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Five, four, three, two, one. The dawn of a new era is here. The era of All Flash. The end of compromise, inefficiency, and complexity.
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And the beginning of the age of the effortless. The exceptional. The extraordinary. In the new age of data storage data will be bigger, more varied, more accessible.
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Expand your horizons and join us on this exploration of what's possible. See how this changes everything. Hi, I'm John Colegrove. I'm the founder and chief visionary officer here at Pure Storage.
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I'm really excited to talk to you about our latest step forward in replacing all of the disc out there on planet Earth. So if you look back at the history, discs were the dominant technology from 1970 until today in storage.
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And they really over the first 40 years of that or so, it had some phenomenal exponential growth. Every year, getting way cheaper, way more efficient, way denser. It was just an astounding run.
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But I'm sure if I asked anyone what will the dominant storage technology be in a thousand years, nobody would say disc. In a hundred years, nobody would say disc. We're at the point now where it's time to replace disc with all flash and at Pure.
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we started that journey 14 years ago when we began the company. We looked at the highest performance disc and said it's no longer meeting the needs in the marketplace and we could build an all flash array. The flash was a lot more expensive, but here, performance mattered. And we saw this exponential curve in flash that was much, much
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faster than the curve going on in disc because disc was flattening out. It was getting harder to improve the disc all the time. And so we looked ahead and we said, okay, it's all going to be flash and it's going to happen sooner than anybody thinks. And we started that journey.
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So ten years ago, we shipped a product with 256 gigabyte or 512 gigabyte SSDs. Today we sell petabytes of FlashArray in a single FlashArray. And we sell DirectFlash modules that are 50 terabytes.
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Now, along the way, we also created the FlashBlade product, because as good as FlashArray is, it is a scale up architecture and there's a limit to how big you can get. There's a limit to how efficient you can get. And so we needed the scale out architecture to go beyond that.
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And so with the two architectures, we can go from the smallest use cases to the largest use cases. Tremendous scale and great efficiency on the flash. Now, what's happened over the years, 15 k rpm discs disappeared in favor of all flash,
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all flash, moved on to attack hybrid arrays and ten k rpm spindles, but there's still this gigantic amount of nearline discs 7200 rpm disc spindles out there, thousands of exabytes of it. And that's remained out of reach until now. As flash has continued to improve as the economics per bit get better,
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as the density gets better, as the power efficiency gets better, we get to the point where we can now go toe to toe with 100% disc arrays. An all flash array, a disc array, roughly speaking, about the same cost to buy them.
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And the flash array is just so much better as you go forward in time. disc as you know, as it ages, the failure rates go up. Our DirectFlash modules and this is something where from the beginning we focused on all flash. By focusing on all flash, we really get the most out of it.
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We get performance that's good from just a very few flash drives. We get more consistent performance, we get better lifetime and we get better reliability. One of the ways we get better reliability is our software is just better because it's simpler.
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Our DirectFlash modules just have to deal with our storage. They don't have to cover every use case out there. That simpler firmware means fewer bugs and you know all software has bugs, but whenever we find bugs in that, we're shipping fixes for it, just like we ship software updates all the time.
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So our DirectFlash modules, actually they start out three or five times as reliable as an SSD and they get more reliable as the years go by. So you come back to all flash and you say, Well, okay,
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you've got these DirectFlash modules, you've got this really scalable architecture. How is that going to replace my disc? Well, you have to recognize that disc over the last ten years. Yeah, maybe it's improved 4 X.
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You know, today I buy a 20 terabyte drive. Ten years ago, I'd buy sort of a six or an eight terabyte drive. So ten years ago, we'd ship a product with 256 gigabyte or 512 gigabyte SSDs. Today we ship product with 50 terabyte DirectFlash modules.
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You know, 512, ten years ago, you know, a hundred times improvement over that last decade. And the way flash grows, we already see from the flash vendors roadmaps 75, 150, 300 terabyte DirectFlash modules.
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By the end of this decade, we'll be able to put a petabyte into a flash module that's the same size as the 512 gig we sold you ten years ago. And it's going to use the same amount of power. And when you think about it, you know, you look at all the discs out there,
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thousands of exabytes, so many tons of e-waste, but so much power used. Data centers... People talk about. They use maybe 2% of the world's power.
