Summary
Presets and workloads are two new features in Pure Fusion that enable organizations to achieve higher levels of efficiency, consistency, and control in storage provisioning and management.
The Purity 6.8.3 release introduces exciting new features within Pure Fusion™: presets and workloads. These tools are set to redefine the way storage is managed, bringing unprecedented simplicity, standardization, and automation to multi-array environments.
What Are Fusion Presets and Workloads?
A preset is a reusable template that describes how to provision and configure the Purity objects that make up a workload. Presets allow users to create a catalog of customizable workload templates, ensuring consistency and efficiency in storage provisioning. Each preset can encapsulate various configurations, such as snapshot policies, replication settings, QoS limits, and more, standardizing storage practices across an entire fleet.
For the debut in Purity 6.8.3, presets are designed specifically to define workloads. However, future releases plan to expand this scope to encompass broader aspects of storage management. It’s really exciting stuff, and you’ll want to watch for new releases as they come out.
In simple terms, a workload is a container object that holds references to different Purity objects, enabling them to be managed and monitored as a single unit. This multi-array, multi-protocol concept collects one or more storage objects, such as volumes or protection groups, to simplify manageability. With Pure Fusion, each workload can be consistently provisioned according to predefined templates (presets), greatly reducing the complexity and potential errors in deployment. Workloads are typically based on a common storage application type or definition, such as Oracle, MS SQL, AI, surveillance, or others. Of course, you always have the capability of creating your own custom definitions as well.
Let’s talk about some of the key features of this new innovation beyond just the capability of creating preset templates for provisioning storage.
Parameterization of Presets
Presets can be parameterized, allowing variances in deployment without creating separate templates for each variation. Within the preset, you can define which configurations can be customized, which are non-customizable, required or not required, and their limits. For instance, an admin may want to allow users to specify volume sizes or replication targets during the workload deployment. Or, the admin may wish to require a specific set of settings such as QoS limits or snapshot schedules.
Automated and Standardized Workload Creation
Workloads provisioned from presets ensure that all storage configurations are compliant and adhere to any standards, as well as follow organizational policies. This automation reduces the risk of configuration errors and overlooked settings and saves the most valuable resource: time.
Seamless and Efficient Fleet Deployments
Pure Fusion’s flagship multi-array management capabilities allow admins to manage storage across different arrays easily. One can create, modify, and manage storage resources on any array within the fleet from a single interface, either through the GUI, CLI, or API. With the addition of presets, this takes it further along the path of automating the entire fleet for all storage objects and capabilities.
Enhanced Observability and Control
Workloads offer enhanced observability, with the ability to track and manage resource usage and performance across the entire fleet. This feature aids in maintaining compliance and optimizing storage utilization.
So, how do you configure and use presets? If you’re like me, you like to see it in action. Check out our Pure360 videos for detailed demonstrations. But, if you are in the GUI, presets are configured in the Presets tab under the Storage option. You can find more on creating, configuring, and maintaining presets and workloads in the FlashArray Admin Guide and the FlashArray CLI Guide (Pure1 login required).
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And what about workloads? How do you configure and deploy them? Workloads can be configured through a simple interface where users can set various parameters, such as the number of volumes, size, QoS limits, and protection group settings. This streamlined process ensures that workloads are provisioned accurately according to the standards defined in the presets.
Why do you want and need to use these features? There are several reasons really, but at the top of the list is consistency. Presets standardize the storage provisioning processes across multiple arrays, ensuring that all resources comply with organizational policies, standards, and governance. In a close second is efficiency: This set of tools reduces the time and manual effort required to provision and manage storage, allowing storage admins to focus on more strategic tasks. Third, there are massive scalability opportunities. As environments grow, the ability to manage workloads across a fleet of arrays becomes simpler and more efficient and grows as the infrastructure grows. And finally, there is reliability: Presets and workload deployments reduce the risk of misconfiguration and human errors, creating simple automation that leads to much higher overall reliability when working with storage.
The innovation of presets and workloads in Purity marks a significant step toward simplifying storage management in complex, multi-array environments. By leveraging these features, organizations can achieve higher levels of efficiency, consistency, and control, setting a new standard in storage provisioning and management.
You can experience all of the Pure Fusion capabilities today, without the need for hardware arrays, and no commitment, by taking a Pure Fusion Test Drive. Stay tuned for more of the technical insights into Pure Fusion in future posts.
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