September 18, 2020
Cloud storage provider will buy the data platform services company for $370 million
By Jeffrey Burt
Pure Storage, a pioneer in all-flash storage that is rapidly expanding its cloud capabilities, is making a significant push into the Kubernetes space with the planned acquisition of Portworx for about $370 million.
The Lowdown: The deal announced this week will enable Pure to accelerate its strategy around hybrid cloud and multicloud environments by offer Kubernetes data services to support containerized applications and cloud-native software development.
The Details: Portworx’s Kubernetes data services platform delivers persistent storage, high availability, data protection and security, and cloud mobility for containers that are deployed in hybrid cloud architectures. The combination of the six-year-old company’s container data services with Pure’s data platforms and Service Orchestrator software will enable the Mountain View, California-based company to offer data services that can be deployed in the cloud, on bare metal, or in enterprise data centers and orchestrated via Kubernetes.
Portworx will be folded into Pure, becoming the company’s Cloud Native Business Unit and led by Portworx CEO Murli Thurumale.
The Impact: In a hybrid cloud and multicloud world, containers are becoming how organizations move, manage, and develop cloud-native applications and Kubernetes, developed inside of Google, is the key orchestration platform. Pure notes that according to 451 Research, 95% of new applications are developed in containers and Gartner is predicting that 85% of global businesses will be running containers in production by 2025, up from 35% last year.
Background: A broad array of established tech vendors are incorporating Kubernetes into their portfolios. The day before Pure announced the Portworx deal, VMware said it is expanded in the reach of its Tanzu Kubernetes platform in such products as vSphere cloud offering and vSAN storage solution and Dell said it was integrating Tanzu with its VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure products.
The Buzz: “As forward-thinking enterprises adopt cloud native strategies to advance their business, we are thrilled to have the Portworx team and their groundbreaking technology joining us at Pure to expand our success in delivering multi-cloud data services for Kubernetes,” Pure Chairman and CEO Charles Giancarlo said. “This acquisition marks a significant milestone in expanding our Modern Data Experience to cover traditional and cloud native applications alike.”
“I’m tremendously proud of what we’ve built at Portworx: an unparalleled data services platform for customers running mission-critical applications in hybrid and multicloud environments. The traction and growth we see in our business daily shows that containers and Kubernetes are fundamental to the next-generation application architecture and thus competitiveness,” Thirumale said. “We are excited for the accelerated growth and customer impact we will be able to achieve as a part of Pure.”
“As a leader in multicloud and on-premises log management solutions, data is at the heart of our business,” LogDNA CEO Tucker Callaway said. “We work with Portworx because they provide the market-leading Kubernetes data services platform that allows us to offer the same fast, reliable, protected, and secure logging solutions to our customers, no matter where they decide to run their applications. We can see the power of this combination and look forward to many more years of sustained data-driven innovation from Pure Storage and Portworx.”
“Esri’s ArcGIS software delivers location intelligence for some of the world’s most pressing problems including Covid-19 tracking, fire mapping and disaster management,” said Brian Cross, director of professional services at Esri. “We are proud to have worked with Portworx to implement cutting-edge cloud native storage technologies allowing our customers to solve these types of geospatial problems at massive scales. Portworx is a key partner for Esri as we develop and release our next generation of Kubernetes-based real-time capabilities, and we look forward to continuing our work together as it evolves with Pure Storage.”
“In 2019 we evaluated Kubernetes storage platforms for one of our services and after thorough research we decided on Portworx,” said Sven Sonnendorfer, community manager of Audi Business Innovation, a 100% subsidiary of Audi AG. “The improved performance compared to the standard Kubernetes storage provider, the included features, reliable operations and upgrades and the great support demonstrate that this was the right decision. Portworx saves us time and money by providing more reliable tooling to our customers.”
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