January 26, 2021
Accessibility. Flexibility. Affordability. Those are just a few reasons the “everything-as-a-service” (XaaS) model has taken off in recent years, transforming everything from sales and software to transportation and IT. According to a late-2019 survey conducted by the global market intelligence firm IDC, the top reasons for adopting XaaS beyond price considerations included reducing IT workloads, faster refresh cycles and better per-user cost metrics. IDC also noted that XaaS provides crucial analytics “that can improve business outcomes because of increased flexibility and transparency about all aspects of consumption.”
Another member of the ever-expanding XaaS club is data storage, its as-a-service incarnation poised to become a $100 billion a year industry by 2026. Why? Because in this age of Big Data, big storage is a must-have. And not just big, but smart and nimble, too. Fortunately, what once required a significant up-front investment for hardware and software, not to mention potentially expensive guesswork where capacity was concerned, has been streamlined and simplified. Hybrid storage setups that blend on-prem and cloud-based technology are by far the most common, especially among small and mid-sized organizations.
“Storage is something that’s traditionally overprovisioned, consuming allocated resources that could be used for other parts of the business,” says Eric White, CTO and VP of Solution Architecture at Mindsight. “Storage-as-a-service eliminates that. It also eliminates hardware as a capital investment, so it’s an operating expense rather than an asset you need to depreciate. And relatively speaking, it’s cheaper. For a smaller upfront cost, you can take advantage of cutting-edge tech. And if you don’t like it, or your business needs change, it’s easy to pivot.”
But not all storage is created equal. That’s certainly true when it comes to the high-end solid-state systems from Pure Storage. A longtime Mindsight partner and a vaunted Leader in Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant, the purveyor of cutting-edge flash storage products has more than 8,000 global customers and aims to simplify “how people consume and interact with data.”
Offering a single solution that combines “the simplicity and cost efficiencies of a hyper-scaler, the flexibility and scalability of reference architectures, and Tier 1 enterprise performance and resilience,” Pure is a proven leader in its ever-expanding niche. And the price is right — on par, in fact, with clunkier traditional storage solutions that are headed toward extinction.
“When Flash Storage entered the market, it was a prohibitively expensive, like a Ferrari,” White says. “Now it’s priced like a Honda Accord, but still performs like a sports car. And now everyone else is playing catch up to what Pure has been delivering all along”
Here’s a brief rundown of what Pure-as-a-Service offers and how it works:
- Field-proven flash technology, including FlashArray, FlashBlade and Pure Cloud Block Store
- The company’s trademarked “Evergreen” solution that provides scalability and elasticity without disruptive upgrades and expansions
- On-demand reserve capacity at a discounted rate eliminates under- and over-provisioning
- Cloud-based AI monitoring, dubbed Pure1®, that anticipates capacity needs before they arise
- Modular systems that are quickly deployed and upgraded, resulting in a reduced IT workload
“Pure is pushing the envelope technologically,” White says. “When it’s time for an upgrade, our clients with Pure are not replacing any drives, just the controller units. It eliminates a ton of downtime, but even more importantly, our clients can take advantage of all the storage they’ve already purchased with their new controller. That’s huge for changing the traditional paradigm of over-provisioning, purchasing, discarding unused storage, re-allocating funds and doing it all over again. And now I can offer this premium solution to clients without the sticker shock that all flash arrays used to have.”
About Mindsight
Mindsight is industry recognized for delivering secure IT solutions and thought leadership that address your infrastructure and communications needs. Our engineers are expert level only – and they’re known as the most respected and valued engineering team based in Chicago, serving emerging to enterprise organizations around the globe. That’s why clients trust Mindsight as an extension of their IT team.
Visit us at http://www.gomindsight.com.
About The Expert
Eric White is Chief Technology Officer and VP of Consulting Services at Mindsight. With over ten years of experience in information technology and leadership, Eric excels at implementing network and data center technologies, designing high-yield solutions for the business. Holding professional certifications from Microsoft, VMware, and EMC, as well as the Cisco CCNP, Eric is an expert at solving business realities with a client-centric focus that delivers.
