Learn more about Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere by visiting http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/hitachi-content-platform-anywhere.html and more information on the Hitachi Content Platform is at http://www.hds.com/products/file-and-content/content-platform

1. IDC 1490
I D C T E C H N O L O G Y S P O T L I G H T
The New File Sharing Imperative
April 2013
Adapted from IDC's Worldwide Storage and Big Data Taxonomy, 2013 by Ashish Nadkarni and Laura DuBois,
IDC #239273 and Shared Nothing Architectures — A Blueprint for Software-Based Scale-Out Solutions
by Ashish Nadkarni, IDC #239526
Sponsored by Hitachi Data Systems
The "bring your own device" (BYOD) trend will continue to shape IT and have an impact on corporate
sync-n-share solutions. IDC expects sync-n-share services to be the next front for storage solutions
providers. As the user base moves from laptops to mobile devices, IT organizations are eager to find
suitable alternatives to traditional file-based solutions that fall short of meeting newer requirements.
As many IT organizations and their users can attest, NFS- and SMB/CIFS-based file sharing
solutions do not work with tablets and smartphones. Prosumers and consumers also need a smart
sync-n-share solution that augments corporate file infrastructure so they can keep their personal data
separate from office data without having to switch devices.
This Technology Spotlight explores the trends in file sharing technologies and discusses the role that
Hitachi Data Systems plays in this important market.
Introduction
Businesses everywhere are panicking. Their end users are bypassing IT and using public
sync-n-share services, and businesses do not have an alternative to give them. Storage suppliers are
coming to the rescue.
To say that the mobile world has taken businesses everywhere by storm is perhaps an
understatement. In most businesses, end users are largely augmenting their PCs/laptops with one or
more mobile devices and are increasingly looking to public cloud–based mobile sync-n-share
services as "federation" services for their data.
The market for sync-n-share solutions is quickly expanding. Factors that differentiate solutions from
each other are the background of the vendor and the experience the vendor has in creating and
delivering such solutions for organizations in a secure and reliable manner. The mobile app is not the
only thing that matters; the infrastructure that powers it and the scalability, reliability, and security of
the infrastructure are also important. At the end of the day, not just personal user data but also —
potentially — corporate data is at stake.
Shared storage solutions, also known as storage area networks, have become a mainstay of most
enterprise, midsize, and small IT environments today. Once regarded as a very expensive alternative
to direct-attached storage, shared storage solutions have become more affordable and so versatile
that they can handle nearly every workload in the IT datacenter. However, a muted revolution is
occurring in IT environments everywhere:
 Expansive data. Businesses are storing more data in their environments. Much of it is data that
they analyze or plan to analyze in order to gain a competitive edge. The expanding data sets
include not only structured data but also semistructured data (generated by machines) and
unstructured data (generated by humans). Unlike archival data, which is basically cold data, these
data sets need to be routinely analyzed and therefore need to have proximity to a compute layer.

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 Newer applications, use cases, and delivery models. Along with server and desktop virtualization
of mission-critical applications, newer applications spanning Big Data, social, and mobile use cases
are fast entering mainstream IT. Newer cloud-based infrastructure-as-a-service offerings are being
adopted across a broad range of industries to supplant on-premises infrastructure.
 Advancements and standardization in hardware speeds and feeds. Gone are the days of
slower and proprietary hardware and interconnects (which allowed for healthy fan-out ratios in
most shared storage infrastructures). Newer hardware platforms are made of faster CPUs,
memory, and disks and can be connected via ultrahigh-speed networks. The Internet has
become fast too, allowing businesses to distribute their workforce geographically.
These developments are pushing the envelope on shared storage networks when it comes to certain
types of use cases such as cloud storage, content repositories, geodispersed data access, and
analytics for semistructured and unstructured data types.
Benefits
To say that the mobile world has taken businesses everywhere by storm is perhaps an
understatement. Different terms such as mobile revolution and post-PC era point to the same
situation in most businesses: Users who look to public cloud–based mobile sync-n-share services as
"federation" services for their data can create a file on one device and then save it to a service and
open it anywhere they want. This has had a phenomenal liberating effect on users that is almost
directly proportional to the depressing effect on IT departments everywhere.
This is an opportunistic situation for storage vendors that see this as a way to recapture some
credibility with IT leaders. However, as bullish and opportunistic as storage vendors may be, the need
for sync-n-share services presents a real opportunity for them to tie together the various components
of their portfolio into a single solution for the neo-end-user base at their clients.
What storage suppliers will do is create a new federation layer for end-user access. Gone are the days of
providing file-only access to end users via NFS/SMB. Storage vendors can no longer simply offer NFS
and SMB/CIFS support and claim their solutions are sufficient for end-user access. As we all know, the
days of an end user relying only on a laptop or a PC are all but gone. Tablets and smartphones — and
hence the mobility that comes with such devices — can no longer open file browsers and files on the
network. NFS and SMB/CIFS can no longer support this mobile model; they are great for datacenter-
based applications, but cloud-based apps need a different model — an API-driven, latency-resilient, and
locally cached file access model.
Soon (relatively speaking) the Apple App Store or the Google Play store will be host to sync-n-share
apps from numerous vendors. These sync-n-share apps will allow users to connect to their corporate
share technologies and use them in the same way they use their other sync-n-share solutions. IT will
be able to place policies on these files for retention, authorization, etc. These apps will offer corporate
authentication, meaning that users will no longer need to create a new account and that their existing
corporate user log-ins will work for these apps. Storage suppliers are being thrust into new territory —
that is, a customer-driven world in which vendors stand shoulder to shoulder with all the other
developers contributing apps to Apple and Google. Unless IT chooses to outsource this activity,
storage managers will have to follow a different set of rules, work with a different set of vendors, and
cater to an additional constituency of users who will need support for their mobile apps.
From a buyer perspective, IT departments have to look at their suppliers for another set of services
— in addition to the datacenter-centric services they are used to. IT departments dealing with end
users will now have to deal with datacenter storage solutions.

