In an era where cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and devastating, organizations can no longer afford to treat cybersecurity as the sole responsibility of their security teams. This episode of the Pure Report features industry veterans Jason Walker, Tech Strategy Director of Cyber Resilience, and Jason Langer, Tech Evangelist, to explore why cyber resilience must be approached as a team sport, breaking down the traditional silos between IT operations and security teams.
Drawing from their extensive experience in data protection and security, the two Jasons delve into the stark realities of cyber impacts, including the sobering statistic that one in five organizations report employee terminations following outages. They examine the NIST Cybersecurity Framework through a collaborative lens, offering insights into how different teams can work together across the five key areas: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. Through real-world examples and strategic discussions, listeners will develop a deeper understanding of why alignment between IT leaders and CISOs is crucial for building true cyber resilience.
As organizations grapple with evolving threats, this timely discussion during Cybersecurity Awareness Month offers actionable strategies for fostering cross-team collaboration. The episode explores the evolution of cybersecurity conversations over the past five years, provides practical advice for improving security posture through teamwork, and highlights Pure Storage's role in enabling organizations to build robust cyber resilience strategies. Whether you're an IT professional, security specialist, or business leader, this episode provides valuable insights into transforming your organization's approach to cybersecurity from a siloed responsibility to a collaborative effort.

For more information on Pure Storage and Cyber Resiliency during CyberSecurity Awareness Month, go to: www.purestorage.com/cyber-resilience.

Cyber Resiliency Is A Team Sport - Breaking Down Silos to Create a Culture of Security Awareness

Welcome to the inaugural episode of a new bi-weekly guest series where listeners will embark on a journey through the evolution of cloud storage technology and how Pure has evolved over time to deliver innovative capabilities to bridge on-prem and cloud storage. Gain insights from the technical experts in Pure's Technical Product Specialist team with guest host Ondrej Bursik guiding the conversation. Beginning with groundbreaking moments like Licklider's Intergalactic Computer Network and the launch of Amazon S3 in 2006, this episode explores how cloud storage has rapidly evolved from experimental technology to a critical backbone of modern digital ecosystems, highlighting pivotal milestones such as the emergence of Dropbox, Google Drive, and the rise of hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.
Dive deeper and learn more around the technological advancements that have shaped cloud storage, examining the shift from traditional hard drives to cutting-edge SSD and NVMe technologies, the emergence of object storage, and the revolutionary impact of software-defined storage and hyper-converged infrastructure. Listeners will gain insights into the complex landscape of cloud storage costs, learning about intricate pricing models, optimization strategies, and the challenges of managing exponential data growth, with a particular focus on how  Pure Storage is driving industry transformation through all-flash storage arrays and advanced data reduction technologies.
Looking forward, episodes of this guest series will debut every two weeks on Wednesdays and cover more emerging trends that promise to reshape cloud storage, including the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, the growing importance of edge computing, and the increasing emphasis on sustainable, energy-efficient storage solutions.

Purely Cloud Guest Series: Tales of Cloud Storage - Pure's Journey into the Cloud

Unplugged is back with new segments including analysis of the latest Pure Storage news and captivating news stories from the world of technology. Catch up with co-hosts Andrew Miller and JD Wallace as we chat about our latest adventures before rolling into a rehash of the 15 Pure Storage architectural decisions that have informed the episodes of this ongoing series. After that, we touch on the 'real unplugged' - chatting about analog devices we love including JD's vinyl collection and record player.  Finally, close with what will be the new segment driver for Unplugged going forward.  First, the latest Pure news covering FlashArray//C20, the Azure Native ISV announcement, and the latest AI solutions released during SuperComputing24.  Last, catch some interesting analysis of current news stories - from the rise of BlueSky social media to new HPC world record supercomputers.

Unplugged Volume 19: 15 Decisions Recap, Tech News You Can Use

Join Matt Bradford and Don Poorman as they help me unpack an incredible year of technological advancement at Pure Storage, taking listeners on a thorough journey through our most groundbreaking announcements and product developments. From hardware innovations like the FlashArray//C20 to cutting-edge cloud solutions and AI reference architectures, this episode offers an insider's perspective on how Pure continues to push the boundaries of data storage and management.
Traveling through key solution areas including hardware, cloud, cybersecurity, AI, and digital experience, Matt and Don provide expert commentary on game-changing developments. Highlights include the expansion of Pure Storage Cloud for AVS, exciting enhancements to DRaaS, the transformative OVX reference architecture for AI initiatives, and the introduction of Pure1 assessments that are reshaping how enterprises approach technology evaluation and implementation.
Beyond the technical details, this episode celebrates Pure Storage's commitment to customer-driven innovation and continuous improvement. From the launch of Pure Skill's new subscription-based learning platform to the expansion of Evergreen subscriptions and the intriguing glimpse of an AI Copilot, Matt and Don paint a vivid picture of a technology company relentlessly focused on solving real-world challenges and empowering digital transformation. Whether you're a Pure Storage enthusiast, a technology professional, or simply curious about the latest in data infrastructure, this year-in-review episode is a must-listen.

