The need for innovative storage solutions has never been more critical than in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.

As the demand for storage capacity continues to surge, companies are seeking ways to manage data efficiently while staying ahead of the curve. With a focus on innovation, flexibility and seamless integration with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, Pure Storage Inc. is setting new standards for storage solutions in the digital age.

“Kubernetes has pretty much become the standard for how you can deploy in a cloud-agnostic way,” said Prakash Darji (pictured), general manager of the Digital Experience Business Unit at Pure Storage. “We have our Portworx capabilities that allow us to do that.”

Darji spoke with theCUBE industry analyst John Furrier at “The Next Generation of Storage” event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Pure Storage’s Evergreen architecture is reshaping the storage industry and transforming the way organizations store and harness data by eliminating the burdens of hardware management. (* Disclosure below.)

A paradigm shift in storage management

Traditional storage solutions involve purchasing physical hardware, managing asset lifecycles and dealing with the complexities of data migration. The concept of Pure’s Evergreen architecture ensures that storage systems never age out. It involves constant monitoring of components and seamless component replacement without compromising performance or causing data disruptions, according to Darji.

“That concept was built into our technology,” he said. “When we decided to build the storage-as-a-service business, we realized we had a unique advantage and that we can actually deliver a service that’s just like a SaaS service.”

As a result, Pure Storage’s customers enjoy a unique advantage — their hardware, software and security continually improve over time, according to Darji. This innovative approach to storage management aligns with the principles of the cloud-operating model, allowing organizations to experience the benefits of cloud-like flexibility and consumption, regardless of location.

“A lot of our customers are using it as a distributed cloud,” he said. “They don’t have to worry about managing, running or operating asset or asset life cycles. They can just use storage and get the benefits of the cloud-operating model and consumption model wherever they sit.”

Bridging the gap between AI and storage

With data quality and availability playing a critical role in AI projects, the intersection of AI and storage is essential. These two areas — more data and more compute– are not without challenges, according to Darji. The primary challenge lies in efficiently handling and optimizing these vectors.

“The more data you have to input, the better your prediction model will be or the more simulation you can run against a data set,” Darji said. “If you can’t get the data into the compute fast enough, you’re going to have a problem. Enter flash … the next element then is in the optimization of enterprise data, my internal data, external public internet data. You’ve got to cleanse the data. You’ve got to bring it together.”

Pure Storage, with its commitment to data consolidation and its ability to deliver high performance with flash technology, is poised to become a crucial enabler for AI initiatives, according to Darji. The company recognizes that AI and storage are now inseparable partners, with horizontal scalability being the key to success. As AI continues to evolve, so will the demand for high-quality, highly available storage solutions.

“That model allows customers to get started immediately with AI — just jump into it and go,” Darji said. “Many years ago in cloud, people were talking about, ‘I’m going to the cloud.’ And then people were, ‘Well, maybe I’m coming back because it’s too expensive.’ There’s this repatriation trend because people realize running full tilt was expensive. AI is very powerful, but it also could be very expensive.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of The Next Generation of Storage event:

Watch the entire event episode below:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for “The Next Generation of Storage” event. Neither Pure Storage Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE