Public preview: On-premises StorSimple Virtual Array

The StorSimple Virtual Array is a version of StorSimple in a virtual machine (VM) form. It provides a cost-effective, lightweight solution for remote office environments while delivering the fundamental value of StorSimple Hybrid Cloud Storage, including:

• Seamless cloud integration with automated tiering to manage data growth.
• Simplified data protection with cloud-based snapshots.
• Location-independent recovery of data from the cloud.

The StorSimple Virtual Array can be downloaded from the StorSimple Manager in the Azure portal and installed on a VM configured on a Hyper-V or VMware hypervisor. The StorSimple Virtual Array is configurable as a NAS (using SMB) or a SAN (using iSCSI) device.It's initially being targeted for file sharing, for information worker and collaboration scenarios, and for small database workloads using a combination of local and tiered volumes. It can be managed from the StorSimple Manager service in the Azure portal.The on-premises StorSimple Virtual Array is billed against the same meters as the StorSimple 8000 Series, the StorSimple meter, and the Azure Blob Storage meter.For more information, please see the following blog post on TechNet: Microsoft targets new workloads and smaller enterprises with expanded StorSimple offerings.