Wes began his career at a value-added reseller for one of the world’s largest data storage companies and has gone on to become experienced in all aspects of infrastructure design and implementation. He specializes in centralized storage, backups, and security.
More than half of U.S. adults< suffer from chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes. These diseases are leading causes of death and disability and a big factor in the country’s $3.5 trillion annual healthcare tab.
At Wellsource, we’re working to change those numbers. Our customers—health plans, healthcare providers, accountable care organizations, and brokers—use our health risk-assessment and reporting tools to identify and track the risk of chronic illness in their patient populations. The insights our tools provide make it possible to run truly effective wellness programs that keep people healthy.
IT Lethargy Impacts the User Experience
When I arrived at Wellsource, however, we had our own health to worry about. The challenge was in IT, and it was affecting our employees, our customers, and their plan participants. Lengthy login times. Slow page loads. Sluggish navigation. Unresponsive clicks. Performance got even worse at the beginning of each year when plan participants fill out their annual health assessments.
The diagnosis? An outsourced storage array had reached capacity, undermining performance on all our systems.
The cure, we decided, was to move to a hybrid cloud network with our own data center for U.S. customers and AWS data centers for customers in other parts of the world. But we had to make sure we chose the right platform. Data is integral to our business, so we couldn’t skimp on speed, capacity, or security. I had a strong opinion on the matter. Having begun my career at a value-added reseller for one of the world’s largest data storage companies, I know a thing or two about storage. And I had a great experience with Pure Storage® at another company. Long story short, I insisted that we use Pure Storage FlashArray™ to power our block storage architecture.
Putting FlashArray to Work Across the Business
When we brought our FlashArray online, I knew immediately it was the right decision. Almost instantly, the all-flash architecture boosted the stability, reliability, and speed of our applications.
For our customers, the difference is like night and day. No more lag time, no more unresponsive applications—even during periods of peak use. They can click through information, complete forms, and get vital information faster than ever before.
Internally, reporting jobs that previously took days can now be completed in hours. We now measure response time in microseconds instead of milliseconds—a thousand times faster. And when you deal with as much data as we do, those fractions of seconds really add up.
Driving Successful Business Outcomes
There’s a lot more I love about Pure. From a maintenance perspective, FlashArray’s stability and intuitive user interface make it easy for my small team to manage the system, with minimal training required. Pure is so efficient: We see cost savings of 30 to 40% per month compared to our previous, outsourced storage solution. And we don’t have to worry about backup, throughput, and downtime, so we can focus on higher-value activities such as network security.
Then, there’s the unmatched customer support. More often than not, Pure’s service team knows something is wrong before I do. Moreover, when we transitioned to working remotely earlier this year, Pure worked hard to bring near-production capabilities into our homes. They really went the extra mile, demonstrating flexibility I’ve not seen in other companies.
At the end of the day, it isn’t only about performance, cost, or simplicity. We have to keep in mind the health and wellness of millions of Americans too. The better we can serve our customers, the closer we are to fulfilling that mission. And Pure Storage is a big part of our success in that mission.
See how you can help drive success at your business with FlashArray.
