If you asked me even at the end of last year, I would have told you that the commercial enterprise will not have an all flash datacenter any time in the future.

This week, I was proven wrong. I love being proved wrong, because it means what I thought was not possible or viable has become possible and viable. It also means that the economics have changed, and the IT industry is moving forward faster than I thought!

After seeing the launch, and seeing the Pure Storage FlashBlade system in person, I am convinced that many enterprises will be able to afford an all flash datacenter. What Pure Storage has done with the FlashBlade storage system is bring a network attached storage (NAS) to an all flash array. The FlashBlade is not expected to break any records in speed, but it will certainly be significantly faster than disk based NAS systems.

Combining Pure Storage’s FlashArray//m and FlashBlade systems, recognizing that the economics relies on the data reduction that Pure Storage has built into its arrays, the result is an all-flash storage portfolio that was designed from the ground up to take advantage of flash.

I spoke with a customer during Pure Storage’s Pure // Accelerate analyst and customer event who has made the strategic decision to relinquish its EMC and NetApp solutions, and replace them with FlashBlade. For this customer, the simplicity in management, deployment, installation and configuration of Pure Storage’s systems, along with the higher performance compared to its existing HDD based arrays makes economical sense moving forward.

This customer will certainly not be the only customer seeking this path.

On top of this, channel partners all of a sudden have the ability to propose to their clients a highly differentiated solution – the all flash datacenter, at a price that Neuralytix expects to be competitive with HDD based or hybrid solutions.

So, Pure Storage, you have proven me wrong that an all flash datacenter is not only economically viable, but a reality for today.