HDS Reveals HUS VM Virtual Unified Storage Platform for SMBs

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation released its first unified storage product that provides enterprise virtualization for all data types (block, file and object).

The Hitachi Unified Storage VM (HUS VM) enables 90% faster data migration and 30% better TCO compared to non-virtualized systems.

Designed for SMBs, HUS VM simplifies operations and enables efficient storage management across all virtualized storage assets, including multivendor storage. It 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. Backed by Hitachi reliability, HUS VM is an unified storage product providing a 100% data availability guarantee.

A problem for SMBs 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 virtualization solutions that consolidate and simplify data management, enhance performance and reliability, and improve serviceability. Until today, SMBs were forced to compromise quality, reliability and the ability to virtualize their data in order to meet their limited budgets. These tradeoffs could result in more complexity, missed service level objectives, disruptions in data mobility, and lower efficiency overall. HUS VM brings to SMBs much greater capacity-efficiency across all storage assets.

According to Roberto Basilio, VP, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, HDS, "Today HDS has redefined what virtualization means to SMBs by bringing our industry-leading virtualization capabilities to this market segment. Now all sizes of enterprises can virtualize, manage and unify their choice of data on a single platform. No other IT systems company today offers the combination of performance, scalability and virtualization 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 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 virtualization capabilities. HDS built this product from the ground up to address specific customer requirements around virtualization 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: Virtualize, Manage, Unify All Data
Incorporating a new storage virtualization system, HUS VM is a unified storage platform for all data, to meet application availability and performance requirements with a lower investment in storage. It is simple to manage, optimized for critical business applications, and efficient.

HUS VM features include:

Enterprise Storage Virtualization

• Compared to other products in its class, HUS VM offers high external virtualized capacity – up to 64PB, which can include storage systems from different manufacturers.
• It enables 90% faster data migration compared to non-virtualized systems, resulting in lower risk and effort.
• HDS is the only IT systems company with true end-to-end virtualization 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

• 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

• TCO is reduced by 30% compared to non-virtualized systems
• Up to 40% lower environmental cost is due to power efficiency and space-saving design. Using publicly available product specifications and the same cost of power and space for equivalent capacities, the monthly operating cost of an EMC VMAX 10K is $9,820; HUS VM is 40% less at $5,890 (9,820-5890=3,930, 3930/9820=.40)
• 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 SMBs with high reliability and scalability inside and outside the storage system. Organizations can increase their capacity with storage virtualization and the migration of data with less effort.

HUS VM is supported by a global services organization and a network of partners to help reduce operational and capital costs. It simplifies virtualized application management and deployment for block and file requirements, including VMware, SQL Server, SharePoint Server, 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 visibility and manageability of their infrastructure applications.

Several technology partners Brocade, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft Corp. 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 virtualization and a unified architecture to transition customers seamlessly to the new platform and improve their operations in the new virtualized environment.

Enhanced Partner Training for HUS VM
HDS will include all HUS VM partner training into the Hitachi TrueNorth Partner Scholarship Program. On approval, it provides free training to partners and is available for all training provided by the Hitachi Data Systems Academy. The TrueNorth program aligns with partner needs and ensures partners are empowered to learn, understand and create innovative solutions based on Hitachi Unified Storage.

"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 centers without the need for special power and floor space. The fact that we rolled the system onto our data center 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 game changer for companies looking for enterprise functionality in a smaller footprint," said Steven Ruby, lead storage engineer, Storage and Data Protection Services, Devon Energy Corp.

"We are impressed with the advanced capabilities of Hitachi Unified Storage VM. Combining legendary Hitachi reliability with market leading enterprise-class storage virtualization 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," said Cesar Morales Godoy, operational technology manager, Administradora de Servicios y Sistemas Automatizados, Falabella.

"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 benefitting from the knowledge, support, performance, stability and cost savings its products give TDC Hosting. Hitachi Unified Storage VM is the latest offering from HDS we will be reviewing because of the scalability and functionality that we have not currently found elsewhere in the market," said Andreas Holmblad, storage administrator, TDC Hosting.

"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 virtualized environment while providing the additional benefits of now being able to virtualize any data type and maximize storage performance using Hitachi Dynamic Tiering," said Niels Madsen, team leader, Storage Services, Information Technology Services, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

"In our industry, high performance and reliability of systems is essential. Our experience of using storage solutions by HDS 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 virtualize all data types across our existing assets are very interesting to us," said Roy Feller, manager datacenter services, vonRoll item AG.