Pure Storage//Russia 2018: time of new requirements

Plenary part

Maxim Zubarev, the chief representative of Pure Storage in Russia / CIS and the Baltic States reminded participants of the Forum of gold-rush times in the history of the USA and the most successful gold miner - Thomas Francis Walsh. According to the speaker in world history there came the period of "digital fever" now, and success secret - in methodical approach to case based on modern technologies. Cars with an auto pilot, robots police officers, pilotless air taxi – all this will become a reality already in the near future, Maxim Zubarev reminded, having emphasized that all this is based on artificial intelligence and high-speed data processing which amount will grow at the increasing rates. The speaker estimated the size of "the digital Universe" by 2020, according to IDC, at the 50th zettabyte, and by 2025 – at the 180th zettabyte.

Maxim Zubarev

Modern business – digital, Maxim Zubarev noted, it is based on technologies and data processing. The economy in general moves high personalisation of customer service at the new level when desires of the client are foreseen. And all this is based on digital transformation, on ability to store data and to work with them. At the same time, according to the international survey of 9000 IT heads conducted by Pure Storage, 60% of respondents consider the main obstacle in a way of digital transformation – DWH.

Maxim Zubarev reminded that recently Gartner entered new category for platforms of data storage – "uniform DWH with the accelerated access" (engl. "Shared Accelerated Storage"). New approach allows to separate calculations and data storage, having avoided at the same time losses in speed at the expense of networks with the protocol of mass parallel access. DWH of new type become a basis of new architecture – datacentrichny which is designed to simplify work of all productive systems at the expense of consolidation opportunities for fast 100% of NVMe arrays and high reliability at the level of six nine (99.9999%) with upgradeability without stopping of their work and degradation performance. The second appointment of uniform DWH with the accelerated access – to promote the accelerated development of the innovation software due to the maximum simplification, integration with container environments, multiklaudy and, the main thing – providing developers with complete self-service regarding selection and use of resources of storage. And the third function – analytics of new generation based on artificial intelligence due to departure from the lakes of data accepted at the moment and the isolation called for data storage, for approach by the principle "date a hub" for data exchange.

Everything told belongs directly to Pure Storage product line, the speaker emphasized, having reminded in conclusion that the company the innovations sets the tone for all industry, so for example, began history with deduplication and compression for a flash arrays, created the first-ever object-oriented DWH on solid state drives, the NVMe-array first completely, as led the company to long-term leadership, according to Gartner.

Vystupivshy then James Petter, the vice president of Pure Storage for EMEA region, stopped on a success story of the company, technologies of the future, trends of the market of DWH.

The speaker reminded that in $1 billion the company came to turnover for the sixth year of release of the first product – for the first time in the history of high technologies and b2b of the companies. This fast take-off, according to him, is based on advanced technologies, care of the client (the index of recommendations of clients of NPS at the level of 86.6% - has only 1% of the best companies in a b2b segment in the world) and the correct model of business.

In the region the EMEA company for the last three years showed the best growth among vendors – DWH producers, James Petter noted. As for technologies, the future behind datacentrichny architecture based on uniform DWH with the accelerated access to which products of the new Pure Storage FlashArray//X family belong.

In a new product line, the speaker told, five modifications of an array -//X10,//X20,//X50,//X70 and flagman FlashArray//X90 whose performance more than twice exceeds DWH of FlashArray//M enter. What is characteristic - such large increase of performance did not lead to the sharp growth of cost of an array as it is accepted in the market for the innovative technologies. In conclusion of the report the speaker stated growth in sales of solid-state DWH in Russia for 14.1% and simultaneous sales reduction of mechanical disks for 15%.

In more detail Alexey Averin, the technical director of Pure Storage in Russia, the CIS and the Baltic States told about a new product line of Pure Storage. The speaker officially announced new arrays//X and also told about processing to which the previous product line – updating of processors, alteration of the internal bus for the purpose of achievement of the maximum capacity and some other improvements underwent. The speaker dwelt upon a flagship product of a new line of FlashArray//X90 - the fastest array on solid state drives in Pure Storage product line with a high density of placement, and it is possible, and in the market of DWH, in general. It became possible in view of architecture of 100% of NVMe, besides, also the software functionality was significantly upgraded – mechanisms of deduplication and compression are improved, the operating system is optimized.

Alexey Averin

Separately Alexey Averin stopped also on questions of cost of terabyte of data on new arrays, having emphasized that it is as close as possible to the cost of storage of terabyte of data on arrays of the previous line. It, according to the speaker, gives the chance to use a flash DWH not only under the most critical productive systems as it was accepted until recently, but also for the solution of any routine tasks, including preserving of backup copies. Backward compatibility of arrays – a question to which much attention is paid too, the speaker emphasized. Having concerned technical parts, he noticed that the company does own NVMe-modules that allows not to hold a big reserve of chips. In respect of architecture arrays of Pure Storage differ from other producers in modular design. In the platform special controllers without RAM in which data of users could be stored work. It gives the chance to pull out any controller from an array, replacing it with the new controller without stopping of system operation.

