FEATURE : STORAGE dedicated to customer-focused services , the local infrastructure hosts all the company ’ s core services .
FlashStack serves as the base platform for Farmatodo ’ s business projects in Colombia and Venezuela . As such , the majority of the company ’ s critical business applications and infrastructure components are connected to the array , including VMware , Oracle VM , Oracle Financial and Retail , as well as point-of-sales and business intelligence systems . between Pure Storage and VMware enables us to process snapshots directly in the array : We ’ re now able to perform backups much faster – in just a matter of minutes – and with complete reliability and zero disruption to business operations ,” said Acosta .
Pérez added : “ Replication performance was one of the big reasons for selecting Pure Storage : It is one of the things that I admire the most . The ability of Pure FlashStack to record , replicate and compact data is just like magic .”
Implementation of the FlashStack , the Pure Storage and Cisco converged infrastructure solution was very efficient : “ The physical connection only took half of the morning . We just needed two UTP cables , a fiber cable and power cables . We were able to set-up , tune and be fully implemented in just two days . The simplicity was admirable ,” said Pérez .
“ FlashStack and VMware integration is practically out-of-the-box . With our Cisco UCS environment , all we had to do was attach FlashStack and it immediately started distributing volumes and performing the install . This type of plug-and-play capability was a very impressive experience for us all .”
Once installed , one of the top priorities was to run availability tests on the new array . Pérez said : “ We attempted to sabotage the Pure Storage platform by randomly deactivating cards and removing cables as if we were experiencing a series of real-life failures . The response was rock solid and completely transparent .”
Importantly , FlashStack solution delivered on Farmatodo ’ s requirement for improving Business Continuity across the company ’ s infrastructure .
The simplicity of managing the FlashStack system has saved the Farmatodo team a considerable amount of time over its previous storage solution .
“ Provisioning a standard Windows 2016 server with a 100 GB disk on the legacy platform could take up to 20-30 minutes . With Pure Storage , the same process takes just a few minutes . On top of this , we used to have to put new team members through extensive training before they were productive . For Pure Storage , I was able to learn everything in less than a week , including traditionally complex tasks like creating volumes and setting up backup routines ,” said Acosta .
FlashStack also delivered on Farmatodo ’ s goal of improving the efficiency of its data storage infrastructure . Overnight processing of sales and inventory data that used to take between 8 – 10 hours has dropped dramatically .
“ Data compression rates have been really impressive ; we ’ re seeing rates in the low teens for several of our boxes ,” stated Pérez . “ The Pure algorithms are continually optimizing , so the more data we add , the better results we get .” p
Joel Parra Pérez , Operations Systems Administration Coordinator
“ Architecting a Disaster Recovery and data replication strategy used to be extremely complicated because our previous platform depended on external tools , links and applications . With Pure Storage , everything is native ,” said Jaroslav Useche Acosta , Wintel System Administrator . “ We ’ ve been able to easily implement data recovery and replication between our Venezuela and Colombia sites , something we could never have done before .”
Speed , simplicity and worldclass support
The ability to perform frequent backups without impacting operational workloads has been another major benefit for Farmatodo .
WE ’ VE BEEN ABLE TO EASILY IMPLEMENT
DATA RECOVERY AND REPLICATION BETWEEN
OUR VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA SITES ,
SOMETHING WE COULD NEVER HAVE DONE BEFORE .
“ Previously , our machines would often die when attempting to take a backup snapshot . The plug-in
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