Azure Blob Storage vs. Hitachi Content Platform (HCP)

Azure Blob Storage is well suited for cases where you are working with different data formats and looking for cost-effective storage solutions based on access frequency. Another area of strength is the encryption of data at rest, and encryption can be managed on your own. However, it may not be appropriate for transferring large data very fast.

Incentivized

• [Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) is] well suited for needs requiring a highly secure, multi-tenant on-premise object store.
• Exceeds expectations with respect to object level attributes and permissions
• Has excellent S3/HS3 REST API feature set
• Situations which require versioning and proven Immutability (certified by Governments)

- Expensive to use for general file storage publishing where meta data, compliance, retention, versioning are unnecessary.

Incentivized

• Ease of use both through Azure Portal as well as API.
• Cost-effective solution for storing a large amount of data compared to other storage solutions.
• Scalability, Security, and Performance are the other key aspects of Azure Blob Storage that are easily manageable through Admin Console.

Incentivized

• HCP/HDI interface works like charm. it's easy to deploy and scale.
• Hitachi customer support is at par with expectations
• More cost effective than EMC/NetApp solutions.

Incentivized

• Unstructured data makes it harder to conceptualize what we have but with partners like Panzura that has been a non-issue for us.
• Not always easy to understand the different models or tiers you can pick from when purchasing.

Incentivized

• Cost structure is by capacity and is expensive
• Some access settings are mutually exclusive for performance (REST vs. CIFS)
• QoS by Tenant requires use of external ADC (Hitachi suggested and sold us Pulse Secure) and their support on this product offering is not up to their normally high standard

Incentivized

Documentation sometimes appears to be out of date or not fully documented properly with new releases. It is like documentation comes out for a specific version and is quickly out of date. Another issue is documentation is scarce on new releases and only seems to get properly updated (and sometimes is still wrong) once enough people hit the forums to complain.

Incentivized

Azure Blob Storage is the best choice to store files when the app runs in Azure. It also has some advantages over S3, like Shared Access Signatures, that make it easy to control access to files directly via a URL. Azure Blob Storage is very fast and we have not had any major issues with it after using it for several years.

Incentivized

My company has close ties with Hitachi. NetApp chargeback was more per Gig and for cost saving purposes, we had to choose HCP.

Incentivized

• Azure has increased the flexibility of where we place data within our organization.
• It has proven to be very reliable and always accessible.

Incentivized

• Best on premise solution of its' kind that encapsulates all our needs
• ROI has been positive but it does raise questions at renewal time in terms of cost/GB vs other 2nd tier storage types

Incentivized