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Software components and features

Virtual Storage Platform 5000 series is powered by Hitachi's Storage Virtualization Operating System RF (SVOS RF) and supported by Hitachi storage management software, enabling you to effectively manage, centralize, and control your software-defined infrastructure while at the same time reducing complexity, costs, and risk.

Storage Virtualization Operating System RF

SVOS RF delivers best-in-class business continuity and data availability and simplifies storage management. Flash performance is optimized with a patented flash-aware I/O stack to further accelerate data access. Adaptive inline data reduction increases storage efficiency while enabling a balance of data efficiency and application performance. Industry-leading storage virtualization allows SVOS RF to use third-party all-flash and hybrid arrays as storage capacity, consolidating resources and extending the life of storage investments.

SVOS RF works with the virtualization capabilities of the Hitachi VSP storage systems to provide the foundation for global storage virtualization. SVOS RF delivers software-defined storage by abstracting and managing heterogeneous storage to provide a unified virtual storage layer, resource pooling, and automation. SVOS RF also offers self-optimization, automation, centralized management, and increased operational efficiency for improved performance and storage utilization. Optimized for flash storage, SVOS RF provides adaptive inline data reduction to keep response times low as data levels grow, and selectable services enable data-reduction technologies to be activated based on workload benefit.

SVOS RF integrates with Hitachi’s Base and Advanced software packages to deliver superior availability and operational efficiency. You gain active-active clustering, data-at-rest encryption, insights via machine learning, and policy-defined data protection with local and remote replication.

  • Base software package

    The Base software package, which comes standard on all VSP 5000 series, delivers software to simplify management and protection of your data and includes best-class analytics software to improve uptime and ROI of IT operations.

    The Base software package includes:

    • SVOS RF core functionality, including Universal Volume Manager for storage virtualization
    • Hitachi Ops Center Administrator for simple, GUI system management
    • Hitachi Dynamic Link Manager for path failover, path failback, and automatic load balancing
    • Local replication for cloning and snapshots
    • Hitachi Ops Center Protector for copy management and data protection
    • Hitachi Ops Center Analyzer for data-center-wide, AI-powered insights
    • Data Mobility for tiering between storage arrays and media types
  • Advanced software package

    When business continuity is critical, or when you need to automate and accelerate delivery of IT resources, you can upgrade to the Advanced software package. Remote replication and metroclustering software enables delivery of continuous, scalable data access. Intelligent automation software simplifies and enhances provisioning of resources to reduce operational overhead and avoid misconfigurations.

    The Advanced software package includes:

    • All Base package products and features
    • Remote replication (TrueCopy and Universal Replicator) for disaster recovery
    • Global-active device (GAD) for business continuity and metro clustering
    • Hitachi Ops Center Automator for data-center-wide workflow automation and orchestration

In-System Replication software

Hitachi's In-System Replication software for VSP 5000 series ensures rapid restart-and-recovery times by combining local mirroring of full volumes with fast, space-efficient snapshots.

  • High-speed, nondisruptive in-system mirroring technology of Hitachi ShadowImage® rapidly creates multiple copies of mission-critical information within the storage system in mainframe and open-systems environments. ShadowImage keeps data RAID-protected and fully recoverable, without affecting service or performance levels. Replicated data volumes can then be split from the host applications and used for system backups, application testing, and data mining applications, while business continues to run at full capacity.
  • The high-speed, nondisruptive snapshot technology of Hitachi Thin Image snapshot software rapidly creates copies of mission-critical information within the storage system or virtualized storage pool without impacting host service or performance levels. Because snapshots store only the changed data, the storage capacity required for each snapshot copy is substantially less than the capacity of the source volume. As a result, Thin Image can provide significant savings over full-volume cloning methods. Thin Image snapshot copies are fully read/write compatible with other hosts and can be used for system backups, application testing, and data mining applications.

