Hitachi Information Systems Selects F5 ARX File Virtualization Solution

F5 Networks, Inc. announced that Hitachi Information Systems, Ltd. has selected an F5 ARX file virtualization solution to achieve dramatic reductions in their overall storage costs. By introducing ARX, Hitachi reduced the amount of new storage capacity required to meet their growth needs, lowering capital expenses from approximately 8.4 million yen to 2.5 million yen – a savings of roughly 70 percent.

"ARX has significantly alleviated our data storage concerns, and we’ve achieved substantial cost savings through file virtualization," said Akito Shimizu, Outsourcing Services Engineering Department, Engineer at Hitachi Information Systems. "ARX provides us with the flexibility to build out our infrastructure without being tied to a single storage vendor. As a result, we have been able to optimize our storage environment and dramatically reduce the expense of managing data growth as well."

Previously, Hitachi relied on adding high-capacity storage hardware to manage the rapid increase of business and application data, but this approach proved costly and disruptive as service interruptions were often necessary during installations. Moreover, the company’s IT staff found that they needed to purchase additional storage capacity from the same vendor as their existing equipment to ensure compatibility, restricting Hitachi from choosing technology that would best meet their needs. Rather than continue with this expensive, limiting approach, Hitachi deployed the F5 ARX solution to virtualize its file storage environment. Since the implementation, Hitachi has lowered their data management costs, increased IT flexibility, and gained the ability to perform system upgrades without interruption.

Hitachi now leverages ARX’s automated storage tiering capabilities to improve the utilization of its existing storage resources. Rather than storing all files-including those that are inactive-on expensive high-speed Fibre Channel devices, Hitachi has established storage policies to move inactive or less critical data to less expensive, high-capacity SATA storage. With this policy-based approach, Hitachi has freed up a significant amount of capacity on their existing storage hardware and deferred the expenses of purchasing additional tier-one capacity.

"Today’s IT departments are being called on to accomplish more with less, and data management functions are no exception," added Juji Motegi, Outsourcing Services Engineering Department, Senior Engineer at Hitachi Information Systems. "Meanwhile, data continues to grow at a rapid pace due to regulatory guidelines, new data-intensive applications, and other business drivers. With ARX, organizations have the freedom to implement a scalable, cost-effective, and agile data management strategy that best suits the needs of the business-without being limited by the constraints and costs of legacy storage solutions."