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30 Minute Interview
“Storage utilisation is still fairly low ”
During the HDS Inspire APAC CIO summit at Phuket, Hubert
M. Yoshida shared his company’s vision to enter into the Software as
a Service (SAAS) segment with Chirasrota Jena.
Hubert M Yoshida |
Trends in storage
Although we have been talking about storage virtualisation
for the past five years, it is only now that enterprises have started deploying
virtualisation tools. A virtualisation solution needs to be simple and should
provide tools to trace events. At present virtualisation is coming into play
to facilitate the optimal use of storage.
Large enterprises across verticals are looking at reducing the cost of SAN deployment
or SAN expansion and are adopting iSCSI. Storage consolidation is the best option.
We launched a storage virtualisation solutions in September 2004, and have sold
about 4,500 products since then. Storage virtualisation reduces the complexities
associated with storage and helps organisations optimally utilise storage resources.
It will also help companies manage their storage related functions efficiently.
Software as a Service
We are also planning to enter the SAAS space. As the market for storage and
content management matures, storage vendors will look out for alternatives.
Even though our consulting service accounts for a small portion of our revenue,
we are adding new features to this service which will act as a business enabler
for the enterprise. There are ample opportunities in the SAAS space for HDS.
Focus for the coming year
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Most organisations are spending
much more on storage than they need to. This has led to problems such
as the under-utilisation of storage and over running of data centres
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As our core competence is in the enterprise space, we have
recently launched solutions for digital archival. This solution offers centralised
search, policy-based retention, authentication and the preservation of structured
and unstructured data under a common storage management framework. We also want
to position our Virtual Tape Library solutions for both mainframe and open systems
environments. We will also focus on virtualising tiered storage.
Verticals and growth factors
Online consumers are generating a lot of personal data. They do not prefer to
back-up their own systems and instead rely on service providers to manage and
protect their data. Such user-generated data will be stored at data centres
and will require enterprise class storage facilities.
Enterprise storage is now a part of personal storage; not directly but indirectly
by means of service providers. We have a presence in the financial sector. As
the telecom sector is booming around the world we are also targeting this segment.
Tapping SMEs across the APAC region
We have made our presence felt in the enterprise segment across the globe. In
the APAC region, the SMEs spend more on PCs and server attached storage. SMEs
require scalable storage solutions on account of the growing focus on compliance.
SMEs are also looking at maximising their IT resources through solutions that
are easy to manage, such as AOS.
Storage utilisation is still fairly low and it is about 30 percent. After seeing
the growth of the SME segment we have introduced several solutions with which
they can avail of virtualisation.
Challenges faced on the storage front
Most organisations are spending much more on storage than they need to. This
has led to problems such as the under-utilisation of storage and over running
of data centres.
It is cheaper for companies to buy storage rather than hire people to manage
existing equipment in an optimal manner. Enterprises are investing mostly on
maintaining old systems because it becomes too disruptive to migrate to new
ones. The growth of storage is accelerating but it has become over subscribed
and under utilised.
By building high capacity storage arrays or multiple niche products vendors
are increasing the problems of companies. The true benefits can be achieved
only through the alignment of IT with business requirements.
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