AFA Innovator Pure Continues Leadership in 2017 IDC MarketScape Report

In the newly published report, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide All-Flash Array 2017 Vendor Assessment, Pure Storage was named a Leader in a market that has grown and matured significantly in the two years since the inaugural report.

We’re proud of the IDC recognition and success our customers and partners have helped us to achieve in disrupting the storage market with a data platform and trailblazing business models that our customers and partners love.

Download an excerpt of the 2017 report here for all of the details.

The IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market and business execution in the short-term. The Strategy score measures alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe. Vendor market share is represented by the size of the icons.

Here are some highlights from the report worth elaborating on:

1. AFA Reaches Market Maturation and Majority Share of Primary Storage – In 2017, AFAs drove 80% of primary storage revenue, as a majority of customers are “committed to an all-flash for primary storage” strategy. The largest market segment driving this shift in storage spend is “systems intended for dense mixed workload consolidation.Pure customers have been consolidating Tier 1 and 2 workloads such as database, data warehouse, virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure, enterprise resource planning and others, based on innovative consolidation features built-into Pure’s products that are effortless, efficient, and Evergreen.
   • Performance (Throughput and Latency): Consistent < 1 ms latency from day 1, now even faster and more dense with advancements in DirectFlash™ and 100% NVMe arrays.
   • Capacity: FlashArray//M provides 1.5 PB of usable storage in 7U, FlashArray//X provides 1 PB of usable storage in 3U, and FlashBlade provides 1.6 PB of usable storage in 4U.
   • Ability to consolidate multiple workloads: Ultra high performance density, avg data reduction of 5:1, 6 9’s of availability, and virtualization and private cloud integration with leading industry partners.
   • Advanced Replication Capabilities: Asynchronous snapshot replication and simple to deploy synchronous active active stretch clusters (ActiveCluster) at zero additional cost.
   • Maturity of Platforms: The all NVMe FlashArray//X is now Pure’s 5th generation of all flash block storage, FlashBlade™ delivers all-flash file and object storage, and FlashStack™ Converged Infrastructure delivers best of breed, validated all-flash private cloud with Cisco.
2. Innovation and ground-breaking business models set Pure apart from the legacy storage and newer all-flash generation competitors. Here are a few of the innovations customers tell us have made their lives dramatically simpler and their businesses run significantly better. Don’t take our word for it, check out a few of the customer stories associated with each innovation.
   • Effortless, self-driving storage with breakthrough simplicity and no need to constantly tune. “It always works; no hiccups. We love it” Daniel Quill Senior Director, Application Development, San Francisco Giants Baseball Club.
   • Efficient, typically 2x better data reduction over alternative all-flash arrays with always on deduplication and compression. Pure data reduction reduced storage requirements for SoftBank by 8:1.
   • NVMe based systems for greater performance and density with FlashArray//X. “Customers using services powered by //X arrays report less “back pressure,” which means latencies are lower, bandwidth is higher, and when demand spikes, response times are not impacted.” Jason Michaud, CIO, MacStadium.
   • Evergreen™ Storage that gets better with age. “Not only does it ensure we always have the latest technology, it takes the guesswork out of planning for the future. Instead of knowing that someday you’ll have to do a dreaded forklift upgrade, with Evergreen you are assured a smooth, non-disruptive path to higher performance, greater density and more features. Your investment is always protected, and you never buy storage twice.” Peter Dunn, Director of Infrastructure. Lamar Advertising.
3. Customer experience expectations have changed with Pure’s Evergreen Storage model. Evergreen is both a pioneering business model as well as engineered into Pure hardware, software, and support services. The Evergreen model is a first in the storage industry that changes how technology refresh is handled, including upgrades to software (i.e. new features), and upgrades to hardware (for capacity and performance), including free generational upgrades (Free Every Three with paid maintenance). A subscription to innovation, Evergreen ensures no TB of storage is ever re-purchased, performance, capacity and software upgrades are handled non-disruptively with no performance degradation, and data migrations and forklift upgrades are a thing of the past.
   • Learn more about Evergreen Storage in this IDC white paper, sponsored by Pure Storage, “Evergreen Storage Is Changing Customer Experience Expectations in Enterprise Storage” IDC Report #US41866916, October 2016.
   • Check out our recent blog, “Why all the buzz on Evergreen Storage?”
4. Storage support is now Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) powered, ensuring customers access to self-driving storage with simple cloud-based management, effortless predictive support, and Pure1® Meta, offering global predictive intelligence. Pure1 support with Meta AI and ML features provide identification of problems AND resolves them before customers even realize they had an issue. Our proactive, intelligent support, has the ability to provide predictive resolution based on collecting and analyzing data on similar customer array profiles, and can even size and predict future workload capacity requirements. Customers have told us with Pure, they don’t have to worry about their storage. That’s self-driving storage and it’s a reality today.
5. Programmatic customer satisfaction measurement via certified Net Promoter Scores reflect the importance of putting customers first. While it’s gratifying to be recognized as a leader in the AFA market by IDC in this latest report, Pure ultimately measures our success by customer satisfaction ratings, and our Satmetrix certified 83.7 NPS is a B2B best and a top 1% of all certified NPS scores. NPS ensures that not only is customer feedback measured in an industry standard manner, it is programatically incorporated into continuous improvement to the products and services offered by Pure.

2018 is a new year with lots of exciting opportunities as companies decide how they want to power their most critical business application, take advantage of all-flash storage for all of their workloads, and ensure they get the best return on their IT investments.  Pure is happy to help customers put their data to work.

To learn more:

• Download an excerpt of the report here for all of the details.
• Join Pure, our customers and partners @ the Pure//Accelerate Conference, May 21st, 2018 in San Francisco.