Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Cloud Services for Private File Tiering
Hitachi Data Systems is a premier provider of cloud storage
infrastructure, services and solutions that deliver integrated, elastic,
virtualized and highly available cloud environments. We deliver secure,
flexible, scalable and easy-to-manage cloud storage infrastructures
that are location independent and enable you to lower total cost of
ownership, meet service level agreements and improve operational
efficiency. We also deliver fully managed cloud services so that you
can reduce costs, improve efficiencies and pay for only what is
consumed, all while providing the agility to grow and shrink capacity
to meet the ever changing demands of the business.
The Hitachi Vision on Cloud
Cloud is not a single product, but rather a way to provide IT services. The Hitachi Data Systems approach offers an integrated set of solutions and service offerings, which allows you to choose the best possible solutions to address your particular cloud needs, at your own pace, while protecting your existing investments.
Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering helps manage the explosive growth of unstructured content. The solution enables organizations to move legacy or lower value file data to cloud storage located within their organization’s firewall and only pay for the storage that they consume, when they consume it. Organizations can request addi-tional storage when needed. Best of all, they do not need any resources to manage the private cloud environment.
Overview
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rapidly adopted virtualization and are now looking to cloud delivery service models to reduce costs, increase flexibility and improve their time to market. Cloud’s ability to grow and contract storage resources, in concert with business needs, eliminates up front capital expenditure for underutilized assets and minimizes operational expenses due to continual data growth and man-agement complexity. By deploying cloud models and leveraging cloud managed services, organizations only pay for what they consume and eliminate the day-to-day management tasks altogether.
The massive growth of data such as busi-ness documents, file data, computer aided design (CAD), computer aided manufactur-ing (CAM) and web content are leadmanufactur-ing many organizations to build large network attached storage (NAS) environments that have become increasingly complex to manage and costly to operate, never mind taking pre-cious resources away from the most active and frequently accessed data. Research has found that roughly 80 percent of the data residing on primary NAS devices is stale. This stale data requires constant backup and management, which in turn consumes more
capacity and IT resources. In addition, most of the stale data resides on tier 1 storage, causing the overall total cost of ownership (TCO) for this environment to be very high.
File Tiering Storage as a Service
Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering is a cloud solution that directly addresses this challenge. By leveraging a private cloud delivery model, organizations can reduce costs, allow seamless access to tiered data, simplify management and improve the efficiency and longevity of their primary NAS environments by:
■
■ Moving legacy or lower value file data to
cloud storage
■
■ Aligning payment to consumption (only
paying for the storage that they consume when they consume it)
■
■ Eliminating the need for any resources to
manage the environment
With the explosive growth of unstructured data stored in NAS environments, many organizations are challenged with:
■
■ Cost of storing and managing stale data
on primary NAS tier
■
■ Proliferation of file servers ■
■ Poor utilization ■
■ Uneven cost to value ratio of data and
storage
■
■ Increasing management costs and
complexity
■
■ Slowing performance of primary NAS ■
■ Exploding backup volumes and shrinking
backup windows
Cloud Service for Private File Tiering is a integrated, fully managed usage-based service that moves legacy or lower value unstructured data into a cloud storage environment located within the organization’s data center (see Figure 2). The data stays in the organization’s data center, but the organization only pays for the storage that is used on a monthly subscription basis. Maintaining the data within the orga-nization’s environment ensures that existing security methodologies are maintained. The physical infrastructure in the organization’s data center is remotely managed by Hitachi Data Systems through a secure connection. This reduces management overhead and provides the necessary skills to optimize the storage environment. When new storage is required, an automated request is made and fulfilled based on the policies set up front between Hitachi Data Systems and the organization. The stor-age is then remotely provisioned and manstor-aged by Hitachi Data Systems.
The characteristics of the offering include:
■
■ Fully managed usage-based service
to move inactive file data into a cloud environment
■
■ Move “long tail” content off primary NAS stores and into cached cloud store ■
■ Access old content when needed via primary NAS by way of stubs ■
■ Target unstructured content or file shares
■
■ Offered in three standard service packages ■
■ No capital expense; equipment is in
organization’s data center, but owned and remotely managed by Hitachi Data Systems
■
■ $/GB/month consumption pricing (pay
per use)
■
■ Standardized packages to address small,
Benefits
The Cloud Service for Private File Tiering allows organizations to tier multiple NAS filers to their resident cloud infrastructure over a local high speed network [local area network (LAN) or metro area network (MAN)]. By deploying a cloud service delivery model, organizations are able to consume resources as a service and pay only for those resources they use. They can also gain operational and capital expense savings, simplify IT manage-ment and improve the performance of their primary NAS environment.
