How the Pure Storage Platform Is Modernizing Manufacturing at Rivian

Ok. So we've talked a lot over the last two days about this extremely dynamic environment that we're all operating in every single day. So each and every one of you is constantly pushed to innovate and evolve and rethink what is going on in your infrastructure. So on one customer who's really taken that innovation to heart is Vivian. So it is my pleasure to welcome to the stage, Josh Crater to tell us a little bit more about it. So let's have a look at this video first. Yeah, to look at them, look at all these, all these trees, huh? Something. All right. Hi. Hi, how you doing? I'm doing well yourself. I'm great. Thank you so much for being here with us. Um OK. So many of, you know, the Rivian brand, it's exploded over the last couple of years. We all see the cars on the road. Any proud owners, Rs one RST anyone? No, no. Come on. Let's see some hands um start selling on the after the after the session. Um So we've all seen what Rivian is doing to really push the boundaries of the a very mature market. But Josh tell us a little bit more about what that looks like inside of Rivian. Like, how does that disruptor mentality drive you guys within the company? So, uh within Rivian, um doing something different is never easy. Um It requires courage, determination and grit, you know, and we're always stretching, you know, beyond the bounds of conventional thinking, uh which actually is helping us to build new solutions and, you know, operate in the face of uncertainty um with the way the world is right now, um We have a diverse background of people and teams that work with Rivian uh that have a love for the outdoors. And what we're really trying to do is we're trying to make a better world for our kids, kids as kids, which is our mission, you know, to have forever. That's fantastic. Um We really like disruptor mentalities here at pure, so that really resonates. Um So I understand from our conversations that you really not only kind of live that in your DNA every day of that, really thinking outside of the box and thinking disruptively, but you and your team specifically have taken that and really looked at completely redefining the manufacturing operations at Rivian. So tell us a little bit more about that. So my team really undertook three major initiatives. Uh These were to modernize our manufacturing operations, you know, and this was to build a modern infrastructure platform. Uh This helped us leverage data to enable our factories to become more productive. Uh We start off with some production efficiency, which our main goal was to actually improve the efficiency of the shops and facilities within our manufacturing plants and overall increase our ambitious production goals. Um We have infrastructure resiliency where we needed to implement a mission critical and resilient infrastructure so we can avoid interruptions and downtime that can slow down your manufacturing systems. And then we needed to present as a service delivery. So this was to enable storage and database as a service to our developers. Uh So we could easily accelerate the development and deployment of manufacturing applications to our production line. OK. So some some big projects there. So production efficiency, infrastructure resiliency and as a service delivery. So we're gonna dive into each of those a little bit more and would love to learn about what you did with pure and how you really tackled these. So let's start with production efficiency. I mean, you guys had some lofty goals here. You were trying to scale your, your annual production of automobiles by 50 X, which is huge. So how did you do that? So we looked at implementing really automation and observ ability. Uh So that way we could create a high performance systems for shop applications to be deployed on uh these help our manufacturing applications, many of these require high io and performance. And we had to do this to optimize our performance in the factory. So we chose to run port works and flash arrays, cloud drive technology as well as you know, integrating this with a mix of bare metal and virtual machine kubernetes infrastructure. So the end benefit was really to turbocharge our database and application storage to help drive efficiency for production applications. The underlying performance of the pure platform helped us deliver a wide range of sophisticated tools that could help us uh identify and locate these issues that we're having with manufacturing databases and applications. And we really integrated this through the pier API to go into our own centralized monitoring solutions. So that's really cool. So you really looked at kind of you got the visibility you needed through the entire production uh process. So you could really zero in and create that agility. That's, that's really interesting. Um OK, so moving on to your second big project around infrastructure resiliency. So I can't imagine that it's even remotely possible to achieve those lofty production goals without a really reliable storage, infrastructure, data replication and continued data access. So how did you and your team really think about ensuring that resiliency in your infrastructure and minimizing the risk of downtime? So as many may know from the manufacturing space any minute of downtime, even maybe a second of downtime costs money. And we needed a system that could easily be incorporated into building a mission critical data resiliency pattern. Uh So we have multiple data sources that we had to architect for um to provide reliable micro services to our end users, the teams on the production floor. So that way we could help our operations, you know, with port works. Rne achieves the uninterrupted data access and data resiliency across our operational technology layer. And that way we can lose certain aspects of the system like a node and easily restore it. And you know, combining port works with flash and flash Froid and the replication capabilities helped us provide that high availability, secure platform that also had cost effective terms to it. Um And we really revolutionized this manufacturing process where applications can go through this rigorous testing process