We finally chased down the smart and savvy Rob Quast, Principal Technologist at Pure, to discuss the latest trends in the tech world around AI, Networking and Cloud storage. Our conversation kicks off with Rob's journey, from his time at ePlus and working in sys admin roles, to a memorable experience at Pure's NYC Accelerate event where he saw the stock exchange firsthand. We touch on the various aspects of a PT's role, including Rob’s experience showing demos and helping customers understand complex solutions. 

Our conversation shifts to some of Rob's most passionate work, including involvement in a large AI solution for Coreweave. He walks through the intricacies of a massive deal and how it required close collaboration with the product management team, post-validation work, and strategic networking. Rob also shares insights from a hyperscaler win for Pure Storage, explaining what "hyperscaler" means and how they’re used in the industry. We dive into the technical details of large AI deals, such as GPUDirect, and discuss how Pure can better connect with networking professionals. A key theme here is the intersection of data storage and networking, with Rob revealing why NVMe TCP is a game-changer for the future of cloud infrastructure, particularly when compared to technologies like Infiniband.

We close with conversation looking toward the future, exploring the realities of cloud storage and hybrid cloud solutions, and what customers are trying to achieve and the challenges they face. The episode wraps up with a focus on object storage, where Rob discusses how Pure Storage's Fusion platform helps manage global namespaces and facilitates multi-tenant cloud environments.

Inside the World of Large-Scale AI Solutions, Networking, and Cloud Innovation with Rob Quast

Make time to take an extraordinary deep dive into the complex world of public sector technology leadership, featuring Jim Weaver, a veteran Chief Information Officer with an impressive track record across multiple state governments and now Pure's National Strategic Advisor for Public Sector. Our conversation unpacks the critical challenges and transformative opportunities facing IT leaders in an era of unprecedented technological complexity, from cybersecurity threats to the revolutionary potential of artificial intelligence in government operations.
Drawing from Jim's extensive experience leading technology strategies in North Carolina, the state of Washington, and in Pennsylvania, Weaver offers a rare behind-the-scenes perspective on how modern governments are architecting resilient, secure, and innovative digital infrastructures. We examine the intricate balance between risk management and technological advancement, revealing the strategic thinking required to protect sensitive public data while simultaneously leveraging cutting-edge technologies to improve government services and operational efficiency.
Beyond technical insights, this episode provides a compelling narrative about leadership, innovation, and the human element of technology. Develop an understanding of how dedicated IT professionals like Jim Weaver are working to safeguard critical infrastructure, navigate complex cybersecurity landscapes, and drive meaningful digital transformation in the public sector. From ransomware prevention to AI implementation, Weaver shares candid stories and strategic insights that demystify the high-stakes world of government technology management.

Data, Defense, and Disruption: A Public Sector Tech Journey with Jim Weaver, Former State CIO

In this episode of the Pure Report, we welcome Valerie Harrison, Principal Technologist at Pure Storage, for an in-depth exploration of technology transformation in cloud, AI, and the automotive industry. Valerie shares her fascinating career journey from Google to Pure Storage, revealing how her diverse experiences have shaped her perspective on cloud adoption, AI implementation, and the critical role of effective data management. The conversation provides valuable insights into when cloud solutions make strategic sense and how companies can avoid vendor lock-in while still leveraging the best technologies for their specific use cases.

Our discussion takes a deep dive into how AI is revolutionizing the automotive sector, examining the divide between traditional approaches and new subscription-based models. Valerie illuminates how car manufacturers are utilizing unstructured data growth, synthetic data creation, and telemetry information to enhance customer experiences and develop advanced features. Listeners will gain a clear understanding of how storage and data management serve as the common thread to success in these initiatives, with specific examples of how Pure Storage is enabling manufacturers and suppliers to manage massive data requirements for everything from factory operations to customer-facing innovations.

The episode concludes with a thoughtful examination of women's experiences in the tech industry, with Valerie candidly discussing barriers to career development and the importance of representation. She shares practical advice from her talk at a Google conference about getting your voice heard in intimidating environments and discusses her mentorship work with a local university. This segment offers valuable perspectives on addressing skills gaps in tech through greater inclusion of talented women, particularly in underrepresented areas like cybersecurity, and highlights initiatives like Pure Storage's Women's ERG that are working to create positive change. 

Data-Driven Transformation: Valerie Harrison on Cloud, AI, Automotive, and Women in Tech

Discover great management capabilities with Pure SE Scott Nalawaniec, a former Pure customer and now a seasoned Systems Engineer from Portland. We  dive deep into the world of Pure Storage's management platform, Pure1, and look at Scott's 5 favorite capabilities that make managing arrays a breeze. We first reflect on our recent Sales Kickoff, and then Scott shares his expertise on simplicity and the evergreen nature of non-disruptive upgrades that have become foundational to Pure's offerings. Then we jump into Scott's favorite management and automation features - from VM Analytics that helped Scott identify problematic virtual machines across 17 appliances as a customer to the game-changing Self-Service Updates that have transformed how customers approach array updates.
Scott takes us on a journey through Pure1's evolution, highlighting the powerful Appliance Genealogy feature that maps hardware histories like "a giant family tree" and Performance and Capacity analytics that provide crucial trending data. We'll also explore emerging capabilities in sustainability monitoring and the detailed Session and Audit Log that recently helped a customer track a potential security threat. Scott's enthusiasm for Test Drive as a demonstration tool rounds out this comprehensive look at the latest management capabilities.
Whether you're a Pure Storage veteran or just curious about next-generation storage management, Scott's firsthand experiences offer valuable takeaways for IT professionals at every level. This episode showcases how Pure1 continues to innovate while maintaining the simplicity and innovation that users have come to expect from Pure Storage solutions.

