Pure Storage Intros Validated Designs With Commvault, Vertica

‘Reference architectures show all the different pieces that go into a joint solution, but we the partners still have to validate it to work for the customer. With validated designs, it’s easier for our delivery organization, and easier for us to deploy the solutions,’ says Ryan Sheehan, vice president of advanced solutions at SHI International which partners with Pure Storage, Commvault, and Vertica.

Pure Storage Wednesday unveiled its Pure Validated Design program for deploying and supporting multi-vendor solutions, and introduced as its first partners analytics software technology developer Vertica and data protection and management software developer Commvault.

The Pure Validated Design offerings are solutions designed for customers with the end requirements in mind, said Michael Sotnick, vice president of global alliances for Mountain View, Calif.-based Pure Storage.

“They are based on questions like, ‘What am I trying to achieve in the analytics sphere,’” Sotnick told CRN. “’What am I trying to achieve in the data protection sphere.’”

[Related: Pure Storage CEO Charles Giancarlo On COVID, WFH, All-Flash Data Centers]

At the base of the new Pure Validated Designs are Pure Storage’s FlashBlade all-flash storage technology. FlashBlade is Pure Storage‘s array for scale-out fast unstructured file and object storage.

With the Pure Validated Designs, Pure Storage is working with its technology partners to not only validate the joint offerings for specific workloads, but provide comprehensive support, Sotnick said.

“The unique characteristics of the designs come down to the comprehensiveness of the offering and the support offered,” he said. “Customers and partners are looking for easy support. Pure is the first support call on all solutions. Once we triage the call, if needed, we will execute the handoff of support to Vertica, or to TSANet for the Commvault offering.”

TSANet, or the Technical Support Alliance Network, is a not-for-profit organization set up to ensure that mutual customers of multiple vendors get support without finger-pointing. Pure Storage and Commvault are both members of TSANet, Sotnick said.

Establishing validated designs based on Pure Storage FlashBlade architecture is an important move for Pure Storage, said Ryan Sheehan, vice president of advanced solutions at SHI International, a Somerset, N.J.-based solution provider and channel partner to all three vendors.

“As these types of solutions bet more complex, using trusted validated designs, something all OEMs offer, is a big savings in time for us,” Sheehan told CRN.

Validated designs saves partners valuable time that might otherwise be used to design and deploy solutions, Sheehan said.

“Cisco, Dell, VMware, they all offer validated designs,” he said. “With pre-validated designs, we can predict the customer outcomes and the level of quality of support faster.”

Sheehan said validated designs should not be confused with reference architectures.

“Reference architectures show all the different pieces that go into a joint solution, but we the partners still have to validate it to work for the customer,” he said. “With validated designs, it’s easier for our delivery organization, and easier for us to deploy the solutions.”

Vertica analytics workloads can be big analytics use cases such as large companies doing 10 million ad runs a second or a huge healthcare implementation, said Joy King, vice president of product and go-to-market strategy at Cambridge, Mass.-based Vertica.

“Vertica has to rely on partners like Pure Storage because we don’t have a millisecond to spare,” King told CRN. “The solution has to be fast.”

Vertica in Eon Mode provides a cloud-optimized architecture that scales the compute resources separately from the shared storage in on-premises and cloud environments, King said.

“Vertica provisioned with Pure Storage can separate the compute and storage on premises to bring cloud-native capabilities to on-premises environments,” she said.

For Vertica use on premises, Pure Storage is the company’s only storage partner, King said.

“In order to meet the requirements, we need the ‘Maserati’ of storage. We’re talking Pure Storage FlashBlade. The typical storage technology does not meet the need.”

Vertica in Eon Mode absolutely will work with other storage technologies for customers who do not need the full performance of FlashBlade, King said.

Vertica sells its technology via a combination of direct and indirect sales, and the company is beefing up its Americas channel business with the recruiting of 60 new channel partners globally in fiscal year 2020, King said.

Because Pure storage has a 100-percent channel-only model, Vertica will ensure a channel partner is involved in any Pure Validated Design sales with the company, she said.

“If Pure brings in a partner that does not know Vertica, we will talk to that partner about how to become a Vertica partner as well,” she said.

Mercer Rowe, vice president of the global partner organization of Tinton Falls, N.J.-based Commvault, said joint Commvault and Pure Storage channel partners have been asking for a validated design based on the two companies’ technologies.

“Customers and partners are moving away from their own integration to solutions designed together and purchased together,” Rowe told CRN. “If they offer the Pure Validated Design, they’ll know the technologies will work together and will be jointly supported. Partners will get a solution that is easy to sell and support.”

Channel partners who want to sell the Pure Validated Design for Commvault will have to be certified partners of both vendors, Rowe said. The validated designs include two SKUs, one from each vendor, that the partners put together. Partners can lead the sale from either vendor’s side, he said.

Using the Pure Validated Design with Commvault technology is an easy way to go deep on describing the solution in terms of sizing, configuration, and support, Rowe said.

“It makes it easy for partners to describe the performance and the other elements of the solution,” he said. “And we already have collaboration through TSANet, as well as have the design in both companies’ labs.”