HDS News

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Earlier this month, the 5th annual Germany Hitachi Information Forum was held in Mainz. With over 300 attendees, 20 presentations, hands-on breakout sessions and a panel discussion on big data, the event was an overwhelming success.

As a pretext to the panel discussion on big data I moderated, I referenced The Economist’s Kenneth Cukier’s example of Google Translate as an example of how the scale and depth of data distinguishes big data from the data analytics of yesterday. Jürgen Krebs, director of Business Development and Marketing of HDS Germany, and Bob Plumridge, chief technology officer of HDS EMEA, joined me on the panel to discuss their views and real world examples of big data. We also discussed how object storage impacts big data, how the role of IT leaders will evolve as big data drives business decisions, as well as the impact of SAP HANA adoption.

You can view the Hitachi Information Forum panel discussion below.

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By Richard Jew and David Foster, Hitachi Data Systems

As storage infrastructures continue to grow in size and in complexity, significant challenges arise to properly monitor storage capacity growth and performance service levels delivered to critical business applications.  Since storage systems are often viewed with a level of unknown within the IT environment, i.e. “black box”, storage is often the first to be blamed when an unexplained application performance issue arises. This often prompts storage administrators to scramble for detailed storage performance statistics in an attempt to prove storage is not at fault. Typically, this involves manual tracking processes that may not be completely accurate nor properly scaled in an enterprise environment. In addition, as enterprises are constantly evolving, manually maintaining and monitoring the pertinent storage (supply) to business application (consumer) relationships can be taxing.  Enter storage analytics, where storage service level agreements and objectives that include detailed measurements of storage capacity and performance can be defined and measured for key business applications. With each business application having differing service level needs for storage, ensuring each of your critical business applications are meeting their required storage service levels is a challenging task that storage analytics can help solve.

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In June, we will begin our Hitachi Data Systems Information Forums around the globe and you are invited to join us for one of our most popular events. This year the forums begin with our largest venues in Mainz, Germany on June 5th and London, UK on June 13th.

As part of the Information Forums in Mainz and London, I’ll be moderating panel discussions on big data with HDS executives, which should be both entertaining and enlightening. We will cut through the hype and discuss practical big data applications today while taking a look to the future and how the scale of data retention will evolve to create unique business value.

By attending, you will gain meaningful insights and tactical tips for evolving your datacenter to gain the most efficiency and reduce expenses. In addition, you will also be among the first to hear about innovative solutions and strategies such as:

Maximize Your IT Advantage – Discover how to accelerate performance, control your data growth, and transform your IT environment to be more intelligent, efficient, and cloud-ready.

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Having grown up in the 80s I recall fondly Wendy’s famous commercials with the charismatic woman pondering “where’s the beef”. In the included video she ends with, “I don’t think there’s anybody there.  I really don’t.”  The trip down memory lane got me thinking about some things that are going on in the industry this week. Some are hidden, but meaty. Others well, there’s a lot of bun in the message and it makes me want to proclaim from a rooftop, “WHERE’S THE BEEF? HANG ON, IS ANYBODY THERE?”

In the spirit of exposing hidden but meaty things, I do want to reference two visionary gems.

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To those in the storage world who rejoice in being in-the-know about the ever shifting technology and vendor landscape in front of them, Gartner Magic Quadrants are seen as major events in the “Vendor Olympics” that our industry can often devolve into. Now, by combining multiple disparate storage-related Magic Quadrants into one review of General-Purpose Disk Arrays (made publically available by HDS for you, here) it seems Gartner has created the decathlon of the storage Vendor Olympics.

Midrange, High-End, NAS, Monolithic? Yup, the gang’s all here.

And while you might be a fan or a detractor of Gartner’s methodologies,  it does measure two vectors of actual importance to storage customers: a vendor’s ability to execute and its completeness of vision.  (Or, in my own plain English – “Can they do what they say?” and “Can they correctly anticipate customer and market needs?”) While my perspective comes squarely on the vendor side, those do seem like pretty appropriate areas to focus on.

Given the new, broader focus of this Magic Quadrant and significant industry chatter that can follow any new Gartner commentary, it seemed relevant to add some thoughts and perspective about it.

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By David Karas

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HDS Recognized for its Culture of Leadership and One of America’s Best 100 Places to Work
By Asim Zaheer, senior vice president, worldwide marketing

It’s not often you get to work for and be a part of a great company whose values continue to earn global recognition. That’s why I am so excited and proud that HDS has won two of the most prestigious awards in the business community this week:
• FORTUNE’s “Best 100 Companies to Work For in 2013” for the second year, moving up 23 spots in the process to #63;
• Chief Executive’s“40 Best Companies for Leaders;” HDS ranks No. 7 under the continued leadership and innovation of CEO Jack Domme, moving into the top 10 from the No. 16 position in 2012 and No. 36 in 2011.

These accolades don’t just happen by chance. It takes a lot of hard work to create and build a corporate culture that lives up to these honors. And, it all starts at the top. Jack believes in empowering people and rewarding performance. He also believes in doing meaningful work that will make a positive impact on the community. In the end, it’s about raising the bar at HDS and holding one’s self to a higher standard.

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When I look at 2012 and reflect on the top 10 grossing movies worldwide, I also contrast their gross ticket receipts during their opening weekend, it is clear that a BIG weekend that has great weather, positive industry buzz, good critical acclaim, and an interesting plot contributes mightily to a profitable return on an increasingly bigger and bigger investment by the studios.

Here are the top 10 as of August 2, 2012:

Movie                                                          Studio     Total gross/screens       Opening/screens      Open

1

Marvel’s The Avengers
BV

$615,996,809

4,349

$207,438,708

4,349

5/4

2

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That’s what the posters say on many walls across the company right now.  Why, you ask?  We’ve had quite a nice run of delivering industry leading financial results the past three years here at HDS, and just concluded another stellar fiscal year at the end of March.  But before I get into that, we’re proud for a number of equally meaningful reasons as well – in the past four months alone, we have been honored by being ranked in FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies To Work For,” in Chief Executive’s“40 Best Companies for Leaders,” as well as being named to the Ethisphere Institute’s 2012 World’s Most Ethical Companies list for the second consecutive year.  All while delivering 15% year-over-year growth in the fiscal year FY11 just concluded in March, and achieving record consolidated revenues of $4.4 Billion.

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Last week’s  announcement dovetails perfectly with my current series on data archiving, although the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) team may not appreciate my angle based on all their accomplishments with HCP product that go above and beyond just archiving. Be that as it may, I can’t ignore an important feature of the new release of  HCP, for me anyway. I have a passion for efficiency, especially when it comes to power and environmental efficiencies. Overall, the new release of the Hitachi Content Platform has increased its dominant foothold in the object store and cloud arena, with a richer set of enhancements and features designed to provide a world-class platform for managing the massive scale-out requirements of today’s explosive data growth.

A highlighted list of these new and enhanced features include:

Improved Operational Efficiency to Lower Costs