Authors: Richard Crofford, Thomas Willingham, Robert Cox
As enterprises accelerate their cloud journey, the need to modernize legacy infrastructure without sacrificing performance or control has never been more urgent. Azure NetApp Files (ANF) now supports Red Hat OpenShift virtualization on Azure Red Hat OpenShift (ARO), delivering enterprise-class storage performance for OpenShift Virtual Machines (VMs) on Azure. With this integration, organizations can run and manage traditional VMs alongside containerized applications within ARO, leveraging ANF as the exclusive, high-performance storage backend for these VMs. By uniting Red Hat’s virtualization capabilities with Azure’s fully managed file storage, businesses can modernize at their own pace migrating VMs to a cloud-native platform without refactoring and without compromising performance or reliability.
Integration Overview and Architecture
Azure Red Hat OpenShift now features built-in virtualization, with ANF as the storage backbone supporting those virtual machines. ANF volumes are provisioned on-demand as persistent VM disks in ARO, enabled by NetApp’s Trident Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver.
How it works:
- When you create a new VM in an ARO cluster, the Trident CSI driver automatically provisions an NFS volume on ANF to back that VM’s disk.
- Each ANF volume's capacity and performance are tuned according to the chosen Kubernetes StorageClass (Standard, Premium, Ultra, or Flexible service levels).
- All OpenShift worker nodes share access to the ANF datastore, enabling seamless live migration of VMs across nodes with no interruption in storage access, a critical capability for high availability and load balancing.
Why Azure NetApp Files?
Azure NetApp Files is a first-party Azure native storage service built for demanding workloads. It delivers sub-millisecond latency, high IOPS, and seamless scalability all while integrating natively with Kubernetes and OpenShift. With ANF, you get the performance of on-premises SAN/NAS systems, the agility of cloud-native operations, and the simplicity of a fully managed Azure service.
What sets ANF apart is its ability to support virtual machines in ARO with the same reliability and speed as traditional virtualization platforms without the complexity or cost of maintaining separate infrastructure.
Key Technical Features
|
Technical Capability |
Benefit for ARO Virtual Machines |
|
High Performance |
Sub-millisecond latency, high IOPS, and throughput for mission-critical workloads. |
|
Shared NFS Storage for VMs |
Multiple OpenShift nodes can access a single ANF volume, enabling live migration and enhancing failover and load balancing. |
|
Instant Snapshots & Clones |
Take point-in-time snapshots and clone volumes instantly for fast backup, recovery, and dev/test scenarios. |
|
Manual QoS & Flexible Service |
Precisely dial in throughput per volume. Flexible service level allows capacity and performance to scale independently, eliminating overprovisioning. |
|
Native Kubernetes Integration |
Fully managed through Kubernetes/OpenShift APIs. No separate storage management tools required you use familiar OpenShift console and commands. |
Getting Started: Deployment and Configuration
Standing up ANF for OpenShift virtualization is straightforward:
Once configured, deploying a VM in ARO automatically provisions an ANF volume for its disk, unlocking all ANF benefits for your workloads.
Use Cases
Once configured, deploying a VM in ARO automatically provisions an ANF volume for its disk, unlocking all ANF benefits for your workloads.
Use Cases
1. Lift-and-Shift Migration
Organizations can migrate virtual machines from legacy platforms into ARO without rewriting or refactoring applications. ANF ensures performance parity with on-prem storage, making it easy to transition critical workloads to the cloud.
2. Hybrid Workload Consolidation
Run databases, middleware, and microservices together in a single OpenShift cluster. ANF enables seamless storage access across nodes, allowing VMs and containers to coexist and interact efficiently.
3. Dev/Test Acceleration
Clone production VMs instantly for testing, patch validation, or sandboxing. ANF’s snapshot and clone capabilities reduce provisioning time from hours to seconds, enabling faster iteration and innovation.
4. Disaster Recovery and Backup
Use ANF snapshots for rapid restore and business continuity. With space-efficient snapshots and volume revert capabilities, organizations can recover from failures or data loss with minimal downtime.
5. Performance-Critical Applications
Deploy high-I/O workloads such as databases, analytics engines, and ERP systems with confidence. ANF’s manual QoS controls and flexible service levels allow precise tuning of throughput and capacity.
Strategic Value
The integration of ANF with ARO Virtualization is more than a technical enhancement; it is a strategic enabler for enterprise modernization. Here’s why:
• Unified Platform: Eliminate silos by managing VMs and containers together to simplify governance, security, and lifecycle management.
• Accelerated Cloud Adoption: Migrate legacy applications to Azure without disruption. Run them alongside modern services and modernize at your own pace.
• Optimized Resource Use: Avoid overprovisioning with manual QoS and scale dynamically with flexible service levels—pay only for what you need.
• Enterprise-Grade Reliability: With joint support from Microsoft, Red Hat, and NetApp, delivering SLA-driven reliability for mission-critical workloads.
Conclusion
Azure NetApp Files brings enterprise-grade storage to Azure Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, combining the performance of traditional infrastructure with the agility of cloud. Whether migrating legacy workloads, building hybrid apps, or modernizing your IT landscape, ANF + ARO delivers a future-ready foundation for performance, simplicity, and cost efficiency.
Resources:
Microsoft Documentation: How to create OpenShift Virtualization on ARO
OpenShift Virtualization on Azure Red Hat OpenShift GA: Accelerating Hybrid Cloud Modernization
