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Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) is making it easier to reach the cloud. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced the Hitachi Data Ingestor (HDI), a so-called “on-ramp” to the cloud that speaks CIFS and NFS and makes it possible for more applications – and remote offices – to move data in and out of the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP).
The Data Ingestor provides standard file serving access – NFS or CIFS – to stored content within the HCP. It acts as an intelligent storage cache for distributed sites to feed data to (and read it from) the HCP cloud repository at a central location.
“The HDI provides a CIFS and NFS interface for applications and users so they can get data in and out of the cloud in the way they are used to working. This provides the IT department with a way to get data in and out without having to wait for applications to be rewritten for advanced interfaces, such as HTTP,” said Jeff Lundberg, senior product marketing manager for file, content and cloud, HDS.
The HDI is integrated with the HCP’s massive maximum capacity of 40PB and storage management capabilities to provide what the company terms “bottomless, backup-free storage” for distributed locations.
To make it all work, HDS has upgraded the HCP cloud cluster with a host of new management, reporting and data movement features.
The Hitachi Content Platform is an object storage system that presents one object view to users and applications. Version 4 of the HCP includes built-in chargeback tools, supports multi-tenancy and is integrated with the recently released Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and Symantec’s Enterprise Vault archiving software. It also allows for non-disruptive data migration for streamlining the hardware refresh process.
Lundberg said a forklift upgrade are out of the question when you hit tens of petabytes of scale. “These platforms aren’t the types of things you want to swap out every three years when your lease is up,” he said. To that end, version 4 of the HCP includes replication and autonomic refresh capabilities that make it possible to swap out aging gear in the background.
The Hitachi Content Platform v4 is available in a range of configurations, starting at 4TB and scaling to up to 40PB. The starting list price for a 4TB HCP300 is $60,000. Hitachi claims that storage capacity is about one-third of the overall cost of the system.
A Hitachi Data Ingestor license pair lists for $23,000 for high availability with automated tiering included.
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