HDS Eyes Cloud with New Offering

27.10.2009
With an eye on the cloud, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has introduced a new portfolio of storage offerings that targets large enterprises wanting to set up private clouds and systems integrators who want to offer cloud-based storage. As part of the cloud offerings, HDS also unveiled a new content platform that the company says provides security, reliability and multitenancy for cloud infrastructures.

Miklos Sandorfi, Chief Strategist, File and Content Services, HDS, said, "The differentiating factor for the Hitachi cloud is the fact that instead of looking at cloud as a product, we are looking at it like a framework to enable services, thus increasing the end utilization of the technology. One of the highlights of the content platform will be that customers will be able to manage data growth from higher tier storage to a storage platform that can enable intelligent content storage defined by the consumer themselves."

According to the company, the flexibility for the customers will have a multi pronged approach. "They can either own the infrastructure in the private cloud or just make use of the services offered by third party service providers using HDS technology. The agile is also in reference to the customer's choice of taking a private cloud public at a time that is convenient to them," said Sunil Chavan, Director- Content and File Services, HDS.

"Since the announcement on Oct 12, we are now in negotiations with service providers on the go-to-market strategy. The distribution of the technology will be 100 percent via the national channel partners and a few regional players. The company will deal with only the private cloud infrastructural needs of the consumers directly and that is the maximum direct involvement that we are looking at currently," Chavan added. According to the company this cloud technology will currently be targeted at verticals like banking, government and telecom aggressively.