Hitachi Data Systems announces industry's first unified platform with virtualisation for all data types

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi (TSE: 6501), today extends its leadership in virtualisation with the industry's first unified storage product that provides enterprise-class virtualisation for all data types (block, file and object).

The new Hitachi Unified Storage VM (HUS VM) separates itself from the competition by enabling 90% faster data migration and 30% better total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to non-virtualised systems. Designed specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises, HUS VM simplifies operations and enables more efficient storage management across all virtualised storage assets, including multi-vendor storage. HUS VM is also supported by Hitachi Command Suite management software as part of a single software management platform. This configuration helps customers deliver storage service levels when, where and how they need them. Backed by legendary Hitachi reliability, HUS VM is the only unified storage product to provide a 100% data availability guarantee.

A problem for small and medium-sized enterprises today is a lack of scalable, versatile virtual storage solutions. Without these solutions, IT staff members with multiple duties struggle with the same demands as large enterprises, but with even tighter budgets. In addition, smaller enterprises now require virtualisation solutions that consolidate and simplify data management, enhance performance and reliability, and improve serviceability. Until today, small and medium-sized enterprises were forced to compromise quality, reliability and the ability to effectively virtualise their data in order to meet their limited budgets. These trade-offs could result in more complexity, missed service level objectives (SLOs), disruptions in data mobility, and lower efficiency overall. As the first unified storage platform with enterprise-class virtualisation for all data types, HUS VM brings to small and medium-sized enterprises much greater capacity efficiency across all storage assets.

According to Roberto Basilio, vice-president, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems: "Today, HDS has redefined what virtualisation means to small and medium-sized enterprises by bringing our industry-leading virtualisation capabilities to this market segment. Now all sizes of enterprises can virtualise, manage and unify their choice of data on a single platform. No other IT systems company today offers the combination of performance, scalability and virtualisation capabilities that HDS does with the new HUS VM. Customers can now deploy storage for all data types and easily grow to meet expanding requirements while still meeting service level objectives for critical business applications. They can meet these business needs and still control the costs of managing their most valuable information. Alongside our market-leading Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, we now have what we believe to be the industry's strongest enterprise portfolio spanning small, medium-sized and large enterprises."

According to Henry Baltazar, senior storage analyst, 451 Research: "One of the key advantages of HUS VM - beyond being unified - is its virtualisation capabilities. HDS built this product from the ground up to address specific customer requirements around virtualisation and scale, consolidating the storage infrastructure under a single management framework at a lower price point. With this move, HDS is enabling customers to start reducing their licensing fees on older storage systems. Therefore, as an aggressive move against NetApp and EMC, this new product makes perfect sense for HDS."

HUS VM: virtualise, manage, unify all data

Incorporating a new storage virtualisation system, HUS VM is a unified storage platform for all data, built from the ground up to meet application availability and performance requirements with a lower investment in storage. It is simple to manage, optimised for critical business applications, and more efficient than other storage systems on the market today. HUS VM features include:

Enterprise storage virtualisation

* Compared to other products in its class, HUS VM offers the highest external virtualised capacity - up to 64PB, which can include storage systems from different manufacturers.
* HUS VM enables 90% faster data migration compared to non-virtualised systems, resulting in lower risk and effort.
* HDS is the only IT systems company with true end-to-end virtualisation of all data types.

Unified storage architecture

* The system consolidates block, file and object data natively onto a single platform to quickly deliver secure data services.
* Its unified platform allows customers to share resources for different applications to lower capital investment and lower operation cost.

Ease of management

* Unlike many solutions on the market today, HDS offers one software platform to consolidate and manage storage for all data types.
* Hitachi Command Suite unified management reduces the time required to administer storage for multiple applications.

Operating efficiency

* Total cost of ownership is reduced by 30% compared to non-virtualised systems
* Up to 40% lower environmental cost is due to power efficiency and space-saving design [1]
* The highest-in-class single home directory size manages more files and folders than competitive offerings.
* The largest-in-class volumes decrease the time needed to manage growth of large file systems and millions of files.

Extends HDS flash strategy

* HUS VM supports solid state drive options now, and will extend the recently announced HDS flash strategy with integrated flash devices based on the new Hitachi flash memory controller unveiled in August.

