Hitachi redefines midrange storage

Company Release, August 9

NEW DELHI

Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), unleashed a new wave of virtualization and architectural breakthroughs in 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.

This product is a build up on the worldwide market momentum of the Hitachi TagmaStore™ Universal Storage Platform—with more than 1,000 units sold of all manufactured variants and demand towering at record levels.

Hitachi is enabling companies of all sizes to truly realize the business benefits of Application Optimized Storage™ solutions, as now even the smallest companies can enjoy the benefits of virtualization by optimizing the performance of their most pressing business applications—such as Microsoft Exchange or Oracle Financials—utilizing the Logical Partitioning capabilities of Hitachi’s integrated new fleet of midrange offerings.

The NSC55 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’s leading rich, high-end storage functionality—and enterprise-proven virtualization software—all united in a powerful, rackmounted, modular form factor at a midrange price.

"A challenge for top-tier midrange customers is to deliver world-class enterprise service with limited resources. Conventional midrange storage leaves much of this market under-served. However, Hitachi has addressed this issue with the cost-effective Network Storage Controller, delivering advanced high-end function in a user-friendly manner," said Thomas Zack Vice President, Marketing & Operations, Asia Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems.

Hitachi has also introduced an entirely new line-up of highly versatile and highly scalable next generation midrange, channel-optimized modular storage systems—the TagmaStore Adaptable Modular Storage and Workgroup Modular Storage lines (models AMS500, AMS200, and WMS100). Successors to the popular Hitachi Thunder 9500™ V Series, these new products feature sophisticated virtualization capabilities such as Logical Cache Partitioning, Host Storage Domains, and Virtual Ports that no other midrange systems offer.

“We have listened carefully to the business requirements of our valued Channel partners around the region and have responded with an entirely new, integrated fleet of midrange storage products that feature enterprise features at a mid-tier price, “ said Srikant Chakrapani, National Channels Director, Hitachi Data Systems “We have significantly increased the functionality of our midrange products, reduced their prices, and at the same time made them even easier to install, configure, manage, and even easier to buy and finance. Whether functioning as stand-alone modular storage or as a part of a tiered storage environment, the AMS and WMS systems clearly offer the best value for the fast growing small and medium businesses of today.”

The AMS and WMS systems out-perform, out-scale and are significantly more reliable than comparative modular products, and will support up to 4Gb/s Fibre Channel port connectivity. At the same time, AMS systems offer high availability FC drives with a cost-effective SATA intermix option, while WMS systems are configured only with SATA drives for low-cost nearline storage applications, such as data archival for regulatory compliance. Both support advanced software for point-in-time snapshots, remote copy, and backup. These systems complement the Network Storage Controller or Universal Storage Platform as tiered or archive storage, especially when configured with SATA disk for lower costs.

For additional information about Hitachi Data Systems’ latest innovations in the midrange market, visit www.hds.com.

Please contact for further details:

Priya Ranjan Vaid, Samir Kapur

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Ph:011-51344657, 51344353

Email: ranjan.vaid@ogilvy.com, samir.kapur@ogilvy.com