As hybrid cloud computing gains ground in enterprise computing, companies are circling around the question of what to do with their data given the newfound mixture of storage and networking solutions between public and private cloud environments. Flexibility is by nature a necessity of hybrid cloud, and Pure Storage Inc. aims to support flexible solutions no matter where customer data originates.

“From a value proposition standpoint, cloud provides you the instant available capacity and agility,” said Prakash Darji (pictured), general manager of FlashArray at Pure Storage. “On-premises typically has been optimized for a high degree of performance, cost and resiliency. And now you have the ability to add agility to that angle and start anywhere and move anywhere.”

Darji spoke with John Walls (@JohnWalls21), host of theCUBE,SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Justin Warren (@jpwarren), chief analyst at PivotNine Pty Ltd, during AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas. They discussed the concept of offering data both on-prem and in the cloud with hybrid flexibility, as well as the challenge of educating customers on the possibilities. (* Disclosure below.)

Education for on-prem, cloud storage flexibility

Data always has gravity, and so enterprises are always asking how to center that gravity, whether it’s on prem or the cloud, according to Darji. However, increasingly applications are becoming hybrid, opening up a seamless connection between both on-prem and cloud options for application and storage workflows.

“If you want to use [artificial intelligence] algorithms in one cloud, and you want to use office services from another cloud, and you want to use infrastructure build services from a cloud and data from an on-premises system to go ahead and build and orchestrate your app, why shouldn’t you be able to?” Darji asked.

Pure Storage is looking to bridge the divide and create the kind of environment that is able to handle flexible storage capabilities. The company has officially optimized its storage options, like FlashArray//M for Amazon Web Services, and is looking to branch out to other cloud providers. The biggest challenge is to keep educating customers about the options they have, because many markets aren’t as educated about the way they can create a hybrid environment both with cloud and on-prem, according to Darji.

“We find that the level of education in the cloud is pretty disparate,” Darji said. “Some people who are very cloud-first … know know the challenges, and we don’t really have a lot of education to do. … On the flip side, we have other customers that have started on-premises — even a lot of our own customers who are using FlashArray in a hosted way. … I find that the market that is uneducated is an interesting market.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Pure Storage Inc., sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Pure Storage nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE