Pure1 is now able to provide infrastructure assessments rather than just observations, and now works with containers as well as virtual machines.

The software's AI-powered recommendations cover the placement of new workloads, workload rebalancing, performance and capacity upgrades, and the selection of appropriate Pure-as-a-Service instances.

Pure's Meta AI engine provides predictive service management, identifying issues and prescribing resolutions before outages occur.

It now provides intelligent monitoring and management of all data service platforms: on-premises FlashArray or FlashBlade, cloud-native Portworx, and Pure Cloud Block Store for AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Predictive fault analysis and resolution is based on data gathered from across the Pure ecosystem – including VMs and containers – to quickly identify potential issues.

Another new feature is ransomware protection assessments, which include recommendations for solutions such as the use of SafeMode snapshots.

Meta has also gained real time troubleshooting improvements through a new search capability that works across storage and VMs.

The Pure1 service catalogue has been expanded, providing full access to the company's range of on-premises and hybrid cloud storage offerings and professional services.

This includes buying new systems and services; expanding an existing as-a-service capacity; obtaining a quote, placing an order and tracking the delivery of system additions; manage Pure as-a-Service subscriptions, and scheduling upgrades.

Pure1 provides a single pane of glass to manage all services, explained Pure Storage APJ CTO Mark Jobbins, adding that it drives the customer's digital experience of Pure.

It's all about trying to create the simplest possible experience for users, at the same time as reducing risks through capabilities such as predictive support, he said, noting "There's a very low tolerance of downtime."

Data has been accumulated from tens of thousands of storage arrays, he added.

"Pure has always innovated for a better customer experience – an experience that is simple and streamlined with unparalleled support," said Pure Storage vice president and general manager of digital experience Prakash Darji.

"By giving our customers more control over their environments and active recommendations for solving problems before they happen, we're delivering on our Digital Experience vision and transforming the IT management experience yet again."

Pure1 Digital Experience is available now to all customers at no additional cost.

Portworx Enterprise 2.8 features new integrations with Pure's products and services, and with VMware Tanzu.

This allows the simpler scaling of Kubernetes usage, according to the company.

New capabilities such as dynamic storage provisioning on FlashArray and FlashBlade, and unified visibility and support via Pure1. This means Portworx can handle containerised workloads across the cloud, bare metal infrastructure, Pure Storage arrays, and even storage solutions from other vendors.

Portworx delivers the simplest way to run Kubernetes applications at enterprise levels of scale and resiliency, according to the company, as it takes a Kubernetes-native software approach to support enterprise levels of scale and resiliency.

For example, when users provision container-native volumes through Portworx, storage volumes or file systems are automatically created on FlashArray and FlashBlade, providing true storage-as-code, without having to directly interface with the storage arrays.

Container-native volumes receive all the usual Portworx container storage management features, including backup, disaster recovery, security, auto-scaling, and migration.

As these features that aren't tied to hardware, they travel with the containerised application as it moves between on-premises and cloud deployments.

Kubernetes cluster and volume usage metrics collected by Portworx will be sent to Pure1 for unified observability. As Pure1 collects data necessary to understand deployment patterns, it starts to detect anomalies and suggest resolution advice before issues become outages.

This includes container and Kubernetes specific analytics, Jobbins told iTWire.

Portworx PX-Backup for Kubernetes has been validated with FlashBlade, so protected Kubernetes applications – including data and configuration – can be backed up and then restored at up to 270TB per hour.

VMware Tanzu is supported via a native Tanzu CSI driver, allowing container-granular data management regardless of the storage backing the VMware environment. Incorporation of the latest CSI specification means Portworx can interoperate with any enterprise storage that supports CSI.

Pure's first generation Kubernetes offering, Pure Service Orchestrator (PSO) will become a part of the freemium Portworx Essentials for FlashArray and FlashBlade. Portworx Essentials is included and fully supported as part of Evergreen or Pure-as-a-Service subscriptions. PSO will be supported until the end of January 2022, at which time customers will be required to switch to Portworx Essentials.

PSO and Portworx Essentials users can upgrade to Portworx Enterprise for additional security, data protection and scale.

"Pure and Portworx together are redefining what storage for modern, cloud-native applications looks like. By delivering storage that can be orchestrated entirely through Kubernetes, Pure is delivering a seamless hybrid cloud experience and changing outcomes for customers," said Pure Storage cloud native business unit vice president and general manager Murli Thirumale.

Portworx Enterprise 2.8 will be available in June 2021.