Pure Storage has made File Services available for FlashArray, the storage service for accessing native services that merge blocks and files from a single global pool of storage resources. Having been designed from the ground up to be unified, Pure delivers the flexibility and the long-promised efficiency of unified block and file storage arrays.
The complexity of management
Legacy multi-protocol block and file storage solutions have been around for decades. However, these products have failed to deliver the flexibility and efficiency promised by unified arrays. Such legacy systems were being built originally to be used either with blocks or with files, and then simply add new protocols. Thus ending up significantly increasing the complexity of management as scale increases. Pure Storage instead wanted to rethink the experience of unified storage from scratch by proposing a modern architecture in which both blocks and files are native services with the same relevance, not subject to the shortcomings of legacy platforms.
The storage service is now available for accessing native services
Pure Storage offers the first truly unified block and file platform, designed with true unification as the goal. A global, flexible pool of storage resources eliminates the need to plan ahead for storage growth. While a unified policy management system drastically reduces administration times. Pure’s unified storage architecture allows customers to use native file and block services they support directly files, blocks and virtual machines. According to the analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), the use of this type of platform can translate into an estimated 62% reduction in administration times and improve the total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 58%. over a three-year period.
The main features
The unified block and file FlashArray platform provides customers with:
- Global storage pools. Pure Storage now offers a flexible global storage pool that eliminates the complexity associated with data growth on legacy unified arrays. Previously, administrators were forced to to plan every update and every storage request in advance. Today, however, they can use what they need, on blocks and on files, with transparent extensions without having to stop the systems and with file systems of unlimited size.
- Unified policy management. Pure Storage has eliminated the multi-layer management imposed by legacy storage platforms. This is to provide administrators with the ability to fine-tune the specific storage services they wish to implement and control. By unifying policy management, you can quickly learn all possible operations and apply them to any resource, be it blocks or files.
Improved handling
VM-aware storage capacity:. Pure Storage has introduced VM-Aware Storage, the industry’s first solution that provides deeper insight into the granularity level of the virtual machine (VM). The granularity of visibility and management that Pure now provides on files is also made available by virtual machines through VM-aware Storage. Administrators can manage VMs natively on FlashArray with VM-level statistics, snapshots, quotas, and policies available.
Available storage service for accessing native services
Ample support of common use cases. Pure Storage supports all common use cases such as VMware and NFS data stores, user profiles and directories, content repositories, data protection and backups.