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Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) added information cloud to complete its 3-tiered cloud strategy to provide a single virtualization platform for all data.

HDS’ two other existing clouds are infrastructure cloud and content cloud. Infrastructure cloud is a pay-per-use private cloud service which can also be delivered as a traditional capex purchase. Content cloud provides a set of tools that enable data indexing, search and discovery across data types for better control of unstructured data.

This 3-tiered cloud strategy is expected to help businesses address the challenge of rapid data growth – commonly known as “big data,” which primarily involves unstructured data in the form of email, video, images and scientific research.

It is estimated that by 2020 there will be a 42x growth in data from 2009. Within the next three years it is estimated that there will be more than one billion applications in existence.

According to HDS, the full realization of data’s value requires data and information to be stored, governed and managed as an asset. Only then can the data be shared, compared, and analyzed more holistically for better insight and innovation.

“What sets our approach apart from others is that we provide an open framework that enables customers to transition their data centers to information centers at their own pace, leveraging their existing assets without vendor lock-in,” said Andrew Sampson, general manager, Hong Kong and Macau and director, managed and cloud services, Asia Pacific, HDS.

Following its acquisition of ParaScale in August 2010, HDS’ new information cloud provides a set of information analytics tools and processes that can be integrated with the underlining infrastructure. 

The ParaScale technology provides a scale-out file system that can store and process both structured and unstructured data in parallel and at scale. It offers fast data ingest and integrated data movement and search to perform big data analytics.

According to HDS, an information cloud will connect data sets, reveal patterns, actionable information and new insights to business users, which can be used to help solve today’s challenges such as in the fields of health and life sciences, energy research and social infrastructure.

See also: Survey: APAC biz unprepared for "big data"