Intelligent Data Centres Issue 25 | Page 52

END USER INSIGHT information using some of the proprietary logic that the Pure team developed through the art of moving data from one frame to another , or one data centre to another . The snapped-base or stream replication modules that we worked with Pure on to test and validate was something that really changed our perspective .
How was the implementation process – did you encounter any challenges and , if so , how easily were they resolved ?
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all of our markets . So , going from 10,000 stores to 17,000 stores , not only are you consuming data on the store footprint , our supply chains begin to grow as well as how they deliver products to our stores and ensure that those products are being delivered . Moreover , as our store footprint and digital footprint grew , the consumer segment also grew in which we continue to inherit more attributes alongside our consumers . Ultimately , we went from having information about our delivery segments and to all of our segments as we continue to grow , so I ’ d like to say our data footprint on a scale of 0 – 10 was probably at a three and now we ’ re probably at a nine and continue growing . We ’ ve definitely experienced major change in terms of scale and data growth .
What key challenges were you looking to overcome ahead of selecting this solution ?
It was being able to process the information effectively . Growing up in the industry , one of the things that you ’ re accustomed to is that data resides on disk and then if data is as fast as your disk , the engineering was in those types
of solutions . I think it was a pivotal point into the technology stream where we realised as our solutions became more sought after from a consumer standpoint , our data backbone or storage backbone had to move just as quick . So , our key requirements when selecting the vendor were speed , reliability , resiliency and more importantly , the ability to move or replicate data not necessarily from a user standpoint , but from a data protection standpoint too . So in England , when doing our research , we found that using data in memory storage was something that would accommodate the speed , but more importantly , the engineering around moving data from location to location – the combination of the two was really what drew us to Pure .
Why did you ultimately decide to select this vendor and product ?
Speed was the first task – we needed to ensure that we had the capabilities to not only manage the data that we had coming out of our stores , but also manage our corporate data , manage our supply chain data and manage our e-commerce data . So , looking at those lines of business – we needed to be fast and reliable , but more importantly , I couldn ’ t be the person slowing down the momentum of our organisation so I wanted to make sure we had a strong foundation behind us to ensure other segments . But , specifically , what really transformed it for us wasn ’ t just the speed , it was the ability to replicate the
For us , it was very smooth . We partnered with Pure to do , first and foremost , a migration . We were migrating from one solution to another . As we were going through the migration , the team was really well organised in terms of how it wanted to approach it . We had to relay our visits and our concerns on it as we were still running a business at the time of the migration . I would say your normal migration pains are nothing out of the ordinary – scheduling , ensuring that applications can backup effectively when you do that migration , but more importantly , one of the challenges was trust . This is because we were moving from a solution in terms of a type of engineering that we ’ d lived with for years and years , and moving to a different type of footprint . We were very cautiously optimistic as we were going through the migration , but we decided to do a series of benchmark tests along the way to build that momentum and confidence when migrating from one to the other .
What training and support was provided to you both during and post-implementation ?
In terms of support , what I really value when working with Pure is that prior to COVID , the team was in our building every other week . The Pure engineering representative in our market and the salesperson in our market are part of my team , so what I really enjoy about that from a supportability standpoint is that we tend to be very innovative from an organisation standpoint and really challenge some of our technology partners along the way . We ’ ve been able to do that effectively with Pure and it has responded effectively , partly because
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