Containers and Kubernetes are reaching a new level of maturity but challenges still remain. Many organizations are still struggling to manage cloud migrations and the complexities of cloud environments and this is where Portworx comes in. The company’s software platform enables people to deploy containers and operate databases in production at scale.

In this episode of TFiR Let’s Talk, Swapnil Bhartiya sits down with Murli Thirumale, VP and GM of Pure Storage’s Cloud Native Business Unit, Portworx, to talk about the company and how it is helping people deploy containers and databases in production at scale. He goes into depth about the challenges customers are facing with Kubernetes and how Portworx is helping customers navigate these challenges.

Highlights from this video interview are:

• Portworx is a software platform enabling people to deploy containers and operate databases in production at scale. Thirumale takes us through Portworx and how it is helping customers with their Kubernetes projects.
• Containers were introduced as a way to allow applications to be developed and deployed quicker; however, since then they have evolved and matured to where the application is now being divided up into smaller microservices. Thirumale discusses how these technologies have matured and what the benefits are.
• In the early days of Kubernetes, people were deploying containers for applications that were stateless; however, this has now shifted to more stateful applications being deployed. Thirumale feels this leads to additional challenges, such as, how to run at scale in production, how to run databases in a simple way and having HA disaster recovery backup. He explains how Portworx is helping to solve these challenges.
• Cloud brings a variety of benefits such as the variable consumption that the cloud provides and that it can be consumed as a service model regardless of whether it is hybrid cloud, public cloud or private cloud. However, cloud lock-in and costs continue to be the two main challenges. Thirumale discusses why this has led to many taking a multi-cloud approach, and how Portworx is helping by providing cloud independence.
• Thirumale shares the three key cases they see where customers need to be cloud independent, such as, where they want to develop in one place but scale in another as an extension of the development cycle, or because certain clouds are optimized for certain things, and also for privacy reasons. He goes into depth about these scenarios.
• Often modern-day cloud services that offer different distributions of Kubernetes do not provide the same level of data maturity and optimization that you would find in VMware, such as across zone high availability or having zero or near-zero RPO. Thirumale discusses why customers, therefore, need specialized solutions as their cloud provider does not natively provide these things and how Portworx is bridging these gaps.

Connect with Murli Thirumale (LinkedIn)
Learn more about Portworx (Twitter)

The summary of the show is written by Emily Nicholls.