On September 16, 2020, Pure Storage announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Portworx. The acquisition is subject to certain customary closing conditions.

Portworx is the Kubernetes Data Services Platform that digital enterprises trust to run mission-critical applications in containers in production. Only Portworx provides a fully integrated solution for persistent storage, data protection, disaster recovery, data security, cross-cloud and data migrations, and automated capacity management for applications running on Kubernetes. As a result, Portworx is the #1 most-used Kubernetes Data Services Platform by Global 2000 companies, including Carrefour, Comcast, GE Digital, Kroger, Lufthansa, and T-Mobile. Portworx was named a Leader in the 2020 GigaOm Radar for Data Storage for Kubernetes report.

Portworx helps Pure Storage realize its vision for a Modern Data Experience™ by providing a subscription-based data-services platform for cloud-native applications running across hybrid-cloud environments in containers. With Portworx, Pure Storage customers will be able to accelerate their digital transformation by easily running any cloud-native data service, in any cloud, using any Kubernetes platform with built-in high availability, data protection, data security, and hybrid-cloud mobility. Together, Pure and Portworx provide the most complete set of Kubernetes storage choices, from bare metal or cloud storage with Portworx software-defined storage to fully managed all-flash arrays, providing the right storage options at all phases of the cloud-native lifecycle.

As a 100% software-defined Kubernetes Data Services Platform that can run on any infrastructure, Portworx enables new cloud-native use cases for customers running on a variety of Pure products including FlashArray™, FlashBlade®, and Pure as-a-Service™, as well as any other underlying on-premises or cloud storage. With Portworx, Pure customers get a modern data platform that manages storage and data protection for their Kubernetes applications, no matter where they are running.

As the #1 Kubernetes Storage Platform according to GigaOm Research, many of the world’s largest digital enterprises use Portworx in production, including Carrefour, Comcast, GE Digital, Kroger, Lufthansa, and T-Mobile. Developers can download Portworx software; use it for free in initial deployments and pilot projects; and then scale it to the largest, most-resilient global deployments with paid editions and enterprise support as they progress through the Kubernetes lifecycle.

Pure plans to build upon Portworx’s momentum by continuing to sell the existing Portworx platform as-is, extending it to Pure’s global channels and continuing to deliver industry-leading support with the joint Pure-Portworx support organization. Pure and Portworx also plan to accelerate investment in the Portworx standalone roadmap, as well as invest in relevant integrations between Pure and Portworx products, including with Pure Service Orchestrator™ container-storage orchestration software. Details of these planned integrations and go-forward product plans will be determined and communicated in the coming months.  

Existing Portworx customers can rest assured that the value of Portworx investment will be enhanced by a larger Pure-Portworx organization. Existing Portworx customers can also trust that Pure Storage will retain Portworx’s commitment to delivering services across the cloud and infrastructure ecosystem. And existing Pure customers can now enjoy a deeper roadmap for enterprise-scale container data services both on-premises and natively in the public cloud.

Pure Storage has seen widespread adoption of both FlashArray and FlashBlade for container-storage use cases, facilitated by its Pure Service Orchestrator software and industry-leading implementation of the Container Storage Interface (CSI) specification. Support for Pure Service Orchestrator will remain unchanged. Post-acquisition, Pure and Portworx will work to define a unified roadmap that converges Portworx and Pure Service Orchestrator into a unified software stack for container storage to provide seamless options across cloud, commodity server, and enterprise all-flash array deployments. Pure and Portworx will provide the most complete storage solutions for organizations at every stage of the container lifecycle, plus ultimate flexibility in infrastructure and cloud choice.

Portworx will continue to run as a standalone product line, without disruption in the service and experience customers know and love. By joining Pure Storage, Portworx will be able to accelerate investments across Pure’s platform, ecosystem integration, global sales, and global support. Pure also plans to expand sales and support of the Portworx platform, including tighter integration with Pure FlashArray and FlashBlade. In addition, we intend to continue to invest and support third-party storage vendor integrations as well as public-cloud providers. Together, these options will provide the industry’s most complete platform for container data services. 

At this time, there are no changes to your Portworx subscriptions or how you will interact with Portworx support.  Pure and Portworx share a relentless commitment to the highest levels of customer support, and we look forward to strengthening our joint support experience. We will communicate any changes to Portworx subscriptions or support channels well in advance and with full transparency to our customers.

Yes. Murli Thirumale is excited to be taking on the role of Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Native Business Unit at Pure Storage.

Yes, all the founders are joining Pure and will assume leadership positions in the new Cloud Native Business Unit.