Pure Storage is an American publicly traded technology company headquartered in California, United States that was founded in 2009. The vendor develops all-flash data storage hardware and software products. Recently, the vendor has been upping the ante in the data storage and protection market in South Africa. Intelligent Tech Channels spoke to Daniel Teixeira, Systems Engineering Manager, South Africa, Pure Storage, to find out why data storage, management and protection is so critical for channel partners now.
What is the state of the data protection market in South Africa and broader Africa region given the ‘new normal’ under which enterprises and channel partners are operating?
During this two-year period, where work from home and digitisation accelerated, data storage and data management have become even more important. Notwithstanding the huge challenge of securing data running on work-from-home platforms, anyone running a data centre where files and transactions are centrally captured must have a data protection, and more importantly, fast data recovery solution.
That’s where fast flash-based platforms such as Pure Storage come into play, together with our zero cost snapshots and snapshot offloading onto cloud-based file and object systems. The market is also moving away from traditional backup appliance-based solutions and pivoting to rapid recovery solutions that integrate with traditional data protection software seamlessly, be they on premises for the fastest recovery possible or to cloud for longer retention and much slower recovery.
What solutions is Pure Storage providing its channel partners to address ransomware and data protection market?
Our zero cost snapshots are our first line of protection on our FlashArray solutions and have saved many a customer who either had an operational issue or whose systems were breached by malware or ransomware. Rolling back to the most recent snapshot (five minute RPO) or a few seconds ago (with our Active Disaster Recovery solution) or seamless Active-Active replication with our Active Cluster solution. And since these protections are on the array, they will be the fastest form of recovery.
Additionally, we have a ‘virtual air-gap’ ransomware recovery solution called Safe Mode Snaps, which provides any FlashArray or FlashBlade customer a final line of protection against a hacker incursion into the storage platform. All of these features are included in our customers’ subscription and are simple and easy to configure via our user-friendly GUI.
How is Pure Storage engaging its channel partners to tackle the threats that are posed by the rise in ransomware?
Pure Storage is in constant contact with our partners to enable and assist them with messaging into their install base. Since we are 100% channel, our partners are our key drivers of our message and technologies. Our partners have direct access to the local Pure Storage engineering teams and support organisations and act as our primary evangelists. Partners can also bundle complementary consulting and professional services on top of our solutions, to deliver more value to our joint customers.
Across every sector and industry in Africa, organisations are looking to data protection to secure their digital assets, unlock value from data and drive their Digital Transformation efforts. How is Pure Storage guiding channel partners to ensure they pass this knowledge on to their end user customers?
Pure Storage is continuously looking to predict where the market is trending and to get ahead of emerging threats. Our mantra is to be proactive and completely open with our partners and customers. Nothing solidifies our partners’ credibility in the market by being ultra-proactive and delivering good news as well as the bad news early. We also have a near real-time monitoring and analytics tool available to our partners and customers called Pure1. Channel partners, on behalf of their customers, are able to monitor in near real time the performance, capacity, data protection measures as well as VMware insights into the install base. Additionally, we have predicative tools built into Pure1 to give customers and partners insights into their workload trends in future. Thirdly, our partner account managers deliver regular tech updates and market insights to keep our partners ahead of said trends.
For many organisations, understanding how to protect data and other digital assets remains a huge challenge. How is Pure Storage helping channel partners and enterprises to overcome these hurdles?
Since we are essentially a software company that happens to create world class hardware as well, data is what we build our solutions around. We empower our customers to make informed choices about their data and we give them tools and features to protect their data as per the application requirements and the business service level agreements (SLA). Enterprise grade high availability features are built into the core of our operating system and available to all our customers, big or small, as part of their Evergreen Subscription model. As new features are developed, such as Safe Mode Snapshots, we roll them out at no cost to the end user. Channel partners can then initiate value driven conversations with their customers, by using Pure1 data and trends, and the newest features Pure1 is rolling out that would be appropriate to that customer’s business.
How is Pure Storage evangelising its solutions offerings to channel partners and enterprises across the African continent?
Our marketing reach has historically focused on South Africa and we execute regular marketing activities with our partners, but I encourage you and your readers to ‘watch this space’ around the broader African continent.
What would you cite as the biggest achievement for Pure Storage and its reseller partners in the enterprise storage segment?