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Market Trends
Such developments have led to the emergence of shared nothing architecture (SNA) as an
alternative to shared storage environments that IT departments are used to. Shared nothing
architectures have been around for a few years. IDC predicts that the market for scale-out appliances
and file-based software — which includes the shared nothing segment — will reach nearly $21 billion
in revenue in 2016.
At a fundamental level, all of the SNA solutions are built using independent compute nodes, each
with an independent data store. Client reads and writes are serviced by each of the nodes in a
collective and distributed fashion. This provides unprecedented scale. Many suppliers are designing
solutions that move the computing and data fabrics closer to each other. Storage suppliers should
focus on making solutions built on shared nothing architectures a core component of their portfolio.
Suppliers with existing solutions are trying to make their solutions more versatile and appealing to a
diverse set of workloads.
For their part, IT buyers should shed the mentality that shared nothing architectures do not stack up
to enterprise storage environments with respect to performance, reliability, and resiliency. They
should evaluate the data model, infrastructure, workload, and quality-of-service characteristics of
each of the SNA-based solutions. They should keep in mind that unlike traditional storage solutions,
every SNA-based solution has very different characteristics.
Product Profile
Storage vendor Hitachi Data Systems offers Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) Anywhere for file
sync-n-share from a private cloud to mitigate challenges posed by data expansion and mobile devices.
HCP Anywhere enables users to sync data on multiple devices, share documents via a secure/smart
link, and access content from any Web-enabled device. For organizations, HCP Anywhere facilitates
the enforcement of intra/extra-company sharing and reduces storage and network demand posed by
sharing documents via email attachments.
HCP Anywhere works with a variety of end-user client devices, including iPhones, iPads, Windows,
Mac computers, and Web browsers. The product can be used as an add-on to HCP content
management, an on-premise platform that delivers the following benefits:
 Single-instanced/compressed files
 Backup-free solution
 Reduction/elimination of desktop backup
 Protected HCP Anywhere server data and configuration
 Security, encryption, and access control
 Active Directory integration
 Device management
 Enforced mobile lock code
 HCP Anywhere app-specific data wipe
 Virus scan integration

4. ©2013 IDC4
HCP and HCP Anywhere are designed to address serious corporate data security and governance
issues related to mobile computing. As users share data on devices both inside and outside the
corporate walls, organizations are dealing with risks such as exposed intellectual property and
violations of compliance regulations related to confidentiality and retention. They also have no control
over or ability to audit the content flowing in and out of the corporate network. In addition, IT faces
operational issues such as inefficient storage and network utilization, massive content duplication
within email transport payloads, and pressure to control costs while providing robust security.
Challenges
HCP Anywhere is the first Hitachi Data Systems product that directly touches the end user.
Given that the company's products have traditionally focused on the IT infrastructure, marketing
HCP Anywhere could prove challenging for Hitachi Data Systems out of the gate. The company will
also be competing with the perceived low-cost options that public cloud–based solutions can offer.
This will likely result in Hitachi Data Systems targeting enterprises at the high end of the IT market
rather than small and medium-sized businesses at the lower end. If Hitachi Data Systems can secure
a service provider to host HCP Anywhere or find partners to host it or even host their own service, the
company may be able to get to economies of scale that allow it to attack lower price bands.
Conclusion
Sync-n-share, BYOD, and the consumerization of IT are trends that are profoundly shaping how
end users access IT services. IT can embrace these trends or run the risk of seeing more and
more IT services being shopped out to service providers, thereby putting data assets at risk, giving up
control, and handing over security capabilities that will end up limiting IT's ability to operate efficiently.
By choosing wisely when it comes to enabling sync and share, IT can not only protect its role but also
dramatically expand the services it can offer while gaining efficiencies across a number of different
systems.
If Hitachi Data Systems can address the challenges highlighted in this paper, IDC believes the
company has a significant opportunity for success in the important market of sync-n-share
technologies.
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