New Converged Infrastructure Offerings from Hitachi Data Systems Give Customers Best-of-Breed Solutions for Mission-Critical Workloads

Broad Portfolio of Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Solutions Integrates Servers, Networking, Storage and Software for More Efficient IT and Superior Economics

KUALA LUMPUR  — October 25, 2012 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today unveiled a broad portfolio of converged infrastructure solutions that combines best-of-breed storage, server, networking and software management in fully integrated packages designed for mission-critical workloads. The launch of the new portfolio of solutions was held at the Hitachi Information Forum Malaysia 2012, a Forum that showcases Hitachi’s core competency in the Social Innovation Business, which draws on intelligent IT to provide an advanced social infrastructure.

Spokespersons from Hitachi Data Systems (from left to right)

·         Ravi Rajendran – Vice President & General Manager, ASEAN, Hitachi Data Systems

·         Kevin Eggleston – Senior Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems

·         Saravanan Krishnan – Director Storage Platforms & Solutions Business, Asia Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems

The new Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) family of solutions provides a comprehensive, pre-tested cloud-ready infrastructure that can be deployed quickly and managed easily, unlike custom approaches that require exhaustive testing and integration costs. Eleven new Hitachi UCP offerings give customers superior flexibility and choices, based on two converged infrastructure models:

• Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Pro: pre-configured, tightly integrated turnkey solutions built with world-class Hitachi Data Systems servers and storage, and industry-standard networking. The initial offering in this family of solutions is UCP Pro for VMware vSphere®, which features innovative Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Director software that provides VMware vCenter™ Server integrated management and orchestration.

• Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select: a series of pre-validated reference solutions that can be configured using a selection of industry-leading Hitachi storage, server and software management, for a wide range of top-tier applications. Hitachi UCP Select also offers converged solutions with Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) servers. Hitachi UCP Select is ideal for organizations that require a flexible converged infrastructure.

All Hitachi UCP converged infrastructure solutions are thoroughly new designs to solve the reliability, availability, scalability and performance challenges that IT organizations face when using many first-generation converged infrastructure stacks.

“Converged infrastructure solutions have been available in the market for some time, but when enterprise organizations and cloud service providers encounter the requirements of true mission-critical workloads, these first-generation converged offerings fall short of customer needs,” said Saravanan Krishnan, Director, Platforms & Solutions Business APAC, Hitachi Data Systems. “Until today, organizations looking for a converged infrastructure solution had to choose from commodity systems that lack high reliability and availability, and have limited scalability and performance. Or they have had to choose integrated stacks with no truly unified infrastructure management.”

With the range of new UCP solutions, Hitachi Data Systems is specifically addressing the most pressing needs of CIOs when considering a converged infrastructure. These needs include accelerating business velocity, increasing staff productivity, improving IT economics for pre- and post-deployment, and meeting stringent service level agreements.

“The battleground over integrated compute and storage stacks is heating up with HDS coming out strong with its new converged infrastructure portfolio,” said Ashish Nadkarni, research director, Storage Systems, IDC. “This market has been served by either solution providers including all components from the same vendor or by pre-configured and pre-tested packages comprised of best-of-breed components from different vendors woven together by a mandatory management framework. HDS is breaking this ‘either/or’ mold by combining the best of each approach. Hitachi UCP lets customers choose from a fully integrated stack of Hitachi servers and storage complete with orchestration software; or, from a portfolio of reference solutions featuring HDS storage that use either Hitachi or third-party servers. And by including Cisco UCS in its solutions, HDS provides its customers greater flexibility in mixing and matching these elements – all while maintaining the reliability and performance that has earned HDS the reputation of being bulletproof in the minds of many CIOs.”

Hitachi UCP Pro for VMware vSphere Delivers Unprecedented Automation, Orchestration and Monitoring of the Physical Infrastructure from Within VMware vCenter Management Software
Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Pro for VMware vSphere is a tightly integrated solution available today and comes pre-configured with the industry’s premier enterprise storage product, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP), and Brocade Fibre Channel and Ethernet fabric switches, Hitachi Compute Blade 500 server, VMware vSphere and UCP Director software. This software reduces complexity and lowers cost by providing VMware vCenter Server integration for comprehensive and simplified infrastructure management. UCP Pro for VMware vSphere also provides worry-free scaling to thousands of virtual machines.

