BARCELONA, 14 September 2004 — On Sept. 7, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) unveiled its Hitachi TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform. TagmaStore features breakthrough technologies previously not available in enterprise storage systems and some analysts believe that this new universal storage platform (USP) puts HDS about 18 months ahead of its competition (EMC and IBM) in the High End RAID storage market.
According to HDS, TagmaStore changes the industry dynamics of data storage by powering an embedded virtualization layer capable of managing up to 32 petabytes of internal and external storage, logical partitions in both internal and external storage and sophisticated storage-agnostic remote copy that greatly simplifies business continuity.
In addition to these ground-breaking new business-enabling capabilities, the TagmaStore USP outperforms any storage system on the planet. With the third generation massively parallel crossbar switch architecture as its engine — the all new mega scalable Hitachi Universal Star Network — the Universal Storage Platform delivers two million IOPs (input output operations per second) — a 500 percent advantage over other storage systems on the market.
The most important things about TagmaStore USP are that it allows all an enterprise’s storage to be managed as one, singe large pool of infinite storage capacity. It enables support for multiple tiers of varying cost storage. Even so, the USP ensures that all tiers receive the same high functionality. Data can be moved, copied and replicated from any tier, to any tier within this universal storage pool. And all of this is managed with a single, consistent interface, with support for host-based policies.
To read in detail about Hitachi TagmaStore USP please click to www.hds.com. I can imagine that most of you are reeling from those few paragraphs of geek speak, but thanks for bearing with me. The HDS announcement is very important because more and more often in our modern world we rely on data storage. Efficient data storage and retrieval makes a huge difference in organizations from telecom operators to health care providers.
When data storage and retrieval works well, the information you need is at your fingertips almost instantly. When a data storage system isn’t functioning efficiently, you know it because your precious time is lost standing in queues, waiting on “hold, ” or simply being told the information is lost or unavailable. As technology makes data manipulation and analysis more practical, many organizations are finding that their data is more valuable that they ever imagined. Customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and knowledge warehousing are just a few of the applications linked to efficient data storage and retrieval.
Two years ago Etsuhiko Shoyama, president, Hitachi, Ltd., said: “We’re going to be the world’s top player in the storage business.” Hitachi is now the world’s largest storage company with $6.7 billion in sales and is recognized by Gartner Dataquest as the fastest growing storage management vendor.
John Taffinder, HDS Executive VP, Europe, Middle East and Africa, spoke about the new TagmaStore USP and what it will mean to enterprise storage. “Our customers are asking us for business continuity solutions. They are asking us for storage area management solutions and data lifecycle management solutions. Today’s announcement gives us the leadership position in each one of those areas. Business continuity enables any company to copy any data virtually anywhere. No one else can do this and there is more to come. In storage area management the potential that this product has is to manage every vendors’ storage within one common storage management capability. This allows you to save lots and lots of money on your storage management costs. Storage becomes cheaper and simpler to manage. And thirdly with data lifecycle management, using the management techniques and the capacity that this box has to manage this 32 petabytes, which of course nobody has, but nobody had 32 terabytes 10 years ago, using those you can move data from different classes of storage within this management process. You can go from archive data to mid-range to enterprise class and back again. So that makes this concept of data life cycle management a lot easier than it is today.”
In the launch presentations, HDS executives explained that TagmaStore USP doesn’t function under the normal model of “put this product in and take everyone else’s out.” TagmaStore allows companies to keep their current storage resources and then grow them, using the USP to manage all the stored data. Companies don’t need to throw away past storage investments.
Taffinder’s claims concerning the TagmaStore USP are already well supported by analyst’s reports. One of the most compelling is “Managing Storage across the Data Center with Hitachi TagmaStore USP,” by ITCentrix. In this report this new approach to storage management was studied in two environments, a banking organization and a large manufacturing firm.
“The business case in both is compelling,” wrote ITCentrix, “with break-evens of six months or less, triple digit ROI and a more than 30 percent reduction in the total cost of storage and storage management.” Read the entire study at www.hds.com/tools/analyst_reports/itcentrix.html.
HDS was formed in 1989 with the original purpose of selling mainframe computers. That eventually proved less than ideally profitable. So, in 2000 the company decided to become a pure storage player. HDS is expanding aggressively in the Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) region. Since March 2000 the company has more than doubled its geographical presence, employee base and revenue. To ensure its continuing success in the storage business HDS has been in the process of transforming itself from a storage vendor to a storage solution provider.
“I measure our transformation on results — revenue,” remarked Taffinder. “What percentage of our revenue do we get from hardware and what percentage from services and software? Two years ago we were effectively 90:10. We decided that if we wanted to stay in business we needed to improve that ratio. So our goal for the end of 2005 is to go from 90:10 to 60:40. Today in EMEA I’m at 65:35. That’s 65 percent hardware and 35 percent software and services. So I’ve got five percentage points to go to reach the magic 60:40.”
Taffinder continued, “What does that mean to the customer? What it means is that he’s relying on us to do more than just deliver the box, install it and then go away. He wants us to help him get the most out of that equipment. Set up a data recovery system for him. He wants to integrate this equipment with all the other hardware he owns. He wants us to guarantee that he’s got continuous access. A lot of organizations are asking us to look at their whole IT infrastructure and suggest the best ways to manage their data storage — irrespective of whether they are using our storage or not.
“This has dramatically changed our recruitment. In the last year we’ve added about 80 people. Our recruitment is focussing on not just hardware specialists but we are also looking at hiring people with a software background and an enterprise type background to enrich what we can offer and to make our customers feel comfortable that we can do what we say we can do. So becoming a storage solution provider depends on what you offer customers and the skill set of your people. We have a long way to go but we have started down the road and are confident of reaching our goals.”
The TagmaStore USP doesn’t obsolete HDS’ other products such as the 9900V product range. Taffinder explained that the TagmaStore could be used to manage other HDS product lines and there is absolutely no intention to shut down the 9900 product line. In fact, in the next year he hopes to sell plenty of the 9900s. “If I don’t,” he said “then I won’t make my revenue target.” However, Taffinder hopes that customers will see the combination of the 9900 and the TagmaStore as important.
A few months ago HDS decided for the first time to base a few employees in the Middle East. Taffinder commented that HDS believes that the region has a very strong future. The company feels that there is the potential for a large amount of investment in IT infrastructure across the entire business spectrum. Taffinder has visited the Kingdom twice. He found that while a few very large Saudi enterprises such as Saudi Aramco are extremely IT savvy, other Saudi organizations and businesses fall short of the required levels of expertise and installed technology.
In Saudi Arabia, Naizak, the information technology subsidiary of the Al-Abdulkarim Group, has become HDS’ authorized services partner. HDS is aware that business in the Middle East moves at its own pace and they are committed with Naizak for the long term. Taffinder met Naizak’s representatives in London in December 2002 and there was a frank exchange of views at that time concerning how best to develop the Saudi market and support the HDS product line and HDS customers in the Kingdom. Over the past two years HDS has been pleased to see Naizak bringing and developing the needed human resources to represent HDS effectively in Saudi Arabia and to serve local customers.
“Naizak has invested considerably in training and we’ve helped them with that,” said Taffinder. “Now with our own people in Dubai we hope we will be able to support the market even more. HDS has made a commitment to this market and from now I can guarantee we will be there even in ten years. We may have come late to the Middle East but I believe we have come with a strong customer commitment and the best technology, which is really what will lead to success in this market.”
(Comments to: [email protected].)
