Three imperatives for thriving in a crisis
Charlie Giancarlo, Chairman and CEO, Pure Storage, suggests that it’s time to rethink enterprise infrastructure. In his keynote at Pure//Accelerate Digital he said, “The nature of work has changed very suddenly, and probably forever. More than ever, you need more remote capabilities at scale. You need more automation and consolidation.”
The strategy that guides and differentiates Pure was introduced at Accelerate last year: the Modern Data Experience, Giancarlo said. "When we first introduced the Modern Data Experience I described it as a beginning and a long term vision, one that would take well into our second decade to complete,” he said.
Giancarlo introduced three imperatives for surviving and thriving in a crisis from the enterprise storage perspective:
Secure your foundation and focus on flexibility
While rapid early responses in the COVID-19 crisis has meant dealing with the urgent and putting everything else on hold, “we don't want to be making short term decisions that will cause long term costs,” he explained.
“COVID-19 has put all business continuity plans into practice simultaneously. We've learned that business continuity is more than just surviving an event. It's now about having the flexibility to shift how you do business rapidly. Securing your IT foundation, your base to deliver technological solutions to business problems, is critical to making sure you can deal with the rapidly-changing nature of this crisis and the COVID economy,” he said.
“Did your infrastructure have the flexibility to instantly respond to shelter-in-place*? Did your suppliers respond when you needed them? Now is the right time to reconsider which products, and which vendors have shown themselves to be flexible, reliable and designed for the long-term success of your organisation. Flexibility in the solutions you choose is paramount,” he said.
Flexibility is exemplified with Pure's managed service Pure as-a-Service, which allows businesses to subscribe to storage in the data centre and in the cloud, via a single, unified pay-as-you-go subscription, Giancarlo noted. The offering is currently free for the first three months for a one-year commitment.
Drive new efficiency and productivity, and automate everything.
Elevate your human efficiency.
Defining efficiency in data storage comes down to dollars per terabyte, he shared. “What this crisis has brought to light is that the most important considerations now are human efficiency, and infrastructure flexibility. Dollars per terabyte are still important but not if you're forced to buy more terabytes than you actually use, or if low initial costs lock you into the present, without future flexibility,” he said.
As for human efficiency, human attention is eroded by complexity and unreliability, as opposed to elegant design and high reliability, Giancarlo said. “Elegant design is displayed in simplicity. If storage is so elegant, it manages itself, then it improves human efficiency,” he said.
Reliability also plays a part in human efficiency. “Any failure in this climate is a disaster. You don't have the time to deal with failures. Reliability is job number one for simplicity. In storage, we measure reliability in ‘nines’ of availability. Pure FlashArray is closing in on seven nines of availability,” he said.
Pure's FlashArray is flash storage which comes in two flavours. FlashArray//X is an all-flash 100% NVMe storage array for tier 0 and tier 1 applications, while FlashArray//C is capacity-oprimised for performance, hyper-consolidation and simplified management for tier 2 applications. Tiered storage seeks to balance performance against cost by assigning different types of workloads to different types of costs. Tier 0 applications are the most critical.
Pure’s non-disruptive upgrades also improve reliability further by eliminating complex upgrades, so-called ‘scheduled downtime’ and error-prone data migrations, Giancarlo said.
“Focus on driving efficiency for your human capital, because that is the capital that most matters in a crisis and frankly in the long term. Doing so will help you exit this crisis in better shape than you entered it,” he said. "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
The status quo is no more: drive your future vision.
Giancarlo encouraged listeners to take their first step towards change. “You may have been wanting to create your on-prem cloud, but have been stymied by the status quo. You may have been wanting to create a modern container environment for your developers to build cloud-native apps on-prem, but refocusing teams has been challenging,” he said.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say that this crisis will help accelerate the move to the cloud. And I very much agree, but cloud by definition is not a destination. It's an operating model. And it's the right one for a very simple reason which is imperative number two, it's elegant and efficient for human capital.
“The essence of cloud is straightforward. For one, it optimises operations with automation. Everything is API-driven and available across the data centre and across clouds.
“Two, the consumption model is pay-as-you-go, and only for what you use. And three, the services and the hardware underneath are constantly improving without disruption to your applications,” he said.
“The time is now to invest in automation, as part of your full-stack infrastructure strategy. Storage should just meld seamlessly via APIs into your full stack infrastructure, whether that's VMware Cloud Foundation, Red Hat OpenShift, Google Anthos or any other orchestration platform,” he said.
“This crisis is your opportunity to refocus your organisation to your desired future. You can navigate this difficult present, while laying the groundwork for your digital tomorrow,” he concluded.
“By driving efficiency transitioning to self-service automation and creating reliable infrastructure, you also free up the human, and the financial capital to invest in a better platform for tomorrow.”
Giancarlo also spoke separately to Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team about their work together.
Wolff said Formula One racing is all about technology, with the race car at the pinnacle of motor racing being "as high-tech as you can get". "The relationship with Pure has been, really, an absolute and relative performance advantage for us as a team. It's all about speed of data, it's about the right way of accessing information, and with you guys we have always had the edge, speed on the track, and even back in the factory," said Wolff.
