Some of the key insights revealed at the recent “At Your Storage Service” event centered on true storage-as-a-service, why it’s catching on, and the capacity requirements to deliver the consumption model in its authentic form.

Pure Storage Inc.’s announcement of Evergreen//Flex is a reaffirmation of its commitment to delivering value within the STaaS model.

“Evergreen//Flex takes the power of modernizing performance and capacity to storage beyond the box, full stop,” Prakash Darji (pictured), said general manager of the Digital Experience Business Unit at Pure Storage. “So with Flex, we first are starting to hyper disaggregate performance and capacity, and the capacity can be moved to where you need it.”

Darji spoke with analyst Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, for a digital CUBE Conversation. They discussed the the Evergreen model, the new announcement, and how it fits into the company’s STaaS model. (* Disclosure below.)

What is Evergreen//Flex?

In simple words, Flex is a protocol where paying customers can move data between storage capacities in any of the applicable arrays, so long as they are the same flash type (triple-level cell or quad-level cell.)

“We changed the business model to enable this technology flexibility, where customers can buy the hardware and they get a pay-per-use consumption model for the software and services. But this enables the technology flexibility to use your capacity wherever you need,” Darji explained.

This announcement nicely complements that of FlashBlade//S, which allows controller hardware to be upgradeable separately from flash storage capacity. That flexibility also translates to a reduction in wasted costs for developers, according to Darji, such that even when they stand up a storage array and need to scale later on, there’s the ability to do that.

“In a hyper disaggregated world, that capacity is not a sunk cost; you can use it wherever you want. You can use capacity from somewhere else and bring it over there,” Darji added.

Here’s the complete video interview, one of many CUBE Conversations from SiliconANGLE and theCUBE:

(* 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