CASE STUDY
The Pure Storage FlashArray//M
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THE EFFECTIVE STORAGE, ANALYSIS
AND LEVERAGING OF DATA LEADS
DIRECTLY TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
IN PRACTICALLY EVERY INDUSTRY IN
THE WORLD.
M
ercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport
is the Formula One Team of
Mercedes-Benz, competing at the
pinnacle of motorsport – the FIA Formula
One World Championship.
Formula One is like nothing else in the
sporting sphere. It’s a demanding technical
and human challenge, combining cutting-
edge technologies and innovation, high-
performance management and elite
teamwork. During the course of a gruelling
calendar, which spans 21 countries in as
many Grand Prix events from March to
November, teams battle it out to be crowned
World Champions.
At Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport,
a team of nearly 1,500 passionate,
determined people work across two world-
class technology campuses, designing,
64
INTELLIGENTCIO
developing, manufacturing and racing the
cars and Hybrid Power Units driven by four-
time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, and
race-winning team-mate, Valtteri Bottas.
The team has set a new benchmark for F1
success during the sport’s current hybrid
era, winning the Constructors’ and Drivers’
World Championships in 2014, 2015, 2016
and 2017. During those four Championship-
winning seasons, the team has scored 63
wins, 122 podiums, 71 pole positions, 43
fastest laps and 35 one-two finishes from 79
race starts.
Data is the most critical asset a business
has. The effective storage, analysis
and leveraging of data leads directly to
competitive advantage in practically every
industry in the world. Mercedes-AMG
Petronas Motorsport adopted Pure Storage’s
FlashArray and FlashBlade technology for
this reason. FlashArray (70TB) sits trackside,
collecting data from 250+ sensors on the
car, meanwhile it uses FlashBlade (1.2PB) at
its R&D facility to assist with the design of
future cars.
To maintain the team’s record-setting pace,
technology is an important contributor to its
success and its impact is felt in all facets of
the operation, from design and prototyping,
manufacturing and testing, all the way to
trackside during a Grand Prix race. The team
has invested tens of millions of dollars in
state-of-the-art tools such as computer-
aided design and manufacturing (CAD/
CAM), visualisation and Driver-in-the-Loop
simulation at its headquarters in Brackley, UK.
Everyone on the team has a singular focus:
improving the performance of the two cars
they put on the track every two weeks during
the F1 season. Incremental improvement is
the goal. Shaving even a fraction of a second
off the time it takes a car to complete a lap
can mean the difference between winning
and losing.
The team races two cars a year and the
unique conditions of each Grand Prix circuit
requires that the cars be modified for each
race. “Some companies have a new-product
cycle of two or three years. For us, we put
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