What is our primary use case?
It's primarily for virtual machines as our primary storage.
How has it helped my organization?
The main thing is that if there's an issue, Pure Storage checks it in the background before we even notice. That's one of the main reasons we use Pure Storage because there could be some issues, but they work on it remotely right away.
Benefits of data reduction technology:
All the virtual servers we have are seeing high data reduction. Because of that, we don't need as much hardware to run a lot of virtual machines on a very small footprint. We have a high compression rate, or DPU.
But we also have some special data that can't be compressed, which skews our numbers. We still have good numbers if we exclude that data, and we knew that from the beginning, so it's not an issue. It's just not giving us the best numbers possible.
What is most valuable?
There is a feature called snapshots. We put snapshots on disks, and we can save information. In the case of ransomware, everything is in the snapshot. We have a snapshot lock on it, so it's safe.
We actually send this information to another city, saving all the information a couple of times each day to Pure Storage. This is something that everyone should do, like banks. They have the Pure Storage solution, and each hour, they should send all the information they have to a second, third, or fourth storage in another city to ensure they have the storage backed up.
I invented a possible way to ensure Pure Storage could help customers in the future, and we implemented this solution with their technology. I know their engineers are talking to other banks in the northern region to see if they want to implement the same thing. Pure Storage had the technology already, but no one tested it the way I wanted to, and it worked fine. We have primary storage that is fast and secondary storage that is slow, but the replication links are very fast. We can replicate a lot of storage in a short time to a different city and reverse the storage when needed, just for disaster recovery. Pure Storage is now telling customers they can do it this way, and it's awesome.
Interface and Ease of Use:
Ease of use is one of the main reasons we use Pure Storage. Dell PowerMAX's usage is hard. You have to go through long and hard training just to learn how to use it. Here, you connect with a Zoom or Teams meeting, and they guide you through what you need to do. They don't just show you; we, as customers, have to do it ourselves with their guidance.
They provide a workshop, tell us what to do, and we do it. By doing this repeatedly, we learn and can handle everything that's needed. We've implemented new features or solutions, working with storage engineers to ensure it all works. It's that easy to work with.
What needs improvement?
Our main concern is the support with Pure Storage because we need it to be online 24/7.
It would be nice to have support in Swedish. We have a Swedish engineer we contact weekly, but for support, it's English-speaking. It's not an issue, but if our engineer is busy, it could be easier to have Swedish support. It's not a requirement, just nice to have.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Pure Storage Evergreen since last year. We offer the model //X70 R4.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. We did a lot of research beforehand and knew what we were getting.
One of the main things for us is that we went from a bad solution to one that is both scalable and allows us to stay within the existing hardware. With the small footprint we have today, we can increase hard drives or exchange motherboards to meet our needs.
If we need more disk space, we can do it in two ways.
- The first is to exchange the current disks for larger ones, one at a time, and do it in a slow way, which might take a long time.
- The second is that Pure Storage offers a solution where they bring a large disk array, move all the storage over to it, put new disks in the first array, and move the data back with no downtime. Then, we can either remove the secondary array or keep it and fill it with the disks we need.
This is very nice for us because we know we can grow when needed without having to buy everything new, like in our last environment.
Scalability and long-term strategies:
We have very good quarterly check-ins with Pure Storage employees. They recommend whether we need to increase or stay as is. We have a good relationship with them, and if we need to increase and buy more, they come with recommendations.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are awesome. They know what we need. Even if we ask dumb questions sometimes, we still get good answers. They know their product well. We communicate in English, which could lead to misunderstandings, but we haven't had that issue yet.
It would be nice to have support in Swedish. We have a Swedish engineer we contact weekly, but for support, it's English-speaking. It's not an issue, but if our engineer is busy, it could be easier to have Swedish support. It's not a requirement, just nice to have.
How would you rate customer service and support?
What was our ROI?
One main thing is that we now have an overview of our storage and usage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is very good. I can only compare it to Dell PowerMax, and it's half the price. We get the technology for everyday use, and everyone can learn it for half the price with the same or better performance than PowerMax.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it to others. This is not a bot, but you have to know what you need before you buy it. If you don't know what you need, you're probably not going to get what you need.
We did a lot of thinking, thoughts, and calculations to ensure we got what we needed before we bought it. For instance, if you think you need 200 terabytes of disks and in two weeks you outgrow it, then you have to go back to Pure Storage and say, "Hey, we need more." They will say, "Of course, wait a couple of days, and we'll tell you more, but it will cost this much." However, that's no different from other companies.
When we bought the Evergreen, we bought it based on what we use each month. If you overuse it, it's going to cost a lot more until you change the contract to reflect your actual needs. We thought about this a lot before we committed, and we have a monthly cost we're very, very happy with.
I wouldn't recommend it to small companies. However, small companies can also use this product because they don't need all the horsepower that we got. They have smaller solutions, which are going to be a lot cheaper. So, for every company that needs a storage solution that can be attached to virtual servers or large storage solutions, Pure Storage can deliver it.
It is not for companies that don't need scalable hardware. If they don't need it and just need one server with direct attach hard drives, they don't need this solution. If they need a NAS or a SAN solution, Pure Storage is probably going to be one of the best products on the market for the price.
Overall rating:
We get the speed that we calculated and wanted. I would rate it a ten on ten. We spent a couple of months to compare pros and cons with Pure Storage, HPE, Siemens, Dell, and so on.
Within the overall, I also include how to use it. The maintenance of the product and sharing out space to the system is much easier and takes less work time today than before. We used to have two people handling the storage for at least sixteen hours a week, two guys, eight hours per person each week.
Now, we have three guys taking out the hardware when needed, but we don't spend much time on it, maybe thirty minutes total for all three guys each week. We've gone from sixteen hours to a maximum of half an hour a week to maintain the hardware.
That's why we can easily recommend this product to anyone in need of this kind of storage.
