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Case Study • • 2 minute read

ATC Lab Services Helps Bank Compare Flash Storage Solutions

ATC Lab Services designs, builds and executes proof of concept and product comparison between five different all-flash block storage solutions

In this case study

  1. Challenge
  2. Use cases tested in the ATC

 Challenge

A large national bank wanted to thoroughly test a next-generation all-flash storage array before making an investment. Even more important to the bank was the time frame attached to the initiative. There was no feasible way for the bank to test five different solutions in proposed time period on its own. Moreover, it would have been a logistical nightmare for the bank to manage five different vendors in a product or solution comparison.

They chose to work with WWT's Advanced Technology Center (ATC) Lab Services team because of the breadth and depth of testing capabilities we offer. We're also experts in Flash Lab assessments.

 Use cases tested in the ATC

The bank, in the process of a budgeted storage refresh initiative, was specifically focused on testing out all-flash arrays from five different OEMs. The bank's IT department was tasked by Executive Management to make sure any platform being purchased and put into production would represent the best choice for their overall application use cases leveraged inside the bank.

Technical use cases

The bank's technical use cases included:

  • Ability to integrate with Dell EMC ViPR SRM.
  • Ability to integrate with Dell EMC ViPR Controller.
  • Performance testing using synthetic load generation of common workloads.
  • Configuration and provisioning testing.
  • Resiliency testing.
  • Local replication.
  • SRM report accuracy.

Devices under test

The five different OEM solutions tested included:

  • Infinidat F6260
  • HPE 3Par 9450
  • NetApp A700
  • Pure X70
  • Dell EMC XtremIO X3

Testing tools

The testing tools used included:

  • VDBENCH
  • Graphite/Grafana
  • Ansible Tower
  • ViPR Controller
  • ViPR SRM
ATC Flash Lab diagram

ATC Flash Lab diagram

 Conclusion

By leveraging the ATC, the bank accessed lab testing program featuring dedicated architects, engineers, project managers, test tools and proven process to accomplish the needed evaluations in an accelerated time frame.

Our Lab Services team also managed the logistics of working with each of the five vendors separately through all phases of the lab.

The bank was able to thoroughly test and compare five competing next-gen all-flash storage arrays before making an investment based on the one that best met their use cases.

Technologies