Pure Storage introduced a tool that gives its customers visibility into their organization's impact on the environment and suggestions for optimization. But much like other vendor-specific sustainability tools, it's limited to analysis and recommendations within the vendor's own product ecosystem.

The Pure1 sustainability assessment tool seeks to provide "companies with complete transparency on how their Pure all-flash appliances are operating, as well as unique and personalized insights on how they can gain greater efficiency based on those results," Taruna Gandhi, Pure Storage VP of product marketing, told SDxCentral.

Specifically, the tool is focused on reducing energy use, monitoring greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and recommending direct carbon footprint reduction strategies. Gandhi described it as "a first of its kind sustainability assessment [offered] free of charge," and that sets Pure apart, she noted.

Pure1 shows the amount of energy used by an entire fleet of storage arrays, at specific data center sites, or by an individual array, meaning users can better monitor the amount of power consumed. The tool then provides organizations with an estimate of direct carbon emissions resulting from storage power consumption.

In terms of taking action, the tool's assessment features allow users to improve the power efficiency of their Pure Storage arrays by metering Watts per unit of data, according to the company. The tool also provides "proactive insights and guidance" for customers to reduce their direct carbon footprint.

The Pure1 tool complements the vendor's core products, including the recently introduced FlashBlade//S product family, which boasts twice the efficiency of previous iterations of the tech and anywhere from 60% to 85% direct energy savings compared to the competition.

The vendor credits that energy savings to "unique design decisions" like its DirectFlash tech, Evergreen architecture, "built-for-flash software," and deep compression, and claims it outpaces any other storage systems on the market in terms of energy efficiency.

Cengage is one of Pure's customers, and CIO Jim Chilton noted the company's overall storage footprint decreased 80% "while doubling to tripling the performance of our previous storage systems.”

Barfoot & Thompson Senior Systems Engineer Hector Romero echoed Chilton's praises of the storage tech. "Pure FlashStack enabled us to easily handle increasing workloads to meet customer demands. Our rack also went from 12 to three, reducing our power consumption from 5,000W to 1,100W. We are proud to achieve this incredible environmental impact," Romero said.

Gandhi sees consumers across the board demanding "a higher standard of sustainability," and enterprises are placing a higher level of importance on their environmental impacts than before.

This has built an environment where "creating a great ESG strategy has changed from a ‘nice to have’ corporate initiative to a crucial and necessary part of the business," she said. Analysis and assessment tools like what Pure is targeting with Pure1 are more beneficial for organizations now than ever "by providing them with the transparency and data-driven insights they need to reach their ESG goals," Gandhi explained.