Manage Smarter with Pure1: Cool Capabilities and Practical Applications For Every Administrator

In an era where data breaches cost organizations millions and threaten business continuity daily, the intersection of data storage and security has never been more critical. Hear from two industry experts: Nolan Necoechea, Product Marketing leader from Varonis, and returning guest Jason Walker from Pure Storage. Together, we unpack how intelligent data classification, threat detection, and automated remediation are changing the cybersecurity landscape – and why the foundation of effective security starts with how your data is stored and classified.
This episode takes listeners from Varonis's fascinating origin story (involving disappearing high-resolution ocean floor images) to the cutting-edge of modern cybersecurity practices. Nolan breaks down Varonis's comprehensive platform that creates visibility and control over data access, while Jason explains why Pure Storage provides the ideal foundation for these security solutions. Learn how real-time threat detection, user behavior analytics, and automated remediation aren't just buzzwords but essential components of modern data protection strategy.
As AI-powered threats continue to evolve, this conversation offers practical insights into how organizations can stay ahead of bad actors through strategic partnerships and integrated solutions. Discover why streamlined SecOps and robust data classification are becoming table stakes for business continuity, and get a preview of what's next in the Varonis-Pure partnership. Whether you're a CISO, IT administrator, or business leader concerned about data protection, this episode delivers actionable intelligence on safeguarding your organization's most valuable asset: its data.

Data Defenders: When Storage Meets Security - The Varonis and Pure Storage Partnership

Jump back into the Pure Report as we welcome back Jim Weaver, Pure Storage Strategic Advisor for the Public Sector, to explore how federal policy changes and budget uncertainties are reshaping state and local government IT strategies. Drawing from his extensive experience as a former state CIO, Jim provides insider insights into navigating federal impacts while discussing the shift from CAPEX to OPEX models as agencies seek operational flexibility in turbulent times. The conversation dives deep into Pure Storage's new Public Safety campaign, examining the technology behind video surveillance, body cameras, forensics data collection, and next-generation 911 systems that are transforming how government agencies serve and protect their communities. Don't miss this essential discussion on the intersection of politics, budgets, and cutting-edge technology in the public sector.

Inside Public Sector IT: Federal Impacts, Budget Realities, and Public Safety Innovation

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.  Episode one centers around Pure's simplicity in design and capabilities to scale effortlessly.

15 Architectural Decisions Series: Simplicity and Scale

Our series around Pure's fundamental design principles continues. Episode two of the series centers in on the choice to use exclusively Flash memory and how best to leverage it.  Next, the team dives into innovations in a wide range of data reduction technologies and advantages for users across a spectrum of business applications.  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: Flash and Data Reduction

Our series around Pure's fundamental design principles continues. Episode 3 discusses three key architectural decisions: stateless controllers, the second controller, and limited error paths. Hear from co-hosts JD Wallace and Andrew Miller about how stateless controllers mean no identity or state is stored within the controller itself, allowing for easy replacement and upgrades without downtime. This design philosophy simplifies maintenance, reduces support costs, and enables seamless technology migrations, allowing Pure customers to upgrade hardware generations without impacting business operations. This is a significant shift from older storage array methods that required complex, time-consuming manual processes and often led to downtime.

We then further explore the strategic decision behind having a second controller in an active-standby configuration, prioritizing consistent performance and uptime over maximizing raw performance from both controllers simultaneously. This approach ensures that performance remains stable even during failovers or planned upgrades, eliminating unpredictable results and reducing the need for constant monitoring by IT admins. By focusing on reliability and simplicity, Pure Storage aims to provide a "cloud-like" experience for on-prem and cloud connected storage, significantly reducing operational complexity and enabling faster adoption of new technologies and features. The Pure Report podcast is now available on video - bookmark the playlist at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5d3ZupjTzE150O6sjbVLhrAP3kpC1QEm

15 Architectural Decisions Series: Controller Architecture and Limited Error Paths

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

Episode 5 of our series covers always-on encryption, the smart use of metadata, and our DIY install/repair/upgrade approach. Pure's approach to security is to have it built-in and non-optional, with end-to-end encryption—covering both user data and metadata—using device or software-based AES-256 alongside features like Rapid Data Locking, role-based access controls, and secure erasure methods to protect against breaches and support compliance needs. Next, hear about how metadata serves as the “secret sauce” for Pure, enabling highly efficient, granular data services and powering capabilities like snapshots and instant cloning through a scalable, multi-tiered framework that writes, caches, and protects metadata in ways traditional arrays cannot match.  Finally, we touch on installation, repairs, and upgrades which are designed for ultimate simplicity and DIY ease, with non-disruptive software and hardware changes—thanks to Pure’s Evergreen architecture—which allows organizations to grow and evolve storage resources without operational downtime, complex migrations, or compromise. These architectural choices underpin Pure’s promise of secure, resilient, and agile storage that adapts to changing business needs while remaining effortless to manage.

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: Encryption, Metadata, and Install/Repair/Replace (DIY)

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

Inside the World of Large-Scale AI Solutions, Networking, and Cloud Innovation with Rob Quast

Pure Storage

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