Hitachi's philosophy of supporting heterogeneous arrays and enabling them with robust enterprise-class capabilities provides an opportunity to update legacy storage and inject new life into these products. By enabling thin provisioning on external storage, Hitachi has handed users a chance to extend the value of older arrays and reclaim wasted space via external thin provisioning.
There are several best practices users can consider in this regard, including:
- Perform an assessment and identify older storage systems that are candidates for attachment to a USPV and begin the process of virtualizing installed storage assets;
- Clearly identify tier 1 and tier 2 candidates defaulting as much storage as possible to tier 2 arrays that are virtualized behind a USPV;
- Reduce maintenance costs by using third-party suppliers where possible for hardware break/fix;
- Terminate software maintenance licenses for products attached to the USPV;
- Optimize USPV configurations by using high-capacity SATA II devices for lower performance applications;
- Avoid onerous software license fees where possible by limiting tier 1 support to those applications that absolutely demand it;
Action Item: Where applicable, aggressively modernize currently installed arrays by including them in a USPV umbrella. Balance the cost savings of this approach with the risks of utilizing older equipment by planning for recovery using state-of-the art services provided by the USPV applied to older arrays.
Footnotes: