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Hitachi Data Systems is directly attacking storage rivals EMC and NetApp with converged infrastructure solutions that tie its storage with a choice of Hitachi or Cisco servers and Cisco or Brocade networking technology.
The new Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) is slated to be available in two versions, including a fully integrated version that directly competes with the VCE Vblock and a reference architecture that competes with EMC's VSPEX and NetApp's FlexPod offerings.
But regardless of which of the three top independent storage vendor customers choose for developing a converged infrastructure, Cisco is the only company that has ties to all three.
[Related: Data Center Decision: Converged Infrastructure Vs. Best-Of-Breed]
The Hitachi UCP also will compete against converged infrastructure offerings including IBM's PureSystems and Oracle's Exadata, said Ravi Chalaka, vice president of solutions marketing at Santa Clara, Calif.-based HDS.
For enterprises running mission-critical applications, HDS developed the Hitachi UCP Pro, a solution that combines the enterprise-class Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) with Hitachi's CB500 blade servers, Brocade networking technology, VMware vSphere virtualization software, and Hitachi's UCP Director management software.
The Hitachi UCP Pro scales to up to 8,000 virtual machines, and UCP Director is tightly integrated in VMware's vCenter software for management and orchestration of both physical and virtualized servers as well as virtual desktops, Chalaka said.
"This gives a unified view of the entire physical and virtual infrastructure," he said.
Like the VCE Vblock converged infrastructure offering from VCE, the Hitachi UCP Pro is available only as a completely integrated solution. Chalaka said the Hitachi UCP Pro will be completely assembled and tested at HDS facilities in Norman, Okla., before shipping to customers.
The second version is the Hitachi UCP Select reference architecture which, like EMC's VSPEX and NetApp's FlexPod offerings, can be integrated by solution providers either before shipping to customers or in the field.
The Hitachi UCP Select offers a choice of the Hitachi VSP or the Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS) unified storage platform, Chalaka said.
Customers and their solution providers also can choose from either Hitachi or Cisco UCS servers, Cisco or Brocade networking gear, and VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization technology, he said.
NEXT: Hitachi UCP Pro vs. Hitachi UCP Select
