Pure Storage Advances All-Solid-State FlashArray …

Pure Storage, Inc., the all-flash enterprise storage company, unveiled  software features for its FlashArray, adding iSCSI connectivity, ZeroSnap snapshots, and integration with, and management within, VMware via a new vCenter Web Client Plugin.

The enhancements build on the company’s market entry early this year, which introduced the FlashArray as a scalable all-flash enterprise array capable of driving the cost of all-flash storage below the price of spinning disk, with sub-millisecond inline data reduction capabilities. The release will enable to now address a broader set of networked storage needs for companies who want to leverage flash memory for their performance-critical applications.

"The first generation of flash appliances predominantly focused on performance and were far too expensive to use in mainstream enterprise applications," said Joe Unsworth, research VP at Gartner. "Combining more affordable flash with enhanced support for performance critical applications and virtualized environments, will be crucial to capture any significant share of the emerging mainstream flash appliance market."

New FlashArray Features:

• iSCSI / 10GbE Connectivity for Cloud Readiness: It offers two popular block storage connectivity choices – FC and iSCSI – enabling FlashArray to fit into Ethernet-centric public and private cloud data centers. iSCSI offers substantial cost savings, compatibility, scalability and ease of use benefits that make it a choice for newer, web-scale data centers as well as cost-conscious midsize enterprises.
• ZeroSnap Snapshots: Simple, limitless snapshots – with zero compromises. Traditional array-based snapshots have been riddled with limitations, due to the underlying constraints of spinning disk: performance overhead, complex planning, and restrictions on quantity and use. ZeroSnap Snapshots were designed to harness the power of 100% flash memory, delivering snapshots with so little overhead that 1,000 can be taken in a single minute. ZeroSnap snapshots require no planning, pre-allocation of space, are taken instantly, have full read/write capabilities, are space-saving (thin, compressed, and deduped), and can be used to recover any volume from any snapshot in the array.
• VMware vCenter Web Client Plugin: Enables management of the FlashArray within vCenter, a UI designed for use by Virtual Infrastructure (VI) Admins. VI Admins live in the world of hosts, clusters and VMs – not LUNs, WWNs, RAID, multipathing policies, and IOPS. Pure Storage partnered with VI administrators to design a simple block storage management for vSphere, using the Pure Storage Web Client Plugin to automate the process of datastore creation, and to visibility into datastore capacity and performance.
• VMware-Ready Certified and VAAI-Enabled: FlashArray has now achieved VMware Ready status in its HA configuration, meaning that the entire FlashArray 300-Series is supported by Pure Storage and VMware for production deployments. The FlashArray is also VAAI-enabled, ensuring performance under vSphere.

"Pure Storage has succeeded in delivering the performance, usability, and cost benefits that Yodle needed from flash," said John Merryman, CTO at Yodle, Inc. "The FlashArray product has provided us with considerable improvement on the performance limits that you typically get with a mechanical disk."

The new features will be made available to customers as a software upgrade to the Pure Storage Purity Operating Environment (Purity 2.5), at no additional charge for customers with a current maintenance agreement. Purity 2.5 is in beta testing, was demonstrated next week at VMworld 2012, and will be available in the fall.

"Following our red hot market reception earlier this year, we have focused on bringing the benefits of flash to more enterprises that are not getting their money’s worth from mechanical storage," said Scott Dietzen, CEO of Pure Storage. "We are therefore thrilled to be delivering the next generation of FlashArray, so soon after our GA release. With our Series D funding and our accelerating pace of innovation, we are now primed for international expansion."

Pure Storage was exhibiting at VMworld 2012 in San Francisco, CA August 26-30.