FlashBlade//S and Evergreen: Future-proofing the Next Decade and Beyond

Back in February, Rob Lee, CTO, Pure Storage, wrote about Why FlashBlade Is Truly Evergreen, and with our recent announcements around FlashBlade//S®, it should be clear why building storage platforms designed for sustainability and scalability is so critical to our customers. Like the Ship of Theseus, Pure Storage designs storage arrays and software to be upgradable and scaled non-disruptively, and FlashBlade//S is no exception.

“We design our products to continuously evolve and grow—not to become obsolete. We’ve never released a “rip and replace” product into the market and don’t plan to start.” –Rob Lee, CTO, Pure Storage

With FlashBlade//S, Pure Storage is changing the unstructured data landscape again, bringing new, exciting levels of performance, density, and flexibility. For thousands of FlashBlade® customers around the world, this is incredibly exciting news: They’ll be able to seamlessly migrate to FlashBlade//S with no downtime and no disruption thanks to our proven architecture. Since we launched Evergreen seven years ago, our commitment to non-disruptive migration is unrivaled, which we’ve proven through our track record of delivering over 10,000 non-disruptive upgrades (NDU) for FlashArray™ and FlashBlade, as well as our NPS score of 85.2, which is in the top 1% of B2B companies.  

Changing the Game to Meet the Demands of Unstructured Data 

FlashBlade has been a tremendous game-changer for customers, transforming their modern, unstructured data workflows. Yet, unstructured data growth continues unabated, performance demands continue to evolve, and this dynamic nature of unstructured data means that storage systems need levels of flexibility that haven’t been seen in the market until FlashBlade//S. 

FlashBlade//S delivers not only disaggregation of compute and storage but also brings new flexibility for customers to design systems for any capacity-to-performance ratio and scale in whatever dimension their future needs may demand. And with its modular architecture, each component can be updated over time, without disruption, to keep the system current with the latest innovations in the industry.

Furthermore, the fundamental scale-out architecture of our Purity/FB software remains the same, seamlessly running both of our current platforms. This is a testament to our future-proof architecture. FlashBlade//S represents the culmination of a decade of innovation across multiple products (FlashBlade, FlashArray//X™, and FlashArray//C™) that are proven to be the most reliable and the most loved by customers in our industry. 

The FlashBlade//S platform offers more flexibility for configuration and seamless evolution while providing significantly more performance, density, and efficiency from day 1. But it is also just the first (huge) step in the path of continuing to expand and grow the platform in multiple dimensions. This platform architecture means that we will continue developing and delivering higher levels of performance and compute, and an even larger and denser variety of storage (DFM) options over time. The modularity that we’ve added to the FlashBlade//S platform allows these future enhancements to be incorporated seamlessly, marking just the beginning of an ever-improving and ever-expanding platform—Evergreen gives customers access to each of these improvements without having to wait.

Evergreen at the Core

Now, FlashBlade//S provides customers with the same complete Evergreen™ experience they’ve loved with FlashArray! Even better, all existing FlashBlade customers will be able to seamlessly move from their existing FlashBlade technology to FlashBlade//S without downtime. Pure will be delivering non-disruptive upgrades for these existing customers and is providing attractive trade-up programs for existing customers looking to adopt FlashBlade//S.

A key differentiator for our customers with Evergreen//Forever™ (formerly known as Evergreen Gold) is that their systems will never age out, will be constantly modernized and improved, and of course, delivered non-disruptively. With Evergreen, customers no longer plan for future replacements and what to do when they outgrow their initial purchase. Instead, they get the promise of a product that will continue to improve, access to new hardware and software innovations, and the ability to grow and evolve seamlessly over time.

With Evergreen, our software and improvements are included:

• We provide capacity consolidation so customers don’t have to rebuy storage they’ve already paid for when expanding or upgrading
• We keep our renewals flat and fair
• Evergreen//Forever also includes periodic technology refresh to make sure that the platform is always modern and customers always have the flexibility to update to the higher performing model if workloads change 

Seamless Upgrades from First-gen to //S

Like with FlashArray, we’re committed to a seamless transition from a first-gen FlashBlade system to FlashBlade//S. And for customers who want to continue running their first-gen FlashBlade systems, Pure will provide five years of support past end-of-sale—a date which hasn’t yet been announced. This means our prior generation FlashBlade will have a supported lifespan of more than ten years, and we plan for FlashBlade//S to have an even longer lifespan.

The power of Evergreen along with the flexible architecture of FlashBlade//S means that the new FlashBlade is a future-proof platform that remains current for a decade and longer. FlashBlade//S is a modular, customizable platform that allows organizations to start at any scale and tailor their capacity and performance configuration based on their specific workload requirements. The power of Evergreen means that each of these modular components can scale independently, flexibly, and non-disruptively based on changing business requirements. This delivers unmatched investment protection and can address customers’ needs today and into the future.

Only Pure Has a Proven Track Record of Evergreen

Often imitated, but never duplicated, Pure Storage has built our products around Evergreen from day one. When we first introduced Evergreen to the market, most were skeptical about the ability to deliver multiple generations of hardware innovation while maintaining customers’ data without painful migration. Pure now has delivered on our promise from a decade ago—more than 97% of our systems older than five years are still in service today.

With Evergreen//Forever, you get:

• No end of life for hardware: As technology evolves, it’s on us to upgrade customers to supported hardware as necessary.
• Ever Modern: Includes hardware upgrades at regular intervals.
• Ever Agile: Full trade-in credit on model upgrades, with qualifying purchase.
• Capacity consolidation: Full trade-in credit on consolidation to denser blades/drives, with qualifying purchases.
• Flat and Fair Subscription: We won’t raise your subscription base rate, so you have consistent and predictable subscription costs for the life of your array.

Welcome to the Evergreen Future

Customers can now break free from the constant treadmill of system migrations, upgrades, and disruptive operations. FlashBlade//S expands our Evergreen story, providing greater configurability and flexibility while providing customers additional options with Evergreen//Forever™, Evergreen//One™, and now Evergreen//Flex™.

FlashBlade//S isn’t just a new product. It’s a platform for the future—for all customers, existing and new. That’s why it’s the last scale-out storage platform you’ll ever need.