GigaOm published a pair of new reports on the rapidly maturing Kubernetes storage market based on its evaluation of 23 different solutions. And the key takeaway? Portworx® by Pure Storage® is “the gold standard” for Kubernetes storage for enterprises.
One report focuses on container-native Kubernetes storage solutions. The other focuses on enterprise storage systems with container storage interface (CSI) plug-ins and software-defined solutions with optimizations for containers. While these might seem like competing approaches, our unique strategy puts Pure and Portworx at the top of the reports in both categories.
Report 1: GigaOm Radar for Cloud-Native Kubernetes Data Storage
By GigaOm’s definition, cloud-native Kubernetes storage products and platforms use “novel architectures specifically designed to address the needs of cloud-native apps without compromising on performance or scalability.”
For the second consecutive year, GigaOm put Portworx on top. Analysts call it “a complete, enterprise-grade solution with outstanding data management capabilities, unmatched deployment possibilities, and superior management features. Portworx remains the gold standard in cloud-native Kubernetes storage for the enterprise.”
We couldn’t agree more. With more and more enterprise applications running in Kubernetes across multiple environments, organizations of all sizes must solve the associated data challenges. These include data mobility, data protection, data security, and other issues.
Portworx solves these challenges and others with a single software-defined solution that runs in any environment: cloud, on-premises, virtualized, or bare metal. And it’s all delivered as a subscription. Other solutions work only with a single storage system or a single distribution of Kubernetes. The report calls these “feature plays,” as opposed to “platform plays” like Portworx. If you need to get the most from your data, Portworx is the market’s most complete and flexible solution.
As the report notes, “The [Portworx] solution offers broad deployment choices and supports bare metal and virtualized environments, including Pure Storage physical arrays, existing cloud block services, and cloud-based Kubernetes services, as well as those from other ecosystem partners, providing a consistent experience across infrastructures, platforms, and locations.”
Figure 1: GigaOm Radar for cloud-native Kubernetes data storage.
Report 2: GigaOm Radar for Enterprise Kubernetes Storage
In the second report, GigaOm evaluates how enterprise storage providers are enabling Kubernetes workloads to run on top of traditional and/or software-defined solutions. Once again, Pure Storage ranks highest.
Figure 2: GigaOm Radar for enterprise Kubernetes storage.
“Thanks to its strategic acquisition of Portworx and the swift integration of Pure Service Orchestrator in Portworx Essentials, Pure Storage is now in a position to offer the most complete set of features for Kubernetes storage on its own as well as third-party storage arrays.”
This analysis perfectly encapsulates the vision behind Pure’s acquisition of Portworx. Here are some of the insights that shaped our strategy.
- Modern applications running on Kubernetes have unique architectures and require a solution designed for containers. A CSI plug-in to Kubernetes isn’t enough. Portworx is the most complete Kubernetes data-services platform and enables Kubernetes clusters with tens of thousands of volumes. Portworx surpasses the limits of CSI-based solutions and also offers enterprise-grade data protection, data security, and more.
- Enterprises want to run Kubernetes apps in hybrid environments and with more than one scheduler. For example, you may run OpenShift on-prem, but Amazon EKS in the cloud. You need a solution that works consistently, regardless of the infrastructure and scheduler layer. As GigaOm notes, “Pure Storage, with its takeover of Portworx, emphasizes flexibility and a consistent user experience across different environments. It offers an extensive feature set that extends data storage, with data management functionality to build consistent data services across different clouds.”
- Many organizations using Pure FlashArray™ and FlashBlade® want to modernize apps with Kubernetes. Portworx offers the easiest way to rapidly progress to production on Kubernetes. For example, the integration of Portworx “on Pure Storage controller-based architectures significantly enhances data efficiency, since users benefit from the data reduction capabilities offered by the storage arrays.”
Additionally, GigaOm analysts point out that Portworx “integrates with Pure Storage Pure1®, which consumes telemetry data from Portworx and delivers best-in-class app-centric analytics and, eventually, recommendations.”
Add to that a unified support experience for all applications—both modern and traditional. Plus, Pure FlashArray and FlashBlade let you take advantage of an expanded Portworx Essentials freemium offering. With Portworx in the Pure family, we can expand our customer relationships and further accelerate your journey to storage as a service. And, we’re bringing Pure Storage’s secure product development lifecycle to the Portworx product, further enhancing the security for customers.
We’re excited to receive this recognition from GigaOm. And we’re even more excited to continue enabling your digital transformation journeys. Download the reports.
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Leading the Pack
See why Portworx and Pure Storage top 23 other solutions for Kubernetes storage.
