Azure VMware Solution - March 2023 - What's New Update

We are thrilled to announce the March 2023 release for Azure VMware Solution. A variety of new and highly anticipated features such as SQL Azure Hybrid Benefit is now GA, AVS Gov is in Preview and Customer Managed Keys are now available. Read on to explore more.

Azure VMware Solution Feature Updates

• Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server
• Azure VMware Solution in Azure Gov
• Customer Managed Keys 
• HCX Enterprise Edition 
• NSX-T Update 

   

SQL Hybrid Benefit 

Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server 

Customers that have SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance can now bring these licenses to Azure VMware Solution hosts.  Through the Azure portal, a placement policy can be created to allow the customer to select the number hosts and VMs utilizing the license.  As a result of this, the VMs on the nodes running SQL Server will be licensed using the unlimited virtualization benefit included with the Enterprise edition and Software Assurance.

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AVS now in Azure Government 

Azure VMware Solution in Microsoft Azure Government 

Early this March Microsoft announced public preview of AVS in Microsoft Azure Government.  With this launch, we are merging VMware cloud technology with Azure’s highly secure infrastructure in Azure Government. This platform is created, maintained and supported by Microsoft to meet the strictest government security and compliance standards. Azure Government provides a dedicated cloud that allows government agencies and their partners to easily migrate their critical workloads to the cloud.  Now customers can bring their VMware workloads into Azure and maintain secure and compliant environments with the ease of Azure VMware Solution.

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Customer Managed Keys

Azure VMware Solution encryption with Customer Managed Keys 

Azure VMware Solution provides default encryption for private cloud’s vSAN datastore using service-managed keys. However, some industries require customer-managed keys for compliance reasons. These keys add a second layer of encryption on top of the default one, providing double encryption. With customer-managed keys, customers have full control over the encryption of their vSAN data on Azure VMware Solution.

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HCX Enterprise Edition

Azure VMware Solution now deployed with HCX Enterprise 

HCX Enterprise Edition is available at no extra cost but an upgrade from HCX Advanced is needed.  Now when deploying Azure VMware Solution or new HCX installations, HCX Enterprise Edition will be deployed by default. Customers will benefit from Replication Assisted vMotion  and Mobility Optimized Networking. These additional HCX features optimize bulk live migrations from on-premises environments to Azure VMware Solution.  

Existing HCX Advanced customers can upgrade to HCX Enterprise using the Azure portal.  Learn more on how to Install and activate VMware HCX in Azure VMware Solution.

NSX-T Update for AVS 

Azure VMware Solution now deploying with Data Center version 3.2.2 

All new Azure VMware Solution private clouds are being deployed with NSX-T Data Center version 3.2.2. NSX-T Data Center versions in existing private clouds will be upgraded to NSX-T Data Center version 3.2.2 through April 2023

That is all for this month. Please continue sending us your feedback on features you would like to see in Azure VMware Solution. We hope that you enjoy the update!  

Amy Colyer

Amy Colyer - Senior Cloud Advocate | Microsoft Developer