How Dell PowerStore complements and supports the new world of virtualization and containers

More than two-thirds (68%) of organisations expect at least half of their applications to be hosted in cloud-native architectures by the end of 2026, according to research from Omdia.

This cloud-native shift is being spurred by a combination of factors, with enterprises ramping up adoption of AI and advanced analytics capabilities.

Notably, container-focused microservice architectures are playing a key role. They provide a variety of advantages for businesses, enabling them to scale application development in a more agile, efficient, and secure manner.

Yet despite these benefits, Omdia warns that cloud native technologies such as Kubernetes are "not straightforward to manage". First and foremost, this creates additional strain for IT staff, resulting in higher workloads and a greater degree of complexity.

This complexity is exacerbated by the fact that cloud-native technologies often don't replace established IT architectures.

"They are an additional capability that must be deployed, managed, and operated alongside existing hypervisor-based application infrastructure," the consultancy notes in a whitepaper published in collaboration with Dell Technologies.

IT complexity is already a leading challenge for IT leaders, with 69% reporting that infrastructure complexity has a marked impact on IT operations. As such,  enterprises need to consider storage options that compensate for the cloud-native shift.

That's where solutions such as Dell PowerStore offer a distinct advantage for IT leaders. The storage solution is designed specifically to help streamline containerization and optimize virtualization workloads.

With PowerStore, enterprises gain access to a single, dedicated platform for VMs and containers, allowing them to scale and expand capacity based on their evolving needs.

Crucially, the all-flash storage platform is purposefully optimized around Kubernetes deployments - an aspect that Omdia notes makes Dell "an exception" as far as industry standards go.

At the core of this design lies Container Storage Modules (CSM) for Kubernetes.

While competitor offerings typically offer support for Kubernetes and containers through the CSI API, CSM modules act as an extension on top of CSI drivers. This helps streamline integration with storage environments and allows enterprises to simplify management processes.

Streamlined integration has notable advantages, mainly that it helps optimize storage usage, according to Omdia, thereby reducing Kubernetes footprints.

Performance is also a key talking point when it comes to Dell PowerStore, largely because Kubernetes requires high-performance and low-latency infrastructure capabilities. Outdated infrastructure simply cannot contend with these workloads.

PowerStore leverages a non-volatile memory express (NVMe) architecture, which ticks all the boxes in terms of performance capabilities for both Kubernetes and demanding AI and analytics applications.

To learn more about how Dell PowerStore can support infrastructure modernization, containerization, and virtualization, download the full whitepaper, 'Dell PowerStore: Powering the Next Generation of Virtualization.'

