Hitachi Data Ingestor and New Hitachi Content Platform Enable Distributed IT Organizations and Service Providers to Streamline Deployment and Operations of Cloud Environments

 SANTA CLARA, Calif. — October 26, 2010 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today introduced important new integrated technologies to simplify and accelerate cloud adoption. As a foundational platform to the Hitachi cloud portfolio, the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) v4 builds upon its leadership in intelligent, content-focused storage with new simplified and automated replication, more granular multitenancy and chargeback capabilities. The Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI) is a new “on ramp” to the Hitachi Content Platform and is integrated with HCP’s massive 40 petabytes (PB) of capacity and new data and storage management capabilities to provide bottomless, backup-free storage at distributed locations. Both offerings help cloud service providers and private IT organizations cost effectively design and build their own infrastructure to store, search, preserve and protect data – all without disrupting users or applications.

Among today’s most urgent IT challenges are the rampant growth of unstructured content and the need to reduce the costs, complexities and risks associated with it. Management and proper handling of this content is particularly difficult across distributed IT environments, such as cloud service consumers and organizations with branch or remote office sites. Distributed IT environments are often saddled with sprawling storage silos servicing a multitude of applications and workloads, a buildup of backup infrastructure, and inadequate IT resources and safeguards to properly manage, protect and secure information outside the data center. As these environments proliferate, the ability for organizations to react quickly to the demands of the business becomes significantly impaired.

“Hitachi Data Systems is focused on providing our proven, integrated portfolio of cloud technologies, solutions and services to simplify and accelerate cloud and distributed IT environments to readily accommodate shifts in business, economic and regulatory demands,” said Miki Sandorfi, chief strategist, File, Content and Cloud, Hitachi Data Systems. “The new Hitachi Data Ingestor and Hitachi Content Platform directly address distributed IT customers’ pressing challenges such as getting data and users into cloud at their own pace by delivering an integrated edge-to-core cloud infrastructure. This enables enterprise organizations and cloud service providers to easily, quickly and cost effectively create a cloud-based service.”

New Hitachi Content Platform: Better Scale, Replication and Chargeback

Hitachi Content Platform is an advanced object storage solution that enables intelligent, content-focused storage. It simplifies the detail of the underlying storage system and presents one object view to both the user and the application. HCP reduces the need for silos to store unstructured content. With massive scale, multiple storage tiers, broad interoperability, secure multitenancy and configurable attributes for each tenant, customers can support a wide range of applications on a single cluster.

Hitachi Content Platform v4 eliminates tape-based backups and includes built-in chargeback tools. It is integrated with the new Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform for industry-leading scale and virtualization. It adapts to existing, legacy environments through the new Hitachi Data Ingestor to improve longevity and return on assets for customers’ existing investments. It also integrates tightly with an industry-leading archiving software, Symantec EnterpriseVault. More details on the new features:

• Improved Scalability

• Intelligent objects that enable greater scale than solutions requiring a ”master control program” by enabling the objects to manage themselves given certain conditions

• Smooth scaling from tens of terabytes to 40 petabytes of usable capacity in a single physical cluster

• Nondisruptive movement to new storage as needs change and hardware ages

• Simplified Manageability

• Multitenancy to divide and securely share capacity and capabilities among a variety of consumers with different protection, retention, performance or other needs

• Quota and chargeback tools that help organizations monitor and manage storage use and help cloud providers recognize revenue

• Compression, version control and policy-driven disposal to help use storage more efficiently

• Security and Compliance: WORM, versioning, encryption from HDI to HCP, access controls
• Built-in Protection, Preservation and Replication: Advanced replication that enhances data protection and helps control the placement of content; continuous data integrity checks, data copies, RAID 6

