The 3Dscaling Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) and Command Suite management softwarerecently released by Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Corp. hold particular appealfor medium-sized enterprises and are a great fit for the Canadian market,according to HDS executives.

VSP is thelatest addition to Hitachi’sstorage systems product line, which includes Universal Storage Platform (USP) Vfor large-scale enterprises and USP VM for mid-sized organizations. The VSPplatform flexibly adapts for performance, capacity and multi-vendor storage,says HDS.

“We seehuge opportunity in the Canadian market for VSP,” said Barry Morrison,vice-president and general manager for HDS Canada, in an interview withmultiple HDS executives at the Hitachi Information Forum in Santa Clara, Calif. 

VSP is acontinuation of the USP strategy that the company has been executing for thelast four to five years, said Morrison. “We’ve seen our market share, with justthe USP and virtualization, grow from the low teens to the mid-thirties,” hesaid.

Theproducts work with existing storage, which suits mid-sized customers in Canada,according to Hu Yoshida, CTO of HDS. “Because this product can scale, we canstart very small … we can start in a mid-range market and we don’t need to sellany storage with it,” he said.

Yoshida saidhe expects quick uptake of the Command Suite software, from enterprises of allsizes, because of the usability. “It’s all about simplicity and it’s a majorimprovement over our existing software,” he said.

The “beautyof about these products is they can be standalone … but combined together iswhen it is the most powerful,” said Yoshida.

“It’s notabout how big the company is, it’s about what services they are trying toprovide,” said Yoshida. “We can start very small and without disruption, we cangrow with that customer as he grows and we can just add capacity and scale itup or scale it out,” he said.

HDS is “reachinga new category of customers who have been looking for this, but have not beenable to get it because their only choice was a two-controller system. And atwo-controller system does not scale and it does not have high availability,”said Yoshida.

VSP is garneringattention for its 3D scale up, scale out and scale deep functionality, but theplatform also scales down, Chris Willis, senior director of solutionsconsulting at HDS Canada, pointed out.

It’s theability to scale down that will “bring us to a new market in Canada,” saidWillis. “The mid-market is where we are going to have the biggest explosion. Wehave a lot of clients that wanted our USPs, but they couldn’t afford it,” hesaid.

The“attractive price point,” the “attractive technology point” and future proofingis “really going to hit home” for Canadian customers, said Willis.

TheCanadian market isn’t “all about capacity,” he said. “It used to be that thebig would eat the small, now it is the fast eating the slow … it’s aboutagility,” he said.

HDS ishosting a Hitachi Information Forum at the WestinHarbour Castlein Toronto onNovember 23, where HDS executives and guest speakers will be on hand to answerquestions and discuss the products in terms of their Canadian market appeal.