There has been a growing buzz from analysts and thought leaders on the growing role of object storage in the data center. A recent IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Hitachi Vantara, titled “Object Storage: Foundational Technology for Top IT Initiatives,” shows that Object Storage has taken on a much more important role in supporting IT’s top initiatives.
Scott Baker, posted a blog IDC: Object Storage More Than A One Trick Pony, which expanded on this IDC report and showed how our Object Storage platform, Hitachi Content Platform, HCP, evolved from a true archival compliance tool to one fine-tuned for Big Data analytics. He also cites some of the recent enhancement that have been added to HCP. These include security enhancements(New AWS user agent String and Apache common vulnerabilities and exposures kernel upgrade),New high density, erasure coding storage nodes with over 1 PB in a 4U enclosure including controllers, Hitachi Content Intelligence enhancements, with many new enhancements to Workflow Designer, Content Search, and Content Monitor and a more streamlined user experience, and an all Flash G series Access node which delivers increased performance for applications requiring low latency and higher IOPS or for applications that require faster metadata indexing and searching.
The All Flash G Series Access node for HCP has unlocked new uses for object storage. Govanna Flores in her blog Hitachi Content Platform’s All-Flash Brings Speed and Agility to Massive Data Sets, cites user examples where high performance could be achieved for massive data stores. One case was that of a top ten Banking Institution achieving 200-300% performance improvement in a critical tier one, transaction heavy, core banking application that was serving 50 million consumer and small business clients worldwide. Some jobs were able to achieve 1200% performance improvement! The use of high performance flash in HCP access nodes has opened up a whole new set of application use cases which were not possible with standard object storage access nodes.
Krista Macomber of Storage Switzerland reviews our recent enhancement to HCP in Hitachi Vantara Updates it Content Platform. She prefaces her post with the following caution:
Object storage has long been viewed as an archive and long-term retention platform. But in the age of data-driven business intelligence, more frequent and more sophisticated cyberattacks, and data privacy regulations, its value is quickly expanding as it meshes scalable, low-cost storage capacity with data indexing and mining capabilities. However, simply migrating to any object store is not enough. IT professionals should be sure to look for an object storage platform that integrates with intelligent data tiering and integration capabilities.
For more of the latest information on HCP and our approach to high performance edge to cloud object storage go to ourHCP web page.