and then we can deploy them rapidly and easily across our production floor. Um That way changes can be made more. So in real time, that's amazing. Um OK, so let's unpack your last big project, which was as a service delivery. Um So tell us a little bit more. Why was this so important to how you were rethinking your manufacturing process? And how did you actually go about delivering storage, not only storage as a service, but also database as a service to your stakeholders? So really, we wanted to minimize that developer wait time. Um So in traditional infrastructure, you'll have a timeline of, hey, I need to know exactly what specs you need. And we basically took uh the T platform along with Kubernetes and integrate it with port works data services to reduce the time it takes to deploy a database as a service um from nine days down to only hours. So after adopting this, this really helped us solve for some of the operational complexity and reduced some of the staffing needs for database services. Um and helped us also bring that into the hands of more. So the developers um and the agility and customization that was presented through this actually helped us build uh more microservice databases across our infrastructure. So that way, instead of a database having an issue, you could actually have these little chunks. So you have one database that's dedicated to one area of your manufacturing facility. And if they ran into an issue, you could easily restore that without affecting other areas of the manufacturing facility. That's really cool. How, how did your developers react to that like that? How did that change the relationship that you had between it and your developers? So really our team built a strong relationship with our developers. So as you come to on premise of solutions, you really need to think how your infrastructure and your applications interact with each other. And this really drived a come together moment where we were able to zoom out with our development teams and then help them more. So understand their application instead of having to worry about the day to day operations of storage and infrastructure, that's really cool actually, how you were able to kind of redefine that relationship and those roles responsibilities through that process. Um By the way, side note, for anybody who wants to learn more about what they've done at Rivian for the as a service um delivery kind of mechanism and the relationships that they built with their developers. There's a breakout right after this session in room at noon in Jasmine B so don't miss it and you can get more details from Josh and his team. Um OK. So those are some really again big lofty projects that you undertook to really transform your entire manufacturing process. Um So what's next like, what are you guys working on now? So as of right now, we're continuing to build out our manufacturing sites and working on developing um better and faster edge solutions uh to actually maintain infrastructure agility um and merge the software infrastructure with our operations and standard infrastructure in our facilities. You know, by looking to disrupt this technology stack, that's very traditional. Uh We're leveraging some of Pierre's amazing technologies. So that way we can build the scalable systems that help enable edge computing and us to actually operate at scale. So this flexibility allows us to create this um disaggregated architecture and really allows us to leverage both cloud on demand principles and then have it work seamlessly between on prem facilities and the cloud infrastructure. That's amazing. Um OK. So before I let you off the hook launched a lot of new features yesterday, a lot of new stuff. What are you excited about? What that that Pierre is talking about here at Accelerate. So what I'm really excited about uh Pier is uh some of the upgrades coming to port works and also uh learning more about the flash array systems and the amount of data that can actually be stored there and the speed at which you're storing that data. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, Josh, we are so happy that you are here with us today. I think you guys have really done some kind of revolutionary stuff and just thinking about again reimagining and applying that out of the box thinking to a fairly traditional manufacturing model. Um So, you know what you've heard here today is like agility and visibility and how you can really kind of compartmentalize um everything that you're doing across your manufacturing to get that speed. Um the importance of resiliency as you mentioned earlier and being able to kind of zero in on where the problem areas are. And I think my favorite is really again, redefining kind of those rules and standard rules and responsibilities between developers and it and cut down on that, you know, week and a half wait time to get um to get what they need to run the business. So not only are you increasing the output over all of the manufacturing process, but everything's moving faster and more flexibly through the entire tip to tail um operation. So thank you so much. For being here with us today. Um I hope you've enjoyed it. Um Before we let Josh go, it really is my pleasure to recognize all of you and your team's efforts that you've done um over the last few years. And I'm excited to announce that Vivian is pure, the pure storage cloud champion breakthrough award winner. So let's have a look at this. Rivian Automotive is disrupting the electric vehicle industry with its unique lineup of suvs and trucks. The company is dedicated to maximizing efficiency to get more adventurers on the road as quickly as possible with port works as its Kernes Data services platform, it is accelerated it development supporting 24 7 operations for critical business processes, unlocking greater speed scale and flexibility with port works. Developers can spin up new environments themselves in a fraction of the time required in the past. All of which translates to better, faster and safer experiences for drivers across the world. Congratulations to Rivian Automotive this year's pure storage cloud champion award winner, Congrats Josh and team and thank you again for being here.