"The mission statement hasn't changed," Pure Storage's FlashArray general manager Prakash Darji told iTWire.

Purity 6.0 is another non-disruptive upgrade, bringing additional capabilities to storage with no additional licenses, no added support costs, and no added complexity.

The key changes are the introduction of ActiveDR and unified block and file storage.

Purity's existing ActiveCluster feature provides synchronous replication and real-time array failover, but only works across relatively short distances.

In contrast, ActiveDR provides "near zero RPO over any geographical distance," Darji told iTWire.

This is said to improve business resiliency without having to resort to the cost and complexity of third-party DR software.

It means customers can take advantage of synchronous, active-active replication with ActiveCluster, snapshot-based asynchronous replication, and now continuous replication with ActiveDR, all on the same Purity platform.

ActiveDR has no impact on the primary workload, Darji said, and it is very easy to set up.

Validated designs are offered for the use of ActiveDR in conjunction with VMware Site Recovery Manager, Microsoft SQL, Oracle, SAP, MongoDB and other software.

Pure's new unified block and file capabilities on FlashArray were designed to particularly suit customers that primarily run block storage and currently use separate network-attached storage. The new feature means they can run all workloads within the Purity operating environment.

The NFS and SMB protocols are supported.

Significantly, data deduplication and compression works globally across block and file storage.

ActiveDR and file storage have been in beta test this year, and have been received positively by testers, Darji told iTWire. Purity 6.0 "brings FlashArray into more workloads."

Other changes delivered as part of Purity 6.0 include expanded backup to cloud options with CloudSnap for Google Cloud Platform (plus beta support for Cloud Block Store for Azure), support for RSA's two-factor and multi-factor authentication, and a click-to-quote feature providing self-service quotations for system upgrades based on the results of workload simulations.

"Flexible consumption models represent the bedrock of Pure's modern data experience," he said.

"We've had the tremendous advantage of being purpose-built for the modern era – our solutions are designed for massive amounts of data, to be fundamentally upgradeable without disruption, and to be compatible with future innovation so that our customers never have to wait for the latest tools.

"Purity 6.0 represents the next and most logical step in delivering that continued value to our customers – services that can be consumed in whatever way best fits the customer need at any given moment."