UCP Director software has the unique capability of giving administrators detailed views, management and orchestration of the underlying physical infrastructure in addition to virtual servers. UCP Director enables administrators to use the same familiar VMware vCenter Server graphical user interface for orchestrating servers, networking and storage, and eliminates error prone, time-consuming manual tasks.

“Hitachi Data Systems continues its innovation with the new UCP family,” said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. “This offering holds significance for VMware customers as it provides four distinct solutions that help provide our joint customers with predictable, reliable platforms for the migration of business-critical applications. UCP Pro for VMware vSphere®, with its UCP Director software, delivers a robust virtual machine platform that can provide businesses the agility they require. This is accomplished via the solution’s powerful capabilities to manage, provision, monitor and troubleshoot the entire infrastructure – both virtual and physical – all natively from within VMware vCenter™ Server. UCP Select reference solutions provide flexibility in server, storage and networking components, with the assurance of pre-tested, validated architectures that have been designed to handle the most demanding workloads.”

Hitachi UCP Select: Best-of-Breed Reference Solutions Designed to Offer IT Organizations the Ultimate in Flexibility and Choice
Realizing that a gap existed in the market for converged systems capable of solving the challenges of mission-critical workloads, Hitachi Data Systems developed a broad range of pre-validated reference solutions that integrate the legendary performance and reliability of Hitachi storage systems with industry leading servers, data networking and software management. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select reference solutions are fully validated frameworks that speed deployment and reduce risks across data center deployments. These solutions give customers and partners the flexibility to choose from pre-tested elements of the converged system without UCP Director software. Customers and partners can select from solutions based on Hitachi storage and servers and Brocade Fibre Channel and Ethernet fabric switches, or Hitachi storage and Cisco UCS servers and networking.

Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Select for VMware vSphere with Cisco UCS is the initial offering that combines Hitachi storage with Cisco UCS servers and networking as a Cisco Validated Design (CVD), and is pre-validated with VMware vSphere. In addition to the technical and economic advantages, organizations benefit from a coordinated relationship among VMware, Cisco, and Hitachi Data Systems, three respected industry leaders, each known for innovative solutions and outstanding service and support.

“Hitachi Data Systems and Cisco are building on our decade-long partnership to deliver the first design validated by Hitachi Data Systems and Cisco,” said Rick Snyder, vice president, Global & Strategic Partner Organization, Cisco. “By bringing together two industry leaders in enterprise data center solutions, HDS and Cisco have created an agile, scalable and efficient reference architecture that provides customers and channel partners with an easy-to-deploy HDS and Cisco based unified compute solution.”

The portfolio of UCP Select reference solutions that are based on Hitachi storage and servers and Brocade Fibre Channel and Ethernet fabric switches support major enabling software technologies such as hypervisors, databases, analytics and application environments including Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and VMware. IT professionals can simply select the infrastructure options that meet their needs, with the assurance of built-in flexibility and interoperability to scale the architecture as business needs evolve. Also provided are comprehensive reference architectures and deployment guides. Following are 9 new UCP Select reference solutions:
• Hitachi UCP Select for Citrix Xen Desktop
• Hitachi UCP Select for Microsoft Exchange 2010
• Hitachi UCP Select for Microsoft Private Cloud
• Hitachi UCP Select for Microsoft SQL Server 2008
• Hitachi UCP Select for Microsoft SQL Server 2012
• Hitachi UCP Select for Oracle Database
• Hitachi UCP Select for SAP HANA
• Hitachi UCP Select for VMware View®
• Hitachi UCP Select for VMware vSphere®

Partner Benefits and Support
Hitachi UCP Pro and UCP Select solutions are supported by a proven global servicesorganization and a network of partners to help reduce operational and capital costs. The portfolio of Hitachi UCP solutions provides the global network of Hitachi Data Systems channel partners with highly competitive converged options and delivers substantial incremental services opportunities including integration, install and solutions support. Hitachi UCP offerings coupled with the Hitachi Data Systems Service Specialization Program (SSP) provides partners with a unique skill set including enablement education, tools and expertise to grow their services revenue and profitability.

Several strategic partners, including technology partners Brocade and Intel, and Hitachi TrueNorth™ Partners including Arrow, Avnet and ViON have endorsed Hitachi UCP solutions. The flexibility, performance and scalability offered by the Hitachi UCP solutions, in combination with the reliability of Hitachi storage, enables partners to deliver a range of converged infrastructure options for their customers.