A-B-C Strategies for Hitachi Data Systems File and Content Solutions

Cost-Effective and Modern, the Hitachi Approach Answers Today’s Data and Information Management Challenges

Data is the lifeblood of businesses today. But exponential growth of data, particularly unstruc-tured data, is driving up costs and creating un-precedented complexities and risks. In response, many organizations have rapidly added short-term, piecemeal solutions to their corporate infrastruc-tures, which, over time, become expensive, ineffi-cient and unwieldy to manage.

Hitachi Data Systems offers a better way forward: a single, integrated platform to manage all your structured and unstructured data. Through the straightforward “A-B-C” strategies, organizations can move from expensive silos of stored data to a streamlined, cloud-ready solution that simplifies management, reduces risks and supports innova-tion for years to come.

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Use CaseProvides significant backup savings: A medium enterprise insurance company saved 32 hours on a full system backup with Hitachi Content Platform.2

Step 3: Consolidate MoreToday’s NAS environments suffer from massive data growth, which results in the proliferation of file servers and their related storage and backup systems. This leads to inefficient use, increasing management costs and complexity, wasted capacity, slower performance of primary systems, and an uneven cost-to-value ratio of data and storage.

By consolidating to Hitachi Unified Storage or Hitachi NAS Platform, you can put more workloads into fewer systems. You can optimize capacity utilization by eliminating silos, cutting out inefficiency and reducing complexity in a smaller footprint. In other words, you can do more with less, with integrated solutions. These solutions may include Hitachi Unified Storage or Hitachi NAS Platform, as well as Hitachi Content Platform and Hitachi Data Ingestor.

BenefitsConsolidation addresses the inefficient use of storage capacity that leads to costly stor-age sprawl. Benefits include:

■■ Improved efficiency.■■ Simplified management.■■ Reduced power and cooling costs.

Use CaseConsolidates file servers: A media and entertainment enterprise reduced costs and improved performance by replacing or con-solidating 11-20 file servers by deploying a high-performance Hitachi NAS Platform.3

Step 4: Distributed IT EfficiencyThe cost and complexity of managing distrib-uted IT in remote offices, branch locations or

One Integrated Platform, Easy as A-B-CWith a single, integrated platform that can manage all types of data, organizations can address today’s file and content challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s innovation and growth. To help you transition from siloed solutions to an integrated platform, Hitachi Data Systems has developed easy-to-follow A-B-C strategies:

1. Archive 1st.

2. Back up less.

3. Consolidate more.

4. Distributed IT efficiency.

5. Enable e-discovery and compliance.

6. Facilitate cloud.

Step 1: Archive 1stThe A-B-C strategies begin with a better approach to archiving unstructured data. By reducing the load on primary storage, orga-nizations can improve data governance, limit storage sprawl, and reduce overall storage costs by more than 25%.

Depending on the specific needs of your business, you can combine Hitachi Content Platform with a variety of additional compo-nents to tier data based on its value. Online access to unstructured data can be main-tained via stub files. No stub file is created for applications and structured data, so this data can be removed or retired from primary envi-ronments to reduce management and backup costs and complexities.

BenefitsSeamlessly tier unstructured data from remote and branch offices, Microsoft® SharePoint®, NAS environments, email and other sources out of application or primary storage. Move this data onto Hitachi Content Platform to enjoy significant benefits, including:

■■ 60% lower overall costs.■■ 30% reduction in total backup capacity needs.

■■ Capital expense avoidance, by freeing up expensive Tier 1 disk space.■■ Fewer application licenses. ■■ Greater visibility and control of information using automated, repeatable processes.

Use CaseProvides successful archiving and added benefits: A Global 500 computer services company used Hitachi Content Platform for archiving, backup, cloud storage, compliance and metadata management solutions, includ-ing data migration and automated tiering.1

Step 2: Back Up LessThe 2nd step in the A-B-C strategies involves streamlining the backup pro-cess. Doing so can help your organization improve the reliability of its data protec-tion efforts and meet recovery point and recovery time objectives (RPO/RTO) more consistently.