Enterprise customers do not make compromises around their high data protection, data availability and security requirements. We could not be prouder of our partnerships in this segment over the last eight years.
Our collaboration with loyal, dedicated partners who have invested in Pure Storage technologies and resources over this period has been a blueprint for what a customer focused, technology and service delivery go to market should be. We would not have the success in this segment without our partners and kudos to them for predicting that Pure Storage would be the premiere data solution provider of the future.
What are some of the channel initiatives and end-user schemes Pure Storage is implementing to spearhead growth of its technology and solutions offerings with partners?
We have had multiple channel focused initiatives such as ‘Rethink Your Refresh’, where we encouraged prospects to think about their next storage refresh on legacy platforms and move to Pure by taking advantage of our all-in-one software subscriptions, our competitive trade-in programmes and the investment protection that our innovative Evergreen Subscription gives every single customer.
We now have an Enterprise For All campaign focusing on the rich, enterprise grade features and platform availability available to customers big and small. As a 100% channel company, we cannot be successful without our channel partners, hence we leverage their skills and expertise in everything we do. As always, we incentivise our partners to bring prospects to Pure and work with strategic partners on attractive, performance-based rebate programmes.
For end-users, as part of our Evergreen subscription, they have access to the ‘Love Your Storage’ programme, which is essentially a no quibble, money back guarantee. They have access to a ‘Right Size Guarantee’, to give end users peace of mind that our sizing will be accurate and our standard Flat and Fair maintenance which does not escalate. For Gold subscription customers, this premium offering allows them to keep their hardware platform modern throughout its life whilst giving them market related trade-in values for Pure equipment being upgraded.
One of the biggest challenges that vendors playing in the data protection solutions space face is how to help channel partners to unlock value in this segment. How is Pure Storage aiding channel partners to unlock value in this market segment?
Once an end-user buys into Pure Storage, more and more workloads join our data platform to take advantage of our performance, efficiency and ease of use. This is a constant opportunity for channel partners to sell upgrades and professional services. And since we also have Fast File and Object solutions, sontainer storage solutions via our PortWorx acquisition and our increased focus on integration with data protection independent software vendors (ISVs), there is a near constant stream of opportunities to discuss meaningful solutions to a customer’s data challenges. Tied to our hybrid cloud solutions such as Cloud Block Store on Azure and AWS, Pure Storage is one of the few pure play data storage platforms that span on premises, cloud and multi-cloud deployments with enterprise availability and features across all locations. Selling the portfolio becomes key to partners after the initial sale.
Does Pure Storage have a channel partner programme or ecosystem of partnerships that it is working with to empower solution providers on how to tackle data protection and ransomware challenges?
Yes, we do. We have integration with all major backup software providers, and we have a native ransomware mitigation feature called SafeMode snapshots which all customers have access to at no additional cost. Our FlashArray //C, QLC based Tier-2 platform is very compelling for next gen data protection workloads and we have seen excellent success in the enterprise for this platform. Backing up enterprise workloads to flash is now absolutely affordable!
Which industry verticals have been the worst impacted with ransomware in South Africa and across the rest of the African continent?
Publicly available data suggest the public sector and small to medium sized business (SMBs) have been impacted the most.
Given that most companies in Africa have adopted a hybrid working policy, how is Pure Storage positioning itself to ensure that businesses in Africa continue to utilise solutions within your stable that support remote working?
The key here is agility. Businesses need to be as agile as possible to make decisions quickly and take advantage of all technologies that enable their business to operate as they want. They should never be boxed in based on a technology decision.
To that end, Pure Storage enables true hybrid-cloud architectures that embrace all data locations and data mobility. Customer data is at the core of every technology decision we make, and we want to manage, protect and be able to move that data as the customer requires.
Supply chain issues are also now heavily affecting customer’s ability to make quick decisions because most IT vendors are quoting months long lead times which obviously hinder agility. Throughout the pandemic, Pure Storage was able to get equipment onsite within a couple of weeks due to our smart stocking and pipeline algorithms and our ability to source raw NAND Flash from multiple suppliers. We do not use off the shelf SSDs, but rather manufacture our own using various sources, hence we can better control supply by predicting buying patterns of the market and buying components early and stocking up to meet predicted demand.