Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS)

In April, 2012 the Hitachi Data Systems corporation, Hitachi affiliated enterprise, announced release of a new line of the unified storage systems of Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS).

The first in the industry convergent system implements the concept of the unified storage on one platform not only block data, but also files and unstructured content in the form of objects. After many other vendors HDS made the contribution to development of the concept of deployment of DPC from the minimum quantity of the compact and high-integrated containers or so-called construction blocks.

Unlike HUS in modern DWH data management is exercised at three different levels. On the first the freshest information which addressed during the last 30 days is located. These are the data which are in daily use, respectively, they are stored on the fastest disks, as a rule, solid-state. Information at the second level is usually stored on SATA disks, address it within a temporary corridor from 30 to 90 days. At last, at the third level there are contemporary records on tape or disk libraries.

According to Sean Moser (Sean Moser), the vice president of division of HDS for software development while most of players of the market of DWH continue to operate classical three-level model and only begin to look towards file storages, his company managed to go much further. HUS represents integrated solution in terms of objects or content, i.e. more high-level logical ones. Similar DWH initial long ago not a rarity, however in IT infrastructures of the large companies such systems was not used earlier.

Emergence of HUS became the reply of HDS to constantly growing requirements of the companies for storage of the increasing information volumes. The new solution allows to increase storage volume to the 3rd petabyte without performance penalty, allows management to 256 file systems in single name space, guarantees 99.999% data availability and management tools. Besides, HUS provides the high level of security of data and thanks to sufficient performance allows to avoid negative effect of "a bottle neck".

The HUS systems provide additional flexibility and the balanced performance during the work with different data types, advancing any other solutions of the average level on these indicators. Based on these systems customers can organize work of crucial business applications and solve the problems connected with growth of amounts of data without prejudice to performance, scalabilities and ratios the price/performance. In addition to it Hitachi Data Systems announced that all hardware solutions of Hitachi, including the new HUS systems, are controlled the uniform Hitachi Command Suite software product now. Having become the first solution provider of a corporate class who offered a single software platform of management for all range of the products, Hitachi Data Systems offers the customers an opportunity to reduce costs and to simplify infrastructures of data processing centers.

Sean Moser, the vice president for management of the Hitachi Data Systems software products, noted: "Requirements of the organizations of the average size which have no large volumes of data, IT resources and budgets became the prime cause of release of a lineup of the unified storage systems. Such companies are not able to afford to purchase and manage certain platforms for block and file data. The traditional concept of the unified management is connected mainly with management of file and block data on universal platforms of initial level. Today we change this situation, putting on the market the first unified storage system of a corporate class. Hitachi Unified Storage will help the organizations to meet requirements to availability and performance of operation of applications at smaller costs. It will allow customers to select storage resources for all data types and also to effectively increase them in process of growth of requirements when preserving the indicators of the service level dictated by crucial business applications".

"IT departments of medium-sized and large enterprises face scale-up problems of amounts of data and constantly changing requirements to data management. Systems which could adapt to the growing requirements and would be more easy-to-work are required for them, would allow to save costs and could adapt to the changing business needs quickly, – Richard Villars, the vice president for researches information and the IDC cloud systems noted. – Storage systems of Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS) offer the enterprises effective abilities to manage block, file and object data on one platform without prejudice to performance, scalability or extent of utilization of tanks".

The unified data storage without compromises: powerful opportunities for block, file and object data

Hitachi Unified Storage provides the approved and effective selection, movement on levels, migration and protection of all types of data for all lifecycle. Additional economy of costs in HUS is reached at the expense of such opportunities of effective data storage as "thin" selection of capacity and automatic data movement on storage levels. The built-in instruments of automation allow to optimize performance and to make it predictable thanks to what customers can use the investments most effectively. The intuitive and simple software in use delivered with each system is capable to simplify work even in the most difficult environments.

Hitachi Unified Storage supports object data by means of unique object file system which intellectually adds metadata for each file and provides automatic data movement on levels and data migration, fast creation of "instant pictures" and clones of data, faster replication on distributed networks and context search of data. Besides, the Hitachi Unified Storage systems support the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) platform providing object storage with the configured metadata and opportunities necessary for meeting requirements of regulating authorities. Unlike other systems, HCP allows to use the capacity of HUS together with the applications working at the level of files or blocks, using the same pool of resources of storage. Consolidation of opportunities allows to receive much more effective in terms of space usage and the solution, profitable in terms of costs, than than use of the separate, isolated object storages.

Scaling options of HUS differ in the greatest balance in the industry. Unlike other solutions in which only capacity is scaled HUS can be also scaled on the predicted performance, volume of replicable data, the sizes of block volumes and the sizes of file systems. Advantage to customers consists in longer term of service of the HUS platform in comparison with the competing products that means more reasonable investment of capital.

The HUS systems have the highest high-speed performance from all storage systems of the average level available for today, both for block, and for file access, helping the organizations to provide necessary performance at the smallest possible price. HUS is offered by functionality of storage systems of the senior level, such as page-by-page automatic data movement on levels, simplifying automatic placement of data and providing maximum capacity at the minimum costs.