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And storage is, say, a quarter of that. You know, it's just insane that we waste that much power on spinning rust. And that's what the discs are. So we started all those years ago looking to change the whole market. We're now starting on the last stage of that journey
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right where we are now after the high performance. Now we're going after all of the nearline storage, all the video use cases. You know, you go to an airport, you look in a factory, they have all this video to monitor the quality, to monitor what's going on. All of that goes to disc today.
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Why is it go to disc? You stream the data on. It's a little bit annoying when you want to use it. The access, you know, isn't that fast,
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but disc was the only thing economical enough to store it all. Well, now that can be all flash. Think of a media company that has all the footage they've ever done. Or medical imaging.
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Right? If I go get an X-ray or a CT scan or any other test, they want to keep it for my entire life, you know, plus maybe some years after. And in order to store that, you're now thinking about storing data for 10, 20, 50 years.
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That's where our evergreen architecture comes in. Our products from the beginning have been designed to be evergreen. You upgrade them in place as new technology comes along. You do plug and play swaps to newer, better hardware, push button upgrades to newer, better software,
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and it just gets better and better and better over time. So as you've heard, we've launched the FlashBlade//E and it's our most exciting new product in this journey to eliminate disc from the face of planet Earth and replace it all with flash. You know, you've heard about FlashBlade//E?
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Well, guess what? It's going to ship now, and you're going to buy 48 terabyte DirectFlash modules in it, and you're going to say, “Hey, I'm buying my storage for this year, but I'm going to need more next year and more the year after”.
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And at some point you're going to look and say, “Hey, gee, Pure is now shipping six times the size like 300 terabyte flash modules. So I want to go and I want to swap out my old flash modules for much newer, denser ones.
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I'll keep my power usage the same. I'll shrink my footprint in the data center and you know, I'm just off to the races”. You don't have to migrate the data. It's non disruptive.
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And so, you know, it's really a long term take at how you buy the storage today for even those, you know, lowest performance, most cost effective use cases. And it just gets better and better and better over time.
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That's been a hallmark of Pure from the beginning. And I think it's one of the key things that helps drive this. I referred to it at the beginning. The acquisition cost is about the same. It's a lot better to operate the all flash,
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but where the real benefit comes in is in this long term TCO. When you think about buying massive amounts of data, whether it's to power, you know, high performance databases, medium performance or medium performance density, I should say, workloads like machine learning that are very high performance in aggregate or
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archival long term repositories. You buy it, it gets better and better over time. The TCO benefit of an all flash evergreen architecture is gigantic. And so I'm really excited about the FlashBlade//E. It's you know, the start of the last part of our journey
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on changing the entire storage marketplace from disc to flash. And we're going to do that. And now I'd like to invite you to hear a lot more about FlashBlade//E and what we're going to do with it in the future. Thank you.
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Thanks, guys. Hi, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Amy Fowler, general manager of FlashBlade here at Pure Storage and I am super excited to be speaking with you because Pure Storage is taking a key step toward addressing what is candidly
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a truly underserved area of most organizations storage infrastructure, a market that hasn't seen major innovation in decades. Earlier this month, we launched our most ambitious product yet, FlashBlade//E, the most efficient, multiple, petabyte, unstructured, raw data repository that brings Pure's core benefits to all of your data.
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We're really proud of how much our customers love Pure's portfolio, as evidenced by our industry leading Net Promoter Score. And that's because of benefits like better density, better energy efficiency, more predictable latency, cloud like management, and flat and fair support costs thanks to better reliability.
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So it's no surprise 97% of Pure Storage arrays purchased six years ago now look like new arrays because of Evergreen. Now, when you think about your organization's unstructured data environment, what do you imagine? For most people, it's rack after rack after rack of legacy storage.
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Disk based platforms, many of which originated in the nineties, storing mountains of data while consuming increasingly valuable data center power and real estate. But why? Well, simple.
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Like most things, because of cost and inertia, it's been a challenge to justify investing, to change these environments. And so they come along literally. We've all heard the hum of a disk drive, right? But what if you could get all of Pure's, goodness, simplicity, efficiency
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and density at a lower cost than these dinosaurs of the data center? And I don't just mean significantly lower TCO, but also a very compelling acquisition cost because you will be able to buy a FlashBlade//E system at an average cost of under $0.20 a gigabyte with three years of service.
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So let's talk about how we're able to deliver an offering like this. Last year we debuted FlashBlade//S based on a modular and flexible architecture. The most obvious benefit to any users is a scale out system that is unparalleled in flexibility, scalability and long term
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Upgradability of all of the components. Since its launch, Bosch Blade s has been embraced by customers all over the world like the original FlashBlade. FlashBlade//S was designed for high performance, unstructured data workloads, AI analytics, genomics and so much more.
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But our goal with these platform upgrades was not just to deliver a huge jump in capability and performance, but also to enable us to bring this unified file and object platform to even more workloads, including those were cutting edge performance isn't a requirement.
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This means expanding our reach into an area that's not just new for FlashBlade, but also for Pure. For most organizations, the bulk of their unstructured data lives on out-of-date storage platforms, often built on architectures they're decades old.
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Their primary value proposition is low acquisition cost, but in exchange, they're difficult to manage at multiple petabyte scale. They're built from fundamentally unreliable components, and they consume even more space power and attention to operate. It's time to address the elephant in the data center.
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It's time for something better. FlashBlade//E as a capacity optimized modern file and object storage platform. It's designed to deliver the lowest cost for unstructured data at scale with no compromises.
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It is the most effective multi petabyte, unstructured data repository for your business. It uses 80% less space and power will produce one fifth, the e-waste and will require one third the operational cost of legacy disk based systems.
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And like all our products, it will get better over time. Pure delivery storage platforms that get better as they age instead of being obsolete once they're turned on. And instead of having to rip and replace a massive storage environment every few years, FlashBlade//E will last far longer
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and lets organizations with large data repository spend 95% less time replacing failed components, less time managing complex resiliency schemes, and gives them more time back for the things that matter. And it makes their lives easier by offering multiple protocol, file and object storage in the same platform,
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all backed by Pure Storage is best in class support experience. This is incredibly important because unstructured data is predicted to grow tenfold by 2030. And so structural cracks in any large scale data repository will cause a collapse within the next few years.
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There needs to be a better way forward. Pure Storage is the first company to address this challenge, and that's no surprise. As Corso eloquently put it, DirectFlash allows us to adopt new media faster than our competitors and deliver unique value and efficiency to our customers.
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For existing customers that love our portfolio, and most do, we now can offer a solution for all of your data. No matter the Tier four organizations looking for cloud like scalable storage for their on premises infrastructure. FlashBlade//E brings that effortless cloud experience to your data center.
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And for users who've never tried Pure Storage, you'll love the experience of using our products with fleet wide cloud based management, ease of use and low touch operations, simple scalability and environmental sustainability. I couldn't be more excited for what the future holds.
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If you want to imagine your unstructured data environment in new light, FlashBlade//E will reinvent the way your everyday, unstructured data is delivered to address your needs of today, tomorrow, and forever. It's why FlashBlade is the last scale up platform you'll ever need.
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It's efficient, it's economical, and it's essential. It's all flash for everyone. It's FlashBlade//E and it changes everything. So many of you may have questions like “Why this market?”, “What's the opportunity?”, “What trends are happening there
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to help us understand what's going on in this market?” We've invited Scott Sinclair, practice director from analyst firm ESG, to join us for a chat. Thank you so much for being here, Scott. Thanks for having me. In his role as practice director, Scott leads Enterprise Strategy Group's Infrastructure, Cloud and DevOps practice advising I.T.
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Technology leaders, as well as emerging innovators on both product and go to market strategy while driving new research studies into the state of I.T. infrastructure operations and application development across the distributed cloud ecosystems.
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So Scott, what is top of mind today in terms of the top I.T. trends? Well, I mean, really, Amy, what isn't? But, you know, I think I'll start with data growth, because data growth just pervasive.
