The Hitachi Data Systems unit of Hitachi Ltd. has rolled out a new object storage solution aimed at tackling the growing data volumes created by mobile devices at the edge of networks.

HDS says its new solution, Hitachi Content Intelligence, can deliver data analytics and content search capabilities at the edge through the addition of a “content intelligence” element that’s able to aggregate growing volumes of structured and unstructured data. The company is billing its object storage platform as a kind of hub for managing edge data and enforcing governance rules and policies alongside its search and analytics functions.

The platform enables customers to organize, transform and package organizational data into factual information, said Scott Baker, senior director of emerging technologies at Hitachi Data Systems. With data today being recognized by enterprises as their most strategic asset, he added, the ability to connect the right people to the right data in a timely and meaningful way is critical to staying competitive.

The company reckons some 1,700 customers are already using the object storage platform, which also boasts cloud-file gateway and file sharing and synchronization capabilities. One of those customers is the U.S. National Archives and Record Administration, which is in the process of digitizing its vast collection of records into open file formats.

“We selected Hitachi Content Intelligence over competing Solr-based implementations or building our own, due to its use of a flexible software developers kit and its integration with the HCP [Hitachi Content Platform for managing data across clouds and devices]. In addition, we know the architecture will not constrain what we want to do with the platform,” said Jason vanValkenburgh, vice president at Hitachi Consulting, which provides project management and application development services for the U.S. National Archives and Record Administration’s project.

Another major customer, Rabobank Group, said HCI’s new solution had transformed its ability to ensure compliance in the countries it operates. Rabobank serves more than 10 million customers in 47 countries, employs over 51,000 people worldwide and, like all financial institutions, is subject to strict regulations in each of the countries where it operates.

“Hitachi Content Intelligence has transformed the way we handle compliance investigations and cut the time needed for discovery searches from weeks to hours, and is now an important and necessary part of our global compliance monitoring, discovery, and intervention architecture,” said Walter Hendricks, a business change manager at Rabobank.

Hitachi said its object storage platform can be deployed on both public and private clouds, or on-premises via bare-metal or virtualized infrastructure. The platform is able to scale to clusters containing more than 10,000 instances.

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