Hitachi Data Ingestor: Adapts HCP to Users and Existing Applications

Hitachi Data Ingestor seamlessly connects to HCP and simplifies cloud adoption by providing standard file serving access – NFS or CIFS – to stored content. HDI acts as an on-premise intelligent storage cache for distributed sites to adapt users and applications to a cloud-based or centralized Hitachi Content Platform. The new on ramp can reside at remote or branch offices or public cloud locations, to provide bottomless, backup-free storage by connecting to the multitenant, multipurpose HCP. In addition, cloud service providers can create environments that can satisfy the demands of a wide range of customer types with a single infrastructure. More details on features:

• Provides CIFS and NFS read/write access to a local or remote HCP system.
• Migrates data to HCP and maintains a local link to the content.
• Shares a common pool of storage resources without compromising security, control or protection.
• Measures storage use for chargeback, quota management and accountability.
• Supports Active Directory and LDAP authentication.
• Presents a local cache for fast retrieval of frequently accessed content.

“Arming customers with solutions that are standards-based and easily plug into their existing environment and helps them to realize the operational benefits of cloud storage infrastructure without a major infrastructure overhaul continues to be one of the best ways to encourage cloud adoption. Hitachi Data Systems’ approach with the new Hitachi Data Ingestor offers a low-risk solution for customers that would like to shift their data to the cloud, which is important to reduce overhead and get up and running quickly,” said Terri McClure, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Moreover, as unstructured data continues to grow rapidly, the enhancements to the new Hitachi Content Platform will help customers store, access and view that data more efficiently and easily.”

Use Cases: Distributed Organizations and Service Providers

Companies that will benefit from Hitachi Data Ingestor and Hitachi Content Platform are large to enterprise IT companies with remote or branch office locations and organizations that are looking to move data into a central private cloud environment. It is also suited for telcos, service providers and systems integrators looking to build an integrated infrastructure in order to offer hybrid or public cloud services to their enterprise and business consumers.

By providing an easy, low risk on ramp to the cloud, superior data protection and disaster recovery and intelligent utilization and chargeback capabilities, HCP and HDI remove the complexities of adapting users and applications to a cloud and provide greater control over data, making it easier and faster for organizations to deploy a cloud solution. Benefits include:

• Simplify IT: Reduce silos of storage and infrastructure with multi-tenancy.
• Reduce Costs: Eliminate tape-based backup, improve efficiency and utilization.
• Reduce Risks: Support compliance and governance requirements with greater control over how and where data is stored.
• Streamline Cloud: Speed cloud adoption by eliminating the need to rewrite applications or change user behavior; recognize revenue and ROI more quickly.

Supporting Quotes

• Apollo PACS, Inc.: “In today’s regional healthcare, enterprises’ timely access to patient media, cost effective solutions for IT management, and the ability to collaborate across medical specialties are critical. HDS and Apollo have created an optimized solution based on Apollo’s EPMM application and built upon Hitachi Data Systems HDI and HCP architecture mounted in a cloud computing environment. We see this new solution simplifying management, reporting and development in our new clinical environment.” – Mark Newburger, CEO
• Peak Web Hosting: “Peak Web Hosting services are specifically designed for businesses that need an enterprise-level computing environment for their applications and the peace of mind that comes with an experienced technical operations team. We selected the Hitachi Content Platform with AMS storage as our cloud infrastructure to ensure the security of our clients’ information and to provide us with a storage environment that is dependable, scalable, and easy to manage. The Hitachi Content Platform enables us to offer a wide range of services from a single storage environment.” – Jeffrey Papen, CEO
• Symantec: “The new interface provides next-generation integration between Symantec Enterprise Vault and Hitachi Content Platform from Hitachi Data Systems. The new HCP is one of the first object storage solutions to support this level of integration which dramatically enhances the cooperation between the application that manages the content and the platform that stores it.” – Simon Jelley, senior director, Product Management, Information Management Group

Availability

The new Hitachi Content Platform and Hitachi Data Ingestor are now available worldwide.

Web Resources

• Blogs: http://blogs.hds.com/miki
• Hitachi cloud solutions: www.hds.com/solutions/storage-strategies/cloud
• June 2010 Storage-as-a-Service announcement
• Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/HDScorp