Hitachi has opened a new service command center to remotely manage large and mid-market data centers from its UK headquarters at Sefton Park in Stoke Poges.

Its Storage Operations Centre will serve as a base where Hitachi administrators can fiddle with their customers' storage centers from afar and around the clock. Hitachi reckons the market is looking for such outside expertise to cut IT expenses.

"Many organizations need storage administration skills but can't justify the cost or time constraints of a residency service or additional staff in house," said Bryan Hair, Hitachi's UK Managed Services Director.

Their first offering at the center will be a remote ad hoc storage administration service, or as Hitachi calls it, Remote Ad Hoc Storage Administration Service. (There's a difference). It will let customers contact an experienced Hitachi administrator, who can link into an organization's systems and boost utilization and drive performance. Customers can purchase the time in advance and use it as needed.

As the operation expands, Hitachi plans to introduce more services. The company would only reveal one such proposition — support for connecting Hitachi systems with products from other vendors.

The services offered through the Storage Operations Centre are also available to customers of Hitachi's Data Systems' channel partners. ®

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