Hitachi Intros Thin Provisioning

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, today announced a multitude of significant storage software innovations, including the worlds first implementation of a large-scale, enterprise-class virtualization layer combined with thin provisioning software — representing the first time that customers can obtain the consolidation benefits of external storage virtualization and the power and cooling advantages of thin provisioning, in one integrated solution. This announcement is core to the company’s newly announced Services Oriented Storage Solutions strategy (see separate press release), long-awaited industry breakthroughs that enable storage to be provisioned and charged back according to business needs, not technology constraints.

Hitachi today also announced advanced new virtualization software capable of managing a nearly infinite pool of virtualized storage capacity — 247 petabytes, effectively removing all capacity constraints for global companies centralizing storage and processing within a single geographic area. Hitachi also announced new software for the creation of Large Logical Storage Pools, enabling hundreds of disk drives to operate on a single input/output (I/O) request simultaneously, delivering substantial performance benefits to critical business applications. All of these software breakthroughs are available with the new Hitachi Universal Storage Platform™ V, the company’s latest flagship that defies the status quo of storage by executing a services oriented approach to storage management.

“Hitachi exhibits the highest levels of hardware and software integration, as can be seen by its platform direction and its portfolio of common storage services,” said Claus Mikkelsen, chief scientist, Hitachi Data Systems. “While a storage system may be very effective, it cannot be complete if the end-user must stay within certain boundaries of physical storage. Imagine a storage services platform that essentially does away with all limits in engineering, performance, and thought — a platform that virtually has no limitation as its limitation. The all-new Hitachi USP V is a limitless expression of storage art, science and engineering in its most evolved state. The USP V is proficient in assimilating all heterogeneous storage systems and presenting them as a unified, harmonious whole that can be thinly provisioned and finely partitioned as opposed to existing as monolithic, isolated, power-hungry, limiting entities.”

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)