• Press Office

Data growth is inevitable, OPEX growth is not

By Francois Zimmermann, CTO, Hitachi Data Systems, August 2011

Over the last four years we have seen worldwide data volumes consistently double every 18 months to two years. This trend used to be driven largely by compliance and data retention requirements but now companies collect even more data because it gives them competitive advantage - for example because it delivers better market analytics or improved customer experience.  We have every reason to expect this to continue for the foreseeable future and now need to look towards new infrastructures that can make sense of this data explosion while retaining flat total cost of ownership.

In the past businesses designed infrastructures largely around the needs of structured applications.  These applications were typically transactional and had fairly complex service objectives around recovery, consistency and performance.  But Structured Data is growing at less than 40% p.a. - the fastest growing data types are Unstructured and Content. 

These data types require different services and are far less dynamic – for example most content such as images, video, audio is written once, accessed relatively rarely and seldom amended after creation.

It is now clear that the only way to maintain flat OPEX is to take a different approach to the management of Unstructured Data and Content.  Businesses need to take this out of the online environment wherever possible and move it into a Content Core. 

A Content Core can be run as a private or public cloud and uses policies to manage the data lifecycle and specify attributes like versioning, retention, disposition rather than relying on operator intervention.  This type of infrastructure must also be self-healing and even provide fully automated hardware refresh.

The content core also allows businesses to deploy search and business intelligence services against all objects in the content store regardless of the application that created them.  This turns silos of data that used to be orphaned in individual applications into valuable information that can be reused and cross-referenced globally within the organization.  This new approach therefore enables IT to move from providing Infrastructure Optimization to providing Information Cloud Services.

• 2009 IDC market observations and forecasts backed up by Hitachi market data in subsequent years.

About Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems provides best-in-class information technologies, services and solutions that deliver compelling customer ROI, unmatched return on assets (ROA) and demonstrable business impact. With a vision that IT must be virtualized, automated, cloud-ready and sustainable, Hitachi Data Systems offers solutions that improve IT costs and agility. With more than 4,900 employees worldwide, Hitachi Data Systems does business in more than 100 countries and regions.

Hitachi Data Systems products, services and solutions are trusted by the world’s leading enterprises, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 100 and more than 80 percent of the Fortune Global 100. Hitachi Data Systems believes that data drives our world – and information is the new currency. To learn more, visit: http://www.hds.com

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totaled 9,315 billion yen ($112.2 billion).

Hitachi will focus more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, environmental, industrial and transportation systems, and social and urban systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com

About Shoden

Shoden Data Systems PTY (Ltd.) provides innovative, high-end technology solutions to leading organisations across Africa, allowing them to gain what Shoden refers to as:“The data centre advantage”.

Shoden aims to deliver the data centre advantage by understanding clients’ challenges and implementing optimised solutions that address these challenges, coupled with excellent service and support. www.shoden.co.za

For further information

Melinda de Gee Shoden
Data Systems
083 212 9840
Melinda.degee@shoden.co.za