Pure Storage’s new FlashBlade solution doubles storage density, performance and efficiency

Pure Storage has been a pioneer in the world of flash-based storage for some time. It was front and center when all flash arrays started appearing about a decade ago. In 2017, the company introduced FlashBlade as a unified, high-performance platform that combines file and object storage. Now, Pure Storage’s tool, FlashBlade//S, brings a more modular architecture designed to separate compute from capacity. As a result, storage, compute, and network elements can be upgraded independently without disruption. This allows IT to tailor the platform to the specific performance, capacity, file and object needs of their workloads.

Greg Schulz, an analyst at Server and StorageIO Group, an independent IT consultancy and advisory firm, said Pure Storage faces intense competition from companies like Dell, HPE, IBM and Netapp, as well as various software-based solutions that are stacked or packaged with partner hardware. Therefore, the company must constantly innovate in order to stand out from the rest.

“Pure is doing what it needs to do to stay competitive with offerings from others, including flexible flash-based solutions, software-defined storage, and in-place-as-a-service upgrades,” said Schulz. “With a focus on AI and other compute and graphics I/O intensive workloads, Pure and the industry at large are adding support for offload and specialized processing platforms like Nvidia’s.”

Simultaneously with this release, Pure announced the next generation of AIRI//S, which features Nvidia-powered artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. This partnership between Pure Storage and Nvidia expands FlashBlade//S use cases in areas such as AI, machine learning analytics and others.

AIRI//S is based on Nvidia DGX A100 systems – with end-to-end networks including Nvidia Quantum InfiniBand and Nvidia Spectrum Networking. AIRI//S offers companies a scalable AI infrastructure for all phases of the AI ​​data pipeline. FlashBlade//S complements this Nvidia technology with uninterrupted performance, density, power efficiency and scaling improvements.

FlashBlade//S and its differentiators

According to Pure Storage, the new family of flash-based products features a “nearly infinitely scalable metadata architecture that offers more than twice the density, performance and power efficiency of previous versions.”

“The new disaggregated architecture and extensive co-developed software and hardware make FlashBlade//S an extremely attractive choice for clients looking for a high-performance, scalable platform that also offers environmental efficiencies,” said Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights and Strategies.

The sophisticated hardware of the FlashBlade//S family combined with Purity//FB 4.0 software enables Pure to steadily increase density and power efficiency while moving towards an exabyte level. At the same time, the platform can handle the multiple performance dimensions required for both traditional and unstructured data workloads. This reduces storage silos and eliminates architectural and operational complexity.

Rob Lee, CTO at Pure Storage, explained that the new FlashBlade family offers performance and capacity optimization without the need for expensive caching solutions thanks to Pure’s proprietary all-quad-level-cell (QLC) architecture.

“Because of its modular architecture, co-developed hardware and software, all-QLC technology, and Evergreen subscriptions, FlashBlade//S is a platform that can be configured to meet the needs of some of the highest-performing, largest-scale and largest capacity meets environments and provides the efficiencies and cost-effectiveness needed to replace hybrid or disk-based solutions,” said Lee.

Pure’s DirectFlash QLC technology eliminates the need for complex caching layers and expensive storage-class storage media. The company sees this as another opportunity to stand out from the competition. Instead of the usual approach of building or tuning a storage array for specific workloads or access patterns, the platform can be easily customized to handle any type of workload. Engineered for high concurrency, workload variability, and linear performance scaling, Pure’s software enables customers to combine and consolidate modern and traditional file and object storage onto one array.

According to Lee, key use cases for FlashBlade//S include serving as a home for unstructured data and modern application growth, as well as advanced analytics, AI and machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and manufacturing, and high-performance commercial computing (HPC) and technical computing (such as simulation and exploratory data analysis or EDA), rapid recovery and ransomware recovery, and medical/enterprise imaging and genomics.

In addition to capacity, compute and AI capabilities, this new FlashBlade solution was designed with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) in mind. This is achieved through increased performance in metrics such as capacity per watt, bandwidth per watt and capacity per rack unit to reduce the data center’s carbon footprint. According to Pure, this was one of the main reasons Meta chose Pure to power its AI Research SuperCluster (RSC). In addition, FlashBlade//S enables customers to consolidate many disparate file and object workloads onto fewer arrays, resulting in even greater energy efficiency.

