How can I help?
Hey Pure Community, I’m Brian Heck, and I get to be your Senior Systems Engineer if you’re in Alaska, Washington, or Oregon (yup, that’s me—the person behind the emails!). I’m part of the SLED team at Pure, which just means I spend my days helping schools, local governments, and all sorts of public organizations like Tribal make the most of their data. I’ve always believed the secret sauce at Pure isn’t just our tech (though I’m pretty biased about how rock solid flash storage is). It’s actually the people on our team and in this community. There’s zero ego, just lots of curiosity and a drive to solve real problems for real folks. So if you ever just want to ask a question, vent about a challenge, or swap stories about your favorite upgrades, trust me, you’re speaking my language. If you’re wondering: What’s it really like working at Pure (spoiler: the culture here rocks) What new tech or trends I’m excited about in storage, cloud, or AI How to get the most out of your SE team (or what the heck SEs actually do behind the scenes) …please shout! I love sharing tips, diving into rabbit holes, and figuring out better ways to do things together. I’m always up for good conversation, honest feedback, or brainstorming sessions, whether it’s in the forums or over coffee (virtual or real). This community means a lot to me, and I’d really love to hear your stories, see your questions, and learn from your experiences. I've been a part of the VMUG for quite awhile, so things like this are my jam. I’ll do my best to share the good stuff—tech advice, a peek at life at Pure, and maybe a few dad jokes if you’re lucky. How can I help? What’s on your mind?
The Seattle Pure User Group is coming Sept. 17th
Join us for a dynamic Pure Storage Customer Event on September 17 at The Collective! This exclusive gathering brings together Pure Storage experts, featured speakers, and fellow customers for an afternoon packed with learning, networking, and fun. Explore our featured talk tracks: Accelerate Updates: Get an inside look at the latest enhancements to Pure Accelerate. Our experts will share what’s new, showcase the most impactful features, and provide guidance on how to take advantage of these updates to drive innovation and boost operational efficiency within your organization. Virtualization & Cloud: Dive deep into best practices for optimizing your virtualization stacks and seamlessly integrating Pure Storage with today’s cloud environments. Learn strategies for simplifying management, ensuring data protection, and enabling flexible, high-performance hybrid cloud solutions. Space is limited, so mark your calendar for September 17, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, and get ready for an engaging, informative event you won't want to miss. We look forward to seeing you at The Collective. Register Now!The Spokane Pure User Group is coming Sept. 22nd
Join us for a dynamic Pure Storage Customer Event on September 22 at Uprise Brewing Co! This exclusive gathering brings together Pure Storage experts, featured speakers, and fellow customers for an afternoon packed with learning, networking, and fun. Explore our featured talk tracks: Accelerate Updates: Get an inside look at the latest enhancements to Pure Accelerate. Our experts will share what’s new, showcase the most impactful features, and provide guidance on how to take advantage of these updates to drive innovation and boost operational efficiency within your organization. Virtualization & Cloud: Dive deep into best practices for optimizing your virtualization stacks and seamlessly integrating Pure Storage with today’s cloud environments. Learn strategies for simplifying management, ensuring data protection, and enabling flexible, high-performance hybrid cloud solutions. Space is limited, so mark your calendar for September 22, 3:00 PM – 5:30 PM, and get ready for an engaging, informative event you won't want to miss. We look forward to seeing you at Uprise Brewing Co. Register Now!Don’t Wait, Innovate: Long‑Life Release 6.9.0 Is Your Gateway to Continuous Innovation
How Pure Releases Work (and Why You Should Care) Pure Storage doesn’t make you choose between stability and innovation: Feature Releases arrive monthly and are supported for 9 months. They’re production‑ready and ideal if you like to live on the cutting edge. Long‑Life Releases (LLRs) bundle those feature releases into a thoroughly tested version which is supported for three years. LLR 6.9.0 is essentially all the innovation of those Feature releases, rolled into one update. This dual approach means you can adopt new features as soon as they’re ready or wait for the next stable release—either way, you keep moving forward. Not sure what features you’re missing? Not a problem as we have a tool for that. A coworker reminded me: Pure1’s AI Copilot can tell you exactly what you’ve been missing. Here’s how easy it is to find out: Log into Pure1, click on the AI Copilot tab, and type your question. My coworker reminded me of this last week, so I tried: “Please provide all features for FlashArray since version 6.4 of Purity OS.” Copilot returned a detailed rundown of new capabilities across each release. In just a couple of minutes, I saw everything I’d overlooked—no digging through release notes or calling support required. A Taste of What You’ve Been Missing Here’s a snapshot of the goodies you may have missed across the last few year releases: Platform enhancements: FlashArray//E platform (6.6.0) extends Pure’s simplicity to tier‑3 workloads. Gen 2 chassis support (6.8.0) delivers more performance and density with better efficiency. 