Alexey Averin also told about a cloud service of technical support of Pure1 and also the mobile application allowing to monitor remotely a situation and the instrument of tracking of the place of unloading of data, including – in virtual environment, the hardware-software solution FlashBlade.

Alexander Kuzmin, the senior consultant for Pure Storage technologies, noted that the company has a huge number of customers worldwide, in the most different industries. Clients of Pure Storage are, including such giants as professional social network LinkedIn, Nielsen research company, the supplier of cloud services of Paylocity.

All main services for information search from LinkedIn company are implemented on Pure Storage, average compression from 5 to 20, test environments are created within several minutes. Time for preparation of reports on the conducted researches by Nielsen company as a result of the implementing solutions Pure Storage was reduced from several days to hours, the space occupied by the equipment is much reduced – the quantity of cabinets decreased 50 to 5, economy on support and upgrades of infrastructure is reached. The provider of financial services from a cloud of Paylocity received acceleration of work of key applications to 8 times, brought the user experience to new level, data compression is implemented at the level of 4:1.

Colin Gallagkher, the head of department of convergent infrastructure of Pure Storage, listed requirements to which modern DWH should answer: autonomy which means more than the fact that a system differs in simplicity, no she does not demand any efforts at operation and even implementation; the efficiency meaning including, profitability of the solution at the expense of high coefficients of deduplication and compression, "vechnozelenost" (engl. Evergreen) – storage system is bought once, and then is only updated without restriction on the term of use or opportunities of upgrade, literally eternally.

The autonomy begins with reliability, the speaker and as this indicator means 31.5 seconds a year for 99.9999%, the Pure Storage systems are projected and created proceeding from the assumption that scheduled downtimes will not be at all noted. At the same time the array should be the smart (smart) capable to independently decide what resources under each application need to be selected. For the purpose of ensuring efficiency with the company own DirectFlash Software technology in most of which important – complete parallelism, 100% of NVMe, without additional protocols was developed that led to increase in efficiency and the best use of capacity. The model of business Evergreen which technology basis – full compatibility of arrays, starting with the very first generation is responsible for "vechnozelenost".

The first results of Pure Storage in the Russian market

In the Russian market literally in a year the company already has several tens of implementations on several petabyte. It was told about some of the Russian implementations to participants of the Forum during the panel discussion in which also the Russian clients of the company – representatives of the oil and gas and financial industries participated. At the beginning of the discussion its participants noted that they a flash DWH de facto became the priority direction of market development, and the solutions Pure Storage, taking the leading positions in the world, give confidence in technology and producer, in general, and to the Russian clients.

Maxim Zubarev noted that he in the technology relation of DWH of Pure Storage is a real alternative to everything that is presented at the market of corporate DWH. According to him, it "bulletproof arrays" on reliability with high coefficient of deduplication and compression, not influencing performance, and total absence of incidents from the moment of installation of the first systems in Russia. The second important component of success – financial stability of Pure Storage as the companies whose capitalization (at the moment 6.35 billion dollars of the USA) grows quicker, than sales that indicates trust to the company from world financial markets. Regarding the organization of work with clients, all clients are connected to a service cloud of Pure1, implementation and technical support are performed by the companies – focal partners. The command of the Russian representative office is focused on interaction with them and informing the market.

Ilya Karin, the head of department of IT infrastructure of Enterprise of a Production and Technology Complete Set (EPTCS) LLC, noted that the main plus for benefit of the equipment from Pure Storage working in its organization already it is more than a year, unlike other solutions, there was a lack of need for studying of difficult engineering documentation because the equipment differs in intuitive simplicity, and the situation when "everything works", in principle, does not require any efforts at operation. Besides the stock of system performance is so high that development and software testing considerably accelerated without damage to a produktiv.

The architect on IT infrastructure of Bistrodengi company Vladimir Savostyanov noted reliability among the main advantages of the solution of DWH of Pure Storage – "connected and forgot", he noted. Vladimir Savostyanov also told about incentive motives of transition to new DWH: it became at some point obvious that the next upgrade of DWH is too expensive and it is inexpedient as for the same money in the market it is possible to find a new solution. After Pure Storage implementation, the representative of the Russian business noted, the budget on upgrade of the solution for the first time was not required.

Alexander Letunovsky, the deputy head of department operation of IT infrastructure of SK "VTB Insurance", confirmed the increasing orientation of business to solid state drives. Accumulation of performance based on mechanical disks leads to emergence of excessive volumes, and without receiving necessary increment of performance, he noted. Implementation a flash DWH allows to reach predictability of a response of DWH to requests of applications, decrease in time of reaction, reduction of a delay time of input-output. The choice for benefit of Pure Storage FlashArray//M50 was made after the weighed analysis and testing of several solutions of different vendors. A system is successfully operated eight months and today the majority of the productive systems works at it. In conclusion Alexander Letunovsky told that the array is very easy-to-work, even additional training of specialists at vendor was not required.

