DataON Joins the Ranks of Azure Arc-enabled Data Services Validated Partners for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes

DataON has worked closely with Microsoft to provide the largest selection of Microsoft validated solutions (Integrated Systems and validated nodes) for Azure Stack HCI. Now DataON is excited to offer validated platforms for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes for data services, which includes Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance that is deployed on Kubernetes as a containerized application. DataON’s validated Arc-enabled Kubernetes uses Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) on HCI and Windows Server as the Kubernetes distribution of choice. 

For those not familiar with Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes, it allows IT administrators to attach and configure Kubernetes services running in their on-premises data center and/or public cloud infrastructure to Azure Arc. This enables Kubernetes to be represented in Azure Resource Manager by a unique ID and placed in an Azure subscription and resource group. IT admins will also receive tags just like any Azure resource. And Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes works with all Cloud Native Computing (CNCF) certified Kubernetes clusters. IT admins can also use powerful Azure tools for Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes such as Azure Monitor, Microsoft Defender, Azure Policy, Azure Active Directory, Azure Machine Learning and more.    

In addition, Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes provides additional security and supports industry-standard SSL to secure data in transit. For the connected clusters, cluster extensions, and custom locations, data at rest is stored encrypted in an Azure Cosmos DB database to ensure confidentiality.  

DataON’s newly validated Azure Arc-enabled data services Kubernetes (SQL Managed Instance) uses Kubernetes constructs such as stateful sets and persistent storage to provide built-in health monitoring, failure detection, and failover mechanisms to maintain service health. For increased reliability, IT admins can also configure Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance to deploy extra replicas in a high availability configuration. Monitoring, failure detection, and automatic failover are managed by the Arc data services data controller without IT admin intervention. The service sets up the availability group, configures database mirroring endpoints, adds databases to the availability group, and coordinates failover and upgrade.   

Azure Arc-enabled data services Kubernetes also provides IT admins additional features on Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance such as receiving updates on a frequent basis and includes service patches and new features similar to the Azure experience. IT admins can keep on-premises databases up to date and ensure control in accordance with their data policies. Since Azure Arc-enabled data services Kubernetes is a subscription service, IT admins will never face end-of-support situations for their databases.    

With validated Azure Arc-enabled data services Kubernetes, DataON ensures Kubernetes and Microsoft SQL Managed Instance will meet all Microsoft requirements and ensure compatibility for seamless operation. DataON plans to expand Azure Arc-enabled data services Kubernetes validation for PostgreSQL in the future.   

For those interested in deploying an on-premises Kubernetes solution, Microsoft also offers Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for Azure Stack HCI and Windows Server. AKS for Azure Stack HCI simplifies on-premises Kubernetes deployments by providing wizards IT admins can use to set up Kubernetes and essential Azure Stack HCI add-ons and create Kubernetes clusters to host workloads. You can also use Azure Hybrid Benefit for AKS to significantly reduce the cost of running Kubernetes on-premises or on the edge by letting you apply your on-premises Windows Server Datacenter of Standard licenses with Software Assurance (SA) to pay for AKS.  

 

Learn More