Unified Storage Reduces Both Cost And Complexity

Dealing with the spiraling storage costs and growing complexity are among the key CIO pain points as they fight the data tsunami. In conversation with Biztech2.com, Mark Adams, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Modular Storage Products, Hitachi Data Systems explains why a unified storage platform fits in.

What are the key CIO challenges when it comes to storage?

The foremost challenge is the exponential data growth. As per industry reports, block data is growing over 30 percent a year and the file sharing data is growing over 60 percent a year as more and more data gets added to the databases. So the challenge is to keep up with this enormous data growth requirement.

The second challenge is to manage the storage infrastructure within budgetary cost constraints. While data is growing by leaps and bounds budget growth is almost linear.

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The third challenge is dealing with the complexity. Traditionally companies have been deploying smaller and limited solutions to deal with separate problems. While each of those smaller systems addresses different issues, lack of scalability remains a concern with these systems, making the data growth unmanageable.

The last and the most significant challenge for a CIO is to meet the different service level objectives. There are instances when the top management puts forward the requirement of data retrieval within seconds or preventing significant data loss in case of a system crash. All these service level objectives are encapsulated in internal SLAs. When the data is growing and so is the complexity, meeting those SLAs within flat budgets becomes the biggest huddle to overcome.

Why would you advocate unified storage over traditional storage solutions to address these challenges?

Unified storage accomplishes two things for a CIO and, in turn, for the enterprise. Firstly, it reduces the complexity of the overall storage infrastructure. A unified system brings together the structured data or block data and the file sharing or the NAS, which traditionally would have required separate set of solutions. Going forward the trend is to move to a single platform for all data, as it enables consolidation. So you don’t have multiple solutions here and there and all data can be managed from one point of view, thereby reducing complexity. Enterprises will also see better efficiency because they are not wasting storage assets by overbuying many different systems. Secondly, the administrative time and the entire cost of licensing can be consolidated.

Thereby, in a way, it can help reduce both complexity and cost of an enterprises’ storage infrastructure, the two primary concerns that I pointed out earlier.

Where do you see the unified storage market heading in the next one or two years?

SMEs have already started adopting unified storage solutions. But currently, there are not many solutions available in the mid-range storage segment that are at par with the enterprise level, specifically when it comes to unified storage. The existing solutions available are not efficient and are under-performing. There is a need to provide enterprise level solutions which have both efficiency and performance in the mid-range storage product line. The market will definitely see acceleration in this space in the coming years.

What are the key highlights of Hitachi’s Unified Storage solutions?

While integration of block data and file sharing data is common, at Hitachi we have included a third emerging type of data called the object data. Object data is taking files and adding metadata to it making it indexable and searchable. Our product design approach is that of enterprise class products, which makes our solutions more scalable. We also have a unified storage management software for all Hitachi products, i.e., we bring all the midrange systems, NAS, or even backup systems under one framework.