HDS Announces the ‘Greenest’ Enterprise Data Center

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation announced the world’s most eco-friendly and power-efficient data center — designed to achieve a 1.6 PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) rating by The Green Grid — the lowest power usage index of any data center in its class. Together, Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi, Ltd. are establishing a new industry standard for next-generation green data center implementations around the globe.

Located in Yokohama, Japan, the new state-of-the-art data center brings together the collective product innovations of the Hitachi Information & Technology Systems Group (ITSG) companies including industry-leading storage systems, server and networking equipment. This sophisticated architecture is designed to offer the highest levels of energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent, while also lowering IT management costs.

Optimized to deliver even greater power efficiencies, the facility also features cutting-edge products that take advantage of Hitachi’s world-famous R&D expertise in other key areas of technology. Thermal hydraulic cooling devices, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and highly advanced power supply converters are designed to work in concert to contribute significant power, cooling and space benefits throughout. Leading-edge patented Hitachi Finger Vein authentication and other RFID technologies have also been integrated into the facility for state-of-the-art security.

"Within the IT industry, the Wikibon community believes that Hitachi, Ltd. has the most comprehensive and fully implemented corporate green plan in place," says David Vellante, president and CEO of IT Centrix and co-founder of the Wikibon Project. "Hitachi’s progress on its emission-neutral strategy is impressive and genuine. Initiatives such as the collaboration of various Hitachi groups for a new data center design in Yokohama underscore the firm’s commitment and are great drivers for change. Within storage the USP V controller re-designs and the implementation of virtualization, thin provisioning and support for external devices that spin down, have helped improve utilization and reduce power consumption by 63% over previous generations, a substantial milestone that sets an example of leadership for the industry."

Environmental issues continue to escalate IT budget discussions, impact data center designs, and shape corporate social responsibility. Today’s announcement showcases the combined vision of Hitachi Data Systems and Hitachi, Ltd. for enabling a greener data center through the use of Hitachi technology — and curbing the significant environmental burdens these facilities have been known to create for customers of all sizes. Furthermore, the new data center marks another chief milestone in support of Hitachi’s Harmonious Green Plan and Project CoolCenter50 corporate initiatives which are aimed at reducing 330,000 tons of carbon emissions and cutting down power consumption by as much as 50 percent by 2012. It is the company’s charter to apply these targets to the product development process across the entire IT solutions portfolio — chief among which include Hitachi Data Systems’ services-oriented storage solutions.

“In today’s climate, we have found that the cost of energy and power has quickly emerged as a growing concern, driving companies to take a deeper look at the efficiency of their data centers,” said Hu Yoshida, vice president and CTO, Hitachi Data Systems. “IT organizations need to take a holistic approach and carefully examine how every facet of their data center can play a role in improving their environmental impact — and lowering escalating power consumption levels. By leveraging Hitachi green technology, this breakthrough data center architecture provides a best practices approach for driving better efficiencies and utilization in customer environments now and in the future.”

Hitachi the Green Giant:
Over 30 Years of Eco-Friendly History
Hitachi Data Systems, along with Hitachi, Ltd., has enjoyed a long history and proven track record for supplying environmentally friendly storage solutions to companies worldwide — a legacy that spans from the supply chain through to the manufacturing process. It is this core competency and heritage in storage system and technology design that has enabled Hitachi to not only infuse eco-friendly innovation across the entire line-up of storage products, but to also cement its position at the forefront of the green data center movement.

The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V and its modular version, the Universal Storage Platform VM, are the only services-oriented storage platform that can equip customers’ existing heterogeneous storage assets with important capabilities they were never designed to deliver in the first place, such as external storage virtualization and thin provisioning. Not only does the combination of Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning and virtualization provide significant improvements in capacity utilization, but it also lowers customers’ power and cooling consumption rates. Organizations therefore require fewer storage devices and ultimately less electricity and space, which results in immediate improvements to overall storage economics.

The Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage and Workgroup Modular Storage midrange systems deliver breakthrough Power Savings capabilities that enable disk drives to be powered up and powered down as needed — creating a 20 percent cost of operation advantage against competitors. Additionally, the Power Savings storage service also reduces the number of kilowatt hours (KWH) a storage array consumes which contributes to reducing cooling costs within a data center or distributed computing environment. The Hitachi AMS and WMS systems complement the Hitachi USP V and USP VM systems as tiered or archive storage, especially when configured with SATA disk for lower costs.

Helping customers manage explosive growth of data volumes, the Hitachi Content Archive Platform is a sophisticated active archive solution that provides an archive tier of storage that meets customers’ scalability, data retention and protection requirements. Furthermore, customers benefit by being able to leverage existing storage infrastructure and consolidate the number of footprints in order to achieve a decrease in heat emissions and a reduction in power consumption while also simplifying management.

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation