Purity Operating Environment

The operating room sredapurity provides complex functionality for all working environments and also global management a flash memory. In addition, Purity provides consistently low latency, data protection and uninterrupted operation of all components - its fault tolerance means high performance of the array even in the event of maintenance or failures, the developers say.

2021: Purity for FlashBlade and FlashArray with ransomware protection

On February 17, 2021, a pioneer company in the Pure Storage IT industry that provides SHD as a service (storage as-a-service) in the multi-cloud world announced the expansion of its unified portfolio. storage systems software Purity updates for FlashBlade and FlashArray accelerate applications Windows and provide protection against for, ransomware file block cloudy , and applications, including with the third-generation All Flash QLC platform FlashArray//C , making the hybrid data storage production load in the data center obsolete.

According to the company, key updates:

• Extensive file access portfolio rethinks performance and simplicity in ever-changing applications
  • Native SMB support. This provides simplicity and multi-faceted performance for high throughput and more I/O with low response times to support multiple workloads at once, store files of all sizes, and both sequential and random data access.
  • Users can optimize Windows applications with a wide range of existing data services, including replication, file system rollback, and Safe Mode (SafeMode) snaps to quickly recover from ransomware attacks. Validated solutions include the ability to work with healthcare image storage and sharing (PACS) applications and AQL backup at speeds greater than 1 TB/min for SQL landscapes that require fast backup and recovery.
  • Another approach to security based on multiprotocol FlashBlade design ensures compatibility of access rights management between users for SMB and NFS protocols, while maintaining access control lists for both protocols while respecting government security requirements.
  • Scalable FlashArray architecture delivers performance and storage capacity, providing online file services for VDI, file server consolidation, user home directories, and file sharing.

• Comprehensive protection against ransomware safety and file, block, and cloud applications
  • FlashBlade and FlashArray now have the functionality of SafeMode snapshots, providing a complete set of protection tools that ensure security and the ability to recover data in seconds in the event of an attack. Immutable snappshots and the ability to store them based on policies protect companies from the risk of suspension of activities, significant payments to attackers and damage to their own reputation associated with ransomware attacks.
  • FlashBlade, Unified Fast File and Object (UFFO) provides object security with simple user policies for S3, providing user-level access control. Detailed user-level performance monitoring meets key requirements for real-time monitoring of the most active users, and unified APIs/SDKs optimize FlashBlade, FlashArray, and Pure automation with REST APIs and Python SDKs.

• Optimized disaster recovery with Fibre Channel ActiveCluster: ActiveCluster enables stretched clustering of mission-critical applications. ActiveCluster is integrated with Pure Cloud Mediator, eliminating the need to deploy and maintain a third-site server and adding an additional disaster recovery site anywhere in the world.
• Proper performance of tier applications. Pure provides full NVMe architecture for Flash, as well as for Direct Memory modules, replication, and now NVMe over Fibre Channel and Ethernet support. NVMe support reduces application response time by up to 50% by reducing response time to hundreds of microseconds.
  • Third generation FlashArray//C makes hybrid storage obsolete. The FlashArray//C40 and FlashArray//C60 models demonstrate the pace of Pure innovation. FlashArray//C can now replace legacy storage for anything from small installations to data center consolidation.

• One of the first portfolio customers: Royal Bank of Canada

These capabilities, which are part of the Evergreen Storage subscription model, do not require additional licenses or support costs, and do not create additional complexity for the storage service. Pure also announced the ability to replicate files to FlashArray with Komprise.

The updated Purity features for FlashArray are already available and the Purity features for FlashBlade will be available in the first quarter of 2021.

2020: Announcing Purity 6.0 for FlashArray

On June 10, 2020, it became known that Pure Storage announced the release of the next version of Pure's flagship software, Purity 6.0 for the FlashArray array. Designed to meet the needs of today's organizations, flexible data-processing services provide customers with an efficient way to store, protect, manage, access, and mobilize data using strategic consumption models tailored to customer requirements.

Purity 6.0 makes managing today's infrastructure even easier with a unified block-file solution. It is designed to help companies solve infrastructure problems that affect all sectors of today's business, including disparate storage and data growth.

With a range of flexible data services, Pure clients can leverage two new critical features-unified protocol support with NFS and SMB, and active disaster recovery built on new continuous replication technology. Features are part of the Evergreen Storage subscription model and do not require additional licenses, support costs, and simplify overall operations.

Flexible consumption models are the foundation of Pure's current storage experience. Our huge advantage - solutions that are designed specifically for the modern era - they are designed to work with large amounts of data, can be upgraded without failures, and are also compatible with future innovations, so that our customers do not have to wait for the advent of new tools. Purity 6.0 is the next and most logical step in the way of providing our customers with continuous benefits - services that best meet the requirements of customers and that can be used at any time, - commented Prakash Darji, CEO FlashArray

The simplified block and file storage capabilities of the FlashArray eliminate the problems and costs associated with running two incompatible environments. They are designed to reduce the number of operations for organizations that mostly work with block storage, but still need or use separate networked storage. This enables customers to run all workloads in a Pure operating environment, share the same data layer, user interface, and a range of features and benefits from global data transformation with Pure.