How Dell PowerStore complements and supports the new world of virtualization and containers
# Dell PowerStore: Powering the Next Generation of Virtualization Authors: Simon Robinson, Principal Analyst, and Monya Keane, Senior Research Analyst July 2026 © 2026 TechTarget, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. This Omdia White Paper was commissioned by Dell Technologies and is distributed under license from TechTarget, Inc. # Contents | Enterprise architectures are evolving - and storage needs to keep pace………………………. | 3 | | —- | —- | | Rapid market evolutions apply new pressures to on-premises IT …………………………….. | 4 | | Why storage - and storage architecture - matters……………………………………………….. | 5 | | Dell PowerStore: A unified storage foundation for all modern workloads ……………………… | 7 | | PowerStore for Kubernetes environments ………………………………………………………….. | 8 | | Advanced storage services for container-based workloads ………………………………… | 8 | | PowerStore for virtualized environments …………………………………………………………… | 10 | | PowerStore's rich virtualization ecosystem support …………………………………………. | 11 | | Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. | 13 | # Enterprise architectures are evolving - and storage needs to keep pace IT environments are undergoing unprecedented change, as organizations globally modernize their existing application estates and embrace new cloud-native frameworks to deploy emerging applications, such as AI and advanced analytics. New microservices architectures, built on containers, promise substantial benefits for organizations, enabling more scalable, agile, and even more secure application development and deployment. According to research from Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia), microservices are already turning mainstream, with 68% of organizations expecting more than half of their applications to be running cloud-native architectures by late 2026.1 However, these benefits are only realized if the overall IT environment is optimized to run them and must be tempered against the realities of managing an entirely new enterprise architecture. Cloud-native technologies such as Kubernetes are not straightforward to manage, increasing the burden on often already-stretched IT staff. Compounding this, in most cases, cloud-native technologies do not replace existing enterprise architectures; they are an additional capability that must be deployed, managed, and operated alongside existing hypervisor-based application infrastructure. The risk is that deploying cloud-native technologies heightens already-substantial levels of IT complexity. Complexity is endemic in today's IT environments, and, for most, it is getting worse. As organizations look to support both current workloads and what comes next, reducing operational complexity becomes just as important as adding new capability. Six in ten IT leaders said their overall IT environment has become more complex relative to two years prior, with more than one in five saying this complexity increase has been substantial.2 Additionally, 69% of IT leaders reported that infrastructure complexity slows down IT operations and digital initiatives at their organization.3 In other words, there are real-world impacts to complexity that affect organizations' bottom line. *** 1 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Research Report, *Application Modernization and the Role of Platform Engineering*, October 2024. 2 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Research Report, *2025 Technology Spending Intentions Survey*, December 2024. 3 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Complete Survey Results, *The Critical Role of Storage in Building an Enterprise AI Infrastructure*, September 2025. ## Rapid market evolutions apply new pressures to on-premises IT If that were not enough to contend with, existing enterprise architectures themselves are undergoing a period of transition. Shifts in the virtualization ecosystem are placing cost pressures on many IT organizations, leading them to consider diversifying their hypervisor estate. Indeed, over half of IT leaders (56%) surveyed by Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) are investigating alternative hypervisors to complement or replace their existing primary hypervisor.4 Such projects can be significant undertakings that may have implications for overall infrastructure architecture. Furthermore, a massive 80% of IT leaders said shifts in the virtualization market will accelerate their transition to cloud-native and container-based technologies.5 Meanwhile, cloud-native application architectures are also rapidly evolving. Though most initial container adoption took place on the major public clouds, the true potential of cloud-native technologies stretches far beyond. Indeed, as the technology evolves and matures, and as container-based applications become more strategic to the business, more organizations are looking to deploy cloud-native technologies on-premises, within their own environments. Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) research suggests this space is undergoing a rapid expansion, with a nearly 25 percentage point increase in the use of on-premises locations for cloud-native application deployment expected over the next two years.6 While undoubtedly exciting, this rapid evolution raises some key questions for IT leaders. Is your organization's current infrastructure up to the task? Are you able to rapidly onboard and then manage a potentially large number of cloud-native applications—or adopt an alternative hypervisor—without breaking your current environment? Are you able to do this while guaranteeing high levels of resiliency, security, and protection? And can you do all of this without breaking the bank? The IT environment is entering a new and very different era; one where the assumptions that have guided IT strategy for the past two decades no longer apply. This is driving the need for on-premises infrastructure that can support a new breed of applications, in *addition* to supporting existing requirements. Storage modernization is an essential component of this broader transformation. This helps organizations improve efficiency, strengthen resilience, and scale with greater confidence. *** 4 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Complete Survey Results, *Private AI, Virtualization, and Cloud: Transforming the Future of Infrastructure Modernization*, July 2025. 5 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Complete Survey Results, *The Critical Role of Storage in Building an Enterprise AI Infrastructure*, September 2025. 6 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Research Report, *Application Modernization and the Role of Platform Engineering*, October 2024. ## Why storage - and storage architecture - matters While a legacy architecture may have been right in the past, a new modern environment has different requirements to consider. Key considerations for deploying modern environments going forward include the following: * **Disaggregated infrastructure provides more flexibility and choice.** As already noted, many organizations are now actively seeking to embrace new or additional hypervisors for running their virtualized applications. Consequently, a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) where the hypervisor, compute, and storage are all deployed in lockstep via a single appliance-based architecture may no longer be the optimal approach. Indeed, almost three-quarters of IT leaders (74%) said changes in the virtualization market are increasing their interest in moving away from HCI and toward three-tier, disaggregated storage environments.7 A key benefit of such an approach is that it affords greater choice and flexibility: IT organizations are no longer locked into a specific hypervisor and associated software stack. This gives them more room to modernize continuously without unnecessary disruption. * **Storage emerges as a key pain point in cloud-native evolution.** Cloud-native developers are now building large-scale applications that require stateful, persistent storage that's fast and adequately protected. Hence, enterprise-grade data services—replication, snapshots, etc.—are required to help secure, protect, and manage cloud-native apps, just as with other business-critical workloads. However, it is evident that organizations are struggling to deploy storage that meets these new requirements. (IT leaders also highlighted that ensuring resilience and availability is another storage-related challenge.)8 IT leaders have these problems; therefore, storage must have specific qualities to address cloud-native evolution. As illustrated in **Figure 1**, managing persistent storage is a top overall challenge when deploying cloud-native applications, behind only security, costs, and complexity.9 This makes storage not just a performance consideration but a foundational element of operational simplicity and resilience. *** 7 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Complete Survey Results, *The Critical Role of Storage in Building an Enterprise AI Infrastructure*, September 2025. 8 Ibid. 9 Source: Enterprise Strategy Group (now Omdia) Research Report, *Application Modernization and the Role of Platform Engineering*, October 2024. Figure 1: Top challenges with cloud-native applications **What are the biggest challenges your organization has faced, or expects to face, with its cloud-native applications? (Percent of respondents, N=376, multiple responses accepted)** | Challenge | Percent of respondents | | —- | —- | | Security | 38 | | Managing costs | 35 | | Complexity | 26 | | Managing persistent data storage | 26 | | Ensuring data persistence resilience and availability | 26 | | Managing across multiple clouds | 25 | | Retaining full-featured functionality and capabilities | 22 | | Performance | 21 | | Organizational barriers | 20 | | Integration with CI/CD pipeline | 20 | | Lack of performance monitoring or observability | 20 | | Services purchased outside the purview of IT or other authorized decision-makers | 20 | | Meeting and maintaining compliance requirements | 19 | | Lack of resources and skills | 18 | | API incompatibilities | 18 | | Automation of CI/CD pipeline | 18 | | QA and testing | 17 | | We don't have any challenges | 4 | * **Virtualization and cloud-native are complementary technologies, not competitors.** IT leaders believe in the power of new architectures to drive transformation, but such developments can further compound existing complexity. The infrastructure and storage foundation must be agile enough to effectively support a growing mixture of both traditional workloads and next-generation applications over time. IT organizations Organizations often do not want to spend time, money, and effort on standing up and managing a separate environment for cloud-native workloads. Additionally, they do not want to pay twice to protect and manage their containerized workloads by having to deploy additional software that is specific to a container-only environment. The ideal platform will support both virtualized and containerized workloads, with a common set of data services applying to both and a common management approach that spans the entire environment. This helps teams simplify operations while maintaining control. A common architectural mistake is to manage Kubernetes workloads similarly to virtual machines (VMs). The two are different: