Telecom service providers have long been at the forefront of network engineering. They bravely go where other companies are afraid to go, opening up new possibilities for how networks can bring real value to real people. And they’ve been doing this for decades, long before computer technology even existed.
At the same time, decades-long forward thinking has also resulted in a vast accumulation of legacy data center gear, storage included. While telcos were early adopters of all-flash storage for telecom network build-outs and latency-sensitive workloads like databases, a lot of workloads still run on hybrid or spinning-disk systems. Given the multi-petabyte size of these disk estates, it hasn’t been financially feasible to convert them to flash. Until now.
With the Pure//E™ Family of capacity- and cost-optimized all-flash arrays, telcos can finally say goodbye to disk once and for all. Pure//E arrays can be acquired at a price point equivalent to disk, and the benefits compared to disk are too big to ignore:
- Fewer components and no moving parts equals 20 times the reliability. That means no more days spent replacing disk drives. If you have a weekly or monthly “disk replacement day” on your IT schedule, we need to talk!
- About 80% less data center space and power consumption per terabyte and 85% less e-waste. These are shocking numbers, but they are real. By moving to Pure, telcos can not only make big strides in meeting emissions and e-waste goals, but they can also free up huge amounts of rack space for newer, compute-intensive workloads like AI and HPC. You can read more about how UK telecom Virgin Media O2 reduced their power consumption by 96%.
- Non-disruptive capacity upgrades give you back your weekends and, more importantly, keep systems online.
There are other advantages you can review in our solution brief, “The Pure//E Family for Telecom.” And Pure//E arrays use the same operating system and management model as our performance-focused arrays, meaning you can deploy the exact same management framework.
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The Past, Present, and Future of the Telecom Cloud
What are some of the service provider workloads that you might think about for Pure//E arrays?
- Cold tier analytics data. While Pure Storage® FlashBlade//S™ is an ideal platform for high-performance analytics needs, a good deal of analytics data doesn’t need to be accessed frequently. This so-called “cold tier” of data is ideally supported by FlashBlade//E™. Examples include Splunk Classic cold tier, Splunk SmartStore cold tier, and Elastic cold or frozen tier.
- CDRs and billing records. Call detail records (CDRs) and billing data are crucial for telecommunications companies. Without them, revenue cannot be generated. There are also varying state and federal requirements for maintaining records of calls, text messages (SMS data), tower location data, per-call measurement data, and more. Retention requirements can range from days to years. Most of this data is stored on spinning disks and can now be easily and cost-effectively migrated to Pure//E systems.
- Video surveillance. There is a large opportunity for telcos to sell AI-powered video services in the B2B market. Businesses are looking for AI capabilities that deliver innovative services like facial recognition and threat detection, smart notifications, people/visitor counting, smoke and fire detection, and more. Telcos are ideally suited for these offerings because they understand how to build networks at scale and combine multiple technologies into marketable solutions. Behind every surveillance platform is a storage solution. Pure//E arrays are ideal for high-density storage; they also provide the performance needed to run analytics on video streams.
Check out the solution brief for additional use cases, such as backup, customer care recordings, and database object repositories.
If you’d like to learn more, watch our webinar, “Re-inventing Telecom Data Centers with the Pure//E Family.”
Accelerate Telco Transformation
Whether you’re trying to cut costs, deliver standout customer experiences, or increase sustainability, accelerating telecom network innovation is refreshingly simple with Pure Storage.
