Pure Storage Empowers Developers and Data Scientists With Agile, High-Performance Storage for AI and Modern Applications

In the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence (AI) and modern application development, agility and high-performance storage are crucial for success. Pure Storage, with its innovative solutions like FlashBlade and Evergreen//One for AI, is empowering developers and data scientists to accelerate their workloads and drive business value.

Architecting FlashBlade for Predictable AI Performance at Scale

AI and machine learning (ML) workloads demand storage that can deliver consistent, high-bandwidth performance at scale. FlashBlade, Pure Storage's unified fast file and object storage solution, is uniquely architected to meet these challenges head-on.

"FlashBlade is built specifically for this," explained Peter Skovrup, VP of Product Management for FlashArray and FlashBlade at Pure Storage. "It's a scale-out architecture based on disaggregated storage. It allows you to put very predictable and high-bandwidth performance in place, which are the two key things you need for AI workloads."

By separating the data processing and serving from the storage itself, FlashBlade enables organizations to scale performance independently, ensuring optimal resource utilization for AI/ML pipelines.

Unlocking AI Flexibility With NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD Certification

Pure Storage's planned NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD certification for FlashBlade is set to provide data scientists and AI engineers with even greater flexibility and options for building large language models and complex neural networks.

"The future is not InfiniBand; it is Ethernet," stated Skovrup. "We are focused on high-bandwidth Ethernet. To bring AI to the masses, you have to focus on technologies that enable mass deployment."

By pursuing SuperPOD certification with an emphasis on Ethernet, Pure Storage aims to make AI accessible to a broader range of enterprises, enabling them to leverage their existing network infrastructure for high-performance AI workloads.

Empowering Data Scientists With Secure Self-Service

One of the key challenges in AI development is the rapid pace of evolution. Data scientists need the flexibility and agility to experiment and iterate quickly, without being bogged down by infrastructure constraints. Pure Storage addresses this with its Secure Application Workspaces feature.

"Secure Application Workspaces allow you to spin up containers with new instances without having to ask someone else," explained Skovrup. "That's how we help developers and data scientists self-service in a private cloud."

By providing secure multi-tenancy and the ability to create isolated "realms," Pure Storage enables organizations to maintain strong security while giving data scientists the freedom to innovate.

Accelerating AI Workflows With Kubernetes Integration

Kubernetes and containers have become the de facto standard for modern application development, and AI workloads are no exception. Pure Storage provides deep integration and support for running AI/ML pipelines on containers through its Portworx solution.

"We integrated FlashBlade with Portworx," said Skovrup. "If you think about Secure Application Workspaces, that's an integration where it takes advantage of the storage API to automate provisioning from a container perspective."

This seamless integration allows developers to easily consume persistent storage for their containerized AI workloads, without the complexities associated with traditional storage systems.

Simplifying Storage Management With Pure Fusion

Pure Fusion, a key innovation announced at Pure//Accelerate, brings a new level of storage automation and programmability to the Pure Storage platform. For developers and DevOps teams looking to provision storage resources via infrastructure-as-code or APIs, Pure Fusion unlocks powerful capabilities.

"Pure Fusion unlocks the utilization of your resources," explained Skovrup. "It automates workload placement and rebalancing across your storage systems, potentially doubling resource utilization."

By abstracting storage systems into pools of resources and providing intelligent workload placement, Pure Fusion takes the guesswork out of storage management, allowing developers to focus on their applications.

Driving Agility With the Evergreen//One Subscription Model

Pure Storage's Evergreen//One unified subscription model is resonating with enterprises seeking cloud-like agility and economics for their on-premises storage infrastructure. For engineering leaders and architects, Evergreen//One provides significant benefits in terms of risk reduction and flexibility.

"Evergreen//One gives you the flexibility to expand as a subscription," said Skovrup. "Not having to accurately predict your capacity needs over time is the ultimate agility."

By enabling organizations to scale their storage performance and capacity on-demand, Evergreen//One eliminates the need for disruptive tech refreshes and allows teams to adapt quickly to evolving application requirements.

Conclusion

Pure Storage is at the forefront of enabling developers, data scientists, and IT leaders to accelerate AI initiatives and modern application development. With groundbreaking solutions like FlashBlade, Secure Application Workspaces, Portworx integration, and the Evergreen//One subscription model, Pure Storage provides the agility, performance, and simplicity needed to drive innovation in the era of AI and cloud-native applications.

"At the end of the day, as an infrastructure provider, we have to fade into the background and not be in the way," concluded Skovrup. "We need to automate and let developers and data scientists focus on the application space, which is where all the exciting developments are happening."