This levels the playing field among high-end midrange storage systems, says Evaluator Group
senior analyst Greg Schulz, who thinks the Thunder 9585Vs improved disk-to-disk backup capabilities and superior sequential read/write performance are the key new features. Its important because Unix and open environments are not as cache-friendly as mainframes.
While it has done well in the mainframe space with its high-end Lightning systems, Hitachis Thunder has struggled against EMC and IBM. At least one consultant, who asked not to be named, says he's spoken with several customers who report that Thunder systems can be tough to add capacity to because the physical hardware has to be added in a particular sequence.
Hitachi's apparently taken aim at this kind of complaint through the use of virtual ports. A clarification: HDS's use of virtual ports isn't brand new, but it appears customers are taking fresh interest in the feature and the vendor is starting to find more ways to promote it. Like the Thunder 9580V, the Thunder 9585V allows customers to connect multiple servers to a common port. Each appears to the network as a unique port rather than a shared. Hitachi says the system allows up to 1,024 virtual ports and that the domains associated with these virtual ports make all of the system's parts redundant and hot-swappable.
By adding new applications via AppIQ, Hitachi also has addressed another criticism -- namely, that it lacked a software strategy (see HDS's Hard-Wired Vision). Hitachis HiCommand Storage Services Manager now includes path provisioning, tuning, monitoring, and support for Sybase.
But Hitachi's choice not to include SATA drives in its new system could be a blunder, considering that other vendors say sales of the cheaper disk for secondary storage are taking off (see In Search of the Missing Uptick). Further, omitting SATA takes away from the advantages Hitachi offers with its new faster backup to disk, since SATA drives are considered ideal for secondary storage.
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