The most significant aspect is the software, says Webster. "Storage platforms these days are less about hardware and more about the software-driven services--in this case, a list of data replication options, built-in data protection, and a common management GUI for block, file and object-based storage."
HDS also hinted at product announcements expected later this year, including a unified storage offering for the midsize and large enterprise market. It plans to introduce the Hitachi NAS Platform F series of products to address unstructured data growth in the low tier of the market, as well as a backup appliance based on deduplication technology that enables faster, more reliable and more cost-effective data protection.
In January 2011, EMC combined two of its very successful product lines--CLARiiON, for midrange block-based SAN storage, and Celerra, for file-based midrange NAS storage--into one unified product family called VNX, under the auspices of the new Unified Storage Division (USD). Since then, VNX product revenues have grown more than 20%, and more than 80% of EMC's new midrange system revenue comes from the VNX family.
Last October at its fall storage announcement, IBM added file-based NAS storage to block-based SAN storage in its Storwize V7000 flagship midmarket storage array, Storwize V7000 Unified. In addition to administering the unified storage through a single user interface and common GUI, Storwize V7000 storage pools can be shared between block and file workloads.
NetApp, which had been taking care of IBM's unified storage needs, and will continue to address customers not requiring as much horsepower as the Storwize V7000 Unified, kicked off the unified storage parade toward the end of 2010, centered on its FAS/V6200 high-end storage system and the V3200 midrange system. Even Cisco, the networking giant that plays a much smaller role in enterprise storage, has dabbled in this space, with its unified storage fabric in early 2010.
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