The center for AC Milan’s fan engagement is its Media House. One of the club’s most important departments, it is spread across two different sites at AC Milan headquarters and the Milanello Sports Center, with responsibility for the development and delivery of all digital content. The department also fulfills a second and equally important role as the data repository for the club’s training facility — a vital component in data-driven AI initiatives.
“It’s clear to us that the future of football is aligned with technology and we want to utilize data and AI to be the best team possible,” says Bonomi, Information Technology Director for AC Milan.
Although Bonomi and Vita had a clear vision for enhancing the capabilities of the Media House, they faced challenges in making this a reality. An influx of staff over a three year period, together with a massive increase in content delivered through online, TV and social channels posed new challenges that needed to be overcome. And siloed working practices across the two sites further exacerbated the issues leading to latency and access speed complications and jeopardized their ability to instantly deliver content to the global fanbase.
Data storage was a central piece in the Media House’s technology challenges. The incumbent storage solution contributed to latency issues and needed to be upgraded. Following a comprehensive review of alternative solutions, Bonomi and Vita turned to the Pure Storage platform for its low latency capabilities, ease of use, agility and low TCO.
Bonomi explains that the decision to select the Pure Storage platform was based on multiple factors. “As a prerequisite, it’s very important to us that any technology vendor we work with aligns with our core values of excellence, elegance, teamwork and passion. Pure Storage ticked all of those boxes.”
Expanding on the technology drivers behind AC Milan’s purchasing choice, Bonomi adds, “Pure’s technology vision, together with their platform’s low latency capabilities, ease of setup and administration, and a subscription that includes everything, made a compelling case. Additionally, Pure’s focus on sustainability and the energy efficiency of the platform were very important to us as we needed a green solution. With Pure, we feel we’ve chosen the best storage solution available on the market at present.”