The HDS Blogger Day or Geek Day 2011 was a blast. It was my first HDS Blogger day and when I entered the venue, I was kind of surprised by the number of HDS representatives in the room. At first it felt like a hearing committee. The HDS to blogger ration was about 2 to 1. After the introduction though, it already felt comfortable. HDS had assembled exactly the right sales and engineering staff, who were there clearly to listen to the feedback the bloggers were giving, and to respond thoroughly to whatever we could ask. HDS clearly knows how to handle a Bloggers event.
Corporate cultural change towards openness and feedback.
From the recent Hitachi Data Systems events a certain message can be distilled. If you know a bit about Japanese culture, than you will probably also know that in general Japanese people keep to themselves, as in they will not brag or tell you what they have or can do. This attitude has kept the rest of the world from knowing what is going on in Japan, and especially within Japanese IT land.
The earthquake and tsunami of early March would have been disasters that the rest of the world would have known little of, if they would have happened a few years back. This indicates that Japan is opening up a bit more to the rest of the world.
The same is true about the Hitachi philosophy. Hitachi Data Systems is now reaching out to the IT crowd in the world to tell them what they are up to, and ask the customers/end-users what it is they want or need. This is a major change from what they have come from.
Hitachi now has to get that message and philosophy out into the world. Events like the Blogger Day and the Information Forums contribute a lot to that message, and I honestly have the impression Hitachi stands behind their message. So I would sincerely advise my readers to have a new and refreshing talk with your HDS representatives about this new approach.
Hitachi Servers
Lynn Mclean, Vice President Sales, gave an introduction to the server portfolio offered by HDS. Yes, servers. Hitachi is selling servers for some 50 years now. From mainframe type servers to blade chassis and servers today. The Hitachi Storage Division (HDS) is no longer limited to storage. As of 2009 Hitachi Ltd. has decided that it is up to the Hitachi Data Systems group to enter the server market in the US and EMEA region. If you consider that servers process data, that will make sense. Otherwise Hitachi should change the HDS acronym to “Hitachi Datacenter Systems”, to encapsulate all products they are covering in the datacenters. That would even work on their networking gear. Yes, HDS even has networking gear, but at this moment (Sean Moser gave away a small teaser here though), this is no fancy revolutionary stuff, and is not sold outside Japan. From my local HDS rep I also understood Hitachi even has a DBMS and Unix of their own. I am completely flabbergasted. I would definitely love a peek into that stuff.
So in case you are now thinking whether or not you have been living under a rock for 50 years, because you didn’t know HDS is selling servers, the answer would be no, you’re probably fine. Hitachi actually did not sell outside Japan up until 2004, so they are fairly young in the US and EMEA server market, but not young enough to get away with existing completely unnoticed. Therein lies the actual problem . Hitachi has a huge marketing flaw that has allowed the Hitachi servers to go unnoticed for this long.
The gear we have been introduced to, actually seems nothing less to what other vendors have to offer. It’s decent and high-tech equipment of at least the same standard as all Hitachi equipment.
Blade failover, blade stacking are features supported by the majority of blade vendors. The one thing that does stand out is the fact the blade chassis has 8 internal PCIe busses available for expansion, along with the somewhat standard mezzazine slots. If those PCI slots aren’t sufficient, you can externally expand with a 16 PCI slot expansion unit, which interconnects to the main chassis on two of the internal PCI slots using PCI-Express connections. This expands connectivity massively for a blade chassis, but the performance is not enhanced, as you are limited to the bandwidth of the PCI lanes of the two busses in the chassis.
Hitachi already recognized that this needs more work. Hitachi is able to deliver a completely filled 42u rack with 320 high density micro servers. The total rack would consume less than 12 Kilowatt. Whether or not this is a great accomplishment, actually depends on the total processing capacity this rack would have. I need to dig deeper into this to make a comparison. There are bloggers out there that know server stuff better than I do, so I will be collection a number of related posts later on. For now, you will have to do with some HDS documentation I could find that contains a reference to the Hitachi servers.
They have no other differentiators I know of, but that could also proof that they potentially could have been right up there with the server market leaders, if they would have done marketing right.
Should we worry about Hitachi trying to enter the server market to take on vendors currently ruling the datacenters? According to Lynn, the approach will not be to take on the other big dogs, but include the servers in a complete solution package, which I consider to be comparable in concept to UCS or VCE type solutions.
It is good that Hitachi is not arrogant enough to pick a fight. I think they earn respect for that attitude. Searching the HDS website gave me no results on servers except some white papers, so I think Stephen Foskett’s quote is spot on.
“HDS is smart enough not to wander into the blade server saloon and pick a fight with the big guys at the bar #HDSday “
More to come from this event on “Hitachi Content Platform” and “Storage Economics” when I get time to write….
In the mean time, make sure you read these related posts (updates will follow):
Disclaimer:
HDS has invited me and a range of well known and respected bloggers to visit HDS EMEA Headquarters at Sefton Park UK for the 2nd HDS Annual Blogger Day. Travel expenses and meals have been paid by HDS and there we are not obligated in any way to write about what we have seen or heard. My time has not by compensated, except for the good company I was in.
