Hitachi Data Systems on Wednesday introduced software that adds failover clustering to its enterprise-oriented Universal Storage Platform V controller.
Universal Storage Platform V (USP V) provides administrators with a single interface to manage both internal storage and externally-attached storage, from multiple vendors. The new High Availability Manager adds local and remote clustering capabilities, which allow users to move virtualised storage pools between different storage systems without any downtime for applications or servers, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) said.
The software can be used with HDS' Universal Replicator and TrueCopy replication technologies to failover pools of storage from one USP V system to another. Companies can perform data recovery at the primary site, or at a remote site in the case of unexpected downtime.
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The technology can also be used to reduce the risk of downtime when migrating storage from legacy systems to newer systems, HDS said.
The High Availability Manager software will be available in the fourth quarter of 2009. The pricing will be based on the USP V platform the software is used on, according to HDS. The software is expected to be resold by HP and Sun, which offer USP V-based products.
Given the current tight economic conditions, HDS is pitching the system primarily as a way for companies to save money by increasing storage utilisation and improving data mobility.
March figures from Gartner showed that demand for storage continued to grow despite the recession, with global revenue from external controller-based storage showing year-on-year growth of 11.3 percent last year, up from $16.2bn (£11.4bn) to $18bn.
HDS was the world's fourth largest storage vendor, after EMC, IBM and HP, according to Gartner.
