Operating and Managing
Hitachi Content
Platform v8.x
Object Storage Overview
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Module Objectives
When you complete this module, you should be able to:
• Define object-based storage concepts
• Explain the following:
Fixed content /objects
Object storage requirements including retention and protection
• Identify the customer challenges and needs to be addressed by the Hitachi
Content Platform v8.2 solution
• Discuss the protocols that are used to ingest files and back up objects
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Object-Based Storage (From Wikipedia)
Object storage (aka object-based storage) is;
• Computer data storage architecture that manages data as objects
• As opposed to other storage architectures such as:
File systems which manage data as a file hierarchy or
Block storage which manage data as blocks within sectors and tracks
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Hitachi Content Platform (HCP)
Stores objects that includes both data and metadata that describes the
data
A distributed storage system designed to support large, growing
repositories of fixed-content data
Presents objects as files in a standard directory structure
Provides a cost-effective, scalable, and easy-to-use solution
Note: An HCP system consists of both hardware and software.
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
HCP Objects to Be Stored
Fixed-content data
(Data)
• Once it’s in HCP, this
data cannot be modified
System metadata
• System-managed properties
describing the data
• Includes policy settings
Custom metadata
(Annotations)
• The metadata, a user
or application
provides to further
describe an object
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Multiple Custom Metadata Injection
ANNOTATIONS
SYSTEM/POSIX Medical (DICOM)
DATA Medical (DICOM)
METADATA <record>
<record>
<doctor>
filename: p12d67.jpg <doctor>
<name>John
size: 673124 <name>John
Smith</name>
ingested: 12/1/18 Smith</name>
</doctor>
hash: 12ABD78F0E </doctor>
<patient>
<patient>
<name>John
<name>John
Smith</name>
Smith</name>
<age>48</age>
<age>48</age>
Image (EXIF) Billing </patient>
Image (EXIF)
<taken>11/17/18</taken> Billing </patient>
</record>
<taken>11/17/18</taken> <cost>$1,500</cost> </record>
<aperture>5</aperture> <cost>$1,500</cost>
<aperture>5</aperture> <insurance>yes</insurance>
<ISO>400</ISO>
<ISO>400</ISO> <insurance>yes</insurance>
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
How Users and Applications View Objects
Each object and annotation within HCP has a URI path
Each object’s system metadata has its own URI path
HCP tenants and namespaces — REST API is used
• REST API is an HTTP(s) interface to HCP namespace
• Software architecture for client/server communications over the web
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Active Learning Exercise: Group Discussion
Topic: Why would most organizations be moving from NAS and Block to Object?
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Retention Timeframes by Industry: Customer
Challenges
Retention timeframes by industry
Life Science/Pharmaceutical
Processing food 2 years after commercial release
Manufacturing drugs 3 years after distribution
Manufacturing biologics 5 years after manufacturing of product
Healthcare HIPAA
All hospital records in original form 5 year minimum for all records
From birth to 21 years
Medical records for minors Length of patient’s life + 2 years
Full life patient care
Financial services 17a-4
Financial statements 3 yearsEnd-of-life of enterprise
Member reg. for broker/dealers End of account + 6 years
Trading account records
30 years from end of audit
OSHA
Sarbanes - Oxley Original correspondence 4 years after financial audit
1 2 3 4 5 10 15 20 25 50
Source: ESG
© Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
About Object Retention
Each object has a retention policy which:
• Determines how long an object must be kept
• Influences transactions and services on the object
• Has retention methods as:
Offset: years, months, days
Retention
Fixed date Object policy:
• Retention
• Retention class: Named retention setting setting
• Retention
Retention hold class
Retention Hold
= true/false
0 © Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Cloud Access for Object
REST/HTTP(S) NFS CIFS WebDAV SMTP Amazon S3 Hitachi Swift API
Swift API and S3 applications can
write to and read from HCP,
no changes needed
Private Cloud (on Premises) Public Cloud
Primary Economical Extended
Running Spindown S3 Compatible NFS Devices Amazon S3 Google Cloud SAP Cloud Microsoft Azure
internal disks or disks on arrays storage and compatible Platform
disks on arrays
1 © Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Module Recap
Object contains the actual data, system-generated metadata and
custom metadata/annotations
Each annotation is a separate file, typically xml or json and has its own
URL path
Object retention determines how long a file is kept
HTTP(S) is the preferred protocol used to ingest and back up objects
2 © Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Questions and
Discussion
3 © Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Module Review
1. What is Object Storage?
2. An object consists of the computer file, metadata, and data channel. (True
or False)
3. Retention Time may be set as an offset, fixed date, or special value. (True
or False)
4. S3 is an Open Standard protocol. (True or False)
4 © Hitachi Vantara LLC 2020. All Rights Reserved.