Customer benefits and support

HUS VM provides small and medium-sized enterprises with the highest reliability and the highest scalability inside and outside the storage system. With HUS VM, organisations can increase their capacity efficiency with storage virtualisation and ease the migration of data with less effort.

HUS VM is supported by a proven global services organisation and a network of partners to help reduce operational and capital costs. HUS VM also simplifies virtualised application management and deployment for block and file requirements, including VMware, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and VMware View (VDI). Additional HUS VM plug-ins and adapters will help administrators of Microsoft System Center, Oracle Enterprise Manager and VMware vCenter gain detailed visibility and manageability of their infrastructure applications.

Several strategic partners, including technology partners Brocade, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and VMware, and Hitachi TrueNorth Partners including ASG, Datalink, Lumenate, Mainline Information Systems and ViON, have provided their perspectives on the new Hitachi Unified Storage VM. Enhanced HDS migration and management services leverage virtualisation and a unified architecture to transition customers seamlessly to the new platform and quickly improve their operations in the new virtualised environment.

Enhanced partner training for HUS VM

Hitachi Data Systems will include all HUS VM partner training into the Hitachi TrueNorth Partner Scholarship Programme. The Hitachi TrueNorth Scholarship, on approval, provides free training to partners and is available for all training provided by the award-winning Hitachi Data Systems Academy. The TrueNorth programme aligns with partner needs and ensures partners are empowered to learn, understand and create innovative solutions based on Hitachi Unified Storage. Hitachi TrueNorth partners can find out more details on the latest offerings for HUS VM by accessing the company's online training portal.

Supporting customer quotes

* Devon Energy: "HUS VM is the perfect combination of enterprise performance and feature set in a power-packed modular format. This allows Devon to remain agile and efficient within our primary and secondary data centres without the need for special power and floor space. The fact that we rolled the system onto our data centre floor and within 45 minutes had more capacity and capabilities ready for a production workload than our previous platform shows that this new array is going to be a game changer for companies looking for enterprise functionality in a smaller footprint." - Steven Ruby, lead storage engineer, Storage & Data Protection Services.

* Falabella: "We are impressed with the advanced capabilities of Hitachi Unified Storage VM. Combining legendary Hitachi reliability with market-leading enterprise-class storage virtualisation offers an unprecedented return on investment. The HUS VM data migration offering will greatly simplify our storage infrastructure. We also see a great fit for a secondary site companion to our existing Hitachi VSP. HUS VM allows us to address our concerns around future data growth while improving the efficiency of our current environment." - Cesar Morales Godoy, operational technology manager, Administradora de Servicios y Sistemas Automatizados.

* TDC Hosting: "TDC Hosting is a trusted IT hosting supplier committed to giving our customers the best IT infrastructure available, ensuring seamless outsourced services 24/7. We have used technology from Hitachi Data Systems for the last five years benefiting from the knowledge, support, performance, stability and cost savings its products give TDC Hosting. Hitachi Unified Storage VM is the latest offering from Hitachi Data Systems we will be reviewing because of the scalability and functionality that we have not currently found elsewhere in the market." - Andreas Holmblad, storage administrator.

* The University of Melbourne, Australia: "At the University of Melbourne, we are currently evaluating Hitachi Unified Storage VM as a replacement for our previous generation Hitachi storage array. HUS VM looks very attractive to us as it simplifies transitioning our current virtualised environment while providing the additional benefits of now being able to virtualise any data type and maximise storage performance using Hitachi Dynamic Tiering." - Niels Madsen, team leader, Storage Services, Information Technology Services.

* vonRoll item AG: "In our industry, high performance and reliability of systems is essential. Our experience of using storage solutions by Hitachi Data Systems has always met and even exceeded our expectations. The new Hitachi Unified Storage VM is a product we're very interested in, as we're always looking at ways to make our data management easier and more efficient. Its single software management and ability to virtualise all data types across our existing assets are very interesting to us." - Roy Feller, manager Data Centre Services.

Web resources

* Hitachi Unified Storage VM
* Read what Hu Yoshida and David Merrill each have to say about Hitachi Unified Storage VM
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