Pure Storage Bolsters Operations in UK

Pure Storage, Inc  is experiencing momentum in the UK market, as the company nears the one year mark since opening its UK HQs.

It has expanded the Pure Storage Partner Program (P3) to include more than 40 companies across Europe, supporting its partner-focused go-to-market plans.

Speaking at a private event in London, CEO Scott Dietzen said: “Flash memory powers the experience we have all come to expect from smartphones, tablets and leading web properties, like Google Search and Facebook, today flash has already superseded mechanical disk for consumers and Pure Storage is driving this same transformation for organisations, by removing the traditional hurdles of mainstream flash adoption – cost and compatibility. Ultimately, $15 billion in global yearly spend will shift from disk arrays to all-flash storage.“

The company’s decision to expand into the UK and EMEA was driven by demand from European enterprises frustrated by poor performance, usability and features from disk or hybrid storage solutions. This, paired with the increasing market penetration of random and heavy IO workloads, have resulted in Pure seeing an expansion in adoption of the FlashArray across the region via a broad and diverse partner network and direct sales force.

Dietzen adds: “Not since the advent of virtualisation has IT seen such a technology sea-change. As a solution, flash is 10 times faster, 10 times greener, 10 times more reliable, and 10 times simpler than the legacy spindles it’s replacing, and yet costs less flash frees organisations from the shackles of their legacy storage infrastructure and unlocks irrefutable businesses value. This is driving massive growth for us here in the UK that we are thrilled to be executing with the help of our incredible channel partners.“

Mergermarket Ltd is a Pure Storage customer. The company is owned by the Financial Times Group, and delivers corporate financial news, intelligence and analysis from around the world that’s independent, insightful and indispensable.

According to Rakesh Patel, head of infrastructure, Mergermarket: “the power of Pure made it the obvious choice. Our old disk-based system was outdated and was really slowing us down, limiting the flexibility we had to accelerate our business and leverage our user and customer data to make better, faster business decisions. With Pure, we are now able to process data as fast as the servers can handle, and no longer are limited by our storage infrastructure.“

Now in its third generation release, FlashArray delivers a storage experience designed to meet the resiliency, scalability, efficiency and performance requirements of enterprise clients in diverse markets, and for a variety of performance workloads and applications, including VDI, cloud computing, and database and server virtualisation FlashArray is an all-flash enterprise storage array to drive the cost of flash memory below that of legacy spinning disk, delivering the benefits of all-flash at a price point the mainstream could afford.

Betfair Group plc, an Internet online gaming platform, has also deployed Pure.

“From performance to cost savings, we have truly transformed our business capability with Pure Storage,” said Schalk Van Der Merwe, head of hosting, Betfair, who is overseeing the company’s move to a hybrid cloud. “With Pure, we can now spin up hundreds of IaaS and PaaS offerings in as little as 40 minutes compared to six or more hours previously. The Pure FlashArray allows us to deliver new development platforms faster than we thought possible. For this reason, plus the simplicity and non-disruptive advantage that Pure offers, Betfair is confident in our choice of Pure Storage as a long term partner.“

UK partners also realising the demand include companies like Softcat Ltd, a provider of software licensing, hardware, security and related IT services to corporate and public sector organisations and also a veteran UK Pure partner.

According to Softcat Solutions director, Sam Routledge: “Pure Storage has created a revolutionary solution that has changed how people think about enterprise storage. It brings the speed and density of flash, but the enterprise reliability and cost that users just don’t expect from flash today. We are helping businesses with virtualised workloads experience sharp improvements in both cost and performance by deploying the Pure FlashArray. Plus, it’s so easy to install.“

Globally, Pure Storage has attracted talent to its ranks and the UK market is no exception. Overseeing local Northern EMEA operations will be Peter Gadd, director for Pure Storage EMEA, who brings over a decade of experience in senior leadership roles in the storage industry. Most recently at EMC, he demonstrated a track record of establishing rapid growth and repeatable operational excellence. He joins John Silva to lead Pure Storage EMEA operations. Together, they will be responsible for driving the continued growth of Pure Storage in the UK, as customers continue to move from legacy mechanical disk to all-flash storage.

In August of 2013, Pure Storage announced a $150 million funding round with top tier public market investors, marking the single largest private financing event in the history of the storage industry. It has raised $245 million in capital to date and is pursuing international expansion into strategic, geographic markets across EMEA, Australia, New Zealand and AsiaPac.