VMs typically exist for months or years, while containers persist for days, hours, or minutes. Managing Kubernetes containers as VMs creates performance, scaling, and operational challenges. That is why organizations should look for a unified storage platform that caters to the requirements of VMs and containers alike. It should leverage the standard Container Storage Interface (CSI) and provide robust storage modules that meet the needs of the containers. That approach is central to the Dell PowerStore platform, which delivers this unique combination of capabilities to deliver the ultimate unified platform for both traditional and modern workloads. It also helps organization reduce complexity as they modernize. ## Dell PowerStore: A unified storage foundation for all modern workloads Dell's PowerStore family of storage systems is well established as a leading unified storage platform that delivers enterprise-class performance, reliability, scale, and efficiency across a wide range of workloads. Perhaps less well known is PowerStore's versatility across a wide range of IT architectures. With features like replication that work across both virtualized and container environments, organizations can streamline procurement, licensing, and operations. Whichever architecture they choose—virtualized or container-based—their storage and data requirements will be taken care of. This is important at a time when customers have more choice than ever before when it comes to running their enterprise architectures. As the ecosystem continues to evolve, more customers are making those choices to diversify; however, they do not want to replace their entire infrastructure in the process. In essence, Dell has invested significant engineering effort to do the hard work of integration and optimization so that customers do not have to. As a result, PowerStore provides customers with an optimal experience for all modern workloads, without trade-offs, including: * A single, programmable storage platform for VMs and containers. * Hypervisor and cloud independence so that infrastructure choices can evolve. * Rich enterprise data services that are "exposed" natively to both VMs and Kubernetes. ## PowerStore for Kubernetes environments Dell PowerStore enables enterprise container deployments through an all-flash storage platform that not only integrates with, but is also optimized for, Kubernetes. This gets to the heart of Dell's differentiation with PowerStore; while many storage systems support basic storage operations for Kubernetes and containers—via support for the CSI API—few have made the engineering effort to expose and optimize specific enterprise-grade storage capabilities for Kubernetes. Dell is an exception here, and this enables PowerStore to stand out in a crowded market. The company has developed Container Storage Modules (CSM) for Kubernetes. These sit right on top of CSI drivers and serve to expose rich data services that are not covered by the CSI spec to an organization's container environment. Such services include disaster recovery (DR)/replication, snapshots, authorization, and observability (see **Table 1**). Table 1: Overview of CSM extensions for Dell PowerStore | CSM Extension | Capability | | —- | —- | | CSM Observability | Integrates array and Kubernetes storage metrics with Prometheus/Grafana for visibility into capacity, IOPS, bandwidth, and latency, plus PV-to-array topology mapping. | | CSM Resiliency | Improves availability for stateful applications by monitoring failures (node/control plane/storage) and enabling faster, automated recovery behavior than vanilla Kubernetes StatefulSets. | | CSM Replication | Brings application-aware volume and volume-group replication for DR and migration across sites/clusters. On PowerStore, Metro volume replication provides active-active synchronous replication (RPO 0) for continuous availability in Kubernetes when configured with uniform access. | | CSM Authorization | Adds multi-tenant role-based access control, quota enforcement, and credential isolation via a proxy/sidecar model—useful for shared clusters and GitOps workflows. | Source: Dell Technologies Accordingly, through a combination of CSI and CSM, IT organizations can protect and manage stateful container workloads—such as database and transactional workloads like SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL—with the same degree of control and management as their traditional mission-critical applications. At a time when organizations increasingly regard their container-based applications as business-critical, this capability is significant. It is especially relevant for organizations seeking infrastructure that can support modernization without compromising resilience or operational control. ## Advanced storage services for container-based workloads Moreover, container-based workloads can take direct advantage of additional aspects of PowerStore's differentiated architecture. Notable capabilities here include: * **Data reduction and efficiency.** Inline deduplication and compression help optimize storage usage, reducing the footprint of Kubernetes persistent volumes, important in high data churn or large-scale environments. PowerStore has a 6:1 data reduction guarantee for reducible data for Gen 3 systems. * **Dynamic scalability.** PowerStore's scale-up and scale-out architecture ensures storage can grow alongside Kubernetes workloads, critical for handling unpredictable containerized workloads. * **Snapshots and clones.** Efficient snapshot and clone creation within PowerStore enables Kubernetes use-cases such as continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelines, testing, and development. * **Performance optimization.