Universal Storage Platform is the brand name for an Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems is a company providing mid-range and high-end storage systems, software and services. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. and part of the Hitachi Information Systems & Telecommunications Division....

 line of enterprise storage

Enterprise storage

In computing, an enterprise storage is the computer storage designed for large-scale, high-technology environments of the modern enterprises. When comparing to the consumer storage, it has higher scalability, higher reliability, better fault tolerance, and much higher initial price.From the...

 arrays

Disk array

A disk array is a disk storage system which contains multiple disk drives. It is differentiated from a disk enclosure, in that an array has cache memory and advanced functionality, like RAID and virtualization.Components of a typical disk array include:...

History

The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform, also known as the USP was first introduced in 2004.

An entry level enterprise and high-end midrange model, the Network Storage Controller was introduced in 2005.
The second generation Universal Storage Platform V replaced the original Universal Storage Platform in 2007
and the Universal Storage Platform VM replacing the original Network Storage Controller also in 2007.

Architecture

At the core of the Universal Storage Platform V and VM is a fully fault tolerant, high performance, non-blocking, silicon based switched architecture designed to provide the bandwidth needed to support infrastructure consolidation of enterprise file and block-based storage services on and behind a single platform.
Notable features include:

• Supports online local and distance replication and migration of data non disruptively internally and between heterogeneous storage, without interrupting application i/o through use of products such as Tiered Storage Manager, ShadowImage, TrueCopy and Universal Replicator.
• Enables virtualization
  Storage Virtualization
  Storage virtualization or storage virtualisation is a concept and term used within computer science. Specifically, storage systems may use virtualization concepts as a tool to enable better functionality and more advanced features within the storage system.Broadly speaking, a 'storage system' is...
  
   of external SAN storage from Hitachi and other vendors into one pool
• Storage partitioning provides the ability to host multiple applications on a single storage system without allowing the actions of one set of users to affect the Quality of Service of others.
• Supports thin provisioning
  Thin Provisioning
  Thin provisioning is the act of using virtualization technology to give the appearance of more physical resource than is actually available. If you always have enough resource to simultaneously support all of the virtualized resources then you are not thin provisioned...
  
  and storage reclamation on internal and external virtualized storage
• Provides encryption, WORM and data shredding services, data resilience and business continuity services and content management services.

Specifications

Universal Storage Platform V Specifications

• Frames (Cabinets) - Integrated Control/Drive Group Frame and 1 to 4 optional Drive Group Frames
• Universal Star Network Crossbar Switch - Number of switches 8
• Aggregate bandwidth (GB/sec) - 106
• Aggregate IOPS - Over 4 million
• Cache Memory - Number of cache modules 1-32, Module capacity 8 or 16GB, Maximum cache memory 512GB
• Control/Shared Memory - Number of control memory modules 1-8, Module capacity 4GB, Maximum control memory 28GB
• Front End Directors (Connectivity)
  • Number of Directors 1-14
  • Fibre Channel host ports per Director - 8 or 16
  • Fibre Channel port performance - 4, 8 Gb/sec
  • Maximum Fibre Channel host ports - 224
  • Virtual host ports - 1,024 per physical port
  • Maximum IBM FICON host ports - 112
  • Maximum IBM ESCON host ports - 112
• Logical Devices (LUNs) — Maximum Supported
  • Open systems 65,536
  • IBM z/OS 65,536
• Disks
  • Type: Flash 73, 146, 200 and 400GB
  • Type: Fibre Channel 146, 300, 450 and 600GB
  • Type: SATA II 1TB, 2TB
  • Number of disks per system (min/max) 4-1,152
  • Number spare disks per system (min/max) 1-40
• Maximum Internal Raw Capacity - (2TB disks) 2,268 TB
• Maximum Usable Capacity - RAID-5
  • Open systems (2TB disks) 1,972 TB
  • z/OS-compatible 1TB disks) 931 TB
• Maximum Usable Capacity — RAID-6
  • Open systems (2TB disks) 1,690TB
  • z/OS-compatible (1TB disks) 796 TB
• Maximum Usable Capacity — RAID-1+
  • Open systems (2TB disks) 1,130TB
  • z/OS-compatible (1TB disks) 527.4TB
• Other Features
  • RAID 1, 10, 5, 6 support
  • Maximum internal and external capacity 247PB
  • Virtual Storage Machines 32 max
  • Back end directors 1-8
• Operating System Support
  • Mainframe - Fujitsu: MSP; IBM z/OS, z/OS.e, z/VM, zVSE, TPF; Red Hat; Linux for IBM S/390 and zSeries; SUSE: Linux Enterprise Server for System z.
  • Open systems - HP: HP-UX, Tru64 UNIX, Open VMS; IBM AIX; Microsoft Windows Server 2000, 2003, 2008; Novell NetWare; SUSE Linux Enterprise Server; Red Hat Enterprise Linux; SGI IRIX; Sun Microsystems Solaris; VMware ESX and Vsphere, Citrix XENserver

Storage Management

The Hitachi Storage Command Suite (formerly the HiCommand Storage Management Suite) provides integrated storage resource management, tiered storage and business continuity software solutions allowing customers to align their storage with application requirements based upon metrics including Quality-of-Service, Service Level Objectives, Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives.
Open Standards management interfaces such as SNMP and SMI-S are also supported.

Models

Universal Storage Platform family models. Information taken from

Model	Status	Released	Total Internal/External Raw capacity
Universal Storage Platform	Discontinued	2004	13PB
Network Storage Controller	Discontinued	2005	13PB
Universal Storage Platform V	Current	2007	332PB
Universal Storage Platform VM	Current	2007	332PB