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Data drives business, and because of that, we're so focused on the creation of data, the storage of data. But more almost more importantly, the usage and experience related to that data. In addition to that,
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we're also seeing a massive uptick in data center modernization initiatives. You know, I want to say 2022 is really the year I think organizations start to really understand the limitations of public cloud environments. And now we're turning back to our data centers environments saying, hey, look,
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how do I get the, the simplicity, the agility benefits, the performance benefits, all the things that I want out of those environments. How do I modernize that to really optimize my data center environments as well? Are we seeing a correlation between I.T. transformation and data center modernization?
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Oh, absolutely. I mean, I.T. transformation is all about, okay, let's rethink our processes. Let's think our operations. How do we become more efficient? How do we become more productive?
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And data center modernization is about, okay, how do we deliver the right infrastructure tools to our teams to go do that? You know, often people ask, well, what's the difference between data center modernization and just buying new stuff? Well, it's not just buying the latest tech.
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We've been doing that forever, but it's about leveraging technologies that maximize the value of your people, not just the developers and users and even customers in your environment, but also your I.T. operations. Right. Making sure that you're maximizing their value.
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In addition, you're looking at how do you improve agility and at the same time, something else that's becoming even more and more important, especially over the last 12 months, is sustainability. How do we become more energy efficient? We've seen a massive uptick in sustainability initiatives
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from a strategic level. It's rising up the priority list. You know, actually it's becoming table stakes. It's becoming one of those things that's up there with reliability, availability, scalability and sustainability, energy efficiency.
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It's up in that upper tier of metrics, especially for storage. So lots of basically lots of initiatives around datacentre modernization going on right now. So how significant has the mind shift been around sustainability? Because it's something we think about a lot relative
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to the lower amount of energy that is consumed by all flash. Has there been a dramatic change from what you've seen in the past couple of years? Absolutely. One of the things, you know, when I
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think about sustainability or kind of this idea of kind of the Green Data Center, you know, I don't want to sound cynical on this, but, you know, early in my career, because we've been talking about it for a little while, I think sometimes it's maybe more marketing than there was reality at some.
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You know, you saw some benefits in energy efficiency, just as technology started to evolve. But really, over the last 12 months, especially with what's going on in Europe, but it's not it's not isolated to Europe. It's also North America. We've seen this
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hyper focus on energy efficiency, this need to where it is. It's very much in the priority list, not just in how, you know, the tactical benefits of making sure that we can scale and maintain our footprint and also keep our energy costs low.
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But that doesn't go away, that energy costs are definitely real. But also from an executive level. More and more organizations have sustainability goals, sustainability initiatives and data center operations and data center infrastructure plays a huge role in that.
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So what kind of workloads would you would you think that customers or organizations that are that are hearing about FlashBlade//E for the first time today should start considering moving on to all flash with FlashBlade//E? One of the things that I just I love about FlashBlade//E
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and everything you guys are doing is you've changed the cost curve. You've changed the cost curve of what's possible with all flash. And so if if I'm looking at it from a data center perspective now, I have a different lens that I can look at my infrastructure and say, look, anything where I maybe
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the math worked out to where it was on spinning disk, maybe two, three years ago. For those large infrastructure environments, let's see, let's recheck it, because I bet FlashBlade//E makes more sense there. Not just in because the acquisition cost is lower. You start getting some of those ROI in TCO benefits.
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That to me is a huge opportunity that, you know, you could go into all sorts of industries around that things like data pipeline environments, data lakes, all these, all these different workloads. But also where I think it plays a significant role is and another set of math that organizations have been doing over the past
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couple of years is looking at workloads that they're going to migrate to public cloud. Is especially where FlashBlade//E plays is in these very large high capacity environments. And when you do a migration of massive data sets,
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there's a ton of cost, time, complexity, risk associated with those. And with FlashBlade//E coming in and being able to change that math and coming in and readjusting that cost curve. Now, I recommend any organization that's looking at a large unstructured storage environment to redo that math and take a look and say, Hey, look,
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maybe FlashBlade//E makes sense. We don't have to incur that cost and risk of moving it and we also don't have to incur a possible cost risk of moving it out at a later date. As the I.T.
