Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering …

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation announced advancements to help customers safely tap storage resources in the cloud at their own pace. The Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering is the first in the Hitachi Cloud Services suite and will enable enterprise customers to move legacy or lower value file data into a cloud storage environment and pay only for what they consume, when they consume it.

In partnership with Digi-Data Corporation, Hitachi is also offering a public online cloud storage solution that provides a complete services menu for telecommunications, service providers and systems integrators to deliver public cloud storage-as-a-service offerings to consumers and SMBs. Both offerings help organizations meet SLAs, lower TCO and improve operational efficiency.

“The Hitachi Data Systems integrated portfolio of cloud technologies, solutions and services simplifies and accelerates the adoption of private, hybrid and public cloud environments. Our uniquely integrated approach enables organizations to adopt a cloud computing model at their own pace and in a cost effective manner that builds on the investments IT organizations have in place today,” said Miki Sandorfi, chief strategist, File and Content, Hitachi Data Systems. “With the new Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering, our customers don’t pay up front for storage used and can use additional storage when needed. Best of all, they don’t need any resources to manage their private cloud environment. This is tremendously valuable, as it gives our customers the agility to grow and shrink capacity to meet the ever-changing demands of their business.”

Massive growth of unstructured data residing in file shares or home directories such as business documents, file data, PACS records, video surveillance and web content are often stored in multiple independent file servers or NAS appliances that are costly to manage and take precious time and resources away from the most active and frequently accessed data. A large portion of the data sitting on expensive primary NAS devices consumes significant capacity that requires constant backup, which in turn takes up even more capacity in the storage network. To help manage the explosive growth of unstructured data, Hitachi Data Systems will deliver a fully managed Hitachi Cloud Services suite and cloud-enabled infrastructure that can be located within a customer’s environment.

Private Cloud File Tiering Managed Service
for Enterprise Organizations
The first of the suite, the Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering will integrate Hitachi Data Systems hardware, software and services in a unique pay-per-use model. The Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering will help organizations reduce costs, simplify management and improve the efficiency and utilization of their primary NAS environments by moving legacy or lower value file data to a private cloud located within the customer’s firewall. This will align payment to consumption by letting customers pay only for the storage that they consume when they consume it and eliminating the need for any customer resources to manage the environment. The service is expected to help organizations lower the TCO of their NAS environment by at least 25 percent.

This offering is built
on Hitachi technologies and services including:

• Hitachi Content Platform (HCP): A single optimized storage platform that abstracts details of the back end storage systems and creates homogeneous storage environments, HCP enables customers to create an agile, unstructured content environment with general purpose object stores that support a variety of services. HCP enables organizations to gain the benefits of consolidation and data preservation without compromising security or completely rewriting critical applications.
• Flexible, modular design allows customers to scale the platform on demand to as much as 40 petabytes of usable storage in a single cluster.
• Secure segregation of data within different namespaces prevents unauthorized access. Built-in high availability and RAID 6 data protection also allow customers to provide online access, protect against data loss and reduce tape based backups of unstructured data.
• Varied media options, including high density SATA to provide maximum capacity at a lower price point, help customers reduce their overall TCO.
• Hitachi Remote Storage Management services: Remote management and dynamic provisioning of the cloud storage environment provides capacity information and performance reporting. For customers looking to reduce their management costs or lacking the resources, staff or expertise to implement and maintain their own storage infrastructure, Hitachi remote storage management services quickly and cost effectively provide best practice monitoring, provisioning, reporting and consumption-based billing capabilities for the file tiering cloud environment.
• Hitachi Data Protection Suite (HDPS) software: Powered by CommVault and tightly integrated with the Hitachi Content Platform, HDPS provides intelligent policy-based data movement that enables seamless tiering to the cloud. This private cloud capability is the first in a series of cloud interfaces to be used in Hitachi Cloud Services designed to help customers make the transition to the cloud.

Easy Access to Storage Online
for Consumers and SMBs
Hitachi Data Systems and leading software-as-a-service provider Digi-Data are providing comprehensive end-to-end cloud storage solutions that enable telcos, service providers and systems integrators to deliver storage as a service to their consumers and SMB customers. The low cost, cloud-based solution helps telcos provide storage services with a utility-based, ‘pay as you grow’ model, driving revenue growth, improving customer loyalty and generating a higher ROI by leveraging the same infrastructure to build and sell other cloud-based services.

By leveraging the Hitachi flexible storage infrastructure with Digi-Data applications and services, service providers have access to multiple connectivity options into the cloud and a reliable architecture for building and deploying an online cloud service. Providers also have access to metering features, and integration to billing systems to charge end-users based on consumption. Leveraging a comprehensive set of APIs, providers can integrate their own applications, business and processing systems, and end-user interfaces into the cloud infrastructure.

Hitachi Data Systems and Digi-Data also provide a set of services to reduce time to market. Services such as web portal integration simplify customer on-boarding. Single sign-on and e-commerce integration extend the capabilities of providers’ IT teams.

“By leveraging the existing integration between HCP and HDPS, we are enabling a new private cloud delivery model that will allow customers to simplify IT, reduce costs, increase productivity and grow their bottom line. Together with Hitachi Data Systems, we continue to aggressively innovate and create breakthrough solutions for our customers that are uniquely positioned to lead on the delivery of the cloud", said David West, vice president, Marketing and Business Development, CommVault.

“Together, Hitachi Data Systems and Digi-Data enable service providers to deliver a comprehensive suite of online cloud services to consumers and SMBs. In light of the comprehensive management, resilience and expandability features of the HDS storage infrastructure, telecommunications providers worldwide benefit from seamless and continuous access to digital assets anywhere with an internet connection," said Dennis Cindrich, chief executive officer, Digi-Data Corporation.

“Organizations like Hitachi are adopting cloud delivery service models to reduce costs, increase flexibility, and improve their time to market. Cloud’s ability to grow and contract storage resources, in concert with business needs, eliminates up front capital expenditure for underutilized assets and minimizes operational expenses due to continual data growth and management complexity. By deploying cloud models and leveraging cloud managed services, customers pay only for what they consume and eliminate the day-to-day management tasks altogether", said Terri McClure, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.