HDS aims mid-range with new products
HDS aims mid-range with new products
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has revived its software line with the release of two new products this week, which allow for virtualisation and resource management capabilities and signal the vendor's drive to take on the competition.
As part of an aggressive push into the mid-range market, HDS launched its next generation mid-range suite, the Thunder 9500 V series, and its new storage resource management tool, HiCommand Tuning Manager software.
The new Freedom Storage Thunder 9500 V Series storage cabinet system features a virtualisation assist layer to ease storage management through a single interface.
HDS expects virtualisation to be popular among storage administrators because it simplifies the infrastructure with smaller SAN configurations, fewer switches, Fibre Channel cables and host bus adapters. Virtualisation also allows administrators to mix heterogeneous servers on a single port and provide security to the Logical Unit (LUN) level through Host Storage Domains. In this way, virtualisation can lower total cost of ownership, which HDS claims will appeal to cash strapped IT managers who crave centrally managed, distributed storage with large capacity in a small footprint.
The Thunder 9500 V Series is driven by the company's Hi-PER Architecture, which delivers approximately 2.3 times the performance of its predecessor, according to HDS.
There are a number of models available in the Thunder 9500 V Series, including the Thunder 9570V rack-mountable system, which delivers up to 4GB cache, four 2Gb/sec ports and 224 drives (32 TB) per system. This storage system is geared for consolidation, as the centralised storage system in medium to large businesses, or in distributed or departmental deployments in Fortune 500 companies.
The entry-level Thunder 9531V, Thunder 9532V, and Thunder 9533V systems are available in pre-configured, specially priced storage decks and range from 360GB to 1TB in capacity.
Australian customers are among the first in the world to purchase the series, with several installations already in progress. One such customer is Wodonga Institute of TAFE, which will implement its first SAN with the Thunder 9570 V series.
Wodonga Institute of TAFE's IT and communications manager, Neil Taylor, said, "We are confident that with the new Thunder 9570V in place, we will be set to manage our data storage requirements into the next five years and beyond. Considering the 35 per cent growth we have experienced recently and the 12000 new users we manage per year, getting the most technically advanced storage product - within our budget - was imperative. Our assessment after a four-month selection process and careful consideration of the three main storage players is that Hitachi Data Systems now offers the most cost-effective and technically proficient system in the mid-range."
Michael Cremen, Hitachi Data Systems' general manager Australia/New Zealand said, "Today’s unveiling is yet another step in our goal of becoming the number one storage provider by 2004. We have achieved domination in the high-end, and now have a similar capability in the mid-range. Watch this space."
HDS also announced the availability of HiCommand Tuning Manager software, a CIM-based storage management solution. The CIM-compliant end-to-end software tool fully integrates with HDS's flagship storage management software suite - HiCommand Management Framework.
HiCommand Tuning Manager provides centralised management for the newly launched Thunder 9500 V Series, as well as the rest of the Hitachi Freedom Storage 9000 product line, HDS claims. The product allows storage managers to map and monitor the utilisation of their storage infrastructure from the database to the device, providing them with data required for managing their storage resources. This tool enables storage managers to set capacity/performance alerts and generate customized reports that will support forecasting, planning, and implementation of future storage needs.
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