By archiving your data out of primary stor-age 1st, you can leverage the power of Hitachi Content Platform data protection and preservation features to back up far less data to tape. Disk-based data pro-tection fundamentally changes the way IT organizations can protect their data, and can drastically reduce or even eliminate the need for tape altogether.

Tailor your solution to your specific needs. Use Hitachi Content Platform, Hitachi Data Ingestor, Hitachi Unified Storage or Hitachi NAS Platform and a variety of independent software vendor applications as part of your backup reduction strategy.

BenefitsImproving your backup processes can lead to many benefits, including:

■■ Lower disk, licensing and server costs.■■ Reduced management overhead.■■ Significantly shorter backup and recovery times.■■ Improved data protection and reliability.

1 TechValidate. http://www.techvalidate.com/tvid/FBD-9C2-E5F2 TechValidate. http://www.techvalidate.com/tvid/866-6D9-E673 TechValidate. http://www.techvalidate.com/tvid/81A-0BB-215

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multiple data centers is a challenge for many organizations. Managing and sharing a con-sistent set of content requires organizations to centralize their data and reduce IT resource requirements at the edge.

A centralized IT strategy can protect your data in multiple ways, including through replication, disaster recovery and rapid remote-site recov-ery capabilities. A variety of Hitachi file and content solutions components can support deployment of this centralized strategy. For example, Hitachi Data Ingestor delivers a truly bottomless and backup-free storage solution while ensuring effective control, compliance and cost reduction. As a result, Hitachi Data Ingestor simplifies and accelerates distributed IT environments for retail, banking and other organizations with a large number of remote locations.

BenefitsBy using a centralized strategy to manage and share a consistent set of content to and from geographically dispersed sites, your organization can:

■■ Reduce IT resource requirements at the edge.■■ Simplify management.■■ Enhance data protection.■■ Reduce the risk of data loss or mishandling.

Use CaseSimplifies administrative workload: An enterprise retailer with multiple locations reduced its bandwidth and simplified administration when it replaced its low-end NAS with Hitachi Data Ingestor and Hitachi Content Platform.4

Step 5: Enable E-Discovery and ComplianceOnce the first 4 steps in the A-B-C strategies are complete, organizations can add Hitachi Data Discovery Suite to index, search and dis-cover across the file and content environment.

Combine Hitachi Data Discovery Suite with other Hitachi file and content solutions to easily perform cross-platform searches of both production and archive environments, all from a single interface. You can auto-mate migration of data among classes of storage based on file content, and auto-matically migrate data from Hitachi NAS Platform to Hitachi Content Platform.

To aid compliance, the Hitachi solution enables proper long-term retention and disposal of data according to legal and busi-ness practices. You can ensure proper data stewardship and promote data privacy with directory service integration, so users can only search for data they have permission to view.

BenefitsWhen you can index, search and discover across your file and content environment, the benefits include:

■■ Faster identification of data at risk.■■ Greater access control.■■ Lower litigation costs.■■ Greater control over the speed and cost of e-discovery.

Use CaseSolves unstructured data issues, facil-itates search: Hitachi Content Platform addressed rapidly growing unstructured data at a large industrial manufacturing company and helped users search data held for long-term retention.5

Step 6: Facilitate CloudThe benefits of the A-B-C strategies are evi-dent, but many organizations are looking to gain greater IT agility by leveraging different

consumption and delivery models in order to be more flexible and provide faster response times to business users. Additionally, cloud-based solutions are an especially desirable solution for organizations that are concerned with upfront capital costs.

Hitachi offers a variety of solutions starting with traditional, cloud-ready capex tech-nology and solution packages that you can manage yourself. Another alternative is the operating expenditure or opex-based service, in which Hitachi manages the environment through a highly affordable pay-per-use model. With the opex service, you can move data into an on-site private cloud that reduces or even eliminates your capital costs, while also simplifying man-agement and offloading data from your primary environments.

