Pure Storage Inc. today expanded its storage as-a-service options to include its FlashStack converged infrastructure product and also modified its Portworx cloud storage service to align costs to actual hours of usage.

FlashStack, which was jointly developed by Pure Storage and Cisco Systems Inc. is software-defined infrastructure that combines Cisco’s Unified Computing System with flash storage in a single management point. Its value is in reducing deployment and administration time and risk by using pre-tested, validated reference architectures for common workloads.

FlashStack combines Cisco’s networking and security with Pure’s cloud-based block storage, Purity Cloudsnap data protection and cloud replication services in a single unit. The cloud version is backward-compatible with on-premises FlashStack units, allowing a multicloud environment to be managed with a single interface, the company said. It supports all existing Cisco Validated Designs.

FlashStack as-a-Service is delivered via Pure partners and is available now in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Australia.

Portworx, which Pure Storage acquired last year with its purchase of Portworx Inc., provides cloud-based storage services based on the Kubernetes orchestrator for the self-contained software environments called containers.

Because cloud-native applications running on Kubernetes are dynamic, it can be difficult to estimate the exact number of servers needed to run applications on Kubernetes, a problem that frequently leads to overprovisioning, Pure Storage said. The company is introducing price flexibility that allows customers’ consumption of Portworx to match the demands of their applications on a fluid basis. Customers can now consume purchased Portworx hours at any rate throughout the year, similar to how they consume public cloud reserved instances.

Previously, customers purchased annual Portworx licenses tied to individual servers. “If they needed to scale beyond the number of licenses purchased, however, they would have to contact sales to purchase additional licenses,” a spokesman said. “With the new flexible pricing, customers purchase a number of hours, rather than a license tied to a single server. These hours can be consumed at any rate throughout the year depending on how many servers they need to run.” The company did not provide pricing details.

Photo: Pure Storage