Application-consistent ShadowImage clones and Thin Image snapshots can be orchestrated using Hitachi Ops Center Protector (Protector) software. Protector supports Microsoft® Exchange and SQL Server® as well as Oracle databases on Linux operating systems. These clones and snapshots can be easily created as part of a complete data protection workflow. Protector can also trigger a ShadowImage clone or Thin Image snapshot on the remote side of a distance replication pair.

Hitachi Vantara Global Services Solutions provides Implementation Services for in-system replication software. These services improve testing and application deployment operations with high-speed, problem-free data duplication. Hitachi Vantara consultants tailor the configuration and integration of the in-system replication software to meet your backup and recovery application requirements.

Remote Replication software

Hitachi's Remote Replication software for VSP 5000 series combines Hitachi TrueCopy® and Universal Replicator solutions to enable remote data protection at up to four data centers. Providing continuous, nondisruptive, host-independent data replication, Hitachi Remote Replication software ensures the highest levels of data integrity for local or metropolitan areas. Copies generated by Hitachi Remote Replication software products can be used for the rapid recovery or restart of production systems on primary or secondary (disaster recovery) systems following an outage. They can also be used for nondisruptive test and development, data warehousing, data mining, data backup, and data migration applications.

SVOS RF business continuity solutions are designed for maximum flexibility, enabling organizations to build a recovery strategy that spans multiple data centers and delivers to their specific SLAs.

  • Hitachi TrueCopy® enables synchronous remote replication of mission-critical data from a primary data center to a secondary data center. TrueCopy delivers immediate zero-RPO and automated failover capabilities and is compatible with open-systems and mainframe environments.
  • Universal Replicator features journal disk caching for achieving tight RPO time capabilities, even in the event of a network outage. Universal Replicator provides asynchronous remote copy, over any distance and is compatible with open-systems and mainframe environments. Deployed implementations can be configured with or without delta resync, which ensures replication consistency for the highest level of remote copy data integrity at any distance.

TrueCopy and Universal Replicator can also be automated as part of an end-to-end, unified data protection, retention, and recovery management solution within Hitachi Ops Center Protector (Protector) software. Protector can also automatically trigger Thin Image snapshots and ShadowImage clones from the remote copy of the data.

From remote copy planning to advanced implementation services, Hitachi Vantara Global Services Solutions can support the successful and timely deployment of the most resilient data protection infrastructures. Services to support TrueCopy and Universal Replicator software and other business continuity and disaster recovery solutions from Hitachi Vantara are available.

High availability with global-active device

Global-active device (GAD) simplifies and automates high availability to ensure continuous operations for mission-critical data and applications. GAD provides full metroclustering between data centers that can be up to 500 km apart. Supporting read/write copies of the same data in two places at the same time, GAD's active-active design implements cross-mirrored storage volumes between matched VSP storage systems to protect data and minimize data-access disruptions for host applications due to site or storage system failures. GAD ensures that up-to-date data is always available and enables production workloads on both systems, while maintaining full data consistency and protection.high-level GAD architecture

Global-active device volume pairs have the following benefits:

  • Continuous I/OIf a primary volume becomes unavailable, the host continues to transparently access the secondary volume.
  • Clustered failoverYou do not need to perform storage system tasks such as suspension or resynchronization of GAD pairs due to a host failure.
  • Virtual machine integrationIf a virtual machine is creating a high load at one site, you can move the load to the other site.
  • High performanceMultipath software allows application access to mirrored data from the shortest path for highest performance.
  • Workload mobilityThe concurrent data mirroring capability of global-active device makes data immediately available to servers at a second site (over metro distances).
  • Nondisruptive data migrationData volumes can be migrated between storage systems without disruption to normal operations.

Data Mobility software

By simplifying tiered storage management, Hitachi's Data Mobility software delivers the highest storage performance for the most frequently accessed data while at the same time lowering costs by automatically optimizing data placement.