BenefitsBy moving unstructured data to an on-site private cloud, organizations can:

■■ Increase agility.■■ Deliver more value-added services to business users, faster.■■ Reduce or eliminate capital expenses.■■ Simplify management.

Use CaseDelivers IT services to geographically dispersed users: A Global 500 insur-ance company deployed Hitachi Content Platform in a private cloud environment that provides IT services to remote internal cus-tomers and partners.6

4 TechValidate. http://www.techvalidate.com/tvid/8DB-BB0-D2E5 TechValidate. http://www.techvalidate.com/tvid/C47-D4C-715 6 TechValidate. http://www.techvalidate.com/tvid/A87-F27-517

© Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2013. All rights reserved. HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. Innovate With Information is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. Microsoft and SharePoint are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners.

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.

OB-041-A DG February 2013

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■■ Reduce the load on primary storage by at least 40%. ■■ Reduce licensing and management costs, complexity and backup by up to 75%.■■ Streamline backup-and-restore operations by up to 60%. ■■ Improve reliability over 24x in RPO and 30x in RTO.■■ Eliminate silos, prevent sprawl and reduce complexity by 50%, or more.■■ Simplify management, improve data protection, and reduce risk. ■■ Identify data at-risk, ensure appropriate data access, and simplify compliance.■■ Reduce or eliminate capex, simplify management and improve IT agility.

HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS FILE AND CONTENT SOLUTION BENEFITS

■■ Hitachi Content Platform (HCP): Providing an open, centralized and multitier enterprise cloud storage solution, HCP aggregates, manages, protects and shares content. The platform supports multiple use cases, such as content preserva-tion and archiving, data protection, and cloud and content sharing. HCP lets you accomplish these uses from a single, easy-to-manage and scalable environment.■■ Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere: An option for the Hitachi Content Platform, HCP Anywhere enables mobile workforces and supports bring-your-own-device (BYOD). It enables users to access their data anywhere, at any time, on any device. They can protect their data without the need for laptop and mobile device back-ups, and share that data in a safe, secure way with co-workers and collaborators outside of the organization.■■ Hitachi Data Discovery Suite: With Hitachi Data Discovery Suite, users can search, identify, collect and preserve data across the storage infrastructure from 1 secure location for improved storage management. The solution lets you efficiently manage, retain and discover volumes of information and meet legal obligations.■■ Hitachi Data Ingestor: By integrating HCP with Hitachi Data Ingestor, organiza-tions can enjoy edge-to-core storage that streamlines the entire backup process and greatly reduces backup windows. This can lower backup costs and reduce complexity, as well as improve control, security and protection of data.■■ Hitachi Unified Storage or Hitachi NAS Platform: The most powerful consol-idation platform on the market, Hitachi Unified Storage or Hitachi NAS Platform enables organizations to consolidate existing file servers and NAS devices on to fewer nodes. This capability allows them to perform the same or even more work with fewer devices and lower overhead, while also reducing floor space require-ments and associated power and cooling costs.

HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS FILE AND CONTENT SOLUTIONS

A-B-C Strategies: Your Path to Reducing Costs and Complexity While Managing GrowthData can drive business agility and innova-tion. However, it can hinder growth if it is not stored, protected and managed in a stream-lined, cost-effective manner. To identify and react faster to the needs of your customers, markets and competitors, it is essential to transition away from short-term siloed stor-age solutions to a single, integrated platform for all your data.

The Hitachi Data Systems A-B-C strategies provide a pathway to regain control over your organization’s structured and unstruc-tured data. In doing so, you can dramatically reduce the cost of storing and protecting that data, while also strengthening gover-nance and streamlining management and operations.

For more information about our file and content solutions and A-B-C strategies visit www.HDS.com.