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George Fitzmaurice is a staff writer at ITPro, ChannelPro, and CloudPro, with a particular interest in AI regulation, data legislation, and market development.
After graduating from the University of Oxford with a degree in English Language and Literature, he undertook an internship at the New Statesman before starting at ITPro.
Outside of the office, George is both an aspiring musician and an avid reader.
We're up bright and early here at Resorts World, partly due to a touch of jet lag. But there's not long to go now until the opening keynote here at Pure Accelerate 2024.
Across the week, we can expect to hear a lot about cloud storage and how this relates to the ongoing generative AI boom. At last year's event, this was a key talking point, but in the year since then the pace of change has been lightning fast.
Pure Storage firmly believes it's the go-to storage provider for enterprises dabbling in generative AI at the moment, largely due to its all-flash storage offerings providing significant performance benefits for those innovation at scale.
Sustainability was also a key talking point at Pure Accelerate 2023, and we can expect that to continue at this year's event.
While this has been a recurring topic for years now, the emergence of generative AI and the environmental impact of data center operations has very much brought this back into the public eye.
You can read more about Pure's approach to sustainability - and how it plans to fix up the data storage industry - below.
Sustainability is more than a flash-in-the-pan topic for the data storage industry
Pure Storage has had a strong start to 2024, having recently posted strong reports in its Q1 earnings report for fiscal year 2025.
Revenue is up at Pure, reaching $693.5 million - equivalent to an 18% increase year-over-year. Elsewhere, subscription services revenue reached $346.1 million, up 23% year-over-year.
These represent positive figures for Pure given it contends with intense competition in the storage market, butting heads against industry heavyweights such as NetApp, HPE, and Dell EMC.
Channel partners will be eager to see what's in store this week as well. In March, the firm unveiled a revamped channel partner program as part of a sweeping move to facilitate "greater partner empowerment, scale, and preference".
The updated program includes a new pricing model framework, which Pure said is designed to provide partners with a simple product and services MSRP, as well as programmatic discounting based on partner type, tier, and deal registrations.
The company also confirmed updates to its channel quote configuration and pricing models during the update. This, Pure said at the time, aims to give partners the ability to provide quotes independently.
You can read more about the updates below.
Pure Storage unveils revamped channel partner program as firm records strong 2023 performance
There's less than an hour ago until the opening keynote at Pure//Accelerate 2024!
The lobby area is already filling up with eager Pure//Accelerate attendees excited to hear the coming announcements. Why not read up on some more coverage from this year's event to get a jump on the talking points:
Pure Storage looks to 'fundamentally change' cloud storage management with new AI copilot tool
How BT is driving sustainable IT through Pure Storage platforms
Pures gone all out on the decoration this year - check out this branded Connect Four set!
The show floor is empty for now but expect it to fill up after the keynote.
Its filling up in the keynote theatre - theres even a countdown clock letting everyone know how long there is until the event kicks off.
A band of drummers take to the stage to kick off the opening keynote. It's a mesmerizing display and definitely seems to get the crowds attention ahead of the announcements.
Next up its a video from Pure to hype up the crowd, followed by Pure CMO Lynn Lucas. She thanks the audience and talks about the need to rethink data storage, lining up the schedule for the rest of the talk.
Now its time for Charlie Giancarlo, Pures CEO, who also takes a moment to thank the crowd. He outlines some of the new challenges facing businesses - AI, cyber security, applications modernization, and hybrid cloud optimization.
We cant use the same thinking to address these new challenges, Giancarlo says. Users need to start challenging assumptions about storage, such as in areas of IT provisioning and siloed data.
Giancarlo says Pures goal is to build a platform that is consistent, as-a-service, and fit to serve all storage needs. This depends on Pures Evergreen architecture and Pures Purity operating system, both flagship products of the company. Giancarlo calls them foundations.
He also mentions Pure Fusion and the ease of SaaS or, more specifically, Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS). Pure is promising to support all of your workloads, Giancarlo adds.
He goes into some more detail on the Pure Storage platform, outlining, for example, how it can assist in AI training. To this end, Pures platform can access stored data directly. The Pure platform can also automatically tier and balance storage and data.
Giancarlo covers some old ground, even going as far as to reflect on Pures years of experience and leadership in the industry. Pure does, however, want to lead the way to the next era of data.
Now Giancarlo introduces Pure GM Shawn Hansen to the stage who opens by talking about Pures Evergreen platform and the benefits it offers from its ability to be consistently and constantly updated - you can add more seats and a faster engine without stopping the car, he says.
But whats next? Well, Hansen is here to tell us. For example, Pure is introducing Secure Application Workspaces, its AI copilot for storage (which will apparently be magic), and the next generation of Pure Fusion.
This next generation of Pure Fusion (which will also apparently feel like magic) introduces a unified control plane for storage arrays and it will be introduced in three phases.
Hansen then gets Prakash Darji onto the stage, Pures GM of digital experience. Darji hammers home the ease of SaaS and the superior capabilities of Evergreen//One over other on-demand models.
Darji moves on to talking about storage safety - cyber resiliency to be specific. On the back of that, Pure is announcing four new security capabilities, two of which are powered by AI. The other two are service level agreements (SLAs) designed to support customer cyber security.
Next up is Shawn Rosemarin, VP of R&D, customer engineering. Hes outlining application development, citing a Pure Storage report which predicts that 80% of new applications will be built on cloud native platforms.
This shift, however, comes with challenges. Containerization at scale, for example, is an issue, while there is also a significant level of operational complexity apparent in hybrid cloud environments.
While compute and networking issues have been solved in the wider industry, storage has been left behind. Thats where Pure comes in, driving efficiency and modernization as a storage solution at the infrastructure level.
Rosemarin reinforces the simplicity, efficiency, and flexibility of Pures solutions, mentioning both a healthcare provider and a top global bank which were both able to optimize on Pure.
After a quick video its time for a recap, followed swiftly by a customer success story from Jo Drake, CIO at online retailer THG.
After giving us a brief overview of her role and the company, Drake dives into how the firm employs Pure Storages services. She talks about how THG has a challenger mindset and that its always prepped for disruption.
Drake says THG has been in the AI business for a long while and that it has been using it in a number of different ways. The firm built semantic search into its platform, for example.
As AI is driven by data, Drake says, THGs partnership with Pure has been key. Its allowed them to more effectively manage data and operate on a unified data platform.
Drake says THG is working on some really exciting things with Pure at the moment, while she also says THG could more widely converse with Pure to improve the partnership. Rather than just communication with the infrastructure team, she says it would be good to have even more collaboration in different departments.
As a closing note, Pure runs a video celebrating THG and announces that it will be giving THG a breakthrough award. Following that its legendary Pure Storage founder John Coz Colgrove
Coz has brought some props to the stage, including a new flash drive and a 3D model of the flash drive set to come along next year, both set to aid sustainability efforts and combat e-waste.
Now it's time for a demo of the previously mentioned cyber security and anomaly detection tools, supported by another member of Pure (and a spinning stage screen!)
Coz then invites a software engineer from Pure onto the stage to demo Pures copilot for storage offering. The engineer shows off how the copilot can show users a ranking of their business's security posture against other organizations.
Pures copilot certainly seems powerful, allowing customers to diagnose problems that would usually be difficult to find, as well as allowing users to update and improve security as a whole even when theres no specific problem.
Similarly, the copilot tool can help predict the future by analyzing past behavior within individual storage environments. It also offers recommendations based on this analysis.
Next up, it's a run-through Pure Estimate. This platform offers users recommendations for storage updates and capacity expansion, fit with explanations of why recommendations have been made.
Estimate helps to optimize business assets as well. Users can select a particular data center they want to optimize, as well as particular arrays within those data centers which can then be consolidated.
After a couple more awards (and after running a little over its allotted time), its time to wrap up the keynote. The crowd is given a little glimpse at the agenda and thematic focus for tomorrows keynote.
The crowd filters out of the keynote theatre into the rest of the conference area.
Its a bit quieter on the conference floor this morning as Pure//Accelerate attendees look around ahead of today's keynote talks and sessions. Its possible that Pure has already covered its key announcements for the event, though the firm likely still has plenty to talk about.
The firm announced a range of new offerings yesterday, including a new AI copilot tool designed to simplify cloud management and a range of new service level agreements to better serve customer needs. Check out ITPros coverage here:
Pure Storage looks to 'fundamentally change' cloud storage management with new AI copilot tool
Pure Storage tweaks SLAs amid sharpened focus on cyber resilience
Everyone is getting their morning hit of coffee outside the keynote theatre.
The same DJ is back up on the stage, spinning the usual mix of upbeat pop tracks to get everyone going!
Its time to kick the proceedings off, this time with a slick promotional video from Pure. Following that, CMO Lynn Lucas takes to the stage to cheers from the crowd. She reflects a little on the previous day, asking who among the audience
She says that the talking points for the day will be cyber security, AI, and application modernization, continuing on, it seems, from the previous day's main talking points. To dive into these themes further, she introduces Pures CTO Rob Lee to the stage.
He starts of by talking about Pures customers, specifically with regard to the complex pace of change that faces said customers in the current environment. Ultimately, he says, businesses need a solid data storage strategy to tackle these issues.
He mentions the important attributes of such a platform - performance, enterprise readiness, container readiness, and flexibility. He says Pure offers sustained performance, accusing some competitors of not offering the same thing.
From an enterprise readiness perspective, storage solutions need to be secure, efficient, and reliable, while from a container readiness perspective, storage solutions need to be easily scalable.
Next up, its a speaker from Nvidia, Charlie Boyle who is preceded by a rousing, inspirationally scored video about the firm. Boyle is interviewed by Lee on stage, and both talk up the value partnership and collaboration between the two companies.
In line with Pures messaging, Boyle says that data is key in AI development. He also drive home the point that customers need to be flexible in their data use, as well as efficient and sustainable.
Invest in architecture that can grow with your business, Boyle says. After Lee asks him what advice he would give to companies looking to pursue AI, Boyle says that he thinks the importance should be placed on what will unlock the most value. They also discuss the recent SuperPOD certification announcement, unveiled at yesterdays keynote.
Boyle then leaves the stage to be replaced by a video announcing SoftBank as another of Pures breakout winners. Following that, Pure CIO Krithika Bhat jumps on the keynote stage to talk about cyber security.
She then invites Hector Monsegur and Kim LaGrue to the stage. Now working in cyber resilience and security, Monsegur used to himself be a hacker, having been involved in attacks on Sony and government websites. LaGrue is the CIO of the City of New Orleans.
LaGrue talks about cyber resilience within her role, explaining some of the issues she has faced with her department in terms of cyber security. Monsegur then talks more generally about how businesses can improve cyber security posture.
He talks about the disconnect that can exist between executive-level policy decisions on cyber security, also explaining that companies need good cyber hygiene as well as secure and recoverable data.
The discussion finishes off with a question for LaGrue, asking for her advice on risk reduction. She says technology and data resiliency should be top of mind, and that businesses should be prepared for any unexpected scenario.
Next to the stage is a speaker for the electric vehicle company Rivian. Namely, its one of the firm's software engineers, Joshua Crater. He talks about the mission of the company, to make a better world for future generations.
Go here to read the rest:
Pure Accelerate 2024 live: All the news and updates from the day-two keynote - ITPro
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