Similarly, ActiveDR continuous replication helps Pure customers improve business resilience without the cost or complexity of third-party disaster recovery add-ons. This new active and passive replication technology meets key business requirements by providing near zero recovery point (RPO) protection for mission-critical applications. Customers now have the ability to leverage synchronous, active-active, asynchronous, snapshot-based replication with ActiveCluster, and continuous replication of all functionality on the same Purity platform.

Pure Storage allows us to offer completely new services to our teachers, employees and students, constantly innovating with the latest set of IT tasks. We face a variety of challenges, so we also need a variety of solutions. Purity 6.0 allows you to solve critical tasks in a more creative way. The unified capabilities of SAN and NAS in the FlashArray operating system represent a watershed for our high-performance file workloads that otherwise need to run in full-block environments. The solution offers us a great way to run VDI or performance-critical file applications cost-effectively in parallel with our key enterprise and research workloads in Pure's familiar, reliable, cloud-based operating environment. - noted James Kelly, Senior Systems Administrator for Research Support at Chapman University

Companies with large data storage or machine learning requirements will continue to direct these loads to FlashBlade, but for other tasks, as well as for small enterprises, it will now be FlashArray to solve all other storage tasks.

Managing each file server and its data can be difficult without sharing it. Looking for a compromise on performance or infrastructure is not an alternative for today's organizations. We worked with Pure to beta file implementation at WWT Advanced Technology Center (ATC), where we rely on multiple resources to test OEM integration of new capabilities. FlashArray provides our joint customers with an uncompromising converged block and file solution that can handle critical workloads and use unstructured data in email, - said Jeff Fonke, architect of global technical solutions, WWT

Purity 6.0 provides users with additional expansion, capabilities and solutions that customers can immediately implement, without stopping business processes, as part of their Evergreen innovation subscription. Among the distinctive features of this release are the following:

• Advanced Cloud Backup with Google Cloud Platform CloudSnap: Technical Preview Feature. This feature increases cloud storage targets on the Google cloud platform, where Pure Storage snapshots can be replicated for external storage and reuse.
• Categorize datasets to facilitate identification with public volume tags.
• Data is protected and access is controlled by two-factor and multi-factor RSA authentication.
• Efficient capacity expansion plan with Pure1
• Protect critical workloads with ActiveDR with the following tested diagrams:
  • Virtualized workloads using ActiveDR support for VMware Site Recovery Manager
  • Important business applications such as Microsoft SQL, Oracle, SAP, and MongoDB.

• Protect unstructured data about new Purity file services

2019: Support for NVMe-oF RoCE with the launch of DirectFlash Fabric technology

On March 6, 2019, Pure Storage announced DirectFlash Fabric, an end-to-end NVMe and NVMe-oF protocol support technology in the Purity 5.2 operating environment, the software-defined heart of the FlashArray//X. The technology elevates the use of a hybrid cloud with a unified infrastructure to a higher level, allowing you to run applications anywhere and protect data everywhere.

According to the developer, DirectFlash Fabric technology allows Pure customers to improve the performance of mission-critical enterprise applications, as well as web applications that typically use direct-attached storage. Pure fully supports the transport options of NVMe-oF RoCE, which allows companies to place Flash media closer to applications to improve real-time access and consolidation capabilities.

As explained in Pure Storage, modern business is forced to continuously maintain a high level of innovation and services, instantly responding to the constantly changing needs of society. According to Google, 53 percent of mobile users leave the site, the download of which will exceed three seconds. Applications must be available at any time. To ensure a high level of user experience, enterprises must minimize cost by supporting worldwide application deployments with seamless cloud operations, no disparate data, and all the benefits of an innovative platform, both online and locally.

"The future is to deliver apps and services at the speed of thought. For this, applications can no longer work in isolation, they must communicate and exchange data sets in real time. Converged architecture is designed to break down existing barriers in the modern world. DirectFlash Fabric helps enterprises integrate SAN, DAS, and cloud. "

According to the developer, DirectFlash Fabric optimizes the communication between array controllers and hosts over a fast network, making Ethernet the preferred transport for storage in the data center. Similar solutions can offer an incomplete set of enterprise features or use the NVMe over Fabrics option with Fibre Channel rather than RDMA over converged Ethernet (RoCE), while the latter, according to Pure Storage, provides the largest potential performance jump with a 50% reduction in data delay compared to iSCSI. Pure extends the capabilities of DirectFlash technology for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) over Fabrics access protocol and improves the efficiency of software over the local network. In particular, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and cloud web applications, including MongoDB, Cassandra and MariaDB. The latter gain enterprise-class unified storage efficiency.

According to information for March 2019, FlashArray//X arrays support end-to-end NVMe protocol with connection to Ethernet at 25G and 50G speeds. Compatible network cards with NVMe-oF support are already available or planned for release by such manufacturers as Broadcom, Cisco, Marvell and Mellanox.