Hitachi Data Systems Continues to Add Innovation in Midrange Storage

Offers Customers Enterprise-class Enhancements, Greater Flexibility for the Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 Family

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — June 29, 2009 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, today introduced enhancements across hardware and software to its award winning Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family to give customers improved operational efficiency, performance, reliability, and security.

“The Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family has the capability to manage extremely complex tasks and enables a level of operational efficiencies not found in other modular storage products,” said Mike Walkey, Senior Vice President of Global Channels, Hitachi Data Systems. “With these innovative enterprise-class enhancements, Hitachi Data Systems continues to raise the bar for modular storage and shows its commitment to providing compelling storage consolidation solutions for the Channel.”

As part of the Hitachi Storage Solutions portfolio, the Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family delivers best-in-class advanced features such as symmetrical active-active controllers and a SAS backplane to allow for maximum configuration flexibility in virtual server and tiered storage environments. Combined with the newly announced capabilities, Hitachi continues its legacy of innovation and focus on bringing the best in operational efficiency and performance to the customer. Enhancements to the storage platform include:

Operational Efficiency

* High Density Storage Expansion Tray – more than doubling the capacity of the standard tray, the High Density Storage Expansion Tray installs up to 48 drives in 4U, or today’s equivalent of 48 terabytes, offering the industry’s most reliable, available, best price performance ratio for a dense storage system. As data growth continues to expand, customers require more floor space and Hitachi provides a cost effective and space efficient solution. The benefits of the expansion tray allow customers to use it for content archiving, disk-to-disk backup, NAS consolidation, or for cloud computing. Now customers can drastically increase their gigabyte per square foot while lowering the cost of managing their systems.
* Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software – brings the enterprise-class advantages of thin provisioning such as cost savings, automated performance optimization and easy provisioning, to Hitachi midrange customers. As previously announced, this function is generally available in the second half of this year.

Performance

* 8Gb/sec Fibre Channel (FC) Host Ports – connects the latest generation of host bus adapters and switches for the maximum throughput and connectivity on Adaptable Modular Storage 2300 and 2500 systems. Customers benefit from increased performance, enhanced data protection for Tier 1 applications, and improved management of unstructured data growth. Generally available in the second half of this year.

Reliability

* Adaptable Modular Storage 2500DC – specifically designed to meet the most stringent requirements of a Telco central office (NEBS and ETSI) as well as direct current (DC) datacenters. With the Adaptable Modular Storage 2500DC, customers may realize energy and cost savings, as studies show that DC powered data centers use power more efficiently than alternating current (AC) powered data centers.
* NEBS Level-3 Compliant Switch – when combined with Adaptable Modular Storage 2500DC, Hitachi Data Systems delivers a complete NEBS-compliant SAN from one vendor and delivers value, flexibility and agility in infrastructure consolidation through Virtual SAN technology. The combination fully supports FC connectivity through 24 4Gb/sec dedicated FC ports. Additionally, the Cisco MDS 9124 SAN switch features integrated redundant power supplies to support either AC or DC power installations.

Security

* External Authentication – allows customers to leverage existing centralized authentication infrastructure (Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP, etc), and facilitates the use of multi-factor authentication for storage management users. Generally available in the second half of this year.
* Common Criteria Certification – internationally recognized ISO standard (ISO/IEC15408) used by governments and other security conscious organizations to assess the security posture of technology products. The pending certification will provide a strong foundation for customers to help meet their evolving data security and compliance needs.

Endorsement for the Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 Family

* Matt Stroh, SAP Basis Administrator, Industrial Electric Wire & Cable – “We’ve been nothing but impressed with our Adaptable Modular Storage 2300: the reliability, great performance, ease of use and operational savings are bar none when it comes to modular systems. Given that thin provisioning has always been an enterprise class feature, we look forward to implementing the increased operational efficiencies of Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning in our data center.”
* Charles Leeming, Vice President, Worldwide OEM Sales, Brocade – “Brocade was first-to-market with 8G/sec server-to-storage networking solutions and is committed to leading the market in delivering end-to-end Fibre Channel solutions into the future. We are working with industry-leading partners, like Hitachi Data Systems to address customers’ data center consolidation needs with innovative solutions like the new 8G/sec Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family of products. The combined solution will help support a more powerful, increasingly virtualized data center environment, while driving down complexity and operating costs through increased efficiencies.”
* Carl Fulp, Vice President, Engineering and Services, ViON Corporation – "The new Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family features provide an irresistibly compelling solution for our customers. The enterprise-class, active-active symmetric controllers ease system administration. The high density modular storage solution has the highest SPC-1 number. Thin provisioning is coming to the midrange. All of these features and many more provide the most competitive midrange offering that Hitachi Data Systems has ever brought to the marketplace."

Web Resources
Find out more about the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family:
http://www.hds.com/products/storage-systems/adaptable-modular-storage-2000-family/index.html

Read what CTO Hu Yoshida has to say about the news: http://blogs.hds.com/hu

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About Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems Corporation provides Services Oriented Storage Solutions that enable heterogeneous storage to be dynamically provisioned according to business needs and centrally managed via industry-leading Hitachi storage virtualization software. With over 4,100 employees, and as an integral part of the Hitachi Storage Solutions Group, Hitachi Data Systems delivers storage infrastructure platforms, storage management software, and storage consulting services through direct and indirect channels in over 170 countries and regions. Its customers include nearly 60 percent of the top 100 companies on the Fortune 500®. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 400,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2008 (ended March 31, 2009) consolidated revenues totaled 10,000 billion yen ($102.0 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

Press Contacts:

Hitachi Data Systems
Carli Ghelfi
(408) 327-4024
carli.ghelfi@hds.com

Bite Communications
Ashish Patel
(415) 365-0466
ashish.patel@bitepr.com

This release was published on openPR.