Item: Hitachi Command Suite
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Hitachi Command Suite

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Hitachi Command Suite (and it's latest incarnation Hitachi Operations Manager - all part of the Hitachi Vantara Ops Center Suite) is used to provision and manage resources from multiple Hitachi Vantara storage systems. Provisioning/de-provisioning involves creating and deleting LUNs as well as mapping them to host groups for access. Management includes viewing performance criteria and even host side telemetry to ensure that performance and operations are trouble-free.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Provisioning/Deprovisioning
Low level Storage System configuration / management
Management of multiple replication technologies
Creation/Removal of specialized devices such as CMD devices

Cons

Pool management (still best done through SVP)
Support for tags/attributes for storage resources would be a wonderful addition
Reporting is minimal and difficult to use.
Capacity planning (historical baselining + projection of organic growth) is a missing feature

Return on Investment

Provisioning is now a very easy task
Managing replication now has an interface (as opposed to old HORCM RAIDCOM command line stuff - which is still available_
HPA gives end to end and sparkline views of all elements in the storage path

Usability

The interfaces are well designed and not overly populated with extraneous detail. Disparate but related feature sets are supported via separate interfaces that share a UX look and feel so that it doesn't feel like completely different panes of glass. Copy data management activity is still a bit clunky as it is accomplished via a re-purposed backup tool that was written to handle replicas, images and snapshots) but over all it is useable and has an interesting interface where elements are dragged onto the workflows.

Alternatives Considered

Dell PowerStore, Dell Compellent (discontinued), HPE 3PAR StoreServ, HPE Alletra, Dell/EMC CX4 series (Clariion), EMC VNX (Discontinued), NetApp FAS Storage Arrays, NetApp AFF C-Series and Pure Storage FlashArray

Command Suite / Ops Center are the native tools to the Hitachi Vantara storage systems. Operating Hitachi Vantara products including VSP (370,1000,1500,5500), Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) they are paramount in leveraging the full use of the product families. The interfaces may be a bit less friendly than some of the newer green-field storage systems that have 'point and click' / 'click-click-done' management interfaces but the power and the engine-room access for deep configuration that Hitachi Vantara gives make it worth the extra effort to run some of the absolute most rock-solid and fastest/faster storage systems available.

Key Insights

Do you think Hitachi Command Suite delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Hitachi Command Suite's feature set?

Yes

Did Hitachi Command Suite live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Hitachi Command Suite go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Hitachi Command Suite again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Dell PowerStore, Hitachi Content Platform (HCP), PowerProtect DD Series, Slack, Atlassian Confluence, Atlassian Jira, Ripple, Augment Code, ChatGPT, Delinea Secret Server, Jenkins, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter, Atlassian Bitbucket, GitHub, Google Workspace

Likelihood to Recommend

The new evolution of Command Suite into Hitachi Vantara Ops Center has greatly simplified working with the Hitachi Vantara Storage systems compared to previous management tooling. Use of the whole suite including Performance Analyzer makes managing the entire Hitachi storage ecosystem a full featured and more approachable task. I enjoy the completeness of the solution as well as the integration that they have begun to employ.

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