Hitachi Data Systems Enables Integrated Server-to-Storage Virtualisation

KUALA LUMPUR — May 8, 2009 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, today announced a new end-to-end server-to-storage virtualisation initiative to drive efficiencies across virtualised environments. To support this strategy, Hitachi Data Systems also announced two important business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for virtual environments – Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V, and Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager (announced April 14).

“Hitachi Data Systems helps customers extend the benefits of virtualisation beyond the physical server,” said Mark Bowker, Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “With the introduction of Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V and Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, Hitachi not only demonstrates this end-to-end capability but also its ability to integrate across virtualisation platforms. Hitachi’s advances in business continuity and disaster recovery help customers quickly see the value of virtualisation extended throughout the IT infrastructure.”

Separately, server and storage virtualisation enable many important benefits such as resource consolidation, improved performance, improved data protection, high availability, and improved utilisation. Together, server-to-storage virtualisation can help organisations optimise performance, minimise planned and unplanned downtime and importantly, extend data protection to additional applications and data types, helping them save money. As the undisputed storage virtualisation leader with more than 11,000 virtual controllers shipped worldwide, coupled with market-proven system-based replication technologies including Hitachi Universal Replicator and Hitachi TrueCopy® software, Hitachi Data Systems is uniquely able to bridge the gap between server and storage infrastructures in customers' data centers. Hitachi Data Systems integrated end-to-end virtualisation solutions help customers achieve significant improvements in operational efficiency and overall cost savings.

“Business continuity and disaster recovery are increasingly critical requirements, but in today’s difficult economic climate, preventing business downtime is absolutely essential,” said Johnson Khoo, Managing Director, Hitachi Data Systems Malaysia. “By offering both Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V and Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, we provide organisations the ability to select business continuity and disaster recovery solutions that best meet their specific needs and requirements over the short and long term.”

Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V combines the key platform capabilities of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 including high availability through Microsoft Multipath I/O, server virtualisation and clustering with the rich platform capabilities of Hitachi Data Systems storage virtualisation and system-based replication.

“Customers are adopting Microsoft virtualisation software across datacenters and desktops, along with integrated physical and virtual management tools so they have a holistic view of their entire environment,” said Dai Vu, Director of Virtualisation Solutions, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft Corp. “Working with Hitachi Data Systems, Microsoft customers can use intelligent storage, data protection, high availability and site recovery capabilities so they can realise the full value of virtualisation.”

The second generation of Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager adds important support for the midrange Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage family and provides customers continuous, real time local and remote replication and automatic failover capabilities to help ensure resilient data protection, high availability and disaster recovery.

“At a time when customers are forced to stretch their budgets farther and farther, the VMware vStorage technologies and interfaces contained in VMware vSphere 4, together with Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter, provide a winning combination that helps our customers lower infrastructure costs without compromising on critical disaster recovery functionality,” said Parag Patel, Vice President, Alliances, VMware. “We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with Hitachi Data Systems to improve both server and storage asset resilience as customers move toward building internal clouds to deliver IT as a service.”