** PowerStore's non-volatile memory express (NVMe) architecture is ideal for Kubernetes workloads demanding high-performance and low latency with consistency, including database, AI, and analytics applications. * **Multi-protocol support.** PowerStore's support for Fibre Channel, iSCSI, NVMe/FC, NVMe/TCP, and NFS/SMB provides flexibility for Kubernetes workloads with diverse storage requirements. * **Automation and integration.** Integration with tools such as Ansible and Kubernetes enable streamlined deployment and management for storage; a RESTful API provides custom integration into DevOps workflows. * **Resiliency and operational confidence.** Disaster recovery, snapshots, and data services are Kubernetes-aware, and PowerStore's native features (snapshots, thin clones, replication) are exposed via CSM so DevOps can use them directly from Kubernetes, not via array-only tooling. * **Consistent Kubernetes support across the Dell storage infrastructure.** PowerStore CSI and CSM support hybrid Kubernetes clusters (on-prem, potentially multiple clusters), while keeping storage policy, replication, and protection consistent. * **Developer and infrastructure teams both win.** Developers and DevOps teams gain direct control over their environment, with self-service storage via persistent volume claims and StorageClasses, and enterprise resilience and DR built-in, with no custom scripts. Meanwhile, storage and ITOps teams retain control of performance tiers, protection policies, and compliance, using familiar PowerStore constructs that are surfaced to Kubernetes via CSMs. This creates a simpler shared operating model across teams. Of course, integration with the broader IT environment is also key to delivering a smooth and consistent experience. To this end, Dell PowerStore has a wealth of ecosystem integrations, reinforcing its enterprise readiness and making deployments robust, performant, and easier to operate. Key partners here for Dell include, but are not limited to, Red Hat with OpenShift and SUSE with Rancher. These partners support both VMs and Kubernetes, though with an emphasis for the latter. Additionally, Dell supports the container environments that are offered by virtualization software providers, such as VMware, Nutanix, and Microsoft. Extensive VM-level support is another important aspect of PowerStore's value. ## PowerStore for virtualized environments Over the last two decades, virtualization has evolved to form a foundational layer of the IT environment and, despite the evolution of new architectures such as containers, virtual machines are here to stay. However, with many organizations looking at augmenting or even replacing their primary VM environment with an alternative hypervisor, the ability for an organization's storage environment to support the broader VM ecosystem is becoming critical. That is especially true for teams trying to modernize without introducing further disruption or lock-in. This is why Dell's deep support for VMs of multiple flavors—which has been a core tenet of PowerStore since its inception—is so important at this time. PowerStore offers an extensive range of capabilities that make it ideally suited to any virtualization environment. As with PowerStore's support for container workloads, its ability to support VM environments is both broad and deep. This highlights both the feature richness of the platform, as well as the thousands of engineering hours that Dell has committed to developing powerful integrations with a wide range of hypervisors across the ecosystem. This gives organizations a stronger foundation for long-term infrastructure flexibility. Applicable to all VM environments, key PowerStore capabilities include: * **Unified, high-performance architecture.** PowerStore is built on an end-to-end NVMe design with dual active-active controllers, supporting block and file data stores and delivering ultra-low latency and high IOPS for dense and mixed virtualized workloads. * **Always-on data reduction and efficiency.** Inline data reduction, including compression and deduplication, is backed by a 6:1 data reduction guarantee for reducible data for Gen 3 systems. This design maximizes consolidation of VMs and data stores, while maintaining predictable performance, helping to lower total cost of ownership. * **Predictive analytics and automation.** PowerStore utilizes advanced, integrated machine learning and analytics to streamline workload placement and storage management, while reducing the need for manual tuning and ensuring optimal performance. Integrations with automation tools such as Ansible, Terraform, and ServiceNow enable integration into DevOps and IT service management pipelines, further simplifying provisioning. * **Flexible protocol support.** PowerStore supports a wide range of block protocols, including Fibre Channel, iSCSI, NVMe/FC, and NVMe/TCP, plus file protocols NFS/SMB, ensuring flexible and efficient connectivity across a diverse hypervisor infrastructure. * **Native protection and data services.** PowerStore features an extensive range of capabilities, including snapshots, replication, and data security, plus integration with data protection tools. Critical workloads are protected with zero recovery time objective/recovery point objective options, as well as automatic failover across two sites for business continuity. This helps embed resilience into the infrastructure foundation rather than treating it as an afterthought. ## PowerStore's rich virtualization ecosystem support Dell's global scale, reach, and resources have enabled it to develop broad and deep partnerships with key virtualization ecosystem players. Key partners include, but are not limited to: * **VMware.