HDS Announcing Unified Compute Platform

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation announced a more efficient way for organizations to deploy and manage applications in virtual environments. As part of a continued commitment to deliver reliable, robust data center solutions, Hitachi Data Systems announced the Hitachi unified compute platform, the industry’s first open and unified compute platform for enterprise data centers, including private and public cloud deployments.

Delivering an intelligent orchestration layer for automated dynamic management of servers, storage, network and applications as a collective unit, the Hitachi unified compute platform will offer large scale compute environments the advantages of IT agility aligned to business goals, the reduction of cost and risk, and the use of Hitachi and Microsoft industry-leading technologies. Hitachi Data Systems also announced a worldwide original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement to distribute Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center suite and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 products.

“Together with Microsoft, we are uniquely addressing customer challenges by looking at the data center from the business process perspective and driving innovation down to and across all components,” said John Mansfield, senior vice president, Global Solutions Strategy and Development, Hitachi Data Systems. “The Hitachi unified compute platform will give customers an automated, virtualized, cloud-ready and sustainable data center infrastructure and provide the unique advantage of a flexible foundation for long-term growth and sustainability.”

“Microsoft is committed to delivering comprehensive, efficient and automated IT solutions with partners like Hitachi Data Systems that help customers be more agile and reduce IT costs,” said Brad Anderson, corporate vice president, Management and Services Division, Microsoft Corp. “The new Hitachi computing platform integrates with Microsoft System Center to enable organizations to have highly virtualized, automated and optimized environments, with a software infrastructure that’s designed to meet customers’ mission-critical computing needs.”

The Hitachi solution combines Hitachi Data Systems software, storage and server products, and Microsoft infrastructure software, Hyper-V virtualization technology, and SQL Server data base as well as networking products to provide a unified compute platform for enterprise organizations with highly virtualized environments. Companies that will benefit are those with massive scalability requirements, or looking to transition to a private cloud within their data centers.

Hitachi Data Systems and Microsoft have a long-standing relationship that has delivered mission-critical solutions to customers around the world. Current solutions include Hitachi Storage Cluster for Hyper-V, an end-to-end server-to-storage virtualization solution that provides high availability and site recovery for virtualized environments.

“We have invested in Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization to optimize our enterprise technology footprint,” said Jean-Pierre Giquel, chief information officer, MAAF, a general public insurance company for private individuals and professionals in France. “Combining this investment with Hitachi Storage Cluster for Hyper-V has amplified the value of our investment, enhancing our business continuity and ease of management.”

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform:
Simpler Deployment and Management
The Hitachi unified compute platform will help customers centrally manage and coordinate the end-to-end processes for collective data center resources as a single unit, aligned with business processes. Its orchestrated provisioning and efficient process execution along with deep SAN integration will deliver extreme scalability and reliability for robust disaster recovery and high availability systems. This intelligent management, tightly integrated with reliable hardware, will enable unprecedented “worry free scaling” of large numbers of virtual machines.

The initial set of integrated components will include:

• Storage, Server and Network: Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V, Hitachi blade servers, and Fibre Channel and Ethernet components.
• Orchestration Software: An extensible software layer developed by Hitachi delivers automated, end-to-end management of all processes for server, storage, network and applications through a simplified, role-based management portal.
• Microsoft Software: As an integral part of the solution, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and System Center Virtual Machine Manager will be tightly integrated as well as Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.
• Virtualization Technologies: Leading storage and server virtualization solutions will be provided by the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V, Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning and the Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V. Support for Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware hypervisors will be provided.

With automated, comprehensive and simplified management, the Hitachi unified compute platform will reduce time to market and operational costs. It will also improve agility and predictability, enabling truly dynamic and cost-effective data centers that can quickly respond to business needs. The Hitachi unified compute platform will provide superior flexibility and investment protection with a more open and extensible framework that supports multiple hypervisors and servers. Businesses can easily integrate this platform into their real world environments and automate at their own pace.

“As part of ongoing efforts to improve the utilization of IT assets and boost operational efficiency in the use of those assets, IDC finds that a number of organizations are planning to expand their use of converged IT infrastructure solutions in the coming year,” said Richard Villars, vice president, Storage and IT Executive Strategies, IDC. “Solutions like Hitachi Data Systems that provide a unified compute/storage/network foundation with intelligent orchestration for optimal resource management will make it easier for IT organizations to respond to changing business requirements.”

“The Hitachi unified compute platform meets our high expectations of a private cloud platform. It represents something that we consider a future state of a generic infrastructure, which will enable significant cost savings through standardization, scalability and efficient administration," said Anna Rehnström, director, Generic Infrastructure, EDB.

“As an Information Management Cloud service provider, Iron Mountain sees the value of a tightly integrated solution stack that spans storage, server and data networks. The new unified compute architecture from Hitachi will enable faster infrastructure deployment in response to spikes in demand of a cloud environment. The automation capabilities will help to reduce cost and complexity of management," said Todd Koopersmith, vice president, Corporate and Business Development, Iron Mountain.

“Our virtualized infrastructure allows us to roll-out new applications at a rapid rate, while reducing deployment time and costs and minimizing risk to our business. Hitachi Data Systems’ concept of a fully integrated, extensible, dynamic platform would provide our organization with the time to market required to not only increase our efficiencies, but also to remain viable in today’s market," said Luis Urzua, manager, Technology and Systems Operations, IT Movistar Chile.

“The integration and implementation cost savings alone warrant transitioning to the Hitachi unified compute platform. Hitachi Data Systems takes this cost savings even further by offering significant reduction in management overhead, time to market, operational efficiency and improved utilization of our assets," said Pradip J Nath, executive vice president, Sify.