Hitachi Vantara redefines enterprise storage with AI-driven data centre solutions
Hitachi Vantara, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, has announced a new storage and infrastructure foundation with a new scale-out, scale-up architecture for any workload at any scale.
The solution includes Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) 5000 series, the world’s fastest* enterprise-class storage array, along with the new Hitachi Ops Center management software and updated Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System. Together, these technologies can accelerate data centre workloads and deliver an ideal foundation for modernising data centre, cloud and DataOps environments.
Just as DevOps accelerates the way software is delivered, DataOps aims to change processes so that the right data gets to the right employee at the right time while ensuring it remains secure.
The VSP 5000 series is designed so customers can start small and grow, as needed, to massive scale – all while delivering predictable service levels. It is designed to accelerate and consolidate multiple workloads of any type – traditional transactional systems, modern containerised applications, analytics and even mainframes.
Its upgradeable architecture is future-ready to bridge from well-established storage technologies to the latest advances such as SCM and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) without forklift upgrades or more hardware investments.
“The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform 5000 series is the proving ground for our customers to gain a digital advantage over their competition and achieve better business outcomes,” said Brad Surak, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Hitachi Vantara.
“Hitachi Vantara is delivering the foundation for modern, enterprise infrastructure innovations that our customers require, with new solutions that are engineered using futureproof technology to take on the data centre challenges of tomorrow.”
The new series is an enterprise-class flash array optimised to deliver best-in-class performance and resiliency by taking full advantage of serial attached SCSI (SAS) architecture, NVMe and storage class memory (SCM). Powered by the new Hitachi Accelerator Fabric, it is the world’s fastest NVMe flash array, which can help users get to insights and business outcomes faster with up to 21 million input-output operations per second (IOPS).
Other features include:
- Response times as low as 70 microseconds.
- Machine learning (ML) to perform on-the-fly optimisations of dedupe processes based on block size and other characteristics. This delivers up to 7:1 total reduction.
- Self-protecting IO architecture and quadruple redundant fabric which deliver a 99.999999% availability.
The new Hitachi Ops Center brings AI to infrastructure management and operations to improve decision-making and modernise resource delivery. Ops Center can accelerate customers toward an autonomous data centre by automating up to 70% of tasks and can offer faster, more accurate insights to diagnose system health and keep data operations running in top condition.
Customers can leverage a VSP 5000 model to virtualise their current systems, lowering total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 20%. Virtualisation will bring all the data services available with the VSP 5000 series to older systems, Hitachi Vantara said.
The VSP Cloud Connect Pack adds an Hitachi network-attached storage (HNAS) 4000 file storage gateway to move data to a public cloud. Data that is moved to the public cloud is enriched with metadata, making it indexable and searchable.
The Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System (SVOS) powers the VSP 5000 series and is optimised for scale-out architectures, NVMe performance and next-generation storage media including storage class memory (SCM). It incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) that adapts to changing conditions to enhance workload performance, reduce storage costs and predict faults that could disrupt operations.
The VSP 5000 series is the only storage system in the industry that supports both NVMe and SAS flash media in the same system array, Hitachi Vantara said. Intelligent tiering leverages AI and ML to dynamically promote and demote data to an optimised tier.
The entry-priced Hitachi VSP 5100 comes loaded with software that enables complete storage management, system analytics and native copy data management. There are four models in total, offering from 4.2 million to 21 million IOPS.
There is a 100% data availability guarantee for all VSP models. For customers requiring nonstop operations that can survive a regional outage, Hitachi’s Global-Active Device (GAD) is available for the VSP 5000 Series and delivers synchronous clustering of applications between sites that are up to 500 km apart.
“Hitachi Vantara has been a trusted partner to help Conagra Brands modernise our data centre operations,” said Matt Bouges, Enterprise IT Architect, Conagra Brands, which owns Duncan Hines and Swiss Miss.
“The latest Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, combined with the new Hitachi Ops Center and latest storage virtualisation operating system, delivers the performance and efficiencies we need to reduce the time and money we spend running IT while accelerating IT’s time to value, helping grow the business.”
“NVMe-optimised storage platforms provide significant opportunities for customers to cost-effectively consolidate mixed enterprise workloads onto fewer systems,” said Eric Burgener, Research VP in the Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group at IDC.
“For IT leaders considering this type of consolidation, issues like performance, availability and scalability are critical. With their new VSP 5000 series storage arrays, Hitachi is delivering across all of these metrics, turning in industry-leading high-end throughput on systems that deliver sub 100-microsecond latencies backed by its venerable 100% data availability guarantee.”
Explore:
Download the e-book about challenges encountered when modernising infrastructure (PDF).
*Based on internal testing using industry-standard benchmarks against published claims of competitive products.
People, processes and infrastructure have had to transform to cater to changing norms, KC Phua, Director Technical Experts APAC, Data Management & Protection, Global Field and Industry Solutions, Hitachi Vantara said.
"Before, infrastructure peak times were in the day. Now it is all the time," he said.
"The infrastructure needs to match up to the demands of the business. That's what the whole digital transformation journey is about."
The new normal for infrastructure includes:
Capacity, which is now verging into petabyte territory. Companies are juggling high volumes of data while handling transactions without lagging. "The infrastructure must be able to scale from terabytes to petabytes," he said.
Performance, driven by stringent service level agreements (SLAs) and customers who expect their systems to be up all the time, as well as transactions to occur 24x7.
Scalability/agility as customers move to the cloud. According to Phua, Hitachi Vantara's China customers are asking for 20-50 petabytes of capacity, as are Singapore government agencies. "Can you scale?" he asked.
Reliability/resiliency to remain operational when infrastructure components are disrupted.
Availability even when disasters occur, whether it is a power shutdown or an earthquake. Phua shared that Chinese companies must prove that their data centres are available instantly after a disaster.
Just as DevOps accelerates the way software is delivered, DataOps aims to change processes so that the right data gets to the right employee at the right time while ensuring it remains secure.
The VSP 5000 series is designed so customers can start small and grow, as needed, to massive scale – all while delivering predictable service levels. It is designed to accelerate and consolidate multiple workloads of any type – traditional transactional systems, modern containerised applications, analytics and even mainframes.
Its upgradeable architecture is future-ready to bridge from well-established storage technologies to the latest advances such as SCM and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) without forklift upgrades or more hardware investments.
“The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform 5000 series is the proving ground for our customers to gain a digital advantage over their competition and achieve better business outcomes,” said Brad Surak, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Hitachi Vantara.
“Hitachi Vantara is delivering the foundation for modern, enterprise infrastructure innovations that our customers require, with new solutions that are engineered using futureproof technology to take on the data centre challenges of tomorrow.”
The new series is an enterprise-class flash array optimised to deliver best-in-class performance and resiliency by taking full advantage of serial attached SCSI (SAS) architecture, NVMe and storage class memory (SCM). Powered by the new Hitachi Accelerator Fabric, it is the world’s fastest NVMe flash array, which can help users get to insights and business outcomes faster with up to 21 million input-output operations per second (IOPS).
Other features include:
- Response times as low as 70 microseconds.
- Machine learning (ML) to perform on-the-fly optimisations of dedupe processes based on block size and other characteristics. This delivers up to 7:1 total reduction.
- Self-protecting IO architecture and quadruple redundant fabric which deliver a 99.999999% availability.
The new Hitachi Ops Center brings AI to infrastructure management and operations to improve decision-making and modernise resource delivery. Ops Center can accelerate customers toward an autonomous data centre by automating up to 70% of tasks and can offer faster, more accurate insights to diagnose system health and keep data operations running in top condition.
"When
customers ask us (what is happening if an) application slows down or
shuts down for no reason, we can diagnose where the problem is," Phua
said.
The VSP Cloud Connect Pack adds an Hitachi network-attached storage (HNAS) 4000 file storage gateway to move data to a public cloud. Data that is moved to the public cloud is enriched with metadata, making it indexable and searchable.
The Hitachi Storage Virtualization Operating System (SVOS) powers the VSP 5000 series and is optimised for scale-out architectures, NVMe performance and next-generation storage media including storage class memory (SCM). It incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) that adapts to changing conditions to enhance workload performance, reduce storage costs and predict faults that could disrupt operations.
The VSP 5000 series is the only storage system in the industry that supports both NVMe and SAS flash media in the same system array, Hitachi Vantara said. Intelligent tiering leverages AI and ML to dynamically promote and demote data to an optimised tier.
The entry-priced Hitachi VSP 5100 comes loaded with software that enables complete storage management, system analytics and native copy data management. There are four models in total, offering from 4.2 million to 21 million IOPS.
There is a 100% data availability guarantee for all VSP models. For customers requiring nonstop operations that can survive a regional outage, Hitachi’s Global-Active Device (GAD) is available for the VSP 5000 Series and delivers synchronous clustering of applications between sites that are up to 500 km apart.
“Hitachi Vantara has been a trusted partner to help Conagra Brands modernise our data centre operations,” said Matt Bouges, Enterprise IT Architect, Conagra Brands, which owns Duncan Hines and Swiss Miss.
“The latest Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, combined with the new Hitachi Ops Center and latest storage virtualisation operating system, delivers the performance and efficiencies we need to reduce the time and money we spend running IT while accelerating IT’s time to value, helping grow the business.”
“NVMe-optimised storage platforms provide significant opportunities for customers to cost-effectively consolidate mixed enterprise workloads onto fewer systems,” said Eric Burgener, Research VP in the Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group at IDC.
“For IT leaders considering this type of consolidation, issues like performance, availability and scalability are critical. With their new VSP 5000 series storage arrays, Hitachi is delivering across all of these metrics, turning in industry-leading high-end throughput on systems that deliver sub 100-microsecond latencies backed by its venerable 100% data availability guarantee.”
Banks
are the early adopters for the VSP 500 systems, which cost US$600,000 to
US$800,000. Phua shared that a bank in India bought a system before it
launched, while banks in Korea and China have both expressed interest
after the launch. The target audience are financial conglomerates which
support millions of users, manufacturers dealing with data captured from
machines, as well as government agencies.
"Banks
in Singapore are also reviewing this," Phua said. "They're looking into
the future. This is very future-proof. I can start small and I can go
big."
Download the e-book about challenges encountered when modernising infrastructure (PDF).
*Based on internal testing using industry-standard benchmarks against published claims of competitive products.
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