Our Final Storage Project—Thanks to the End of Hardware Obsolescence

In this guest blog post, Dimitri André, Systems Engineer at la Métropole du Grand Nancy, talks about how Pure Storage helps his organization stay on top of digital transformation.

As a service provider to 20 communes and several public institutions across the Métropole du Grand Nancy, we support a diverse set of stakeholders, from government offices to town halls, and from museums to libraries. We provide IT services and applications to elected officials and agency employees, and we host citizen-facing services. Therefore, data storage has a direct impact on the reliability, speed, and security of services we offer. 

With our existing arrays having reached end of life, we looked for a new solution to support our ongoing digital transformation. We were searching for something that would give us maximum flexibility and speed of response because there are always new requirements on the horizon. 

We also wanted to cut the time involved in maintaining our storage. Previously, it took several weeks to prepare for and execute updates in the environment. And because of that, we couldn’t update as frequently as we wanted to for information security purposes.

Availability, Performance, Easy Updates

By choosing Pure Storage® FlashArray™ with an Evergreen//Forever™ subscription, we got the high availability and performance we needed, together with unlimited support and non-disruptive hardware and software updates managed by Pure Storage themselves. The longevity of the contract, which includes all hardware updates throughout the duration of our subscription, was another point that tipped the balance towards Pure Storage.  

Round-the-clock Uptime

Beyond the time savings, one of the main advantages lies in the significant increase in frequency of updates. Last year, we were able to apply four major updates, all without the slightest interruption in live services or impact on users. That quite simply would have been impossible in our previous environment.  

And with Pure Storage technology enabling us to perform software updates without halting services, we no longer need to warn users about upcoming maintenance—the work is completely transparent from their perspective. Given that we support an ever-growing number of critical applications (for example, reservation and ticketing systems), service continuity has become an imperative. Indeed, it’s vital for our reputation as a reliable and high-performing service provider. 

Security, Efficiency, Longevity

We have Pure Storage SafeMode™ functionality enabled across both arrays, which means that the system automatically creates immutable snapshots. Thankfully, we’ve not had to rely on SafeMode so far, but it’s reassuring that we could restart from an uncorrupted copy of data if we suffered a ransomware attack.

We adopted the Pure Storage solution almost three years ago, and it continues to fully meet our expectations. Several factors confirm the validity of that decision: Our two arrays are running at 100% availability, we’re making energy savings of approximately 65MWh per year, and system administration has become much easier. 

Moreover, on the rare occasions when we’ve needed outside assistance, we’ve been able to count on responsive and competent technical support.

The savings in time and effort mean that we can focus our IT resources on delivering new and enhanced digital services. In addition, the Evergreen//Forever model makes this a perennial solution that will evolve over time without the high cost, risk, and effort of replacing the hardware completely. Given the diverse nature of the organizations we serve, we can never be sure about what challenges the future will hold. With Pure Storage, we have a solution that will adapt seamlessly and non-disruptively to whatever tomorrow brings.