Don’t Fall for the Mockolate

When in the checkout line at the grocery store, my wife saw a chocolate bar advertised to have brownie batter chocolate that sounded extremely good. It was organic, well-packaged, and looked like a high-quality bar—so it seemed like a great option. Upon opening the wrapper in the car to enjoy a few bites of her treat, she was met with an absolutely disgusting taste that overwhelmed her taste buds. It was the most horrible-tasting chocolate she had ever tried, and when she shared it with me at home, I could only agree—it was beyond terrible. The taste hits you especially hard when you’re expecting a smooth, rich chocolate experience.

Upon closer inspection of the label, we noticed it advertised milk chocolate substitute and “chocolate reinvented.” I don’t know what this substitute is, nor do I care to find out. And I’m pretty sure chocolate is doing just fine on its own—there’s no reason to “reinvent” it!

We had a good laugh about it, and it reminded us of the television show Friends, where Monica had to make “mockolate,” a chocolate substitute that everyone hated, including Monica herself (Season 2, Episode 8, if you’d like to watch it). Our experience was exactly like that. And just for some laughs, we gave a bite to some of our friends without telling them what to expect—their reactions were priceless (sorry if you were one of them and you’re reading this, haha!).

This got me thinking about the customers I get to talk to every day and how many of them are promised “chocolate,” but they end up getting “mockolate” instead. Let me explain what I mean.

Pure Storage has been offering our Evergreen//Forever™ subscription for over 10 years (the marketing name of the program has changed—it was originally called Forever Flash when launched in 2014, but the program remains the same). With this subscription, our customers get their storage arrays upgraded to the next generation at no charge, with data in place, which we call Ever Modern. In fact, over 30,000 Ever Modern upgrades have been performed, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of Purity software upgrades. Customers can also upgrade to the next higher model at any time, with full trade-in credit for the model they’ve already purchased. The program also includes the ability for an anytime controller upgrade with a flash capacity expansion, offering full trade-in credit for existing technology refreshes—what we call Ever Agile. Another option, called Capacity Consolidation, enables an anytime higher-capacity media swap with trade-in credit for existing media. 

Whichever part of the Evergreen//Forever subscription you choose, the result is a better customer experience, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and a radically simplified refresh cycle. My colleague Don Poorman recently wrote a blog post, “Non Disruptive Upgrades: The Pure Storage Ship of Theseus,” which offers more details on the Ever Modern part of the subscription as well as how the architecture enables this functionality. This is our chocolate recipe, and our customers have enjoyed this delicious experience for over 10 years, with thousands of references to prove it.

Our competitors initially dismissed our Evergreen business model as unsustainable. But fast-forward a decade, and now most of our competitors have their own “mockolate” version of our chocolate recipe. Let’s consider some examples.

Dell

Dell launched their “Anytime Upgrade Program for PowerStore” when PowerStore was introduced in May 2020. They promised “Anytime Upgrades, the industry’s most flexible controller upgrade program” that “ends disruptive platform migrations.” What they failed to mention was that data-in-place upgrades were not possible until a “future release,” which finally arrived three years later with PowerStoreOS 3.6 (released October 2023). However, this release only allowed upgrades from PowerStore Generation 1 appliances to Generation 2 and did not support upgrading to a higher model within the same generation. PowerStore OS 4.0 (released May 2024) enabled data-in-place upgrades within the same Generation 2 family, but it also replaced the “Anytime Upgrade” program with “Lifecycle Extension with ProSupport.”

So, after waiting over four years for their technology to catch up to their promises, they changed their programs again, claiming it’s “game-changing” and better for the customer. Dell continues to serve mockolate. The same is true with PowerMax, where their “Anytime Upgrade for PowerMax” program, launched in May 2022, was retired in October 2023. How much more mockolate can Dell serve, especially when you examine their actual terms and conditions?

HPE

HPE has marketed several programs over the years to compete with us, such as “Timeless Storage for HPE Nimble,” “Timeless Storage for HPE Primera,” and the “HPE Controller Refresh Service.” These programs promised “no forklift upgrades,” “free controller upgrade options,” and “satisfaction guaranteed.” However, they were discontinued as Nimble and Primera were replaced by HPE Alletra, making those programs obsolete. The Alletra 6000 (of Nimble heritage) and Alletra 9000 (of Primera heritage) had their own “Timeless Technology Refresh” programs, but the Alletra 6000 program was dropped between January 2023 and August 2023. HPE launched GreenLake for Block Storage MP based on Alletra MP in April 2023, announced as their future storage platform.

This new platform offered no data-in-place upgrade option from previous platforms and lacked purchase options previously included in their Timeless program. Now, with Alletra MP, HPE is continuing to serve mockolate, launching the “HPE Timeless Program for GreenLake for Block Storage built on Alletra Storage MP” in May 2024, claiming it supports “non-disruptive, data-in-place, multi-generational technology refreshes.” Where have I heard that promise before? Doesn’t taste very good, does it?

NetApp

NetApp is a relative newcomer to serving mockolate, with no history or track record of performing data-in-place upgrades across generations. However, they launched their “Storage Lifecycle Program” in February 2023, claiming “free controller upgrades every three years,” “flat renewal pricing,” and “trade-in capacity.” What they fail to mention is that NetApp’s architecture makes these claims nearly impossible, turning their program into mockolate. For example, their AFF A-Series models vary widely in design—some have internal drives, others don’t, and the sizes range from 2U to 8U chassis.

How will they enable data-in-place upgrades across such diverse models? They can’t. While their latest AFF models might allow upgrades between certain specific models (like A70 to A90), this does nothing for other models, including the A1K. The differences in hardware chassis make multi-generational, data-in-place upgrades impractical, forcing NetApp to rely on their “Head Swap Services” and Aggregate Relocation (ARL) processes, further demonstrating that their mockolate messaging outpaces their technology.

Other competitors, such as IBM, Hitachi Vantara, and Huawei, are also serving mockolate, but we’ll explore those in a future blog post. Meanwhile, Pure Storage continues to delight our customers, offering future-ready products. With our Evergreen//Forever subscription, our customers get ever-improving storage that never needs to be replaced—just like real chocolate. Don’t fall for the mockolate.

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