Pure Grows Its Storage-as-a-Service Portfolio
Company includes a full infrastructure stack in conjunction with Cisco and a service catalog to Pure-as-a-Service
Pure Storage is expanding its 2-year-old Storage-as-a-Service offering with a range of enhancements that include a full infrastructure stack created in partnership with Cisco Systems and available through the channel.
The Lowdown: The unveiling this week of the latest version of Pure-as-a-Service, which is available via partners, came the same day the Mountain View, California-based company released its latest quarterly financial numbers that showed revenue down 4% year-over-year but subscription service revenue growing 29%.
The Details: Pure started life 11 years ago as a provider of all-flash storage appliances, but in recent years has – like many other data center tech vendors – shifted more of its focus to offering services for an increasingly hybrid cloud and multicloud world and has leaned on its channel partners to help expand the reach of their services.
The goal is to give enterprises a cloud-like environment for their data centers that includes such cloud benefits as agility and elasticity, as well as a subscription payment model that ensures customers pay only for the technology they use.
The updates to Pure-as-a-Service include:
> Service Catalog: Offers users and partners greater transparency into the services available and clear per-gigabyte pricing.
> Block Service: The offering enables users to choose the right storage for their applications and comes in multiple tiers, including a Capacity tier that provides a lower barrier to entry at 200 Tebibytes, down from 300 TiB. The Performance tier is aimed at hybrid and multicloud environments, while the Premium tier is for such workloads as containers. The Ultra tier is for in-memory databases.
> Unified Fast File and Object Service: Users can select from the Premium and Ultra tiers to support not only traditional file and cloud object workloads but also such emerging workloads as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, high-performance compute, and software development.
> Full Stack-as-a-Service: The service is built on Pure and Cisco FlashStack converged infrastructure, which includes storage, compute, and networking and was first introduced in 2014. Available through select Pure and Cisco partners, the service offers consumption-based payments and comes in multiple versions that leverage Cisco’s Validated Designs.
The Impact: Traditional data center infrastructure vendors, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, and Cisco, are offering more of their products as services to address growing hybrid cloud adoption. That trend has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic as organizations moved more quickly to embrace cloud services and adapt to rapidly changing business demands.
Background: Pure took its first step in the as-a-service direction in 2017 with the introduction of flexible consumption for block storage. A year later, the company introduced Evergreen Storage Services (ES2) and then later in the year added a file and object service. Early last year, the company unveiled Cloud Block Store for the public cloud and later in 2019 launched Pure-as-a-Service.
The company in the latest quarter saw revenue for its subscription services – which include Evergreen and unified Pure-as-as-Service – jump 29% and such organizations as the University of Texas Health Science Center and ME Bank in Australia adopt Pure-as-a-Service.
The Buzz: “Pure-as-a-Service has achieved market maturity, having been available for more than two years as the first Storage-as-a-Service offering from a major vendor,” said Rob Walters, general manager of Pure-as-a-Service. “With the new service catalog and expanded offerings, we are once again leading the market in delivering the flexibility and transparency that customers are looking for in subscription services to accelerate their initiatives.”
“Pure-as-a-Service enables us to simplify the complex operations behind delivering the seamless reliability, performance, and scalability our customers depend upon us for,” said Blake Wetzel, COO and chief revenue officer for TeraGo. “Furthermore, the flexible consumption model eliminates big capital expenditures and gives us the agility to invest in other strategic initiatives. We’re delighted by the latest, innovative evolution of Pure-as-a-Service and how it aligns with and supports our efforts to make the move to the cloud a more frictionless experience for our customers.”
“IDC predicts that by 2021, 75% of enterprises will recognize the benefits of as-a-service consumption, driving a 3x increase in demand for on-premises infrastructure delivered via flexible/as-a-service solutions. IDC data underscores that the global pandemic has accelerated this shift and enterprises are moving towards as-a-service models faster than ever, with a desire for more capacity and performance to improve business agility,” said Susan Middleton, research director of flexible consumption and financing strategies for IT infrastructure at IDC. “In a time of changing business needs, customers want cost transparency, simplicity, and operational efficiency, as well as a straightforward on-ramp to the cloud that enables them to preserve capital.”
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