** Featuring extensive integration with vSphere APIs and management plug-ins, quality of service, and automation, providing outstanding performance, resiliency, and data protection for VMware workloads. * **Nutanix.** PowerStore seamlessly integrates into the Nutanix Cloud Platform, enabling external block storage for Nutanix AHV via NVMe/TCP, with simplified integration via Nutanix Prism. A deepening partnership with Nutanix will create more comprehensive integration, including independent scaling of Nutanix compute with PowerStore storage (with general availability in Summer 2026). * **Microsoft Hyper-V.** Hyper-V hosts can consume iSCSI or FC volumes for VM storage and Cluster Shared Volumes, benefiting from PowerStore's advanced data reduction and data services. In addition to block protocols, PowerStore exposes SMB3 file shares with RSVD v1 support. * **OpenStack integration.** PowerStore integrates with the OpenStack cloud computing solution—which is based on the open source KVM hypervisor—using open standards such as FC, iSCSI, and NVMe/TCP, enabling flexible deployment options for Nova instances and OpenStack Cinder (block storage) and Manila (shared file system) drivers for the Dell storage portfolio. Supported distributions include Red Hat OpenStack on OpenShift and Canonical OpenStack. * **KVM.** PowerStore's hypervisor agnostic architecture enables support for a range of solutions that are built on the KVM open source hypervisor, with support for block or file protocols, enabling flexible deployments options, standard array services, and simple, seamless integration. ## Conclusion As the pace of change in IT continues to accelerate, the pressures on IT leaders to build an environment that delivers performance, scale, agility, resilience, and cost effectiveness has never been higher. Perhaps the greatest convergence of these seemingly impossible objectives is taking place in the core IT infrastructure, where the need to transform to support a new breed of cloud-native application architectures is running alongside structural and unprecedented shifts in the virtualization landscape. With data infrastructure forming such a critical part of the environment, this is a challenge that Dell has responded to with PowerStore. Already an industry-leading storage platform delivering advanced capabilities, the engineering and partnering investments that Dell is making ensure that PowerStore's powerful features can be exposed across the Kubernetes and virtualization ecosystem. These efforts underscore that Dell continues to go the extra mile to ensure customers are not only able to meet the realities of today's demanding environment, but they are able to exceed them. PowerStore provides a modern infrastructure foundation that helps simplify operations, strengthen resilience, and prepare organizations for what comes next. For more details on Dell PowerStore's deep integration and capabilities across the container and virtualization landscape, please visit the Enterprise Kubernetes Storage Solutions. **Omdia consulting** Omdia is a market-leading data, research, and consulting business focused on helping digital service providers, technology companies, and enterprise decision makers thrive in the connected digital economy. Through our global base of analysts, we offer expert analysis and strategic insight across the IT, telecoms, and media industries. We create business advantage for our customers by providing actionable insight to support business planning, product development, and go-to-market initiatives. Our unique combination of authoritative data, market analysis, and vertical industry expertise is designed to empower decision-making, helping our clients profit from new technologies and capitalize on evolving business models. Omdia is part of Informa TechTarget, a B2B Materials information services business serving the technology, media, and telecoms sector. The Informa group is listed on the London Stock Exchange. We hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you have further requirements, Omdia's consulting team may be able to help your company identify future trends and opportunities. **Get in touch** www.omdia.com askananalyst@omdia.com **Copyright notice and disclaimer** The Omdia research, data, and information referenced herein (the "Omdia Materials") are the copyrighted property of TechTarget, Inc. and its subsidiaries or affiliates (together "Informa TechTarget") or its third-party data providers and represent data, research, opinions, or viewpoints published by Informa TechTarget and are not representations of fact. The Omdia Materials reflect information and opinions from the original publication date and not from the date of this document. The information and opinions expressed in the Omdia Materials are subject to change without notice, and Informa TechTarget does not have any duty or responsibility to update the Omdia Materials or this publication as a result. Omdia Materials are delivered on an "as-is" and "as-available" basis. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to the fairness, accuracy, completeness, or correctness of the information, opinions, and conclusions contained in Omdia Materials. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Informa TechTarget and its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents, and third-party data providers disclaim any liability (including, without limitation, any liability arising from fault or negligence) as to the accuracy or completeness or use of the Omdia. Informa TechTarget will not, under any circumstance whatsoever, be liable for any trading, investment, commercial, or other decisions based on or made in reliance of the Omdia Materials.

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