Portworx unveils enterprise data platform for KubeVirt VMs

Portworx has announced the launch of an enterprise-grade container data management platform for Kubevirt virtual machines (VMs) aimed at addressing economic, virtualisation, and storage challenges following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware.

With companies seeking cost-effective alternatives amidst potential price hikes, Kubernetes is becoming a popular platform choice for modernising infrastructures and advancing cloud-native application development. According to a Voice of Kubernetes 2024 survey, 81% of enterprises plan to migrate or modernise their VMs to Kubernetes, with 65% expecting to achieve this within the next two years. However, transitioning to Kubernetes brings new challenges, particularly regarding the management of virtual machine data at an enterprise scale.

Portworx Enterprise 3.3 aims to address these challenges by extending its platform to support VM workloads. The upcoming release is particularly designed to provide organisations with the necessary data resiliency, protection, and performance for mission-critical workloads while ensuring flexibility, simplicity, and scaling capability.

"Kubernetes is the dominant platform for containerised workloads of all types, from VMs to fully cloud-native applications. With Portworx 3.3, PureStorage is bringing together a scalable data management platform with a simplified workflow across containers and VMs. That's appealing to enterprises modernising their infrastructure, pursuing cloud-native applications, or both," stated Mitch Ashley, VP and Practice Lead, DevOps and Application Development at Futurum.

The Portworx Enterprise 3.3 platform addresses concerns surrounding cost-efficiency for organisational data storage. It offers a unified platform with several integrations, allowing companies to manage their data according to their own timelines. This facilitates a gradual transition without the need for immediate substantial investments.

Steven Dickens, CEO & Principal Analyst at HyperFRAME Research, commented, "Portworx Enterprise 3.3 represents a game-changer for organisations modernising their virtualisation environment, delivering a robust, cost-efficient platform that seamlessly supports both VMs and containers on Kubernetes. With Portworx projecting cost savings of 30-50% compared to traditional alternatives, this solution empowers enterprises to optimise their infrastructure without compromising performance or scalability, making it a robust choice for production environments at scale."

The release also simplifies data storage management for VMs and containers operating on Kubernetes, allowing for a single workflow across various applications. Its agnostic approach to storage infrastructure enables its utilisation in both Pure Storage and non-Pure Storage environments.

The platform will include features designed to enhance high-performance storage such as RWX Block for KubeVirt VMs, applicable across any storage vendor. Additionally, Portworx pledges superior data management and protection with offerings including zero recovery point objective (RPO) synchronised disaster recovery for VMs and precise file-level backups for Linux VMs.

Portworx will integrate with major Kubevirt solutions including offerings from SUSE and Spectro Cloud along with existing collaborations with Red Hat, enhancing its comprehensive ecosystem.

Mike Barrett, Vice President and General Manager of Hybrid Cloud Platforms at Red Hat, noted, "Modernising infrastructure remains a top priority for many organisations as they look for new ways to innovate and bring products and services to market faster. Our engineering collaboration with Portworx helps improve performance with block volumes optimised for VMs and delivers new capabilities to protect business-critical workloads with synchronous replication for Metro disaster recovery."

Peter Smails, GM at SUSE Rancher, stated, "As more organisations modernise their virtualisation platforms, they need a seamless way to operate virtual machines on Kubernetes at enterprise scale. Portworx and SUSE are working together to enable customers to leverage the enterprise-grade data management Portworx brings for VMs and Containers running across SUSE Virtualisation and SUSE Rancher Prime anywhere."

Alex Septoff, VP of Channels and Alliances at Spectro Cloud, further added, "Many of our enterprise customers are actively pursuing a Kubernetes-native VMware replacement strategy. We have a longstanding partnership with Portworx, and we've made its products an integral part of our Virtual Machine Orchestrator architecture."