Last year, 2009, was a great year for midrange storage at Hitachi. In a down economy we grew our midrange revenues and we now have hundreds of petabytes of Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 systems installed by our customers.
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Last year, 2009, was a great year for midrange storage at Hitachi. In a down economy we grew our midrange revenues and we now have hundreds of petabytes of Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 systems installed by our customers.
Last week I was very privileged to visit the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in Kokobunji, in Tokyo. A few of us met with the lead team of the laboratory and visited the site. The facility is in an amazing location, a green oasis in harmony with the core value of environmentally-conscious R&D for the future. We were introduced to different areas of research including a great lab that focuses on IT heat management/power optimization amongst other things.
I have shared some data from TechValidate in the past that pointed at many storage characteristics and benefits that our systems make possible. Two of the main benefits are reliability and availability – both signatures of HDS.
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A few weeks ago I visited several Hitachi facilities including one of our sustainable Data Centers in the Yokohama area. Since it is used as a facility to host customer data I can’t reveal too much, but below are a few take aways that should interest a lot of you who are helping or leading data center designs:
- Physical location and natural risks mitigation
Location, location…and technology. The best location to mitigate tectonic issues, lots of technology to deflect the earth’s movements and absorb shocks. A lot of research went into this.
- Sustainable design
From light bulbs to advanced roof top grass insulation, a lot of Hitachi technologies are used in conjunction with sustainability best practices to limit emissions, optimize cooling etc.
- Control
As you can imagine, the control room is an amazing view (I guess like the tower at JFK, without the kids giving you take off clearance). Lots of software IP is used to optimize everything from air flow to power availability 24/7.
As many of you already know, Hitachi Data Systems partners with technology leaders like Brocade to deliver complete solutions to our customers… and Business Continuity/Business Resilience is a natural fit for both companies. The core infrastructure is truly the heart of the datacenter supporting everything users have come to rely on to get their job done and meet their business objectives – whatever they may be. Things are taking a new twist with virtualization these days.
Back from what seems a long absence from blogging, I thought I’d take some time to share a few interesting facts about our customers, how they use their USP-V and USP-VM systems, and how they truly leverage the unique capabilities of these platforms.
There’s been a lot of discussion around the automation of storage tiers recently, and I wanted to take a few minutes to focus on what HDS has been doing for many years in this space. Hu Yoshida alluded to this in his recent blog entry. I too spent some time on the topic recently.
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When EMC announced V-Max in the spring of 2009, it included statements of intent to deliver fully automated storage tiering, otherwise known as FAST. Many years ago, when EMC was innovating in the storage business, the company rarely if ever pre-announced future products. Today, it’s common for EMC to sell a future vision because its current products lack innovation and are not keeping pace with the competition. V-Max is a perfect example of selling a future that isn’t ready for production, and without FAST, V-Max lacks any real innovation and gives customers little reason to consider it.
It’s a very interesting time in the industry because there are many users of storage going through data center consolidations, moves, and technology refreshes that invariably generate significant disruptions to business as usual. More importantly, these events generate migration projects which are fraught with risk….and cost…and misconceptions. So, this blog entry is the first in a series over the next few weeks and months on this subject.
I was recently chatting with one of my colleagues, and we got around to discussing midrange storage and XIV. After a few minutes of healthy banter, we quickly concluded that the XIV definitely has some product limitations customers need to be aware of.
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