Hitachi Data Systems recently showcased the new Hitachi Content Platform penned ‘the Cloud-friendly’ replacement to the hardware formerly known as HCAP. So what is different about the HCP compared to its predecessor apart from the removal of ‘Archive’ from its title and is this a really Hitachi’s way of embracing cloud computing?
As up and coming vendors enter the game pushing products strictly focused on cloud computing, the entrance of the major storage vendors is as guaranteed as Paris Hilton attending another A-list celebrity bash i.e. she might not be invited but you just try stopping her. What baffles me though is to why HDS chose now of all times to make this announcement. It’s not even been a week since Hitachi Data Systems was accused of being part of the Sidekick SAN failure that led to a humiliating data loss and in turn tarnished the very name of cloud computing. Indeed a platform like this to be launched when certain eye brows are being raised regarding Hitachi's reliability is bold to say the least. But then again I’m a big fan of the HDS products and if they’re confident enough to make this announcement at this time then it certainly requires closer inspection….
Upon closer inspection you quickly see why HDS want to show off this little beauty. Improving upon its predecessor the HCP supports logical partitions to segregate data and administration for multitenancy, access rights to prevent unauthorized access, as well as encryption. These are all in addition to the expected storage for unstructured data and support to the rest of the HDS Storage family.
Additionally to really prove the point that to every cloud there is a silver lining, Hitachi have also incorporated a Representational State Transfer Interface. Hence connection to the cloud, namespaces, chargeback, and supports compression and single instancing would be via the REST interface.
Block and file storage on one platform with additional cloud computing benefits, HDS have laid their cards on the cloud table, so who will now come up next to show their hand?
