Share your experience using DDN Storage Fusion Architecture NVMe

The primary benefit is that we only pay for what we use. That's one of the main things that attracted us. We didn't want to buy a lot of storage and not use it. So now we have a storage solution where we only buy what we use.

The next big positive thing about this solution is that every three years, we get new controllers with better CPUs, faster memory, and so on. So if the load goes up at our end, we get new hardware within the contract – no extra charge. The solution can handle it better within the price that we're currently paying.

Moreover, there is a night and day difference between Pure FlashArray's simplicity and management compared to our previous solution.

With this solution, you actually understand why they've chosen to do certain things. Of course, you might have to Google something or read the manual occasionally, but overall, it's very easy to work with. That's Pure Storage's half-day workshop. If you do this half-day, you understand how the product works.

Compared to Dell, you either have to go to Dell or take an online course for maybe five or ten days just to be able to work with the product. And that's horrible. Even then, it's very hard to work with. You have to have a huge knowledge of the Dell product to make sure you work with it correctly. 

Pure Storage has removed all the possibilities of doing things wrong. They make sure that when you do stuff, it's very hard to do anything wrong and very easy to do it right. That's their main focus.

There are two major advantages:

• One, it's easy to use and understand. You don't have to be an engineer or an expert to use this storage solution. That's the bad part of Dell PowerMAX. You have to go through very expensive education for one or two weeks and pay ten thousand dollars just to be able to use the product. 

With Pure Storage, you have a half-day workshop, and you know everything you need to know.

• And the second major thing is the price. That was actually why we had to change. If we wanted to change to the next solution from PowerMAX, it was going to cost us around 3.2 million dollars. This solution is maybe around 300K to purchase, and we pay around ten thousand dollars monthly over five years. So, in total, we are going to pay around 1.5 million dollars for the same time that we'd have to pay around 3 million dollars for Dell. It's half the price for the same amount of storage.

In fututre releases, some focus on anti-malware should be there. I understand this isn't something we expect from this product. But, if the product could recognize hackers, malware, viruses, and so on just by monitoring the storage, that would be awesome.   

I also understand that this is a storage solution, and they shouldn't be seeing what customers are using within the hardware. Still, it's something that could be useful.

We have been using it for exactly one year.

I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

It's exactly what we expected. We've had it for one year, and we sized it as we wanted to. While we did this, a couple of departments actually requested more storage than we anticipated. So, we had to increase our use of the storage, and that was very easy – we just gave the vendor a call and said that we wanted more storage. They unlocked it for us.

We are four people, and we may put in four hours total each week on this product. Maybe even less. So, one hour for each person each week. That's the most we work with this product in total.

We contact customer service and support all the time. Not because we have any issues but because we are growing. Right now, we have another FlashArray in our place that we are testing out – a POC that Pure Storage sent to us. 

So, we actually have another FlashArray X with us that we are testing out. In this testing phase, we need constant contact with them to change things, set things up, and do some more new work. 

We've had a lot of contact with their support in the last two weeks. They are very professional, fast, and easy to work with.

There was some miscommunication that I had to step into and correct. One of our guys tried to get some help with one specific thing regarding this POC, and they misunderstood him. I had to make sure that they understood each other. After that, everything was okay.

Positive

We considered getting an offer to upgrade our current PowerMAX to the next version. But, that version was very expensive. We knew what we were going to get, and we knew that we would have to send more people for training so they could understand the product.

We have some knowledge of other regions here in Sweden– other healthcare organizations and governments that are using PowerMAX and are satisfied with the product, even though it is very expensive. 

So, if we had a lot of money and people who could go to the training and learn everything, we probably would have stayed with PowerMAX. But because of the price, the enterprise-grade quality, and the ease of use, we wanted to change. We wanted to do something different. That's why we chose Pure Storage.

It is very easy to deploy, but it was easy to deploy for one reason – we requested help from the beginning. 

A Pure Storage engineer and one person from the people who actually sold this to us, those two people came over and did the installation of the hardware and the software and set everything up. That was a request from us when we bought it, so it wasn't something they just wanted to give us for free. But with that in mind, they did a very good job to set it up as expected.

It's a very good service. The product itself is very easy to use, having very high quality, and very high performance. 

It's an enterprise product to handle our load. So, if we are trying to slow it down, it doesn't slow down. It just delivers what we ask.

Overall, it's actually very easy for me to say because the product is easy to use, an enterprise product, and has a very good price. So, I would recommend using this solution. 

The vendor has a product that can support up to a hundred to a million users. However, this product is mainly for enterprise use, so it is better suited for large companies. 

I would rate it a ten out of ten because of everything I said: it has a good price, it's easy to use, and it's an enterprise product. 

It delivers what it's expected to deliver. 

We actually had a call with a healthcare system in Holland, and they have a larger version of what we bought. They said that it delivers exactly what it should and they haven't had any issues at all for a couple of years – and they have double our size. That's why I didn't hesitate to get the system.

The product is used in our company since we have implemented a proxy server for our organization from Hitachi. With Hitachi, my company has dealt with the planning, implementation, and migration of the products. The migration was done specifically from our company's site. Hitachi provided the planning and implementation plans, and the full implementation process was carried out with the help of Hitachi's partner.

The solution's most valuable feature is that it provides a secure gateway with SSL inspection. The tool also allows our company to control a user's internet access on a time-based or quota-based basis.

The complex setup phase is an area where improvements are needed.

I have been using Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform since 2016.

It is a scalable solution because our company initially implemented it for around 50,000 users, and now we plan to increase the number to around 200,000 users.

My company does plan to increase the use of the solution in the future.

The product's support might have some issues. Hitachi provides on-site support. My company deals with Hitachi's customer support and engineers, as these are the two types of people available for on-site support.

The product's initial setup phase is complex and complicated.

The solution can be deployed in six months because our company needs each and every implementation node and the report required for it. Implementing the tool takes around six months.

For the implementation process, my company first had to have a meeting with Hitachi, after which we were given a plan which was discussed in our organization's internal meeting. My company goes through the two or three types of installation proposals received from Hitachi, and then we finalize it so that the implementation process can be started. A person from Hitachi is physically available on-site during the implementation process.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. In 2016, when my company wanted to implement Forcepoint, we found that it was available only on the on-premises version and not in the cloud.

In our company, we only pay towards the licensing charges associated with Forcepoint, as Hitachi is considered to be a third-party product for us.

Speaking about how the tool streamlined our company's data access and storage processes, I would say that previously, we were using Microsoft Project. Hitachi later approached our company with a proxy solution consisting of software and hardware components, and after having a few meetings, Hitachi explained to us the features and benefits of a proxy solution. Hitachi then took the inputs from our managers and management while taking into consideration areas like how many users would be using it and what other existing solutions are used in the company, after which our company was provided with a proper plan for implementation. For implementation, two people from Hitachi's end were appointed at our location, and they worked with four people from our company.

The product's reliability has been crucial for our company's operations.

Hitachi has been really good since it provides proper documentation, which provides proper information about the solution. Hitachi's support team is also good.

The people provided by Hitachi for on-site support are very experienced and helpful since, knowledge-wise, they are the best.

The cost-effectiveness of the use of the tool in my company stems from the fact that even though there is another product in our company that we use with Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform when it comes to Hitachi, the support personnel has deep knowledge to solve any problem on-site.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.