Hitachi Announces New Line-Up Of Advanced NAS Services

Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, recently announced a new line-up of advanced network attached storage (NAS) services with the introduction of the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform and Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series. This news in concert with Hitachi's major advancements in enabling organizations to manage rogue data (see separate press release also announced today) signals significant breakthroughs in file services consolidation and management.

For many organizations, file storage sprawl continues to be a vicious cycle. First generation NAS filers are continuing to run out of storage capacity, resulting in server proliferation, increased complexity and higher operating costs. In addition, for large enterprises, deploying and managing file storage systems at each branch office can be an expensive and time consuming endeavor. Today, Hitachi is leveraging its proven best-in-class availability and scalability in SAN or block storage environments and is extending this capability to NAS with two new products that lower customers' total cost of ownership through file server or NAS consolidation.

Introducing the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform

For medium-sized businesses or enterprises with remote or branch offices that require reliable and cost-effective solutions that deliver file service, backup and server consolidation services, the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform is an easy to use NAS solution that delivers best-in-class availability and scalability at an affordable price. The Hitachi Essential NAS Platform consolidates and manages up to 512 terabytes of data in a 2-node cluster with access to data from Common Internet File System (CIFS) and Network File Systems (NFS). Ensuring high availability with clustered active-active failover, data stored on the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform is fully protected with Hitachi's proven enterprise-class RAID technology.

Available as a NAS gateway or standalone NAS filer, the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform comes with identical features and functionalities in both form factors--delivering the ultimate in flexibility for customers. The Hitachi Essential NAS Platform Gateway supports the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage midrange product and the company's flagship intelligent storage services platforms, the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V series. The Hitachi Essential NAS Platform Filer is bundled with the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage and comes pre-installed. The system can be completely installed and configured using its intuitive NAS Wizard in minutes.

"As a service provider that serves both IT and legal departments, we needed an efficient solution to consolidate our file-base infrastructure that would scale to support over a billion files and hundreds of terabytes" said Eric A. Vanderburg, network operations manager, JurInnov. "We looked at NAS offerings from Hitachi and NetApp and it was clear that the new Hitachi Essential NAS Platform best fit our requirements for high availability and scalability. Implementing the platform allowed us to consolidate our file-based infrastructure saving us both capital and operational costs."

Introducing the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series

The Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform, powered by BlueArc, is being successfully used by many organizations to deliver large-scale consolidation, leading-edge performance, enterprise-class data protection, reliability and scalability.

"Indiana University selected Hitachi's High-performance NAS (HNAS) solution to consolidate our existing NAS appliances and provide a standardized, scalable, high performing NAS infrastructure to accommodate current and future requirements," said Rob Lowden, director, Enterprise System Infrastructure, Indiana University. "Its large throughput capabilities enabled us to fully migrate and consolidate our existing (non-Hitachi) NAS devices to the HNAS 2100 clustered solution. Integration of the HNAS solution with Hitachi's virtualized Universal Storage Platform was instrumental in our decision. