INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Pure Storage
makes headway
with innovative
programmes
A forward looking predictable storage cost base allows
managed service providers to offer competitive contracts.
Six years ago when Pure Storage was
launched, its go to market approach
driven by its founders, was two-fold. The
first was that flash storage was here
to stay in the datacentre. The second
was that storage in the enterprise had
become too complex and too expensive
and was a significant pain point for
end customers. Mainstream storage
vendors were bringing out new products
and were using that as a reason for
end customers to migrate from one
platform to another.
The first programme where the
maintenance and services metric costs
are locked into the day-one base line,
Pure Storage calls its Evergreen Storage
programme. The second programme
where end customers get controller
upgrades at the end of three year life
cycle milestones, Pure Storage calls it
Forever Flash programme. These two
programmes give Pure Storage end
customers a predictable total cost of
ownership across the life cycle of their
storage technology investment.
Pure Storage approached the market
and turned the prevailing business
model on its head. In 2014, it broke
ranks by locking the metric cost of
maintenance and services contract for
end customers to day-one of the start
of the contract. No incremental and
hidden costs as the years roll on for Pure
Storage end customers. At the end of
the third year and increments of three
years thereof, it offered free upgrade
of the controllers, thus enabling its end
customers to switch over into latest
technology platforms. All for free, no
hidden unpredictability’s, no incremental
add-on costs, no forklift removals of
hardware and no forklift upgrades.
Ben Savage, EMEA Head of Channels
and Alliances, Pure Storage, explains the
benefits that end customers get from Pure
Storage versus from mainstream vendors.
“When they move to flash with Pure
Storage, then the benefits to customers
is cost predictability. Historically from our
competitors they have had very much
what we would describe as a forklift
upgrade every three to four years. They
have their storage infrastructure set in
place and when they look to renew their
maintenance or move to a new platform,
they see a significant hike in their
storage costs. That unpredictability has
caught a lot of customers out in terms of
budgeting and financing.”
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INTELLIGENTCIO
The longer term predictability of
total cost of ownership around flash
storage solutions from Pure Storage
is working well with managed service
providers offering cloud solutions.
Both the Evergreen Storage offerings
around lock-in of maintenance costs
and free upgrades under Forever Flash
ring well with the business model of
managed service providers. Managed
service providers offer compelling
service level agreements based on
specific cloud solutions demanded by
their end customers. A forward looking
predictable storage cost base around
Pure Storage products allows managed
service providers to offer more assured
and competitive contracts for their key
end customers. That is disrupting some
of the support contracts that managed
service providers have with mainstream
storage vendors.
Savage points out that when an end user
considers migrating from a dedicated
IT infrastructure to a hybrid cloud
infrastructure they are looking at two
key benefits. This includes cost savings
and flexibility. With Evergreen Storage
and Forever Flash offerings available for
managed service providers, this creates
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