While Broadcom's acquisition of VMware is still sending shockwaves to tech teams and finance departments around the globe companies may wonder what choices they have. Pure Storage has announced an update to its industry-leading Portworx Enterprise platform that directly addresses the issue of virtualisation workloads in a cost-efficient way that helps companies control their own future and be in charge of timing and cost.

While virtual machine tech did wonders for the world, and in part helped bring in what we now know as cloud computing, tech has evolved and just as VMs severed the tie between hardware and operating systems, so too the modern world of containers can sever the tie between apps and operating systems. Containers can provide serverless environments that stretch and scale based on demand without the cost of a 24x7x365 VM.

It's no surprise then that many VMware customers are turning, or expecting to turn, to Kubernetes, the Google-founded orchestration and management platform that supports both VMs and containers. With Kubernetes an enterprise can use one platform to propel cloud-native app development and fortify infrastructure management. And now Pure Storage's Portworx Enterprise platform is a smart, solid option that helps companies transform, while controlling costs, and importantly, being able to modernise and adapt in their own timetable, not Broadcom's.

81% of enterprises that participated in a 2024 survey of Kubernetes experts plan to migrate or modernise their VMs to Kubernetes. And almost two-thirds of those plan to do so within the next two years. Yet new challenges arise as enterprises increasingly move virtual machines to Kubernetes.

With the launch of Portworx Enterprise 3.3, Pure Storage is extending its industry-leading container data management platform to support VM workloads at enterprise scale. As the industry leader in container data management, Portworx provides the performance, data resiliency, and data protection necessary for mission-critical workloads with the simplicity, flexibility, and reliability needed for production at scale. Organisations can expect a 30%-50% cost savings by choosing Kubernetes compared to alternatives — and Portworx allows them to take these savings to the next level. Enterprises won’t need to invest in resources to move workloads to cloud native. Instead, they can indefinitely keep their VMs on Kubernetes while refactoring or creating net-new cloud-native applications based on their existing resources and transformation timelines.

High performance at scale: Portworx Enterprise 3.3 will feature RWX Block for KubeVirt VMs that are running on FlashArray or across any storage vendor. This will propel powerful read/write capabilities and drive high-performance storage for VMs running on Kubernetes.

Enterprise-grade data management and protection: Enterprises can now manage their data from a single management plane, including synchronized disaster recovery for VMs running on Kubernetes with no data loss (zero RPO). Portworx also supports file-level backups for Linux VMs, allowing for more granular backup and restore of VMs running on Kubernetes.

Broad ecosystem integrations to leading KubeVirt solutions: With Portworx Enterprise 3.3, customers can leverage reference architecture and partner integrations with KubeVirt platforms from SUSE, Spectro Cloud, and Kubermatic—in addition to Portworx’s existing collaboration with Red Hat.

“Built for Kubernetes, Portworx offers the scalability, automation, and self-service capabilities required to support the churn and elasticity of cloud-native applications. Portworx Enterprise 3.3 addresses C-suites’ virtualization concerns around cost efficiency by allowing data storage stakeholders to go at their own pace in their modernization journey due to its unified platform and multiple integrations.” said Pure Storage VP & GM Portworx Venkat Ramakrishnan.