150 TB DirectFlash modules (6.8.2) boost capacity without compromising speed. File services advancements: FlashArray File (GA in 6.8.2) lets you manage block and file workloads from the same array. SMB Continuous Availability shares (6.8.6) keep file services online through failures. Multi‑server/domain support (6.8.7) scales file services across larger environments. Security and protection: Enhanced SafeMode protection (6.4.3) quadruples local snapshot capacity and adds hardware tokens for instant data locking which is vital in a ransomware era. Over‑the‑wire encryption (6.6.7) secures asynchronous replication. Pure Fusion: We can't talk about this enough Think of this as fleet intelligence. Fusion applies your policies across every array and optimizes placement automatically, cutting operational overhead . Purity OS: It’s Not Just Firmware Every Purity OS update adds value to your existing hardware. Recent improvements include support for new NAND sources, “titanium” efficiency power supplies, and advanced diagnostics. These aren’t minor tweaks; they’re part of Pure’s Evergreen promise that your hardware investment keeps getting better over time. Why Waiting Doesn’t Pay Off It’s tempting to delay updates, but with Pure, waiting often means you’re missing out on: Security upgrades that counter new threats. Performance gains like NVMe/TCP support and ActiveCluster improvements. Operational efficiencies such as open metrics and better diagnostics. Future‑proofing features that prepare you for upcoming innovations. Your Roadmap to Capture These Benefits Assess your current state: Use AI Copilot to see exactly what you’d gain by moving to LLR 6.9.0. Plan your update: Pure’s non‑disruptive upgrades let you modernize without downtime. Explore new features: Dive into Fusion, enhanced file services, and expanded security capabilities. Connect with the community: Share experiences with other users to accelerate your learning curve. The Bottom Line Pure’s Evergreen model means your hardware doesn’t just retain value it continues to gain it. Long‑Life Release 6.9.0 is a gateway to innovation. In a world where data is your competitive edge, standing still is equivalent to moving backward. Ready to see what you’ve been missing? Log into Pure1, fire up Copilot, and let it show you the difference between where you are and where you could be.Hyper-V: The Municipal Fleet Pickup: Familiar, Capable, and Still Worth Considering
Hyper-V remains a practical, cost-efficient option for Windows-centric environments, offering strong features and seamless Azure integration. This blog explores where it shines, where it struggles, and how Pure ensures enterprise-grade data protection no matter which virtualization road you take.Cincinnati PUG Launch
Thank you to all who helped make the 1st Cincinnati PUG meeting a success. A special thank you to charles_sheppar, who presented how Pure Storage has transformed his data center over the past 10 years (for the positive). After Charles, dstevens shared his thoughts on the changing virtualization landscape. David made the most of his time in Cincinnati, from meeting with customers, attending the PUG, as well as partaking in some Cincinnati classics, Skyline and Graeters. In User Group fashion, Charles is taking the lead and already thinking of topics and ideas for the next meeting. Charles has a "scary" idea that I think is perfect for the next user event. Leave a comment if you want to get involved in helping plan and organize the next event.Virtualization Anonymous - Pittsburgh PUG
Welcome to Our 2nd Pure User Group (PUG) Discussion on Server Virtualization! We’re excited to bring our community together again for our second PUG session focused on server virtualization — a topic that's constantly evolving and critical to modern infrastructure. This is part of our ongoing effort to host these discussions every six months, continuing as long as there's interest from our user community. Whether you joined us for the first session or you're new to the group, we’re glad to have you here. Let’s learn, share, and grow together — and as always, your feedback helps shape future PUG topics! Event Details This will be a customer driven and customer focused discussion to hear from people like you related to the experiences and journey you have been on as we all seek the recovery we need to build a virtualization strategy for the future. Pure Storage and Expedient will provide experts and guidance to take that first step with you. After our presentation, we invite you to join us for happy hour and appetizers at the Federal Galley located here. Prizes will be provided to help encourage open collaboration. Space is extremely limited for this event. Sign up now to grab your spot to this exciting event. Registration https://info.purestorage.com/2025-Q3AMS-COMREDTFSPUGPittsburghLP_01---Registration-Page.html Parking Enter the Parking garage on level 2 off of S Commons, Take the east or west stairs to the Plaza Level, Exit the plaza level by the information desk to the outdoor plaza, walk towards the Federal Galley, The conference center entrance is located to the left of the Federal Galley. (follow Pure Storage Signage) Agenda 2:00PM Check In 2:30PM - 4:30PM Presentation 4:30PM - Giveaway Raffle (Pirate Tickets, Pure Swag, Autographed Pirate Baseballs) 5:00PM - 6:30PM Happy Hour with PureGetting Started: 5 Steps to Get the Most Out of the Pure Customer Community
