Hitachi Announce Data Migration Services

january 30, 2008: Hitachi have announced a new suite of data migration services in what the Japanese based company are hailing as the world’s only storage agnostic and transparent solution.

Data migration concerns are usually focused around downtime, as that’s what keeps data managers awake at nights and many brows constantly furrowed. Hitachi’s offering aims to decrease downtime from thirty days to seven by removing legacy systems faster than previous solutions.

The new portfolio will include GSS data migration consulting and implementation running on Hitachi's Tiered Storage Manager and widespread use of virtualisation. This comes at an opportune time for the Japanese giant, as IDC believes 60% of all data centres will face relocation over the next five years as storage space, power and cooling concerns force transitions into more ideal surrounds.

Hitachi points to one of its marquee clients, The Weather Channel who broadcast to 96 million households in the US and used their previous data migration services to migrate 20 terabytes of Tier 1 data.

“Because we provide critical national, regional and local weather information and alerts to tens of millions of consumers on The Weather Channel, weather.com and mobile platforms, downtime is not an option,” said Brian Shield, CIO, The Weather Channel.

These moves can be lengthy processes and cost in excess of $50,000 to ship each array from the data centre, according to research by the consultancy group ITCentrix, so it’s no surprise that concerns about additional downtime are continuing to grow.

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