Hitachi Data Systems announces HiCommand 2.0

According to Shoden Data Systems, the local distributor of Hitachi Data Systems, the vendor has taken the next step toward seamless enterprise-wide storage management with the announcement of HiCommand 2.0.

The latest version of its storage management framework integrates with the Sun StorEdge Resource Manager software and adds Sun StorEdge T3 arrays to its portfolio of managed storage systems.

"With these enhancements to HiCommand, storage administrators can now not only manage multiple vendor storage systems, but can also monitor, analyse, and maximise resource utilisation from a single console," comments Fanie van Rensburg, MD of Shoden Data Systems.

"Customers tell us that management costs are increasing rapidly as storage environments become ever more heterogeneous and complex," adds Robert Watson, vice-president International Business Division, Hitachi Data Systems. "HiCommand 2.0 delivers business benefits by supporting Hitachi and Sun storage families and making it easier to manage and optimise enormous amounts of data storage. These new capabilities further lower total cost of ownership."

An integrated "link and launch" feature allows administrators with both HiCommand and the Sun StorEdge Resource Manager to easily move across storage management software for a full view of their storage resources. Sun StorEdge Resource Manager software provides simple reports of the logical and physical attributes associated with a multi-vendor storage environment. Reports generated from this software can help administrators accurately assess current conditions and view trending analysis to make informed decisions about optimising their storage environment, so that service levels can be achieved.

Resource management statistics include:

• .         Storage system identification: IP address, WorldWide Name (WWN), serial number, manufacturer, model number;

• .         Firmware revisions;

• .         Controllers: Quantity and number of ports;

• .         Physical disks: size, amount and percent allocated and unallocated, spares, errors;

• .         Logical unit numbers (LUNs): Worldwide ID, capacity, host information, RAID type, distribution across physical disks;

• .         LUN/host mapping;

• .         Port information: Fibre channel, SCSI, etc;

• .         Total allocated space per storage system;

• .         Total unallocated space per storage system; and

• .         Storage consumption analysis.

Designed as an open framework, HiCommand provides a set of application programming interfaces (APIs), which allows software vendors to seamlessly integrate their applications with HiCommand.

"Nearly 40 independent software vendors (ISVs) are writing to the HiCommand APIs - including Sun Microsystems, Veritas, Microsoft, BMC, Computer Associates and InterSAN. Customers can also 'plug in' existing or new applications to HiCommand," says Watson.

HiCommand allows storage administrators to be much more effective with an easy-to-use Java-based GUI browser that can manage storage systems from anywhere and simplifies storage management processes for faster responses to change. In addition, HiCommand host agents, running on the application servers attached to the storage system, report back on unutilised LUN capacity, providing necessary information without the customer having to access multiple servers. HiCommand user authorisation allows storage managers to delegate frequent and simple requests to less experienced operators without compromising security or performance.

With HiCommand 2.0, customers can now manage Hitachi Freedom Storage Lightning 9900 and Thunder 9200, as well as Sun StorEdge 9900 series and Sun StorEdge T3 arrays.