Pure Storage is embracing the public cloud, announcing a new suite of cloud-based services designed to support the hybrid cloud operating models the company's customers are demanding.
The new capabilities have been collectively dubbed Pure Storage Cloud Data Services, and comprise three new features built around AWS' public cloud platform.
The first, Cloud Block Store for AWS, is billed as "industrial-strength block storage" for mission-critical apps hosted natively on AWS. Running the same Purity storage software layer as the company's on-premise flash hardware and managed by its Pure1 cloud management service. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to move data between on-premise storage and AWS environments, using the same APIs, plug-ins and automation tools across both environments.
Pure is touting benefits for efficiency, reliability and performance thanks to features like thin provisioning and asynchronous replication to AWS. "We really elevate cloud storage up to a product that is suitable for tier one mission-critical applications that are reliant on having consistent, performant access to data," said Pure Storage field CTO Patrick Smith.
The company is also adding a new feature to its FlashArray all-flash data centre storage products. CloudSnap for AWS allows FlashArray products to take portable snapshots to AWS S3 as a target, but also allows those snapshots to be restored quickly either on-prem or in an AWS environment via Cloud Block Store.
"Where we're differentiated here is that FlashArray will back up to FlashBlade, which is our all-flash object storage platform. It not only backs up incredibly quickly, but it also provides fast recovery," Smith said; "10x faster, in most cases, than our competition."
The final feature being announced is StorReduce for AWS, an object storage deduplication engine that Pure picked up when it acquired deduplication specialists StorReduce earlier this year. The new replication features will allow Pure's customers to do away with tape backups for long-term storage, the company says, and embrace a more flexible flash-based architecture.
"It allows us to change the economics of FlashBlade; not just make it a gamechanger in terms of rapid recovery, but also allow us to do that at a price point that means it's not just for those troublesome applications that you can't restore in time," Smith told Cloud Pro. "This now makes FlashBlade suitable for all our customers' on-prem backup requirements"
CloudSnap is available for FlashArray customers now, while Cloud Block Store and StorReduce are entering a limited public beta, with full public availability planned for both by mid-2019.
The company also told Cloud Pro that while AWS is the only public cloud provider supported at launch, adding other major providers is "a priority" post-launch.
"AWS is the start. We needed to start somewhere and AWS is a good partner with us," Smith said, "and so they were a logical start - but we will absolutely have plans to add the other large cloud providers."
Smith also predicted big benefits for Pure Storage's partner ecosystem, on which Pure depends for its route to market.
"I think in the same way that this opens up new opportunities for Pure Storage, it also opens up new opportunities for our channel partners," Smith told Cloud Pro. "I think the impact of us supporting the public cloud allows them to benefit as well as us."
"We are absolutely committed to the channel; it is our go-to-market, and so our Cloud Data Services will all route through our channel partners. We are a partner company."
