Pure Storage extends use cases for FlashArray

Pure Storage, the IT pioneer that delivers storage as-a-service in a multicloud world, has announced Purity 6.0 for FlashArray, the latest release of Pure’s flagship suite of software for its FlashArray family. The data services provide customers with enhanced ways to store, safeguard, manage, access and mobilise their data, plus consumption models tailored to their needs.

Purity 6.0 further simplifies modern infrastructure with a unified block-and-file solution designed to help solve infrastructure challenges, including storage silos and sprawl*. With a Purity upgrade, Pure customers can immediately leverage two key new capabilities - unified protocol support with NFS and SMB**, along with active disaster recovery built on new continuous replication technology.
As part of the Evergreen Storage subscription model, these new features require no additional licenses, no added support costs, and zero added complexity.

“For Pure Storage, the introduction of native file system support on its FlashArray will be a boon for existing and new customers alike,” said Eric Burgener, Research VP, IDC.

“Now customers can cost-effectively consolidate multiple file servers onto this unified storage platform and get the all-flash performance, ease of use, and differentiating customer experience around which the vendor built its reputation with block-based workloads over the last decade.”

Pure’s new unified block-and-file capabilities on FlashArray enable users to merge the operations for two (formerly) incompatible environments. They are designed to simplify operations for organisations that primarily run block storage but still require or utilise separate network-attached storage. This enables customers to run the different workloads within the Purity operating environment, leveraging on the same data layer, user interface, and storage pool, while benefitting from Pure’s global data reduction capabilities.

Similarly, the new continuous replication feature, ActiveDR, helps Pure customers improve their business resiliency without the cost and complexity of third-party disaster recovery software add-ons. This new active-passive replication technology addresses a major business requirement by protecting critical applications with a near-zero recovery point objective (RPO). Now customers have the ability to leverage synchronous, active-active replication with ActiveCluster, snapshot-based asynchronous replication, and now continuous replication all on the same Purity platform.

Enterprises with big data or machine learning requirements will still assign those workloads to Pure's FlashBlade platform, but Pure Storage says that for other use cases and for many smaller businesses, FlashArray now addresses all data storage needs.

“Flexible consumption models represent the bedrock of Pure’s modern data experience,” said Prakash Darji, GM, FlashArray, Pure Storage.

“We’ve had the tremendous advantage of being purpose-built for the modern era - our solutions are designed for massive amounts of data, to be fundamentally upgradeable without disruption, and to be compatible with future innovation so that our customers never have to wait for the latest tools.

“Purity 6.0 represents the next and most logical step in delivering that continued value to our customers - services that can be consumed in whatever way best fits the customer need at any given moment.”

“Managing each file server and its data in a consistent way can be cumbersome without shared storage between them. Compromising on performance or making similar infrastructure tradeoffs is not an option for modern organisations,” said Jeff Fonke, Global Technical Solutions Architect, WWT, a technology solution provider.

“FlashArray affords our joint customers an uncompromising converged block-and-file solution capable of handling critical workloads and daily-use unstructured data.” 

In a preview of Purity 6.0, Hock Leng Chua, Regional MD, ASEAN for Pure Storage, said that the company had seen 12% year-on-year (YoY) growth in Q1FY21 due to the company's competitive differentiation. 

Subscription services were up 37% YoY as a result of “continuous, non-disruptive innovation as well as our Modern Data Experience strategy,” he said. Chua added that first-time customers typically spent double their initial purchase value with Pure Storage within 24 months, while top customers purchased as much as 10 times more. 

“They love the technology so much that they actually buy more from us,” he said. 

In ASEAN, Chua said customers buy a system as a trial, and return 12 months later to buy again. “We have customers in ASEAN who removed all legacy competitive gear to put in Pure (completely),” he shared. 

The company has about 7,800 customers globally. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pure Storage is supporting customers by: 

-  Offering Pure as a Service, or storage-as-a-service, for free for the first three months for new customers if they commit to a minimum contract term of 12 months and at least 50 T of storage. Pure calculates average usage on a daily basis, then bills monthly or quarterly. 

“It's a very attractive offer to the market and we allow our customers and prospects to manage their cash flow from this perspective,” Chua said. 

- Pure also partnered Cisco to offer preconfigured scalable virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution bundles for up to 1,000 desktops.

- Remote installation services are available for FlashArray and FlashBlade. 

- Mobile system management and assistance is available through the Pure1 mobile app.

Pure Storage delivers a modern data experience that empowers organisations to run their operations as an automated, storage as-a-service model seamlessly across multiple clouds. The company has a certified customer satisfaction score in the top 1% of B2B companies.

*Storage sprawl refers to the need for more and more storage devices.

**NFS stands for Network File System, a way to work with files which are on different devices. Server Message Block (SMB) protocol is another standard for sharing access to files and other network resources.