Future-Proof Storage Programs – Know the Facts!

With our newly expanded Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program Dell EMC continues to raise the bar across the industry.  The Dell EMC Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program gives customers additional peace of mind with guaranteed satisfaction and investment protection for future technology changes. This program not only provides longer coverage terms than other similar programs, it also has the fewest restrictions.  Quite simply, we believe it’s the best program in the industry and we aren’t done enhancing it yet!

We encourage everyone reading this to fully examine similar competitive programs to ensure you really understand what you’re getting and how much you are paying for it.  Specifically, in recent years, Pure Storage has dramatically modified its “Evergreen Storage” program and many customers tell us they are not happy with what they’ve seen.

To help you uncover the not-so-obvious details of some key elements of Pure Storage’s current Evergreen Storage program we’d like to provide some simple questions you can ask Pure Storage when reviewing their Evergreen Storage program.  Let’s focus on the three program benefits that require the higher priced Evergreen Gold subscription, and are not included in the Evergreen Silver subscription.

1. Free Every Three

2. Upgrade Flex

3. Capacity Consolidation

Free Every Three – This is Pure’s Evergreen Gold offering that claims you get upgraded controllers for free every three years.

Questions to ask:

◉ Do I really need to pay for six years of Evergreen Gold to receive the ‘free’ controllers? The first three years to be eligible and then I can get the new controllers when I renew for another three years?

◉ What will it really cost me (over six years of a Gold Subscription) to get the free controllers?

◉ How much am I really saving versus just buying new controllers at a negotiated discount?

From what we’ve seen and heard from customers the six years of required Evergreen Gold more than pays for the two new controllers.  So, ‘Free Every Three’ is really just a ‘Pre-Pay’ program!  It’s a trade-in program you need to pre-pay for, even if you never use it.

Upgrade Flex Controllers – This is Pure’s Evergreen Gold offering for upgrading your controllers before they are three years old.

Questions to ask:

◉ Why am I forced to buy additional capacity (Upgrade Flex Bundles) in order to upgrade my controllers? What if I don’t need more capacity?

◉ How much would it cost to buy a whole new Flash Array system, with only the capacity I require, compared to using the Upgrade Flex program?

◉ Does an Upgrade Flex purchase reset my Free Every Three subscription? (e.g. – If I use Upgrade Flex after two years do I then need to pay for another three years of Evergreen Gold (five total) to get the Free Every Three controllers?)

Upgrade Flex appears to force customers to buy additional capacity, at a significant price premium, if they want to upgrade their controllers within the three years of purchasing their FlashArray. Pure tries to make it sound attractive by highlighting that you get trade-in credits for your old controllers but look carefully at the price of the additional capacity you are forced to purchase in order to trade in your old controllers for new ones.  In total the customer ends up paying for all this to get the new controllers:

1. An Evergreen Gold subscription

2. Highly priced additional storage even if the customer doesn’t need it

3. The cost of the new controllers minus a trade-in credit for their current controllers (credit determined by Pure)

Capacity Consolidation – This is Pure’s Evergreen Gold offering for trading in existing installed flash drives for newer higher capacity flash drives, or flash modules.

Questions to ask:

◉ If 25% of the new capacity is the maximum trade-in credit I can get then what should I expect as the ‘normal’ trade in credit amount, and how is it calculated? How do I get the full 25% credit?

◉ How much of a premium am I going to pay for my new storage versus buying the extra capacity at time of original purchase?

Due to the use of an Active-Passive (backend) controller architecture Pure’s FlashArray products have a limited amount of drives that can be installed without affecting overall performance, which limits their overall scalability.  To overcome this they need a program (Capacity Consolidation) that allows customers to swap in newer higher capacity drives for older smaller capacity drives.  Unfortunately for Pure’s customers, like all the Evergreen Gold specific features, this comes at a price premium.

In contrast to Pure’s Evergreen Storage program, now a profit center for Pure, Dell EMC offers our recently expanded and enhanced Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program to provide customers with the peace of mind and investment protection they need to make educated decisions today.  There are no hidden fees additional purchases required to take advantage of the benefits!

Dell EMC’s Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program is comprised of seven industry-leading benefits:

◉ 3 Year Satisfaction Guarantee – All products in the program now carry a 3-Year Satisfaction Guarantee

◉ 4:1 Storage Efficiency Guarantee – by following Dell EMC’s recommended and straightforward best practices you will get effective logical storage capacity of at least 4X your purchased physical capacity. And there are no complex pre-assessments required

◉ Never-Worry Data Migrations – leverage seamless upgrades and built-in data migration technology, so it’s always easy to upgrade and/or migrate your data without disruption to the business

◉ Hardware Investment Protection – you can trade-in Dell EMC or even competitive systems for credit towards next gen Dell EMC storage or HCI product offerings

◉ All-Inclusive Software – with Dell EMC Storage you will have everything you need to store and manage your data included with product purchase

◉ Built-in Virtustream Storage Cloud – Dell EMC Unity All-Flash customers immediately get the benefit of a built-in hybrid cloud with one year free Virtustream capacity. You get 20% of your  purchased storage capacity free for a year, that’s like getting 20% more storage for free

◉ New! Clear Price – Consistent and predictable support pricing and services for all your Dell EMC storage and data protection appliances

Newly Expanded!

Our Future-Proof program now also includes our Storage and Data Protection platforms!

1. Satisfaction Guarantee: Requires purchase of our standard 3-year ProSupport agreement. Compliance is based on product specifications. Any refund will be prorated.

2. Hardware Investment Protection: Trade-In value determined based on market conditions at Dell EMC’s sole discretion.

3. 4:1 Storage Efficiency Guarantee: Requires customer signature and purchase of ProSupport with Mission Critical.

4. Never-Worry Migrations: Does not include data transfer services. Customer responsible for ensuring data is backed-up.

5. Built-in Virtustream Storage Cloud: Benefit available only with Dell EMC Unity purchase; Free capacity is limited to 20% of purchased storage capacity.

6. All-Inclusive Software: Includes select software needed to store and manage data.