Microsoft’s hybrid storage device that integrates on-premises network-attached storage and Azure Blob storage is now generally available. The caching appliance, called Azure FXT Edge Filer, provides high throughput and low latency storage to support high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. This includes workloads for processes like media rendering, financial simulations, genomic analysis, seismic processing, and WAN optimization.

The device scales from three to 24 nodes, and it can scale performance separately from capacity, which allows companies to optimize storage efficiency both on premises and in the cloud.

Dell EMC makes the hardware for the new system, which Microsoft says has twice as much memory and 33% more solid-state drives (SSD) compared to earlier Microsoft Avere storage devices. Two models are available, with one claimed to provide a 40% improvement in read performance over the legacy model.

Microsoft first previewed the hybrid storage appliance in April, and now “customers are using the flexibility of the Azure FXT Edge Filer to move less frequently used data to cloud storage resources, while keeping files accessible with minimal latency,” wrote Rebecca Thompson, principal program manager at Microsoft Azure, in a blog post. “These active archives enable organizations to quickly leverage media assets, research, and other digital information as needed.”

In addition to Azure Blob storage, the FXT Edge Filers support storage architectures with NFS and server message block (SMB) protocol support for NetApp and Dell EMC Isilon NAS systems, as well as cloud APIs for Amazon S3.