"In our sport, it's best man in best machine that wins and per se, the best machines mean the best technology, and the best driver can only perform if he has access to reliable data in a very efficient and quick way," he elaborated.
The COVID-19 situation has changed some perspectives on technology, Wolff added. "I think that from a technology point of view, we have access to technology that we didn't think was fit for purpose before - you know, all the video conferences we are doing now. I think it will play a much larger role in our relationships than it did before," he commented.
"You and I would have normally have sat down face to face and that would be much nicer, but in a way that is okay, considering video conferences are okay for the situation, and I think in that respect technology is going to become even more important in the future. I nevertheless believe that we are humans, we need the relationships, we need the entertainment."
A number of new developments were announced at the event, including the launch of Purity 6.0 for FlashArray, which is the software that runs its FlashArray family, and ActiveDR continuous replication. Other announcements included:
Cloud Block Store in active beta on Microsoft Azure.
Pure’s Cloud Block Store is ideal for running applications seamlessly across the hybrid cloud, Giancarlo said. “What has been most exciting for us is seeing how customers are using Cloud Block Store. They're using it to accomplish a variety of hybrid and multicloud workflows, ranging from application migration to disaster recovery, backup and cloud test and development.
"Cloud Block Store is in the AWS Marketplace. And if you're an existing FlashArray user, it's also easy to replicate your data there and begin a real test drive,” he said.
Pure is committed to enabling modern microservice applications on private clouds, Giancarlo added. “We provide you an on-prem infrastructure that accelerates digital transformation. Pure has also perfected the cloud consumption model with Pure as-a-Service, which delivers the ultimate flexibility for storage consumption,” he said.
To accelerate the building of cloud-native apps on-prem, there must be consolidated data on fast, powerful systems to in turn increase flexibility and speed, he said. “You need VMs**, you need storage that can be orchestrated by your existing VMware environment and provide analytics on a per VM basis.
“And.. you need containers. You need a storage environment that can autonomously spin up and spin down tens of thousands of containers daily, giving them persistent volumes as necessary. You need object storage and I mean fast object storage that is designed for fast applications, not just cheap and deep object storage for your archives.”
Cloud-native apps need object storage, insights into the infrastructure, analytics, and a streaming platform that enables it in real time at massive scale. “At Pure we're investing on all these fronts. Our Pure Service Orchestrator software enables automated stateful container storage, which can spin up tens of thousands of containers daily, and combined with Cloud Block Store, Pure Service Orchestrator enables a hybrid container strategy that unleashes the true potential of Kubernetes, Giancarlo said.
Explore:
Watch the on-demand keynote
*The US term for staying at home during a lockdown.
**VM stands for virtual machine.
 |
| Giancarlo delivers his keynote at Pure//Accelerate Digital. |
Giancarlo introduced three imperatives for surviving and thriving in a crisis from the enterprise storage perspective:
Secure your foundation and focus on flexibility
While rapid early responses in the COVID-19 crisis has meant dealing with the urgent and putting everything else on hold, “we don't want to be making short term decisions that will cause long term costs,” he explained.
“COVID-19 has put all business continuity plans into practice simultaneously. We've learned that business continuity is more than just surviving an event. It's now about having the flexibility to shift how you do business rapidly. Securing your IT foundation, your base to deliver technological solutions to business problems, is critical to making sure you can deal with the rapidly-changing nature of this crisis and the COVID economy,” he said.
“Did your infrastructure have the flexibility to instantly respond to shelter-in-place*? Did your suppliers respond when you needed them? Now is the right time to reconsider which products, and which vendors have shown themselves to be flexible, reliable and designed for the long-term success of your organisation. Flexibility in the solutions you choose is paramount,” he said.
Flexibility is exemplified with Pure's managed service Pure as-a-Service, which allows businesses to subscribe to storage in the data centre and in the cloud, via a single, unified pay-as-you-go subscription, Giancarlo noted. The offering is currently free for the first three months for a one-year commitment.
Drive new efficiency and productivity, and automate everything.
Elevate your human efficiency.
Defining efficiency in data storage comes down to dollars per terabyte, he shared. “What this crisis has brought to light is that the most important considerations now are human efficiency, and infrastructure flexibility. Dollars per terabyte are still important but not if you're forced to buy more terabytes than you actually use, or if low initial costs lock you into the present, without future flexibility,” he said.
As for human efficiency, human attention is eroded by complexity and unreliability, as opposed to elegant design and high reliability, Giancarlo said. “Elegant design is displayed in simplicity. If storage is so elegant, it manages itself, then it improves human efficiency,” he said.
Reliability also plays a part in human efficiency. “Any failure in this climate is a disaster. You don't have the time to deal with failures. Reliability is job number one for simplicity. In storage, we measure reliability in ‘nines’ of availability. Pure FlashArray is closing in on seven nines of availability,” he said.