In addition, once the data has been tiered to the cloud storage, Hitachi Data Systems can provide advanced data protection capabilities via replicated cloud storage.
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A comprehensive economic analysis using Hitachi Data Systems Storage Economics methodology compares “business as usual” operating practices to using the Hitachi Cloud Services for Private File Tiering and shows the clear economic advantages of using the Hitachi Cloud Service. Business-as-usual operating practices are defined as adding storage capacity to meet the growing the file and content storage environment by adding NAS devices. Table 1 summarizes this comparison. By using the Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering, organiza-tions will avoid up front capital expense,
unplanned incremental storage for burst capacity and additional costs for hardware and software upgrades and warranty and maintenance.
Solution Components and
Configurations
The Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering integrates key hardware, software and services from Hitachi Data Systems in a unique pay-per-use model. The key products and services included are Hitachi Content Platform, Remote Storage Management services and Hitachi Data Protection Suite, powered by CommVault®.
Hitachi Content Platform
The Hitachi Content Platform provides a highly scalable and reliable enterprise-class storage infrastructure as part of the Cloud Service for Private File Tiering.
The Hitachi Content Platform enables creation of an agile, unstructured content environment with general purpose object stores that support a variety of services via a single optimized storage platform that abstracts details of the back end storage systems and creates homogeneous storage environments. The Hitachi Content Platform enables a multitenant object storage envi-ronment with the security and broad proto-col support needed to enable organizations to gain the benefits of consolidation without compromising security or completely rewrit-ing critical applications.
With its flexible, modular design, the Hitachi Content Platform allows administrators to scale up or down on demand and with petabyte scaling potential.
Hitachi Content Platform securely segre-gates data within different namespaces to prevent unauthorized access. Furthermore, built-in high availability and RAID-6 data protection allow administrators to provide online access and protect against data loss. The solution leverages high density SATA to provide maximum capacity at a lower price point, helping organizations reduce their overall TCO.
Description Business as Usual
(Growing NAS environment) Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering
Up front CAPEX Yes No
Asset ownership Yes No
Burst mode capacity No Yes
Archive management Yes, with own staff No, remote
Ingestion, policy
management Yes, with own staff No
Cost of power, cooling floor space
Yes Yes
Cost of hardware, software upgrades
Yes No
Security, encryption Yes, data stay on
customer site site, secure remote connec-Yes, data stay on customer tion for remote management
Tech refresh effort, cost Yes No
When comparing estimates of business as usual (local NAS
data storage TCO) to those of the Hitachi cloud solution, a
significant cost benefit is seen with the Hitachi cloud solution.
With all configuration sizes, there is at least a 25% reduction in
the unit cost TCO for owning and managing the file and content
environment.
Remote Storage Management Services For organizations looking to reduce their management costs or lacking the resources, staff or expertise to implement and maintain their own storage infrastructure, Remote Storage Management Services from Hitachi Data Systems quickly and cost-effectively provide best practice monitoring, reporting and provisioning capabilities for storage management. These services offer the most comprehensive set of remote storage management capabilities with the ability to provision storage as well as monitor the stor-age environment. They help organizations fill expertise and staff gaps cost-effectively and quickly, with greater organizational flexibility. The skilled managed services staff from Hitachi Data Systems gains secure access to an organization’s environment via VPN, Citrix or WebEx connectivity as a remote user, based on the organization’s security proto-cols, and essentially becomes an extension of the organization’s IT resources. Hitachi Data Systems works within the organization’s Remote Working Access Policy, while adher-ing to the relevant User Administration Policy and Procedures.
Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering is a fully managed offering that allows organizations to pay according to capacity usage. Because the solution is managed exclusively for the organization on their premise, the offering requires a minimum commitment in order to sign up, and then organization is billed monthly based on actual storage consumption. The Remote Storage Management Service also includes integrated reporting on the capacity and per-formance of the cloud storage environment. Understanding that security is a top priority, Hitachi Data Systems uses Hi-Track® Remote
Monitoring system software to provide com-pletely secure access to detect potential problems and proactively address them. To demonstrate the high level of security within the software and the method with which the software transmits information to Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Data Systems has passed an independent audit performed by ISCA labs to validate its security. ISCA posted this audit on their website: http:// www.icsalabs.com/sites/default/files/CTXX-HITACHIDAT-2010-0216-01-S.pdf.
Hitachi Data Protection Suite Hitachi Data Protection Suite includes Hitachi Data Archiver software, which is tightly integrated with the Hitachi Content Platform to provide seamless and intelligent policy-based data movement into the cloud. The Data Archiver module lets administra-tors use existing storage resources more intelligently. The software migrates file sys-tem data from primary NAS to less expen-sive secondary storage. By shrinking the size of the primary NAS environment, Data Archiver software reduces backup windows,
prevents overcapacity incidences, eases IT administrative burdens and improves sys-tem performance. Migrations are automati-cally scheduled before thresholds are met, seamlessly extending the capacity of a NAS volume. Data Archiver software allows users to access more data online and ensures that all data is managed.
Based on predetermined criteria, Data Archiver software automatically migrates unstructured file data to the cloud object store, leaving a stub in the primary NAS environment so users can transparently recall the information
Benefits Description
Eliminate Capital Expense
• Employ consumption-based pricing.
• Support unpredictable demand with "just in time" storage. • Eliminate oversubscription of storage.
Reduce Operating
Expense •• Move stale data to a fully managed environment. Improve efficiency and utilization of existing investment. • Reduce amount of backup media, licensing and
management overhead required. Improve Primary
NAS Environment •• Reduce amount of storage on primary NAS. Improve performance, scalability and manageability. • Achieve better return on assets (ROA).
Improve Backup
Performance •
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when they need it. The stub files allow users to access migrated data the way they always have; no special user interface is needed. Migrated data appears in the user’s browser interface with a special icon alerting users that the file has been migrated. Recalling migrated data is easy; users simply highlight and click the file and it is automatically recalled from storage. The Cloud Service for Private File Tiering provides online access to tiered data so administrators can meet corporate guide-lines by quickly and easily recalling migrated files from the cloud object store. Additionally, the solution is integrated with leading backup and virus scanning software so that recalls are not required from the cloud solution in order to perform these normal management tasks.
Solution Architecture
Figure 3 highlights the architecture for the Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering. Organizations can tier multiple NAS filers to the cloud over a high speed LAN or MAN. Based on the intelligent policy engine, inactive files are seamlessly migrated to the cloud storage. The cloud solution leverages highly available Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage with high density SATA drives. Once the file enters the cloud solution, Hitachi Data Systems remote managed services take over the active moni-toring, management and administration of the tiered data, and allow administrators to focus resources on managing primary, active data. This solution can be purchased in three configuration sizes according to the file tier-ing requirements. The configurations are all based on the same architecture. The three configuration sizes are:
■ ■ Small: starting at 50TB ■ ■ Medium: starting at 200TB ■ ■ Large: starting at 500TB
The initial configuration size is based on the predicted volume of data that will be tiered to the solution, but it can be scaled up or down based on consumption and require-ments. Custom configurations are also available if required.
Lower TCO by at least 25% with
Hitachi Cloud Service for Private
File Tiering
Table 2. Relative Cost per Terabyte per Month for Business as Usual Compared to Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering
Summary
Hitachi Cloud Service for Private File Tiering helps organizations manage the explosive growth of unstructured content in their environment. The solution enables organiza-tions to move legacy or lower value file data to cloud storage and only pay for the storage that they consume when they consume it. By tiering inactive file content to the cloud, administrators can improve the performance, efficiency, scale and longevity of their primary NAS environment in addition to improving their backup and restore times. From a financial perspective, organizations can eliminate up front capital expenses and reduce operational expenses by simplifying their environment and consuming storage as a service.
For More Information
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Notice: This document is for informational purposes only, and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning any equipment or service offered or to be offered by Hitachi Data Systems Corporation.
