Hitachi Data Systems revealed the latest version of its tier 1 Virtual Storage Platform, using the background of a Toronto airport to link to its theme that the array is pitched at organizations moving to cloud computing.
The VSP G1000 can scale block-storage throughput performance of well over 3M IOPS, over 48GB/sec of usable bandwidth and NFS ops/sec performance of over 1.2M in unified configurations, the company said. It can hold up to 1,152 3.5-inch spinning drives and 256 SSDs.
Along with it HDS announced the Storage Virtualization Operating System (SVOS), a stand-alone version of the company’s storage virtualization solution which also runs on the G1000, a new version of the Hitachi Command Suite management platform and enhancements to its Unified Compute Platform converged portfolio.
An evolution of Hitachi enterprise storage operating systems, SVOS provides a common architecture that will eventually run on all HDS platforms. SVOS will feature flash optimization, automated tiering and non-disruptive data migration.
“Cloud is just a buzz word,” Miklos Sandorfi, vice president of solutions and cloud for HDS, told reporters. “You first have to talk about the business challenges and see if IT can align to that. You need to know where the business is going. To get a business app up and running quickly you need to make sure that you are always up and running all the time,” he said about HDS’s continuous cloud infrastructure strategy.
The G1000 natively deploys SVOS, and according to Sandorfi is a key part to the company’s overall strategy.
An HP official said it’s the same array Hewlett-Packard also announced Wednesday, which is built by Hitachi.
In an interview Sandorfi said the G1000 can start small and scale up to handling big data and cloud loads. It can be used as a virtualization controller without internal capacity, a unified storage system with up to eight-node Hitachi NAS platform clusters or a highly available infrastructure for Hitachi Content Platform environments.
“Businesses need to move quickly. They cannot wait for IT to help them remain competitive. Businesses are feeling the pressure and might have to move outside of IT to gain a competitive advantage,” said Michael Cremen, executive vice president of global sales for HDS, who was on hand for the Toronto launch.
Also on hand at the Toronto launch were executives from SAP and VMware. They, along with Microsoft, are strategic OEM partners of HDS and worked with the company to ensure SVOS and the G1000 are certified for Microsoft’s cloud, SAP HANA and can be integrated with VMware solutions.
Cremen said in an interview that alliance partners are part of the company’s approach to maintaining a consistent channel strategy for solution providers.
“This is not a flash in the pan type of partnership we have with SAP and VMware. We have invested over multiple generations to get close to this ecosystem of partners. Moving forward we will look to tighten integration with the channel for longer term solution selling with partners. This is what we are committed to,” Cremen added.
Marcel Escorcio, regional vice president and general manager of HDS Canada, said the business demands in Canada are changing. The new platform is a heterogeneous solution for SMBs, he said, all managed with one software suite to ensure cost savings.