Welcome! You've taken the first step and created an account here. What to do next you ask? Here's five simple steps to take after registering to ensure you're getting the most out of this community. Fill out your Profile: Let the community know who you are! Click on your avatar in the top right corner of this window and select 'My Settings' from that dropdown. Fill in your name, location, and bio information. Plus select from one of several default avatars or upload your own image. Write an Introduction post: Head over to the Social Space and write your intro post. Tell us about yourself, your role at your company, and your goals for participating in this community. What have you been thinking about a lot lately at work? (And we won't shy away from pictures of your pets either!) Follow a couple of Forum areas: Find the products you use most and solution areas you're most focused on in our Forums and be sure to click the bell icon in the upper right of those forums to be sure you get notifications on the latest activity in those areas. If you work in Finance, Healthcare, Public Sector, or Telco there's groups dedicated to the unique needs of your industry areas too. And if you're an open source or automation fan, Cloud Native and Kubernetes devotee, or a Pure Partner, there's dedicated group you can join for each of those areas too. Join your local Pure User Group: Click on Groups in the top nav and select Pure User Groups. (fka FlashCrew) Select your region & find the group for your local area. Click on that group and then click 'Join Group'. This will ensure you hear about any Pure events happening in your local area, including when & where the next meetup is. Pick 3-5 tags to follow: This community makes heavy use of tags. As you browse a forum, you'll notice each thread has tags. That is because we require them for every post. Find the tags most relevant to your interest areas and click the bell icon on those pages so you can keep up to date with the latest posts in those categories, regardless of what forum or group the discussion happens in. Finally, feel free to ask questions! Your friendly admins (bmcdougall and Ludes) are here to answer any questions you have and take suggestions. And we have deputized experts across Pure Storage to be on hand to answer deep technical questions. So don't be shy, there's always someone around to help you out.
Boston PUG - August 21, 2025
Hey there Connecticut PUG members. I wanted to let you all know there is a Boston PUG event taking place August 21, 2025 at Trillium - Fort Point in the Seaport. If you have time to spare to hang with Pure and other like-minded, beer-loving individuals then please drive up to hang out with us. You can find more about the event at the link below: Boston PUG information link I hope some of you are interested in driving up for the afternoon. We will host a PUG in Connecticut in the near future. Stay tuned...Boston Pure User Group (PUG) at Trillium - Fort Point!
Simplify IT, Empower Data - Over a Pint at Trillium - Fort Point Join us August 21, 2025, and connect, learn, and engage with your fellow IT pros for an afternoon filled with exciting announcements from the recent Pure//Accelerate event and our vision for the Enterprise Data Cloud, as well as an engaging discussion on modern virtualization and a demo of Fusion. Fusion is a fully integrated platform that federates multiple arrays—such as FlashArray and FlashBlade—into a unified fleet, enabling centralized, cloud-like management, streamlined resource provisioning, and enhanced visibility across multi-array environments. Rob Quast, Principal Technologist from Pure Storage will be presenting on the above topics with additional input from other Pure technologists. The complete agenda is below. Please register if you plan on attending at the following link: Register Here Agenda 2:00 PM - Welcome & Cheers Light intro by host & Pure representatives. Local brew served!! 2:15 PM - Accelerate Highlights: What You Missed (or Want More Of) A high-level recap of key announcements: Fusion, Evergreen One, FlashBlade//SR2 2:45 PM - Enterprise Data Cloud: The Vision and The Why Why it matters: cutting complexity, controlling cost, and scaling for AI 3:15 PM - Fusion in Action: Simplifying Storage with Intelligence Live demo or use-case storytelling around automation, presets, and governance 3:45 PM - Break & Bites Grab a drink, mingle, enjoy local food 4:15 PM - Rethinking Virtualization in 2025 What’s next after VMware? Discuss Pure + Nutanix, KubeVirt, Azure/AWS paths 4:45 PM - Ask Me Anything (AMA) Panel Interactive Q&A with Pure team + customer guest if available 5:15 PM - Cheers & Networking Open networking, brewery tour optional We look forward to seeing you!
