Andra, the French agency responsible for managing radioactive waste, significantly reduced power and cooling costs by 20% through an upgrade that involved replacing HPE 3PAR arrays with Pure Storage FlashArray hardware. The upgrade was purchased over a 10-year period with non-disruptive controller upgrades.
The decision to switch from 3PAR arrays was driven by issues such as replication integrity between arrays and a difficult user interface. After the 3PAR arrays went out of support in 2018, Andra evaluated different suppliers and ultimately chose Pure Storage due to its user-friendly interface and impressive performance during demonstrations.
Pure Storage’s superior performance numbers and data reduction ratios impressed Andra’s team. Additionally, Pure Storage offered a unique commercial proposition, allowing for controller replacements over 10 years rather than requiring a full array replacement every five years.
The migration from 3PAR to Pure Storage went smoothly, with the new hardware providing increased capacity and energy efficiency. Pure Storage’s FlashArray also proved to be more resilient, allowing for continued operations even when power was cut.
Moving forward, Andra plans to replace HPE arrays at radioactive waste sites with Pure Storage hardware. While Pure Storage arrays may be oversized for these sites, Tardy is confident in the benefits they will bring to the organization.