PURE//ACCELERATE 2025, Las Vegas – As Pure Storage rolled out its new Enterprise Data Cloud and faster, more powerful storage arrays for businesses at its annual user and partner conference, customers walked the show floor eager to learn how they could take advantage of the latest capabilities in their Pure systems.
Getting most of the attention was Pure’s announcement of its new
Enterprise Data Cloud, which provides a unified, intelligent control plane that spans on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments to help enterprises create data storage that uses centralized, policy-driven data governance and automation.
Also unveiled were Pure’s next-generation FlashArray//XL R5, which delivers up to 70% more performance and supports up to 7.4 petabytes effective capacity; its FlashArray//ST, which is built to provide ultra-low latency and supports more than 10 million IOPS; and its FlashBlade//S R2, which provides expanded object storage support to manage unstructured data across edge, core, and cloud environments.
For businesses working to improve their IT systems, streamlining and automating their operations to drive increased efficiency, productivity and revenue, Pure’s newest features and products were garnering solid interest from customers at the show.
Improving the Use of Pure Data Storage Arrays
One customer, an infrastructure manager for a mid-sized logistics firm on the East Coast, said he came to Pure//Accelerate to dig deeper into the company’s latest storage advancements and figure out how to make better use of his firm’s four existing Pure arrays.
“I wish somebody would show me the vision of how I can use automation with some of the tools like Pure1 and on the local array,” he said. “I’m using a simple kind of approach right now, trying to see what is on the array that I can improve on, especially when it comes to backups with snapshots.”
Attending the conference, he said, helps him evaluate whether his team is fully optimizing its critical storage infrastructure. “I’m here to find out if I’m missing something, or if I could do something better.”
He also expressed interest in Pure’s AI Copilot, which was discussed during the keynote. “That looks really, really helpful. I want to see if that is something we can use now.”
Seeking Advice on Adding Another Storage Array
A systems administrator for a U.S.-based medical services company, who also requested anonymity, said he attended the event to gather insights as his company plans to upgrade its Pure array.
“We’re growing as a company, so our requirements are changing, and part of that is making sure we have a good, safe, up-to-date array,” he said. Although he explored quotes from other vendors, he ultimately stuck with Pure.
“I saw no point in moving away from Pure and what we currently have. To me, it was: let’s make the lateral move and just go up within their stack. And it’s basically the same for training and getting a better understanding of our infrastructure.”
The company uses a hybrid stack, including both Microsoft’s cloud and on-premises environments, for its main systems, he said. But he sees room for improvement, especially in how the organization leverages object and block storage within the Pure setup.
“Some things, like database connectivity and direct objects for databases, those are things I’d like to improve, because I can make our databases work faster. But none of that was looked at by my predecessors. I want to maximize the ROI of our Pure investment and get the most out of it. This stuff is not cheap.”
Looking for Help Migrating from Broadcom and VMware
A network engineer from an East Coast bioinformatics company said his main reason for attending was to explore alternatives in light of Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.
“My main issue is the Broadcom and VMware acquisition, it’s the big topic for us right now,” he said. “They’re basically forcing me to move from it. They are pricing me out.”
His company’s first step has been to move from VMware Tanzu to open source Kubernetes. Next on the roadmap: replacing VMware’s hypervisor. Conversations with Pure reps led him to consider Microsoft or Nutanix, both of which, he said, are investing heavily in filling the gap left by VMware.
“There’s a lot of opportunity out there from people who want to move away from VMware. Microsoft and Nutanix must produce a solution to fill the gap.”
As a Pure customer, he said he’s evaluating whether Pure’s latest offerings can support this transition.
“We’re very happy with Pure products and I do not want to move away from that,” he said. “I want to find a solution that will work” with his company’s four FlashArray and two FlashBlade clusters. “I’m here mostly to network, learn what other partners are doing, and find new products that could align with my business.”
