HDS Automates Storage Management

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) today launched a new approach to automating storage management by allowing customers to using virtual containers that dynamically move based on the performance requirements of any given application.

According to HDS chief scientist Claus Mikkelsen, the core concept behind the new HDS Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) is to make it possible for IT organizations to embrace storage automation in a way that allows them to make sure that data is always in the right place at the right time.

The VSP system is designed to allow IT organizations to choose to scale up, out or go deeper in terms of the number of arrays they want to deploy and the ability to automatically provision any number of physical and virtual servers that need to access those arrays, he said. This “three-dimensional” approach to managing storage, he said, can now be automated using polices that are set via a new upgrade to the HDS Command Suite Management software that has been redesigned to meet the needs of data centers dealing with dynamic virtual server environments.

The VSP system allows IT organization to manage sets of data as one logical unit no matter how many arrays in the system that data is spread across, he said. This data dispersal approach also means that data is inherently more secure, while processing data in parallel serves to boost overall I/O performance, he said.

The challenge that HDS is trying to address, said Mikkelsen, is that manually setting up tiers of data storage is effectively too difficult to accomplish for most IT organizations. The VSP systems are designed to automate the storage management process from end-to-end across tightly coupled storage arrays.

The HDS approach to managing storage involves cutting costs by unifying storage management in a way that allows IT organizations to centralize data on a common array platform that makes data available to other systems via a variety of SAN or NAS interfaces. This approach means customers don’t have to purchase separate arrays for every storage scenario.

The VSP systems come configured with Flash memory and 2.5 SAS drives standard to support a total of 255 petabytes of storage using 256 Flash drives and 2,048 SAS drives.