Pure Storage introduced updates to its Evergreen data center storage architecture and a made new commitment to foot the bill for its customers' data center storage energy use and rack unit space. These moves support the company's efforts to help IT teams manage data in distributed cloud environments and take data center storage in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) direction.

The storage vendor's GM of Digital Experience Prakash Darji told SDxCentral that "since we're running our storage in your data center, we'll pay for the power bill and the rack units that we use." Customers can opt for an upfront check or a discount on their storage costs, which is "fairly unique," he said. Pure uses data from the International Energy Agency to determine energy costs based on region and uses data averages from a study with data center providers like Equinix and Digital Realty to determine rack unit space costs.

"When you go to Amazon [Web Services] and you run a service, you don't get a power bill," Darji pointed out. "That's part of their service. So if I'm delivering this cloud model on-prem, [energy costs are] part of my service." Pure expects this initiative will be especially popular in Europe, where energy prices and physical space for data growth are consistent challenges.

With energy and rack unit space costs falling to the vendor, it experiences intrinsic motivation to increase the energy efficiency of its storage software. "If you think about a Pure system compared to a competitive product in the market, theirs is going to be a refrigerator, and ours would be a microwave – for the same thing. We are very, very efficient here" and "putting our money where our mouth is," he said.

If a competitor was to enact the same commitment to cover energy and space costs, for example, "it would cost them more [than they bring in] because their products are inefficient," Darji said, though he "would love to see them try."

Pure also expanded energy efficiency, capacity density and zero data loss guarantees for its Evergreen portfolio. "If you want your performance or your capacity to get better over time, you just trade in your old components and we'll give you the new stuff – and you can do that with no data loss and no data migration," he said. These guarantees reduce risk exposure, cost of ownership and electronic waste with an extended equipment life of ten years or more, according to the vendor.

"Imagine a world where anytime Boeing made something, like new screens, they just insert install them into the seats. They build a new engine, they replace the [old] engine. And imagine they did it with no flight delays and consistently as the planes are flying," Darji said. "That's what we've built here as a company in Evergreen."

As IT organizations continue to target resource maximization, energy efficiency and data security, "we are providing them with unparalleled levels of resiliency and efficiency all through a simple and smart services platform."