Hitachi company continues to deliver advanced virtualization solutions

Company Release, July 13

New Delhi

Building on the worldwide market momentum of the Hitachi TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform with more than 1,000 units old of all manufactured variants, and demand towering at record levels. Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today ushered in a new wave of virtualization and

architectural breakthroughs to the midrange storage market with the introduction of the Hitachi TagmaStore Network Storage Controller model NSC55, which successfully delivers all of the rich, advanced functionality of the high-end to the broader midrange and SMB markets. The product enters the market in full force with sales support from Hitachi Data Systems global direct sales force and over 500 channel partners.

The NSC55 shatters through the barriers of conventional midrange storage products by delivering all of the revolutionary functionality of the TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform including its massively parallel crossbar switch architecture for high availability and performance; large-scale controller-based virtualization layer for ease-of-management; logical partitioning for application quality-of-service; storage-agnostic universal replication for business continuance; and a rich set of software tools in a powerful, rack mounted, modular form factor, attractively priced for mid-sized companies. Only Hitachi, along with its valued partners, offer this level of enterprise-class functionality at midrange storage prices, proving that customers no longer have to sacrifice advanced storage and virtualization functionality due to budgetary concerns.

The NSC55 is effectively a miniaturized version of the industry-leading TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform, with the same proven microcode and all of the same software and virtualization capabilities. The NSC55 seamlessly manages up to 16 peta-bytes of externally attached heterogeneous storage including support for the latest high-end and midrange storage systems from EMC, IBM, Hitachi, HP, and Sun, among others. No other midrange storage system has an enterprise-prove n, large-scale embedded virtualization layer that supports heterogeneous storage and does not

depend on external switches, appliances or host-based software.

Hitachi has the clearest and strongest commitment for storage virtualization compared to any of the other leading storage system vendors, said Tony Asaro, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. For Hitachi, the Universal Storage Platform and the Network Storage Controller are its flagship products and that is why they are in an excellent position to dominate the market.

For many workloads, Hitachi TagmaStore NSC55 architecture is more scalable, compelling, and architecturally sound than the virtualization appliance approach as seen in IBM SAN Volume Controller or EMC recently announced Invista product, said Dave Vellante, CEO of ITCentrix, an independent software and services firm. ITCentrix believes Hitachi has achieved key advantages by placing the locus of control close to the data versus in the network

"We believe that the announcement of the NSC55 will be one of the most significant storage virtualization announcements that will be made this year in that the market opportunity for the NSC is broader and more competitive with a larger set of virtualization products than Hitachi's previously announced Universal Storage Platform," said John Webster, senior analyst and founder, Data Mobility Group. "Competitors who may have once thought that HDS is only going after the high-end storage virtualization

opportunities will now have a major new force to contend with."

The NSC55 easily surpasses the limitations of current midrange disk storage only products as well as functionally-limited switch or appliance-based virtualization-only offerings, by offering customers the best of both worlds with the industry leading rich, high-end storage functionality and enterprise-proven virtualization software all united in a rack mounted, modular form factor at a midrange price.

Commenting on today announcement, Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems, said Business drivers like operational risk, compliance, and non-stop availability are the same for small and mid-size customers as they are for enterprise customers. The only difference is in cost and scale. There are many small and mid-sized companies whose storage requirements have grown to require the same level of availability, performance, and protection enjoyed by high-end enterprises. However, they lack the staff and the data center infrastructure to support enterprise storage. Now, with the NSC55, they finally have a product that is specifically optimized for midrange environmental and costs, and delivers all of the advanced features and functionality of the industry leading high-end platform. In addition, the NSC55 simple approach to virtualization minimizes the need to increase staffing as storage demands increase.

For more information contact:

Priya Ranjan Vaid

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, New Delhi

E-mail: ranjan.vaid@ogilvy.com

Office: +91-11-51344657