Storage Insider: Hitachi goes for content-addressed storage

14.06.2006
It's too bad that the U.S. World Cup team lost its first game, against the Czech Republic. Team USA actually played good football soccer, but you'd never know that from the 0-3 final score or from looking at the game's highlights (http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/scp_v3/viewer/index.php?pid=16891&rn=458044&cl=509227&ch=458046&lang=enf).

The loss can be chalked up to a couple of defensive mistakes (suicide against an experienced team such as the Czechs), not enough determination when attacking, and a good share of misfortune. When the U.S. goes up against Ghana or Italy, the story could have a different ending.

I'm bringing up soccer because the digital recordings of games -- such as the clips you can enjoy at Yahoo -- are a perfect example of data eligible for CAS (content addressable storage) archiving. Other fixed content files that make good CAS candidates include a variety of contractual, scientific, and medical records (your last MRI, for example).

Although we discussed CAS not long ago (http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/01/78768_23OPstorinside_1.html), you won't be bored by the latest news. Hitachi Data Systems recently announced an interesting approach, one that it describes as "second-generation CAS." A vendor entering a new market obviously wants to differentiate its offering from those of its competitors, and Hitachi is doing just that: Its Content Archive Platform is based on the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) standard.

OAIS is a reference model for archiving solutions (http://public.ccsds.org/documents/SO2002/SPACEOPS02_P_T5_39.PDF) initially drafted by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (http://public.ccsds.org/default.aspx). Several scientific organizations and the Library of Congress, among others, have adopted it.

There's more: You may remember (http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/01/78768_23OPstorinside_1.html) how Caringo's cluster-based architecture is a sharp contrast to EMC Centera's monolithic approach. Hitachi takes an interesting third path, combining a cluster of commodity servers running archive management applications from Archivas with TagmaStore WMS (Workgroup Modular Storage) hardware.