Channel focus: All you need to know about Pure Storage's partner program

Pure Storage is refocusing its partner channel and aligning with a mostly cloud and flash world without a disk requirement

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Pure Storage logo and branding pictured at the company's annual Pure//Accelerate conference at the Resorts World Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Image credit: ITPro/Ross Kelly)

Santa Clara, California headquartered, 100% indirect Pure Storage added 12% year-on-year to its $3.17 billion revenues for full-year 2025, and to its Q1 2026 revenues of $779 million. Product sales rose 5%; subscriptions 22%.

Founded in 2009 by John Colgrove and John Hayes as Os76 before branding as Pure Storage in 2011, Pure is 6000 employees strong, led by CEO Charles Giancarlo. The focus is on flash and data management, integrating storage hardware, embedded licensed software, and services. Partners like Kyndryl, Tech Mahindra, and NTT are joined by resellers like Bechtle, CD,W and ePlus.

Geoff Greenlaw, EMEA and LATAM channel sales vice president, says it's expanding flash into historical disk use cases, leveraging its flash software as well as quad-level cell (QLC) flash.

General manager, commercial, Amy Fowler, oversees regional channel heads, including Greenlaw, the Americas' Hope Galley, and Andrew Fisher for Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ).

Key offerings

Within the Pure Storage platform and Pure's Enterprise Data Cloud concepts are several offerings expected to power partner revenues. And in June, Pure announced various updates targeting volatile, power-hungry workloads.

Within the Pure Storage platform and Pure's Enterprise Data Cloud concepts are several offerings expected to power partner revenues. And in June, Pure announced various updates targeting volatile, power-hungry workloads.

FlashBlade hardware - unified file and object storage for unstructured data. For instance, the FlashBlade/EXA storage platform is being marketed towards AI deployments seeking to make better use of organizational data.

As Greenlaw tells ITPro: "{FlashBlade's] very focused on very high-end performance and throughput. It can become very big in healthcare where there's high volumes, very large volumes of data that need storage for long-term data retention."

FlashArrays C and X - "We're pushing on with our FlashArray tech, which is really about database[s]. In addition, we have major enhancements to our X and XL range, which is up to 30% faster than its predecessor. That's mission-critical in the world of database[s]," he says.

Portworx - a cloud-native container data management platform for Kubernetes.

"We're seeing companies increasingly competing with Broadcom VMware," Greenlaw adds. "VMware has drastically increased the price of their licensing, and customers are looking for alternative virtualized environments."

Partners are seen as drivers for seamless mobility, cost optimization, resiliency, sustainability, consistent storage services, and unified data environments, including tailored and certified offerings for AI and high-volume data. In addition, Pure Fusion v2 software caters to AI-focused data management, with Pure1 AIops included in active subscriptions and support contracts.

Pure Storage in the news

  • Founder John Colgrove, in June, talked up an all-flash future, with Pure also doubling down on data management.
  • Also in June, Pure//Accelerate showcased its high-performance flash hardware, broad software stack, STaaS, and Enterprise Data Cloud (EDC) for combined data storage and management.
  • January 2025 saw Pure announce its hyperscaler 'design win' licensing deal as hastening the death of disk.

Pure Storage for partners

Greenlaw says February's partner program update will fuel profitability for partners and Pure as changes bed in, while tech alliances with vendors such as Rubrik and CrowdStrike will further enhance its portfolio with regard to gaining net new logos (adding new customers).

"We're really doubling down on fewer, bigger bets within our channel to make Pure far more relevant to them, rather than spreading our revenue across 1000s of partners."

Partners lead customers through data storage transformation, leveraging the Pure Storage Platform for solution-specific use cases from AI to cyber-resilience. Data access, preparation, and management often bar AI success, for instance.

Also, partners will be incentivized to replace disks with Pure flash, with new solution-oriented training and enablement.

Partners are crucial to Pure's sustainability push, Greenlaw says, not least because data centers suck 2-3% of generated electricity worldwide, with datacentre storage, cooling, and space comprising most of that.

Services remain "highly relevant" to partners too, including storage as a service (STaaS) EverGreen//One, //Flex, and the more traditional //Forever.

Meanwhile, Pure's Service Specialization Program means partners can offer their own branded professional and support services for Pure technology.

In the partner program announcement, channel chief Fowler said the "reimagined" program experience will position partners for rapid growth and customers for "a sustainable future".

"Pure Storage is deeply committed to driving shared success with its partners," she says.

Partner programs, tiers, and partner types

  • Partners are divided into resellers, distributors, global systems integrators (GSIs), and managed services partners (MSPs). In addition, there are Services specializations, and technology alliance partners for jointly engineered solutions.
  • Tiers are Elite or Preferred, based on annual dollar values booked and technical certifications, with Elite partners eligible for higher back-end rebates and more investment in training and certification.
  • Pure Storage Global Enablement certifications last two years.
    • FlashArray Architect Associate
    • FlashBlade Architect Associate
    • Platform Solutions Associate
    • FlashArray Architect Professional
    • FlashBlade Architect Professional

Partners should first qualify for the Pure Platform Positioning Certificate on explaining and selling Pure, then choose from product-focused learning paths and assessments, with or without additional training as required. Exam ordering instructions are here.

  • IT professional services certifications.
    • Associate (data storage)
    • Professional (FlashArray, FlashBlade, Portworx, data protection)
    • Specialist (FlashArray and FlashBlade implementation or support, cloud block store, migration)
    • Expert (platform architect)

Further benefits, rewards, and incentives

  • Individual and entity rewards for Preferred and Elite partners with partner-sourced competitive take-out deals.
  • Rebates for Elite partner subscription bookings and new or strategic solutions sales.

Beyond the above, other rewards or benefits won't apply to all regions or partners, Pure says.

Sign up and get on board

To become a partner, explore program details and express interest by contacting Pure Storage through its website. No membership fee is required just to join; eligibility is determined by actual sales activity. Send an enquiry on this page.

For support and questions, try this web form, or contact sales in the US by phoning 800-976-6494 or emailing info@purestorage.com.

Pure Storage is also on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Fleur Doidge

Fleur Doidge is a journalist with more than twenty years of experience, mainly writing features and news for B2B technology or business magazines and websites. She writes on a shifting assortment of topics, including the IT reseller channel, manufacturing, datacentre, cloud computing and communications. You can follow Fleur on Twitter.

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