B&H Photo Chooses Violin Memory

Violin Memory, Inc., in all-flash storage platform solutions for primary storage and active workloads, announced that B&H Photo & Electronics Corp., a multi-billion dollar online electronics retailer with the largest independent photo and video store in the US and four-year Violin customer, has deployed the Violin’s Flash Storage Platform (FSP) 7700s and FSP 7300s.

The adoption of the FSP 7700s and 7300s were aimed at accelerating performance of the company’s major tier one applications that power its online sales orders and operations.

Based in New York, B&H Photo has grown from a single store in Manhattan, to being an electronics retailer that conducts the vast majority of its business online, shipping to customers anywhere in the world. As sales have accelerated, the company has faced persistent challenges in maintaining the performance levels of its tier one applications, including VMware, Oracle, Linux, Solaris, among others, used to process and track the vast volume of online orders from end user customers around the globe. Any error or disruption to their online sales orders could represent financial losses for the company, attributed to unprocessed or unfulfilled orders, as well as customer attrition.

A Violin customer of over four years, B&H Photo has deployed Violin storage arrays at various locations because Violin delivered fast and reliable flash storage solutions, with performance as the top criteria. Given B&H’s increasing storage demands, B&H again chose Violin Memory, this time deploying the FSP 7300 and FSP 7700. Violin arrays were selected because the systems met all of B&H’s requirements for performance, scalability, and reliability, thus enabling their tier one applications to run without disruption.

“Violin’s FSP has gone above and beyond our expectations for performance,” said Krishna Tangirala, CTO, B&H Photo. “Our business has boomed over the last four years, and we needed a storage solution with the capacity and power to keep pace with large spikes in orders. The biggest difference now is that we don’t hear complaints from our business units any more. We don’t have performance issues, and our customers are able to get exactly what they ordered and on time. That translates into repeat business, which in turn is important for the continued growth and expansion of our business. And that makes IT instrumental.“

“B&H Photo used its business acumen to drive its business growth and has continually pushed the limits of IT. Violin Memory is proud to be the storage solution provider supporting their rapid growth and in turn meeting the needs and expectations of their internal and external customers,” said Ebrahim Abbasi, COO, Violin Memory.