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directors who are maybe watching this are sitting there right now and thinking about their own data center modernization projects, what are the top few pieces of advice that you would want to give them? That's a great question. I would want to sit down
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and say, look, the number one thing that you have to understand is you need to modernize everywhere. This isn't a and I still see this from from CIOs and in CEOs is this modernization means move everything to AWS.
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I still see that every now and then. Even though multi-cloud we've been talking about this forever, it is the world is multi-cloud, it is hybrid cloud, and it will be forever or further until something for my lifetime, or at least until I retire,
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which is very, very, very far from now. But what what I'd also recommend is, especially when it comes to understanding the balance, is looking at not just
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the when you move with the right location for an app might be or the right location for data is, but also understand the opportunity cost that it has on your people and your personnel. I talked a lot about the cloud cost optimization tools. I had this great conversation with a CIO a few months ago
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and she was telling me, “Look, when we used to do cloud migrations, we used to look at the cost and complexity and how much time and effort it would take to move an app and data from one place to the public. And then we'd look at how much did it would it cost to stay there, you know, how much would it cost to maintain pay for the service, that sort of stuff.
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And that was how we did our our cloud costing”. She goes, “We still do that, but we've added a new metric. And the new metric is”, this is the third thing they consider is “if in two years or in 18 months we decide we made a mistake, how much is it going to cost us to move it out of the cloud?”
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And that's that is the math equation that a lot of people don't do and need to. Because, look, you know, again, this is not like an anti cloud message. It's just a the world changes, data changes, new innovation comes out
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like what you guys are doing with FlashBlade//E, that all of a sudden that cloud cost equation that you had, you know, six months ago doesn't work anymore. There's there's new numbers in there. So what this drives
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all these trends, these terms that we use agility, flexibility, this is why you need agility and flexibility and to take advantage of these types of technologies. So what I would recommend is look, first,
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all the things that we talked about, what I'd recommend to a CIO right now is first, all the things I mentioned around flash, right? All the things you know, if you if you have something in your infrastructure or if you are managing your own environment, most people are you will for a long time
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think about what it does from an operational standpoint on your people, because your people are your most valuable asset. They're going to be the hardest things to scale and optimize on technology like flash that's going to get the most out of them and the most out of and deliver the most productivity to the
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to your clients, the customers you serve, which is the business. That's one. The other thing, too, though, is when you think about new hardware innovations like what you guys are doing with FlashBlade//E
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is understand that you guys aren't done. This is, new innovation is going to continue to come and that's why that's why you're doing all this work for agility and flexibility. And so before you make these moves, before you let inertia kind of capture you and take you down the river, so to speak,
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always be making decisions, pay attention. Look at the do the math. Make sure you, you're putting in you're making the best decision for your apps and data based on not just what makes sense now, but also what gives you flexibility to move in the future.
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Thanks again, Scott, so much. That was that was really great. Yeah. Thank you. I think it's always so wonderful to get a third party perspective on the market dynamics and how new technologies might fit in and help customers
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solve some of their most critical business challenges. I want to thank our founder Coz and Scott Sinclair from ESG for joining me today. We hope that you are as excited about the introduction of FlashBlade//E as we are. This really does change everything. So let's put this in perspective.
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When it comes to unstructured data, you have FlashBlade//S, our unified, fast file and object platform for all your critical high performance workloads. And now for the majority of unstructured data out there, you have FlashBlade//E, the first all flash unstructured data repository. It really completes the picture and means you can
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now make the dream of an all flash data center a reality. FlashBlade//E is efficient super energy saving and economical at scale, effortless with seamless management optimization and improvement, and ever lasting built to handle data growth effectively and sustainably.
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For under $0.20 a gigabyte, you get three years of service, 40% lower TCO over six years and nondisruptive upgrades. So what's next? We're taking orders now and systems start shipping in April. To learn more, reach out to your Pure Storage or channel
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partner team or visit our website at purestorage.com and see for yourself how this changes everything. Thank you all for joining us today and welcome to the next era in data storage.
