ZOZO Deploys Pure Storage Flash Arrays

TOKYO — ZOZO, which operates ZOZOTOWN, a fashion e-commerce site, deployed data solutions by the storage company Pure Storage. 

The deployment helped ensure the ZOZOTOWN website remains stable and able to handle the high traffic volumes generated by the rapid growth in e-commerce, particularly in the past two years of the pandemic, according to Pure Storage this month.

ZOZOTOWN offers an online catalog of over 830,000 items, with about 2,900 new items added every day. It sees a flow of traffic 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with an active registered customer base of close to 10 million. The e-commerce site required an IT infrastructure with high uptime and the flexibility to handle spikes during seasonal promotions.

The Pure Storage solutions deployed by ZOZO include the company’s flagship product, FlashArray//X. 

The arrays have been operating at a constant rate of 100,000 IOPs, according to Pure Storage. Pure’s integration with VMWare simplified ZOZO’s operation of their virtual machines. The Pure1 cloud-based management solution also aided in the operation and management of the IT system.

“Uptime and reliability are the lifeblood of e-commerce sites, especially for popular ones like ZOZOTOWN,” said Yoshiyuki Tanaka, president, Pure Storage Japan. “If their site goes down, ZOZOTOWN loses revenue.”

Nobuhiko Watanabe VP of technology division at ZOZO, said, “If we can’t provide enough uptime for seasonal sales, customer satisfaction will drop. Stable performance is extremely important for us.”