Hitachi Data Instance Director, which had been around Hitachi Data Services since 2008, gets an updating from integration with Hitachi Content Platform and analytics technologies which came in the formation of Hitachi Vantara.

Hitachi Vantara, which Hitachi formed last year from its integration of their Hitachi Data Services, Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho, has introduced the new 6.5 version of their Hitachi Data Instance Director [HDID]. The enhanced HDID integrates with Hitachi Content Platform as a storage repository for long-term file system backups. It also now provides new recovery copy services using modern data protection technologies, agile copy services enabling the copied data to be used in broader use cases, and governance copy services to manage long-term retention and support data discovery and analytics.

“There has definitely been an evolution of this platform since the launch of Vantara,” said Peter Kriparos, Head, Strategic Alliances at Hitachi Vantara Canada. “Our solution stack is getting much better integrated. We have now also integrated this solution with our Hitachi Content Platform and our Hitachi Content Intelligence platform. It gives the customer the ability to modernize their enterprise content strategy, with either file system or object store backups.”

Hitachi has been using what became the HDID technology since 2008, when they partnered with Cofio Software to use their AIMstor product, which was then a Windows Continuous Data Protection product, and which provided basic backup and recovery and snapshotting capability. Hitachi bought Cofio in 2012, and rebranded the product in 2015. They continued to build out the technology, including moving to a Mongo database last year, creating a massive increase in scalability.

“With these new enhancements, HDID is now the last piece in a holistic backup strategy,” Kriparos said. “The most appealing part of this solution right now is its now having more intelligence built in, layering in Pentaho and analytics, so that with the Hitachi Content Platform, the customer can deploy an end-to-end copy management solution.”

HDID v6.5 can send file system backups to the Hitachi Content Platfom either in a native file or object format. The backup data can then be used by Hitachi Content Intelligence and by the Pentaho analytics software to provide compliance-related and search capabilities, data-driven insights and other new data management use cases.

“Governance would be a key use case, but it will also be useful against ransomware, and as an agile copy service for DevOps,” Kriparos said. Adherence to the imminent GDPR regulations in the EU will also be an advantage.

“We give customers the ability to integrate file storage with Commvault or Veritas, to provide backup and recovery in native format, or they can leave it as an object store that is not proprietary,” Kriparos added. “It lets HDID provide the customer with a front-end copy management system that ties in fully to the Hitachi Content Platform. It will reduce the number of snaps and instances, and will be able to time stamp for future use or evidence management.”

While this type of solution is not unique in the market, Kriparos believes the Hitachi one has a significant competitive advantage.

“This will compete against other enterprise copy management solutions, and we also compete to a degree with traditional backup and recovery,” he said. “However, what we bring with the Hitachi Content Platform component is leadership in object store technology. Traditional backup needs to keep files in native formats and thus prevents creating objects at all.”

Kriparos also indicated that following the introduction of the new Hitachi Vantara partner program in April, which updated structure and introduced new segmentation, partners with specific skillsets around focused areas are in strong demand.

“What’s really important here is skills around Hitachi Content Intelligence, and we are looking for partners focused on that,” he said. “Skillset-specific partners are given greater rewards in the new program.”