve their complicated hybrid scenarios, Azure Arc-enabled data services integrates across a wide choice of platforms. We have collaborated with industry-leading OEMs, cloud solution providers (CSP), Kubernetes and OS distribution providers, and independent software vendors (ISVs) to validate their Azure Arc hybrid solutions and deliver the latest innovations and unified management tools for data workloads in any environment.

“Azure Arc is the glue that brings the power of Azure – time to market, innovation, security – to all cloud environments. Arc allows us to fully realize multi-cloud – from on-prem, to hybrid, to the edge, and even connect services in other public cloud providers. It’s a game changer, especially as organizations push more solutions towards the intelligent edge.” – Brandon Ebken, CTO, Insight

A customer-centric, solutions-focused approach

With Azure Arc, customers can now have a unified Azure experience across their entire infrastructure – and we have worked with a network of trusted partners to support customers with their migration and modernization efforts. Whether you are just getting started with migration and modernization efforts or in the middle of a multi-year smart factory rollout, our consulting services partners can help you choose the validated infrastructures and applications that are specifically configured and tested to work with Azure Arc.

Azure offers the entire infrastructure – from the network, compute, power, and cooling, all the way up through the software layer – and have worked with a network of trusted partners to help customers get started. Azure Arc-enabled data services helps customers extend the same cloud benefits and data services they receive in Azure to their own infrastructure, such as automated or self-service de/provisioning, scaling, updates, backup/restore, and high availability.

We are working with a broad network of managed service providers (MSPs) and solution integrators (SIs) to help customers deploy and operate Azure data services in multi-cloud and on-prem environments. With the help of our partners, customers can use Azure Arc to:

Manage cloud-native app development at scale and across multi-cloud environments

Integrate with cloud native platforms and/or deliver solutions for data and AI

Accelerate data modernization and create hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solutions by combining highly optimized hardware and software platforms

Validated platforms for trusted performance

The Azure Arc validation program ensures customers can adopt from a wide range of partner solutions to fit their needs with the confidence that they have been designed, engineered, configured, and tested to run Azure data services.

With Arc validated solutions, customers receive the benefits of enterprise performance, scale, and support to deploy and operate their data services, like Azure SQL Managed Instance, across any cloud. Arc validated solutions are tested for both hardware and software platforms to optimize hybrid data workloads, and our partnership with industry leading OEMs, like Dell Technologies, delivers HCI and hardware-as-a-service (HaaS) for full stack solutions.

For a consistent experience from cloud to edge, popular infrastructure platforms and Kubernetes distributions have been tested and validated to work with Azure Arc. Current validated solutions include Dell EMC PowerFlex, Dell EMC PowerMax, Dell EMC PowerStore, Dell EMC Integrated System for Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, Dell EMC VxRail, Dell Technologies APEX Data Storage Services, Red Hat Openshift, Portworx by Pure Storage, Nutanix Karbon, and VMware Tanzu. See a full list of technology and service partners here.

“Building upon our long history of close collaboration with Microsoft, Dell Technologies infrastructure is now validated to work with Azure Arc,” said Travis Vigil, senior vice president of product management, Dell Technologies. “We’ve optimized Dell storage and hyperconverged infrastructure offerings, including APEX Data Storage Services, with Azure Arc-enabled data services to vastly simplify the deployment, management and governance of database management systems across private clouds, public clouds and edge locations.”

“With Red Hat OpenShift, users can run Azure data services across the entirety of the hybrid cloud, including on-premise datacenters, at the edge and in multiple public cloud environments. Whether extending a self-deployed cluster or a managed container service, customers can elastically scale data operations and applications while trusting their container-based data infrastructure is up to date.” – Mike Evans, VP Technical Business Development, Red Hat

For data workloads running SQL, storage is an important component of the overall infrastructure. Our partners deliver purpose-built solutions that optimize hardware and software interlock. Customers can build cloud native infrastructure on cost-effective tiered virtualized storage to receive best of class performance for their data applications.

“Azure Arc simplifies multicloud deployments by bringing Azure management and security to any infrastructure. Paired with Portworx, customers can accelerate application development and app reliability across on-premises, cloud, and edge by automating container storage and data management.” – Shawn Rosemarin, Global VP, Emerging Technology Sales, Pure Storage

Cloud solutions that simplify the most complex hybrid scenarios

Many customers are adjusting to rapid technology advances and responding by adapting their infrastructure, applications, and operations to be cloud native. Our network of managed service providers (MSPs) and solution integrators (SIs) are here to deliver comprehensive platforms that integrate with your existing infrastructure, deploying cloud native tools, GitOps configurations, and applications to one or more Kubernetes clusters at scale.

“We see massive value with Azure Arc and the ability to bring the features and capabilities of Azure to on-premise datacenters, retail stores, and manufacturing facilities, while simultaneously centralizing operations and modernizing technical capabilities across hosting platforms.” – Nick Colyer, Director of Cloud & DevOps, AHEAD

“Azure Arc enabled data services provides a Database-as-a-Service model for us to better serve our customers, like OPET; they now can run data workloads outside of Azure, and yet enjoy all the Azure innovation and cloud benefits.” – Evren Dereçi, Chief Marketing Officer, Koç Sistem

Get started today with an Azure Arc partner

The Azure Arc partner program offers customers validated, enterprise grade solutions to run Azure at the edge. Launched at Microsoft Ignite 2021 with support from industry-leading OEMs, hardware providers, platform providers, and ISVs, we continue to expand coverage into data services to meet the needs of our customers.