Case Study
Reynaers
Proact introduces user-friendly storage architecture to fuel growth
Share now
Industry
Solution provided
Challenge
It had become obvious that Reynaers’ existing storage system had limited capabilities when it came to expansion. That’s why the company approached Proact to see how it could eliminate its capacity challenges.
“Our existing system simply didn’t have enough disk space and possibilities for expansion were very limited,” said Reynaers’ ICT Infrastructure Manager, Patrick Elsen. “Our system was also complex and had a lot of components and options that we didn’t have enough knowledge about. We kept having to use external consultants to help us which made the system less and less cost effective and no easier to use.”
As this maintenance contract was due to expire in 2019, Reynaers decided to replace its system with a new, more user-friendly platform that would better support the company with its storage requirements.
Proact has provided excellent advice and support to help us select and install the Pure Storage all-flash system. We now have total peace of mind.
How we helped
Proact advised Reynaers that a Pure Storage ActiveCluster, an all-flash system that supports active-active synchronous mirroring for high availability, would be a great fit for the firm’s needs. Even though there were no reference of such a solution working in Belgium at the time Reynaers took Proact’s advice and selected the Pure Storage platform with confidence.
Elsen said: “We’d had really good results working with Proact on other projects so we trusted what their consultants had to say.. In addition, the price was very competitive for an all-flash set up, even when we took into account the large discounts other providers were offering. Because Proact offered us a Proof of Concept (POC), we could get things started quickly.”
Thanks to its familiarity with Reynaers’ IT infrastructure and requirements, Proact was able to install the Pure Storage ActiveCluster system very quickly, using ‘plug-and-play’ rules. This enabled the IT department to connect to the new platform in just a couple of hours of the POC being developed. The POC only lasted three weeks, not because Reynaers was unhappy with the product — quite the contrary. It fully delivered what the company expected.
“Everything is running really well following the Proof of Concept, both in financial and operational terms,” said Elsen. “And Proact has played a critical role in this success. It handled all technical issues with Pure Storage and supported us with the POC. We now have a platform in place that is easy-to-use, scalable, reliable and very cost effective, as it hardly needs managing by us. For issues we can always rely on Pure Storage and Proact.”
Benefits
- Modern storage platform cost model
Full control over storage process - Excellent compression and deduplication
System compresses 10 GB to 2.63 GB - No more capacity issues
Flexible and expendable all- flash system