Pure's FlashArray is flash storage which comes in two flavours. FlashArray//X is an all-flash 100% NVMe storage array for tier 0 and tier 1 applications, while FlashArray//C is capacity-oprimised for performance, hyper-consolidation and simplified management for tier 2 applications. Tiered storage seeks to balance performance against cost by assigning different types of workloads to different types of costs. Tier 0 applications are the most critical.
Pure’s non-disruptive upgrades also improve reliability further by eliminating complex upgrades, so-called ‘scheduled downtime’ and error-prone data migrations, Giancarlo said.
“Focus on driving efficiency for your human capital, because that is the capital that most matters in a crisis and frankly in the long term. Doing so will help you exit this crisis in better shape than you entered it,” he said. "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
The status quo is no more: drive your future vision.
Giancarlo encouraged listeners to take their first step towards change. “You may have been wanting to create your on-prem cloud, but have been stymied by the status quo. You may have been wanting to create a modern container environment for your developers to build cloud-native apps on-prem, but refocusing teams has been challenging,” he said.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say that this crisis will help accelerate the move to the cloud. And I very much agree, but cloud by definition is not a destination. It's an operating model. And it's the right one for a very simple reason which is imperative number two, it's elegant and efficient for human capital.
“The essence of cloud is straightforward. For one, it optimises operations with automation. Everything is API-driven and available across the data centre and across clouds.
“Two, the consumption model is pay-as-you-go, and only for what you use. And three, the services and the hardware underneath are constantly improving without disruption to your applications,” he said.
“The time is now to invest in automation, as part of your full-stack infrastructure strategy. Storage should just meld seamlessly via APIs into your full stack infrastructure, whether that's VMware Cloud Foundation, Red Hat OpenShift, Google Anthos or any other orchestration platform,” he said.
“This crisis is your opportunity to refocus your organisation to your desired future. You can navigate this difficult present, while laying the groundwork for your digital tomorrow,” he concluded.
“By driving efficiency transitioning to self-service automation and creating reliable infrastructure, you also free up the human, and the financial capital to invest in a better platform for tomorrow.”
Giancarlo also spoke separately to Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team about their work together.
 |
| Giancarlo (left) videoconferences with Wolff (right). |
Wolff said Formula One racing is all about technology, with the race car at the pinnacle of motor racing being "as high-tech as you can get". "The relationship with Pure has been, really, an absolute and relative performance advantage for us as a team. It's all about speed of data, it's about the right way of accessing information, and with you guys we have always had the edge, speed on the track, and even back in the factory," said Wolff.
"In our sport, it's best man in best machine that wins and per se, the best machines mean the best technology, and the best driver can only perform if he has access to reliable data in a very efficient and quick way," he elaborated.
The COVID-19 situation has changed some perspectives on technology, Wolff added. "I think that from a technology point of view, we have access to technology that we didn't think was fit for purpose before - you know, all the video conferences we are doing now. I think it will play a much larger role in our relationships than it did before," he commented.
"You and I would have normally have sat down face to face and that would be much nicer, but in a way that is okay, considering video conferences are okay for the situation, and I think in that respect technology is going to become even more important in the future. I nevertheless believe that we are humans, we need the relationships, we need the entertainment."
A number of new developments were announced at the event, including the launch of Purity 6.0 for FlashArray, which is the software that runs its FlashArray family, and ActiveDR continuous replication. Other announcements included:
Cloud Block Store in active beta on Microsoft Azure.
Pure’s Cloud Block Store is ideal for running applications seamlessly across the hybrid cloud, Giancarlo said. “What has been most exciting for us is seeing how customers are using Cloud Block Store. They're using it to accomplish a variety of hybrid and multicloud workflows, ranging from application migration to disaster recovery, backup and cloud test and development.
"Cloud Block Store is in the AWS Marketplace. And if you're an existing FlashArray user, it's also easy to replicate your data there and begin a real test drive,” he said.
Pure is committed to enabling modern microservice applications on private clouds, Giancarlo added. “We provide you an on-prem infrastructure that accelerates digital transformation. Pure has also perfected the cloud consumption model with Pure as-a-Service, which delivers the ultimate flexibility for storage consumption,” he said.
To accelerate the building of cloud-native apps on-prem, there must be consolidated data on fast, powerful systems to in turn increase flexibility and speed, he said. “You need VMs**, you need storage that can be orchestrated by your existing VMware environment and provide analytics on a per VM basis.
“And.. you need containers. You need a storage environment that can autonomously spin up and spin down tens of thousands of containers daily, giving them persistent volumes as necessary. You need object storage and I mean fast object storage that is designed for fast applications, not just cheap and deep object storage for your archives.”
Cloud-native apps need object storage, insights into the infrastructure, analytics, and a streaming platform that enables it in real time at massive scale. “At Pure we're investing on all these fronts. Our Pure Service Orchestrator software enables automated stateful container storage, which can spin up tens of thousands of containers daily, and combined with Cloud Block Store, Pure Service Orchestrator enables a hybrid container strategy that unleashes the true potential of Kubernetes, Giancarlo said.
Explore:
Watch the on-demand keynote
*The US term for staying at home during a lockdown.
**VM stands for virtual machine.
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