Choosing the Right Azure Storage for High-Performance Databases

Webinar Transcript

Executive Summary

In this webinar, Dwight Wallace, Director of Global Partner Solutions at Silk, and Greg Spencer, Regional CTO at Technology, discuss how enterprises can choose the optimal Azure storage options for high-performance workloads.

They explore key industry trends, cost and performance considerations, real-world migration scenarios, and common pitfalls organizations face when moving mission-critical databases to the cloud. Together, they outline how Silk’s platform helps customers achieve the highest performance at the best cost by optimizing storage architecture in Azure.

[00:00:00] Introduction

Dwight Wallace (Silk):
Hello, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Dwight Wallace, Director of Global Partner Solutions for Silk. With me today is Greg Spencer, Regional CTO at Technology, one of Silk’s premier partners.

Greg Spencer (Technology):
Thanks, Dwight. As Regional CTO for the Rockies, I oversee the technical side of our business and collaborate with peers on strategy across the organization.

Dwight:
Great. Today, we’ll discuss choosing the right Azure storage for your clients’ high-performance databases. Greg, you’ll walk us through the available storage options and why clients might choose one over another.

[00:01:00] Why Focus on Storage?

Dwight:
More and more enterprises are moving their mission-critical applications and databases into the cloud. These systems drive revenue — and storage performance directly affects that success.

Roughly 40% of cloud spend goes to the storage layer. Of that, half is the physical storage itself, and the other half includes storage fees like egress costs, over-provisioning, and licensing.

Even more surprising: most clients only use about 60% of the capacity they pay for. Over-provisioning alone accounts for nearly 40% of storage fees, which undermines one of the cloud’s biggest promises — agility and scalability.

By 2030, storage costs are projected to triple, driven by AI/ML workloads, analytics, and data replication. The takeaway: optimizing storage design is essential to keeping costs in check as data volumes grow.

[00:04:00] Azure Storage Options Overview

Dwight:
Greg, can you walk us through the main Azure storage options and how clients decide which to use?

Greg:
Absolutely. When evaluating Azure storage, we look through the lens of performance, cost, architecture, operations, and resilience. It’s a balancing act — we match workloads with the right combination of IOPS, latency, and throughput.

Azure offers a range of storage types:

Standard SSDs

Premium SSD v2

Ultra Disks

Azure NetApp Files (ANF)

High-performance databases typically use Ultra Disks or Premium SSD v2, but you also have to pair them correctly with VM instance types to achieve optimal throughput.

Azure NetApp Files delivers excellent low latency and high throughput for file-based workloads, while Silk provides another option — combining flexible architecture with consistent sub-millisecond latency for demanding database environments.

[00:07:00] Balancing Cost and Performance

Dwight:
Many clients are concerned about balancing performance and cost. How does Silk help with that?

Greg:
The key advantage of Silk is efficiency. With thin provisioning, compression, and deduplication, clients only pay for what they actually use. Silk’s zero-footprint cloning (via its Echo feature) enables instant, cost-free database copies — a huge win for development and testing.

These capabilities mirror the control and flexibility enterprises had on-prem but are often missing in native cloud storage.

[00:09:00] Real-World Deployment Scenarios

Greg:
We’ve seen cases, especially in financial services, where early cloud migrations overlooked database performance. Applications moved to the cloud, but databases stayed on-prem — creating latency bottlenecks.

In one instance, a client had to move their on-prem database into a colo adjacent to the cloud just to reduce latency. The lesson: moving workloads to the cloud isn’t just about “lift and shift.” It requires aligning infrastructure with performance needs.

[00:11:00] Silk’s Performance Advantage

Dwight:
Exactly. Silk was built to solve those challenges. Within Azure, Silk delivers sub-millisecond latency at a cost of around $0.11 per GB, making it both the least expensive and highest-performing Azure storage option.

Other solutions like Premium SSD v2 or ANF can achieve similar performance, but their costs rise due to bandwidth fees and less consistent latency. Silk runs on the VM network layer, giving customers the largest available data paths and the most predictable performance.

[00:13:00] The Journey to the Cloud

Greg:
When clients move to the cloud, they often expect the same performance they had on-prem. But without re-architecting, they may end up over-provisioning — building oversized environments that drive costs up.

True cloud transformation requires rethinking architecture. It’s not just migration; it’s about designing for efficiency, scalability, and resilience from the ground up.

[00:14:00] How Technology Guides Clients

Dwight:
Greg, how does Technology help clients manage that transition effectively?

Greg:
We start by understanding business outcomes — not just technical specs. Then we pair that with our experience, partnerships, and proven architectures. Working with partners like Silk, we help clients design high-performance, cost-efficient environments tailored to their workloads.

Our 41 Microsoft certifications demonstrate deep expertise in both technology and execution. We’ve done this many times — guiding clients from strategy through day-two operations.

[00:17:00] Cloud Maturity and Optimization

Greg:
Our process starts with deep discovery — learning how a client’s business operates, where revenue is generated, and what outcomes matter most. From there, we build hybrid or cloud-native environments that maintain on-prem-like performance at cloud economics.

The day-two focus is just as critical: ensuring environments are resilient, reliable, and easy to operate long-term.

[00:19:00] Common Storage Pitfalls

Dwight:
Let’s wrap up with common pitfalls you see in cloud storage design.

Greg:
Absolutely. The top five we see are:

Over-Provisioning — deploying more resources than necessary due to uncertainty.

Latency Misalignment — moving applications and databases separately without accounting for performance dependencies.

Operational Strain — difficulty resizing or right-sizing cloud environments post-deployment.

Sprawl — unchecked resource growth leading to surprise bills.

Lack of Resilience — failing to architect for high availability and fault tolerance.

Silk helps eliminate many of these by offering predictable, scalable performance and cost control for high-performance databases in Azure.

[00:22:00] Closing Remarks

Dwight:
Greg, thank you for sharing your insights. And thanks to everyone who joined us today.

If you’d like to learn more, connect with either of us on LinkedIn or reach out via the landing page. We’d be happy to discuss your current environment or how to optimize your journey to the cloud.

Greg:
Thanks, Dwight. Always a pleasure.