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    HDS Looks to Break into Midmarket Data Center Space

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    Rethinking Application Performance in the Digital Business Era

    Converged and hyperconverged systems are clearly all the rage these days inside the data center. But many IT organizations don’t want to give up their investments in racks to take advantage of systems that unify the management of compute and storage, while others prefer to deploy a more integrated appliance.

    To address both those requirements, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) this week unveiled a 2u four-node hyperconverged appliance, dubbed the HC V240, based on a platform created by a third party that HDS declined to specify, while extending its existing line of rack-based converged systems into the midmarket by introducing a UCP 2000 offering.

    Chris Gugger, director of infrastructure solutions marketing at HDS, says the hyperconverged appliance is optimized specifically for VMware environments, while the converged line of rack-based systems can be used to run VMware, Microsoft or OpenStack environments.

    In general, IT organizations are embracing converged systems to physically bring compute, storage and networking together in a way that is simpler to manage. A hyperconverged appliance takes that concept a step further by tightly integrating compute and storage to make it possible for IT organizations to scale both out as their IT requirements change over time. In that regard, converged versus hyperconverged systems don’t represent a continuum as much as an extension in the number of IT infrastructure options IT organizations have. For some workloads, such as virtual desktop infrastructure, a hyperconverged appliance may be preferred. In other cases, existing investments in racks inside a data center may drive an organization to a converged system.

    HDS clearly sees the rise of converged and hyperconverged systems as an opportunity to extend its reach into the midmarket. Long known for building storage systems for the enterprise, HDS only relatively extended its portfolio into the realm of servers. Obviously, there’s no shortage of competition in either category. But HDS is betting that it has a lot more to gain than to lose when it comes to expanding its share of a midmarket space where it currently has little to no presence.

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    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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