the company to consider solutions outside of the EMC box – namely, the unified storage family from Hitachi Data Systems (HDS).

With configuration expertise provided by the local HDS team and logistical and financial support from Arrow ECS, Cold Creek was able to propose a best-of-both-worlds solution that leveraged a Hitachi Unified Storage (HUS) front end for virtualization and utilized CSS’s existing EMC storage resources on the back end. The solution also came in at about one half the cost of the proposed Symmetrix VMAX solution from EMC.

“The pricing ended up being what they needed, but Hitachi really stood apart from a technology perspective,” says Warwick. “Number one, the HUS would allow us to virtualize and extend the usability of their EMC assets that weren’t ready for end of life. Second, it would be quickly and easily scalable with flash drives that slot right into the normal chassis. And finally, it was developed with an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) architecture, so they knew it was purpose-built for meeting enterprise storage demands.”