Hitachi Data Systems Adds Cloud Tiering To Storage Platform

Hitachi Data Systems Corp., a Hitachi subsidiary, announced a new set of technologies in the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) portfolio designed to help employees work from anywhere on any device while letting IT optimize where the data resides, be it on-prem or in the cloud.

The basic premise behind the HCP portfolio is that content should be mobilized while retaining security and adhering to data governance. There are three integrated pieces: HCP the object store, HCP Anywhere the file sync and share solution and the Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI).

HDI is a file or cloud on-ramp, a file service to remote and branch offerings, which now has simplified provisioning and management to get branch and remote offices up and running in minutes.

The big update to HCP  introduces adaptive cloud tiering, which lets organizations move data to and from a choice of leading public clouds, including Google's, Amazon's and Microsoft's, based on changes in demand and policies set by the organization. It’s meant to provide a balanced approach to security and cost by controlling what’s kept in-house and what’s stored in the public cloud.

There are new capabilities to synchronize data across multiple active sites for improved productivity. HCP Anywhere acts as a single point of control for user sync and share and for remote and branch office file services.

"We’re enabling workforce mobility and secure hybrid cloud. IT can create policies to move and authorize data and the data remains encrypted," said Tanya Loughlin, director of file, object and cloud product marketing at HDS.

HDS has over 6,300 employees worldwide and its parent company Hitachi is massive, making $93.4 billion in revenue last year. The company sees opportunity in what it calls the Social Innovation Business.

It aids in the transition from traditional IT to private and public clouds and provides the systems to enable a mobile workforce. HCP is a software-only offering developed entirely in-house by HDS.

HDS' original focus was storage hardware, but the business is now about evenly split between software and services, and hardware. The company offers a spectrum of delivery deployment and financial models.

"Instead of buying outright CapEx, we offer things like onsite management and onsite without CapEx," said Loughlin. "There are a number of service providers leveraging innovative models. They’re looking for a vendor to be a partner and that’s where these models were born."

The HCP portfolio is built on object storage and includes archive, backup-free and hybrid cloud storage on a single platform. IT organizations and cloud service providers can store, share, synchronize, protect, preserve, analyze and retrieve file data from a single system.