The new software of Hitachi Application Protector which is also announced in April, 2012 implements data protection, backup and recovery on the basis of instant pictures and taking into account features of the specific application, such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server or Microsoft SharePoint. Thanks to integration into Hitachi Unified Storage the software of Hitachi Application Protector allows administrators of all these applications to perform protection of the corresponding data sets using the familiar interface, for example, of Microsoft Management Console. At the same time administrators of applications can initiate tasks of backup and recovery and also with smaller efforts to try to obtain required indicators of the service level for crucial business applications.

Using Hitachi Command Suite it is possible to manage all lineup of the solutions HDS

The main idea of the unified strategy of management of HDS consists in abstraction from difficulties of environments of data storage of the bottom level and formation of service-oriented model in which systems management of data storage is exercised as services for users, regardless of features of the specific physical devices implementing data storage. This strategy requires complete unification of approach to management that only HDS was succeeded to perform so far.

The software of Hitachi Command Suite represents the unified platform of management offering the most modern abilities to manage data and storage systems which allows to optimize operation and configuring and also to provide the required performance and fault tolerance for the block, file and unified storage systems of Hitachi. Offering effective mechanisms of management of all storage systems of Hitachi, HDS helps the companies to organize optimum control of the IT infrastructure at limited personnel resources, and at the same time to lay the reliable foundation for future growth. The unified platform of management of HDS includes:

• Uniform management tools all models of storage systems: block (for example, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform), file (Hitachi NAS Platform, Hitachi Unified Storage), storage systems of content (Hitachi Content Platform) and also specialized hardware-software complexes (Hitachi Data Ingestor)
• Uniform management tools and control for all levels of DWH of a lineup of HDS: the systems of the corporate and average level and also the virtualized external systems of data storage of third-party producers
• Uniform management tools for all functions: offer all configuration functions, the analysis, mobilization and data protection; include the unified business analysis level implementing crucial opportunities for service-oriented management.

The new unified features and advantages to customers

Created on the basis of the leading innovation achievements, the Hitachi Unified Storage systems provide to the organizations the reliable, dynamic and open architecture helping to try to obtain more effectively the required service levels, to save costs and to protect the long-term investments. HUS will also allow to simplify management and deployment of the virtualized applications using both block, and file storages which the Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Exchange Server, VMware View (VDI) and Oracle databases are among.

Among opportunities and advantages of HUS it is possible to note the following:

Management of growth of amounts of data

• It is possible to increase the capacity of a system almost to 3 PBytes without falling of performance.
• Symmetric controllers with the mechanism of intellectual balancing of loading of Hitachi, allow to fix automatically performance concerns and accelerate configuring.
• Thanks to technology of dynamic configuring Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning it is possible with the maximum flexibility and without restrictions of capacity to create pools of resources and to increase storage systems of file and block data.
• Use of file systems of 256 Tbyte in size and single name space reduces labor input of administration.

Agreement performance about the service level (SLA)

• Advanced management tools allow to provide agreement performance about the service level (SLA) at data availability at the level of 99.999%.
• The storage system can be managed means of the portal for management of applications.
• Maintenance of systems is performed without interruption of input-output operations on hosts.

Reduction of time of idle times and risk reduction for business

• An opportunity to manage dynamically replication and data backup.
• Remote replication of all tanks between the different systems and objects.
• Use of pictures of data at the time of failure of the application for backup and recovery taking into account information on applications.

2013. Technology updating

About significant upgrade to which the main infrastructure solutions underwent: the Hitachi Unified Storage, Hitachi NAS Platform, Hitachi Unified Storage VM system (HUS VM), the Hitachi Data Systems Corporation company reported on July 11, 2013.

• Users of the platform can benefit by the first in industry performance measures – the high data processing rate prior to two times exceeding similar indicators of the competing solutions helps to consolidate resources of storages and to save time and money thanks to technology of file sharing.

• Customers can lower requirements to the hardware and reduce the needs for capacity by 90 percent without any deterioration in performance measures thanks to the most effective of the data presented at the market to means of primary deduplication.

• Using new file modules it is possible to combine file and block storages within single powerful solution which supports technologies of Big Data, consolidates different file servers of NAS and allows to reduce by 30% total cost of ownership at once in the first year of use of these solutions.

"Today clients are focused on business conversion. Information solutions which allow to optimize business processes and to simplify infrastructure of IT are necessary for them more flexibly to react to the changing market conditions and quicker to implement innovations, – Roberto Basilio, the vice president of Hitachi Data Systems for management of platforms of data storage noted. – Time of building of capital costs left. Technologies which we announce considerably change all expense structure, connected with data storage, due to economy of the operating costs influencing basic indicators of business. Thanks to elimination of the problems with performance connected with separation of architectural components and information resources in data processing centers, the implementing solutions HDS allows to lay flexible and at the same time powerful foundation for private cloud infrastructures and platforms for management of the increased amounts of data. As a result these technologies help to accelerate collecting of analytical data, to improve decision making process and to release resources for implementation of innovations on the basis of information".