UPDATED 20:05 EDT / NOVEMBER 19 2018

BIG DATA

Amid strong earnings, Pure Storage unveils its hybrid cloud play with AWS

Flash storage company Pure Storage Inc. built on a strong third-quarter showing with the announcement of new block storage, data protection and deduplication services for Amazon Web Services Inc.’s public cloud.

The company recorded a fiscal third-quarter profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of 13 cents per share. Revenue rose 34 percent from a year ago, to $372.8 million. That was much better than Wall Street was hoping for, with analysts pegging Pure Storage’s profit at just 9 cents per share on revenue of $367.4 million.

But Pure Storage’s impressive performance was overshadowed by the launch of a new suite of products called Pure Storage Cloud Data Services, which are designed to provide a better bridge between on-premises and cloud infrastructure, officials said.

The offering includes Cloud Block Store for AWS, which is the company’s block storage system that now runs natively on AWS. It’s available in beta test mode.

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There’s also CloudSnap for AWS, which is a data protection service that was first built into Pure’s FlashArray. CloudSnap, generally available starting today, is designed for disaster recovery in cases where tape is used as the main storage medium. It sends regular snapshots to AWS S3 storage.

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Last, Pure introduced StorReduce on AWS, which is a service that enables deduplication, or data compression that eliminates duplicate copies of repeating data.

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What isn’t clear is whether Pure’s shareholders were more encouraged by its numbers or the new products. In any case, they were certainly pleased, as Pure’s stock jumped by more than 6 percent in after-hours trading, following a pre-earnings tumble of more than 8 percent on a broad down day for tech stocks and the overall market.

With its Cloud Data Services, Pure Storage said the idea is to address a number of key trends in the enterprise, including the fact that hybrid or multicloud infrastructure is rapidly becoming the new normal as companies choose to run some applications in the cloud and others on-premises. Additionally, Pure Storage is also trying to position itself to handle modern workloads such as artificial intelligence and data analytics better, which its solid-state storage is well-suited for.

The launch of Pure Storage Cloud Data Services marks the first time the company is making its software available outside its hardware offerings. The company said it’s beginning with AWS, but will look to add other public clouds in the future.

Pure Storage Chief Executive Charles Giancarlo said the new products reflect the fact that many enterprises have evolved their application strategies. Most companies went from on-premises to the cloud and now are building apps that can run in both environments.

Pure’s move also reflects the fact that modern workloads such as AI and machine learning are increasingly being hosted in the cloud, which means that companies also need to make their data more accessible, analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE.

“It makes sense for vendors like Pure Storage to move their offerings to leading infrastructure-as-a-service players like AWS,” Mueller said. “The announcement should come as no surprise with AWS’ user conference looming next week. CXOs need to look for a functional fit, security and early customer adoption, depending on their risk appetite for such a brand new offering.”

Image: wynpnt/pixabay

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