The making leaderships

During the action the press conference in which the vice president of the region of EMEA Pure Storage James Petter, the area director on emerging markets of Pure Storage Christian Putts, the chief representative of the company in Russia / CIS and the Baltic States Maxim Zubarev participated was held.

James Petter noted that Pure Storage technologies are under construction around data, but not around containers where they are stored, allowing clients to build datacentrichny architecture. Differences of Pure Storage from all others are rather obvious. They are four. The first is a business model of Evergreen which allows to prolong lifecycle of operation of DWH many times and to reach economy of TSO to 61% in comparison with the known alternatives. The second is the our increased customer focus, validirovanny the index of recommendations of clients of NPS which makes 86.6% at the moment and puts Pure Storage on #1 the place among the recommended technology companies in the world. The third – the innovation of Pure technologies which is repeatedly confirmed with analysts of the industry so in a magic quadrant of Gartner to solid-state arrays of Pure is in the lead 5 years in a row, overtaking other participants of a running on both axes of coordinates. Among other important components of success of the company – culture, our employees are impregnated with orange mood and carry him everywhere anywhere.

Christian Putts noted that the modern world consists of data which are generated not only by people, but also machines. And these data are not provided a certain classical model for a long time therefore to collect and analyze information, to receive important data – a difficult task with which solution Evergreen business model helps, in particular. And further the speaker stopped on a new product family of FlashArray//X company, having noted that historically main problem a flash DWH – the price. In December of last year Pure Storage released the array on solid state drives on NVMe technology not much more differing at the price from products of the previous generation of DWH, having removed thereby sharpness of a problem. Christian Putts told also about the solution AIRI created based on Pure Storage FlashBlade and cloud software from NVIDIA. It is the hardware-software platform for implementation and use of artificial intelligence doing large-scale projects in the field of AI simple and available to each company.

Maxim Zubarev stopped on achievements of the company in the Russian market. He stated several tens of implementations of Pure Storage on several petabyte, having called some of the companies in the financial sector: "VTB Insurance", "Ingosstrakh", Bistrodengi. Focal partners of Pure Storage in Russia – "I-Teco", Open systems and "Jet Infosystems". In respect of technical support to the Russian clients two podpisochny software packages are offered to updating of controllers - Evergreen Silver, the predpolagyushchy fixed cost of support on the purchased configuration without restrictions on term with a possibility of upgrade of an array further in any its part and also Evergreen Gold which in addition to Silver provides to the client security blanket of investments at the expense of the replacement of controllers of times included in cost in three years, offset of cost of controllers or capacity on an upgrade case in the senior model or consolidations of capacity while the client prolongs support, also without restrictions on term.

Quotes of experts of Pure Storage

Maxim Zubarev, the chief representative of Pure Storage in Russia / CIS and the Baltic States:

What is the most valuable resource today? How it is better to get it? How to become same successful how Thomas Walsh? Today time of new requirements – time of digital fever when the most valuable resource are not gold or oil, and data. The largest companies of the world – Apple, Facebook, Microsoft – all this the companies which work with data. When we speak about success of the person today, all question comes down to how to become the master of data.

James Petter, vice president, region of EMEA, Pure Storage:

The Pure Storage companies keeping success – disruptive software and continuous innovations.

Alexey Averin, the technical director of Pure Storage in Russia / CIS and the Baltic States:

From the first day we understood that arrays are not only the speed, reliability and fault tolerance, it also the whole set of services which should be initial in the platform. Therefore we also started the operating system capable to work at x86 to the platform and to adapt under new realities. Then deduplication and a compression were started – it was the array, the first in the market, with such services. Pure is the engineering company. Our engineers provide backward compatibility of solutions, up to the very first array. It means that you can pass to the new line announced by us today even from our very first array purchased a few years ago. Without stopping system operations, any degradation and data migration.

Alexander Kuzmin, senior consultant for Pure Storage technologies:

We know, as in Russia there are large companies using the innovative technologies including based on artificial intelligence – Yandex, Mail.ru, Avito. On the example of our global clients from the technology sphere the Pure Storage company expects in the long term cooperation and with the Russian innovators, proposing solutions with reliability of 99.9999%.

Colin Gallagkher, head of department of convergent infrastructure of Pure Storage:

The most important – we should be able to use the most different technologies of data storage appearing in the market. Any DWH should be ready to technologies of the future. From here and a priority of NVMe-technology which we make available to all systems and processes. We want that clients received the best from storage system on each timepoint.

Interview with the expert VTB Insurance

Alexander Letunovsky, the deputy head of department of operation and development of infrastructure "VTB Insurance", told about use in the company of the solutions Pure Storage.

Alexander Letunovsky