For years, Rubrik’s software-only deployment option, the Rubrik Virtual Cluster (RVC), has come with one structural compromise: the backup data lived on virtual disks inside the cluster VMs. That made it flexible and easy to deploy, but it also tied capacity, performance and resilience to whatever the hypervisor datastore could offer.
Rubrik is now changing that. With the newly announced Virtual Vault, a Rubrik Virtual Cluster can use external enterprise storage. Everpure FlashArray is the first supported platform as its backing store.
Early testing is available today, general availability is expected around the end of 2026, and support is currently vSphere-only, with Nutanix AHV on the short-term roadmap.
Here is why we at Agisko think this matters.
A quick recap: what is Rubrik Virtual Cluster?
Rubrik Security Cloud (RSC) is the control plane. The data plane, the thing that actually ingests, deduplicates, stores and serves your backups, is a Rubrik cluster running CDM. That cluster can be:
- a physical appliance (Rubrik-branded or certified Dell, Cisco, HPE hardware),
- a Cloud Cluster running in AWS, Azure or GCP,
- or a Virtual Cluster: the same CDM software packaged as VMs on your own hypervisor.
RVC has always been attractive for smaller sites, edge locations and customers who want to standardise on their existing compute and storage. The trade-off was that every RVC node carried its own virtual disks. Scaling capacity meant scaling VMs, and the immutability story depended on hardening the hypervisor layer around them.
What the virtual vault changes
The Virtual Vault decouples the RVC data layer from the hypervisor datastore. Instead of local VMDKs, the Virtual Cluster writes its backup data to an external storage system that acts as a dedicated, Rubrik-managed vault.
In the first release that external system is Everpure FlashArray (Everpure being the new name for Pure Storage since early 2026). The combination gives you:
- Enterprise storage economics: FlashArray’s inline data reduction, always-on encryption and Evergreen upgrade model now apply to your backup repository, not just production.
- Independent scaling:grow backup capacity on the array without adding RVC nodes, or grow ingest performance by adding nodes without touching storage.
- Storage-native immutability: FlashArray’s SafeMode protection layered underneath Rubrik’s own append-only, immutable file system. Two independent mechanisms, from two vendors, both designed to survive compromised administrator credentials.
- A single management model: SLA policies, compliance reporting and recovery workflows stay in Rubrik Security Cloud, exactly as they are for appliances and Cloud Clusters. Storage teams keep working in the Everpure interface.
Why Everpure first
This is not a one-off integration. Rubrik and Everpure announced their joint Cyber Resilience Stack in September 2024, built around a three-layer architecture:
- SafeMode snapshots on FlashArray for rapid recovery,
- Rubrik Secure Vault as the immutable off-array copy, and
- FlashBlade for long-term retention.
Since then the partnership has delivered the Cyber Resilience Visibility integration (Rubrik threat findings tagged directly onto FlashArray volumes and snapshots, GA in March 2026) and, in June 2026, Rubrik for Volumes, which makes FlashArray block volumes first-class protected objects in RSC.
The Virtual Vault is the logical next step: if FlashArray is already the primary storage, the snapshot source and the threat-tagging target, letting it also host the Rubrik data plane closes the loop.
Customers who have standardised on Everpure get a software-defined Rubrik deployment that fits their existing hardware strategy, without giving up the air-gapped, immutable second copy that makes the Rubrik layer worthwhile in the first place.
Availability and roadmap
- Early testing Available now (through Rubrik and partners such as Agisko
- General availability Expected around end of 2026
- Hypervisor support VMware vSphere today
- Nutanix AHV On the short-term roadmap
- Storage platform Everpure FlashArray first; other platforms to follow
The AHV item is the one we are watching most closely. Agisko has built its infrastructure practice on Nutanix and its data security practice on Rubrik, and a Virtual Cluster on AHV backed by an external vault would give our customers a fully software-defined stack across both.
What this means for Belgian customers
For mid-sized organisations and public sector bodies in Belgium, the appliance model has sometimes been a hard sell: dedicated hardware, separate lifecycle, separate rack space. RVC removed the hardware, but the Virtual Vault removes the remaining objection — that a virtual cluster meant “backup on the same disks as everything else”.
With the Virtual Vault you can:
- reuse existing Everpure investments for a genuinely enterprise-grade backup tier,
- keep a clean separation between production compute, backup compute and backup storage,
- retain full RSC functionality (anomaly detection, threat hunting, Turbo Threat Hunting, orchestrated recovery) on a software-only footprint.
Want to test it?
Agisko is one of the partners with access to the early testing program. If you run vSphere on Everpure today and want to evaluate a Rubrik Virtual Cluster with a Virtual Vault, or if you are on Nutanix and want to be first in line when AHV support lands, get in touch with our team.
Disclaimer: features described here are based on Rubrik’s early access program and roadmap statements. Availability, scope and timing may change before general availability.
