We're definitely a midsize enterprise. We have around 3000 employees — slightly more now. We're expanding quickly and our sales are really beginning to increase. We've grown a lot and we have a very large data warehouse.
Fast data recovery for large scale datasets
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The Infiniguard (dedicated disc storage), offers a petabyte of storage space for on-site disc storage for backups. Because of this, we were able to get rid of our tapes. Essentially, it replaced our tape backups.
We're definitely going to be buying another INFINIDAT array. We do have another location that is going to be needing a new array sometime soon, so we'll be buying another one. The beautiful thing about them is that you can set them up to replicate for disaster recovery between the two of them and set up some nice replication jobs, site to site, for automatic database replication.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see more improvement in the GUI; for example, better graphs and statistics so that you have a better vision of what exactly you have stored.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great, we're very pleased with it. As I mentioned earlier, we're preparing to buy another INFINIDAT array, but we're not there yet with the cloud. We have a lot of plans in place, but we're not quite there yet. Overall, this solution has been very cost-effective for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a one petabyte device but you can buy it with as little storage as you want. We bought it with 350 terabytes and then a short while thereafter we went ahead and purchased the additional 650. So we own, if you will, the whole petabyte of its available storage.
How are customer service and technical support?
It's an Israeli company and its headquarters in the United States is located in the Boston area. I've actually been there and it's quite fancy and they treated us very well. If you open a ticket, let's say you make it a sev-one — something's really wrong; you'll get a call back right away with a dedicated support member. It's a pretty unique and nice setup. I like it a lot.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was incredibly easy. Regarding our setup, we're basically using 10 gig bonded connections to increase the speed. It was a really simple setup; the whole procedure took roughly 24 hours.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We bought five years of support with the initial purchase. In the future, our intent is to rotate these systems out: rotate the arrays and the InfiniGuard out after five years to rotate them with new ones. It's very similar to a virtual machine setup where you have the ability to move things, work on it, and then put it back in place.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We're a heavy Oracle shop and SQL as well. We needed some increased performance, but flash arrays can be pricey. We did a head-to-head comparison between Infinidat and Pure Storage; HP was involved as well, but we stopped the comparison after we compared it with Pure Storage because it was just as fast and it tested out very well. In the end, we found that the results were equal to Pure and even better in some cases.
What other advice do I have?
A one petabyte backup system is a good size for a mid-sized company. They're very flexible and you can chain them together so you can have them all work in sync. A one petabyte backup system is very suitable for a large enterprise as well.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