ICYMI: A Year in Review of Pure Always-On Innovation

Episode 4 of our series around Pure's fundamental design principles dives into aspects of Pure's technology that drive realistic efficiency for users. This episode tackles capabilities most Storage professionals are familiar with - snapshots, efficiency metrics and adaptive flexible RAID.

Pure learned from the challenges created by legacy architectures to build better versions of these features into our all-flash array portfolio. Hear about how Pure Storage’s snapshot architecture focuses on instant, efficient, and immutable copies that serve both operational and security needs. Snapshots can be created instantly with no performance overhead and used for rapid recovery, cloning, or replication—each one functions as a “gold copy version” and maintains group consistency, enabling rollbacks to any point in time without dependencies or data duplication. Their design is tightly integrated with metadata, enabling efficient thin provisioning and consistent protection, while SafeMode extends these benefits by enforcing privileged access and retention policies for ransomware resilience. Around realistic efficiency metrics - we deliver transparent and realistic efficiency metrics by directly reporting space consumption trends and physical storage utilization, rather than relying solely on claims about thin provisioning or data reduction. Our user interface distinguishes between budgeted capacity, usable capacity, and used space, with a focus on showing only live user data (volumes and snapshots), and hiding internal system overhead, RAID overhead, and reclaimable space until critical thresholds are reached. Finally, we tackle RAID - Pure’s RAID architecture is built for flash, utilizing a flexible, adaptive structure that never requires manual configuration while continuously ensuring optimal data protection and performance.

Series Overview: Pure Storage’s foundational approach to product engineering is guided by 15 architectural decisions that were established at the company’s inception and have shaped both the technical and user experience across its product lines. These architectural choices were not made arbitrarily—they stem from a deliberate focus on simplicity, efficiency, and scalability, ensuring Pure could deliver storage solutions that break away from legacy complexity and enable continuous innovation without compromise.  This series will guide viewers through all of the 15 principles, helping you understand why certain choices were made, how they impact your operations, and how they compare to other industry features and products. Join Pure Report podcast hosts Rob Ludeman, Andrew Miller, and J.D Wallace for this fun technical retrospective on Pure Storage.

15 Architectural Decisions Series: Snapshots, Realistic Efficiency Metrics, and Adaptive RAID

We finish off our 15 Architectural Decisions series with a special guest - VP of Product Management and early Pure employee Chadd Kenney joins to discuss the origin story of Pure Storage's 15 Architectural Decisions. Chadd will take us back to the early Pure startup days, revealing the drivers behind documenting these crucial decisions. We'll explore his favorite decisions, hear stories that solidified them, and discover how this foundational work continues to influence Pure Storage today around the Enterprise Data Cloud and the Pure Platform.

Series Overview: Pure Storage’s foundational approach to product engineering is guided by 15 architectural decisions that were established at the company’s inception and have shaped both the technical and user experience across its product lines. These architectural choices were not made arbitrarily—they stem from a deliberate focus on simplicity, efficiency, and scalability, ensuring Pure could deliver storage solutions that break away from legacy complexity and enable continuous innovation without compromise. This series will guide viewers through all of the 15 principles, helping you understand why certain choices were made, how they impact your operations, and how they compare to other industry features and products.

15 Architectural Decisions Series: The Origin Story with Chadd Kenney

Welcome to episode 2 of our special launch series of the Pure Report podcast!  In this episode, Chadd Kenney joins again to help us dive into the critical foundation of the Enterprise Data Cloud: the Unified Data Plane. We start with a discussion on why a truly unified data plane is essential for organizations today, managing everything from archive to AI workloads.

Chadd shares insights into the latest innovations across the FlashArray family, including the new FlashArray/XL 190 and FlashArray//ST, enhancements to FlashArray//X and FlashArray//C, and how Pure's platform supports diverse virtualization landscapes and continuing data growth driven by core databases and business workloads.

We then talk about how the virtualization landscape is still in flux, and many customers are evaluating their options. The good news is that Pure's platform is designed to support them, whether they choose to continue with VMware, transition to a new hypervisor like Nutanix, or modernize with containers. Additionally, we delve into new innovations within Pure Storage Cloud, including the Azure Native integration, which rounds out the portfolio and provides comprehensive support across the board.

We also touch on the new Pure KVA integration with NVIDIA Dynamo, Purity Deep Reduce, and how Pure's Evergreen architecture ensures customers can leverage all our Unified Data Plane announcements  without disruption. Don't miss Chadd's "Hot Takes" on future data drivers and common data infrastructure mistakes.

H2 Launch Series: One Platform, All Workloads - The Power of Pure's Unified Data Plane

The Pure Report welcomes Anthony Nocentino, Sr. Principal Field Solution Architect, to delve into the future of databases and data management. This episode looks at the explosive growth of relational databases and the impact of SQL Server 2025, Oracle 23ai, and AI-driven demands. We explore how Pure Storage is not just keeping pace with database growth but actively simplifying management, scaling, and protection, moving beyond foundational support to offer operational freedom for DBAs and infrastructure teams.

