1. Large Biotech Firm Expands Data Center and Reduces
Overheating With Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000
Introduction
Biotech companies produce groundbreaking treatments that improve the quality
of life for people around the world. To achieve their breakthroughs, these firms
work with massive amounts of data and require extremely high processing speeds
throughout the research and development process. This approach can lead to
challenges in the data center: Such high demands often lead to rising costs, man-
agement headaches and problems with the placement of equipment in the data
center due to overheating and lack of floor space.
When a global biotech company was nearing capacity in its data center and
needed to expand within the same complex, it implemented Hitachi Virtual
Storage Platform (VSP) G1000. The virtualized storage platform enabled the
firm to expand its data center within the same campus with 80% less effort than
alternative technologies. The company was also able to address its overheating
problem, reduce management complexity and operational costs, and scale as
needed to continue developing life-saving innovations.
Challenges: High Demands, Limited Space
The global biotech firm works on hundreds of research projects involving devel-
opment of products and technologies to combat everything from rare diseases to
inefficient manufacturing processes. The research requires a massive amount of
structured and unstructured data, which must be stored, managed and analyzed
efficiently and cost-effectively.
USECASE
Virtualized Storage Platform Supports Agile,
Low-Cost Expansion
Challenges
■■ Data center nearing capacity and hardware
running too hot.
■■ Rising capital and operational costs.
■■ Management complexity: siloed data storage.
■■ Need faster scalability to meet business demands.
Solution
■■ Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000.
■■ Built-in active-active capability1
.
■■ Extended connection for flexible placement.
■■ Hitachi Dynamic Tiering for automated
storage tiering.
■■ Hitachi Command Suite.
■■ Simplifies storage management.
■■ Lowers cost and complexity.
Benefits
■■ Expanded data center within same complex with
80% less effort than competitive solutions.
■■ Reduced overheating and lowered power and
cooling costs.
■■ Reduced required floor space by 30%.
■■ Consolidated management with end-to-end vir-
tualization to prevent physical server sprawl.
■■ Scalable infrastructure supports critical applica-
tions with zero downtime.
1
Separately licensed feature available after initial release. Ask your HDS
representative or partner for more information.
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Notice: This document is for informational purposes only, and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning any equipment or service offered or to be offered by
Hitachi Data Systems Corporation.
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As one of the company’s
existing data centers
neared capacity, perfor-
mance began to suffer and
the servers were running
at unsustainably hot tem-
peratures. Siloed storage
solutions contributed to the problem, as
they were complex to manage and required
a growing amount of floor space. Yet, they
failed to offer a cost-effective way to scale
to meet the company’s continually growing
needs.
To support its data center expansion, the bio-
tech firm upgraded to the Hitachi VSP G1000
virtualized storage platform.
Solution: Hitachi VSP G1000
VSP G1000 is a virtualized disk storage
system that enabled the biotech firm to
improve its storage performance while also
reducing operating costs and management
complexity. The solution provides a fault-
tolerant, cost-effective platform that the com-
pany can eventually use to develop a resilient
private cloud infrastructure.
To support the data center expansion within
the same physical complex, the company
depended on the extended connection
feature, which separated VSP G1000 into
multiple parts. This feature gave the company
flexibility to place the storage systems wher-
ever they would best address the overheating
challenges. VSP G1000 further supported
energy efficiency by requiring 30% less floor
space than competitive solutions and reduc-
ing heating and cooling requirements.
Another key element of the solution was
Hitachi Dynamic Tiering software, which
enabled the biotech firm to adopt a tiered
storage infrastructure. Dynamic Tiering
automates data placement. Therefore, the
company no longer needs to spend time
on manual data movement and can use a
cost-optimized, energy-efficient mix of flash
storage and traditional and high-density disks.
To manage the new storage environment, the
company relies on Hitachi Command Suite
software, which provides unified management
across all the virtualized storage resources.
Through a single console, IT administrators
were able to discover, configure, analyze,
optimize and protect storage resources.
Command Suite increased automation and
has enabled the company to accelerate the
deployment of new business applications.
Benefits: Simple Expansion,
Improved Performance
VSP G1000 enabled the biotech firm to
expand its overburdened data center with
80% less effort than competing technolo-
gies. The company also gained the flexibility
to place storage systems where necessary
to reduce overheating. It was able to create
a more sustainable data center with lower
power, cooling and footprint requirements.
The virtualized storage solution optimizes
support for critical applications, cloud-ready
infrastructure and data center consolida-
tions, all through a single intuitive interface.
In addition, VSP G1000 provides a more
efficient, agile and easy-to-manage solution
compared to the company’s previous siloed
storage solutions.
Dynamic Tiering software reduces IT work-
loads and increases cost-optimizations
through automated data placement. At
the same time, Hitachi Command Suite
has enabled the company to simplify and
automate storage management, resulting in
substantial reductions in operational costs.
Conclusion
As the most robust, highest-performing
hardware platform on the market today,
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000 is an
ideal solution for the biotech industry. The
always-on platform and associated software
enabled the global biotech firm to expand its
data center quickly and easily. It also helped
to create a more flexible and sustainable data
center with a smaller storage footprint, lower
power and cooling costs, and lower opera-
tional costs overall.
Building a foundation based on Hitachi VSP
G1000 gives the biotech company a clear
roadmap for the future. The solution provides
the agility and massive scalability that the
company needs. It not only expands to meet
the firm’s future demands but also does so
in a fast, efficient and cost-effective way that
supports continued innovation and growth.
■■ 100% availability guarantee.
■■ Active-active platform for all data types.
■■ Petabyte-scale performance of more than 3 million transactions per second.
■■ Scalability up to 8 virtual storage director pairs and 2TB of single-image global cache.
■■ Global clustering.
■■ Nondisruptive upgrades.
■■ Nondisruptive data movement, copy and migration.
Highlights of Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000
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