Hitachi Data Mobility software automatically and transparently moves data across tiers of storage, maximizing business application service levels while minimizing costs. Support for a broad range of storage media, configurations, and virtualized third-party arrays facilitates seamless data migration from older to newer Hitachi storage.

  • Dynamic Tiering automates data placement and access in a tiered storage environment, dynamically moving the most active data to the highest-performing storage tiers while moving less frequently accessed data to lower tiers. An additional active-flash mode moves suddenly active data to higher-performing tiers in real time. In seconds to subseconds, active flash responds to workload demands based on current I/O activity and proactively preserves flash endurance by monitoring and demoting pages that exceed thresholds for heavy write I/O.
  • Nondisruptive data migration is accomplished using the global storage virtualization technology of the Hitachi VSP storage systems. Resources on the migration source storage system are virtualized on the target storage system. From the perspective of the host, I/O requests continue to be serviced by the source storage system during the migration process.

Data-at-rest encryption

The Encryption License Key feature of VSP 5000 series protects your sensitive data against breaches associated with storage media (for example, loss or theft). Encryption License Key includes a controller-based encryption implementation as well as integrated key management functionality that can leverage third-party key management solutions via the OASIS Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP).

The data at-rest encryption (DARE) functionality is implemented using cryptographic chips included as part of the encryption hardware. The encryption hardware encrypts and decrypts data as it is being written to and read from the physical drives. The key management functionality controls the full key life cycle, including the generation, distribution, storage, backup/recovery, rekeying, and destruction of keys. In addition, the design of this key management functionality includes protections against key corruption (for example, integrity checks on keys) as well as key backups (both primary and secondary).

The Encryption License Key feature provides the following benefits:

  • Hardware-based Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, using 256-bit keys in the XTS mode of operation, is provided for open and mainframe systems.
  • Encryption can be applied to some or all supported internal drives.
  • Each encrypted internal drive is protected with a unique data encryption key.
  • Encryption has negligible effects on I/O throughput and latency.
  • Encryption requires little to no disruption of existing applications and infrastructure.
  • Cryptographic erasure (media sanitization) of data is performed when an internal encrypted drive is removed from the storage system.

CLI and API integration

Advanced management tools, including CLIs and REST APIs, are available for more advanced management of your VSP 5000 series storage environment.

The Command Control Interface (CCI) software provides powerful command-line control for VSP 5000 series. CCI enables you to configure your storage system and perform data management operations by issuing commands directly to the storage system. CCI commands can be used interactively or in scripts to automate and standardize storage administration functions, thereby simplifying storage administration tasks and reducing administration costs. CCI also provides enhanced control and functionality for SVOS RF in-system and remote replication operations, including ShadowImage, Thin Image, TrueCopy, Universal Replicator, and global-active device. For remote replication operations, CCI interfaces with the system software and high-availability (HA) software on the hosts as well as the software on the storage systems to provide failover operation commands that support mutual hot standby in conjunction with industry-standard failover products.

REST-based APIs for VSP 5000 series extend operations, enabling integration with existing toolsets and automation templates to further simplify and consolidate management tasks. For details about API integration solutions for VSP 5000 series, contact your Hitachi Vantara representative.

Storage management software

The Hitachi approach to software-defined solutions enables you to manage your IT infrastructure to align storage resources to rapidly changing business demands, achieve superior returns on infrastructure investments, and minimize operational costs. Hitachi Ops Center, Hitachi's suite of management software for VSP 5000 series, delivers high storage availability, mobility, and optimization for key business applications and automates storage management operations with integrated best practices to accelerate new resource deployments. Hitachi storage management software enables you to manage more storage capacity with less effort and ensure that service levels for business-critical applications are met while increasing utilization and performance of virtualized storage assets.

The storage management software for VSP 5000 series includes the following products:

  • Ops Center Administrator
  • Ops Center Analyzer
  • Ops Center Automator
  • Ops Center Protector

For details about Hitachi Ops Center, visit the Ops Center website, or contact your Hitachi Vantara representative.