Anthony tackles the pressing challenges faced by database environments today, including fragmented storage infrastructure, manual provisioning, and the complexities of compliance, disaster recovery, and hybrid cloud strategies. Anthony sheds light on how these issues contribute to real-world burnout among DBAs and infra team members. The discussion will also cover the evolving roles of these professionals as they increasingly become platform performance engineers, cloud strategists, and data ops troubleshooters in a world of multiple database engines and unpredictable resource needs driven by AI workloads.

Hear about how Pure's vision for the Enterprise Data Cloud connects to database operations, including key announcements from our Accelerate Vegas and NYC events. We dive into how Pure Fusion with workflow templates and Pure1 offers intelligent, AI-powered workload and resource management, automated policy-based provisioning, and a unified single control plane across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments. The episode also explores the implications for enterprise-ready storage with the FlashArray platform family, showcasing how products like FA//XL, FA//X, FA//C, and FA//ST simplify workload expansion and provide significant performance benefits. Finally, we'll get Anthony's "Hot Takes" on critical DBA tasks, dream fixes for database environments, and common myths he'd like to debunk, all while looking forward to Pure's presence at Oracle AI World.

Databases!!! - Redefining Data Management for Infra & DBA Teams

In our latest episode, we sit down with Ken Hui, Field Solutions Architect, to discuss his journey at Pure Storage and the evolving landscape of data management. Ken shares his unique perspective on Pure Storage's culture, highlighting the emphasis on collaboration and innovation. The conversation delves into the critical role of unstructured data in today's AI-driven world, exploring how enterprises can strategically manage and protect their ever-growing data assets without falling prey to common pitfalls.

Ken, a seasoned veteran in the storage and cloud space, offers valuable advice on approaching new technologies, stressing the importance of starting with the desired end-state and aligning technology with people and processes. He also revisits his early career frustrations with file storage, explaining how Pure Storage's advancements, particularly with FlashBlade and FlashArray, have transformed the experience, making data management simpler and more efficient. The discussion touches on the power of continuous innovation, self-service upgrades, and the multi-tenancy capabilities that empower customers.

Our episode concludes with Ken's "hot take" on industry trends, where he champions object storage as a scalable solution for large-scale data workloads, especially in the AI and analytics space. He also shares a memorable "oops" moment from his career and offers crucial advice for IT professionals: learn programming to effectively leverage automation and APIs in the future of data management. 

Check out the new Pure Storage digital customer community to join the conversation with peers and Pure experts:
https://purecommunity.purestorage.com/


From File Frustration to Flash Freedom: How a Technologist Learned to Love File at Pure Storage

This episode of the Pure Report features a conversation with Eugene McGrath, a nine-year veteran of Pure Storage and a Field Solution Architect. Our discussion delves into Gene’s diverse background, starting from his early days in IT racking and stacking servers at companies like Microsoft and Pixar, and how that hands-on experience shaped his career. We compare the evolution of his role and the industry, emphasizing the importance of a versatile skill set in the ever-changing tech landscape, particularly with his focus now on converged infrastructure solutions like FlashStack.

We then dive into the partnership between Pure Storage and Cisco, specifically around the FlashStack converged infrastructure solution. Gene explains why this decade-long collaboration works, attributing it to a shared philosophy of simplifying infrastructure and improving the customer lifecycle. Our conversation also touches on the recent shift in Cisco's mindset, with Pure Storage taking a more prominent role, including the recent Nutanix partnership announcement. We further explore the concepts of "Day Zero" and "Day One" challenges in infrastructure deployment, emphasizing how Cisco Validated Design and automation mitigate risks and accelerate implementation for customers.

Our discussion concludes with the "Hot Takes" segment, where Gene discusses the growing trends of "hypervisor fatigue" and the repatriation of workloads from the cloud due to cost and performance issues. He predicts a significant shift towards containerization as companies seek more agnostic and flexible approaches to their IT infrastructure. Gene also shares a memorable "oops" moment from his career, involving 3,000 servers racked upside down, and offers advice to his younger self about the explosion of data and the increasing importance of data management.

For more information, visit: https://www.purestorage.com/products/integrated-platforms/flashstack.html

Check out the new Pure Storage digital customer community to join the conversation with peers and Pure experts: 
https://purecommunity.purestorage.com/

00:00 Intro and Welcome
04:55 Cisco and Pure Relationship
06:48 Stat of the Episode on Cloud Repatriation
12:35 Solving Day 0 and Day 1 Challenges
17:25 Using Cisco UCS in FlashStack
24:37 Cisco Validated Designs
26:54 Nutanix and Pure Partnership
32:35 Hot Takes Segment

FlashStack: A Decade of Converged Infrastructure Innovation

Bringing you direct access to Pure Storage thought leaders, technology experts, alliance partners, customer insights, and our latest product news.

New tracks tagged #flasharray