“FlashBlade//S is not only the last scale-out platform companies will ever need, but also the right choice to meet environmental and sustainability ambitions,” said Matt Burr, general manager, FlashBlade at Pure Storage.

FlashBlade//S is scheduled to be available in Q3 2022.

Evergreen Subscriptions

Pure has been offering Evergreen subscriptions for a while. They were revised in parallel with these FlashBlade//S developments. The idea is to stop worrying about storage platforms becoming obsolete and having to go through disruptive data migrations and forklift upgrades again.

“Enterprises continue to look for modern, flexible storage consumption models that enable agility and adaptability as customer demands fluctuate,” said Eric Burgener, analyst at IDC. “The growing Evergreen portfolio – and the addition of Evergreen//Flex – not only balances the need for flexibility and simplicity, but also promotes high performance and scalable, efficient outcomes to support customer growth.”

The consumption-based Evergreen//Flex pay-as-you-go model is the latest addition to Evergreen’s growing portfolio of subscription-based services. Pure launched the Evergreen Storage program back in 2015. Since then, the company has delivered over 10,000 non-disruptive controller upgrades to more than 3,000 customers. To offer more flexibility, Pure launched a consumption-based version in 2018. Evergreen//Flex is the latest addition.

Here’s the new cast:

• Evergreen//Forever (formerly Evergreen Gold): Organizations that prefer traditional appliance ownership can purchase a subscription for software and regularly upgraded hardware rather than having their appliances reach the end of their life and need to be replaced. Pure takes care of all upgrades for those paying the Forever subscription.
• Evergreen//Flex: This hybrid model means users can subscribe to software and services while owning their storage hardware and consuming capacity on a pay-as-you-go basis. Users can use this approach to shift performance and capacity to where their data and applications need it most.

“Evergreen//Flex allows customers to purchase and hold hardware assets in a CapEx model and then leverage a pay-as-you-go subscription,” Lee said. “It’s designed to be flexible, allowing customers to buy as needed, as opposed to a fixed configuration where they have to buy ahead of time without knowing the exact need.”

• Evergreen//One (formerly Pure as a Service): Evergreen//One offers organizations a consumption-based service model for storage on demand. Pure promises to add storage wherever it’s needed, including on-premises deployment.

“Pure offers the most complete sourcing flexibility and choice in the storage industry today,” said Prakash Darji, general manager, digital experience business unit, Pure Storage.

How does this fit with FlashBlade? FlashBlade//S modular architecture extends the full benefits of Evergreen to FlashBlade. Customers can start at very small scales and sizes, and independently (or together) increase their capacity and performance as their needs evolve.

“Evergreen//Forever allows us to constantly modernize our customers’ arrays in both hardware and software,” said Lee. “With Evergreen//One, Pure takes responsibility for delivering storage where it’s needed, providing customers with on-demand storage service with the greatest flexibility and option for future deployment, scaling, and growth plans.”

Lee is optimistic about Evergreen’s advantages and its leadership position over the competition. Evergreen, he said, is an engineering program. It has been imitated but never equaled by industry peers. It forms the basis of how Pure delivers Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS). It also includes monitoring, service level objectives (SLOs) and service level agreements (SLAs), a capacity management guarantee, and more.

“A true as-a-service experience cannot be delivered without the underlying technology,” Lee said. “Without the ability to scale and grow smoothly and without disruption, without forward-thinking, future-proof designs, and without the proven reliability of six-nine-level availability, it is not possible to deliver a true evergreen-like service.

Is STaaS the future?

Looking ahead, is Pure looking at the business moving more towards STaaS and away from companies buying arrays and blades? no The company sees STaaS as a robust trend. Many rely on flexible, consumption-based operating models.

This is evidenced by the strong demand for Pure’s evergreen portfolio. The company reports that its subscription services revenue accounted for 33% of total revenue, exceeded $738 million, and represented 37% year-over-year growth in fiscal 2022. However, that still means 63% of its revenue comes from more traditional storage. “Ultimately, it’s about customer choice and needs,” Lee said. “As the market for STaaS grows, there will always be room for customers to purchase hardware through an investment model for many reasons ranging from regulatory, operational to financial.”