News Release

Hitachi Data Systems Introduces New Agile Cloud Solutions Unveils Hitachi Content Platform and combines best-in-class technologies

Released: 13th October 2009
Publisher: Hitachi Data Systems

SNW FALL 2009, Phoenix, Arizona - October 13, 2009 - Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and the only provider of Service Oriented Storage Solutions, today announced the new portfolio of agile cloud technologies to accelerate and simplify the adoption of enterprise cloud computing environments. Specifically, the portfolio delivers the industry's most integrated set of computing resources to create a single pool of virtualised block, file and content storage to support the diverse uses that are evolving in cloud computing today, and enables organisations to adopt cloud services at their own pace. As part of the cloud offerings, Hitachi Data Systems also unveiled the new Hitachi Content Platform that provides essential security, reliability and multitenancy for cloud infrastructures.

"Cloud computing enables a real and achievable alternative to traditional long term approaches to computing capacity consumption and investment. However, current cloud methodologies are not in tune with the heterogeneous realities many organisations face today, creating the same poorly utilised data silos that organisations tried to avoid through cloud computing efforts," said Miklos Sandorfi, chief strategist, File and Content Services, Hitachi Data Systems. "Our unique approach delivers a dynamic cloud environment that virtualises all existing storage resources into a single, agile service oriented infrastructure that reduces storage costs, mitigates risk and is easily managed in the face of changing demands."

"For many organisations, 'cloud', whether talking about public, private, or hybrid, means that they want to take advantage of a better run data center and better manage rapid information growth," said Richard Villars, vice president of Storage and IT Executive Strategies, IDC. "Solutions like Hitachi Data Systems Hitachi Content Platform that provide integrated, scalable, and open storage resources for virtualised and content intensive applications will play an important role in helping companies achieve their real business goals."

Hitachi Cloud Customer Benefits
With sophisticated storage virtualisation, Hitachi Data Systems enables a secure, multitenant environment that ensures privacy among various constituents within a shared infrastructure that can be managed from a single command suite. Supporting a variety of protocols and third party technology, enterprises and service providers can further leverage existing investments in hardware and software and allow legacy devices to inherit cloud attributes, thereby preventing cloud from becoming just another silo and eliminating the need for a complete refresh or update of hardware and software or the need to rewrite applications. As a result, Hitachi Data Systems cloud solutions enable enterprise customers to choose the best possible technologies to address their challenges at their desired pace and budget resources. By offering an integrated set of cloud solutions, Hitachi Data Systems can deliver an agile cloud infrastructure that empowers customers to look at their existing IT infrastructure in new ways, enabling them to:

  • Provide efficient IT management and increase productivity through automation
  • Meet changing performance, availability and storage needs
  • Ensure security in a shared environment
  • Cost effectively improve data protection
  • Make information easy to locate and use, anywhere, at any time

Supporting Quotes from Hitachi Data Systems Customers and Partners

  • HBO: "Hitachi's enterprise and mid-tier storage met our requirements to create a scalable, multi-tiered environment for our increasing demand to provide content to multiple platforms." ~ Diane Tryneski, senior vice president, Studio and Broadcast Operations
  • PowerNet Global,an integrated communications provider and Hitachi Data Systems customer:"With Hitachi Data Systems, we were able to consolidate and better manage our storage environment. The addition of a Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM to our long-standing investment in modular storage improved our storage utilisation and made the environment easier to manage by eliminating storage silos for our different applications. By virtualising our existing storage with Hitachi Data Systems, we were able to get more out of our existing storage investments and create a more agile infrastructure to better adapt to our changing needs."~ Basil Kanno, Chief Information Officer
  • Telstra, an integrated telecommunications company and Hitachi Data Systems customer: "Hitachi Data Systems has long been a world leader inhigh capacity and performance storage solutions. At Telstra, we realised that becoming an aggregator of storage volumes, aka a cloud enabler, we wouldneed to handle high capacities and at the same time ensure customers performance in ordersupport the value proposition of "in the network"technology. Hitachi Data Systems has provided flexible and scalable storage solutions as part ofour overall "cloud computing" service offering." ~ Mark Pratley, general manager, Managed ICT Products
  • Digi-Data Corporation, a leadingsoftware-as-a-service provider and Hitachi Data Systems partner: "Digi-Data offers a platform that uniquely addresses online storage demands, rapidly meets changes in business requirements and drastically reduces costs. Leveraging the new Hitachi cloud infrastructure, this solution delivers seamless file sharing, backups and multimedia streaming to desktop and mobile devices, while mitigating potential privacy and reliability concerns." ~Dennis Cindrich, Chief Executive Officer

New Hitachi Content Platform and Cloud Enabling Technologies
Hitachi Data Systems best-in-class Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V and award-winning Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage systems provide a single, virtual pool of storage with a host of key cloud attributes which can be provisioned against all types of IT services on demand. These services can be delivered via a number of fully integrated solutions including the recently announced Hitachi NAS Platform for file services, the Hitachi Data Discovery Suite for collaboration and search and the new Hitachi Content Platform for cloud storage, archiving, business continuity, creating content depots, consolidation and many other services. The Hitachi Content Platform also includes a number of advanced features that enable the solution to address a variety of challenges beyond the long term preservation of business critical information, such as:

  • Enabling Customers to Evolve Cloud at Their Own Pace: The new Hitachi Content Platform will serve enterprise content storage needs as well as public and private cloud environments within a single optimised cluster. Customers can adopt the cloud technologies based on their business needs, and they do not need to purchase another storage island for their cloud solution.
  • Segregating Data Securely: By providing a multitenant architecture, object versioning, retention and disposition services, encryption, immutability, high availability, search capabilities and much more, Hitachi Content Platform helps IT organisations securely segregate data within different namespaces to prevent unauthorised access and provide different service level agreements and features for different data sets.
  • Intelligently Tiering Data: Customers will be able to manage data growth from higher tier storage to a storage platform with features and capabilities that go beyond the traditional ‘archive' and enable intelligent content storage for a number of use cases.

Hitachi Data Systems will further extend its cloud offerings to incorporate Hitachi BladeSymphony technology as well as other leading server platforms to deliver complete integrated and secure public and private cloud infrastructure solutions.

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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 virtualisation 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 website 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/.

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© 2009, Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. in the United States and other countries.

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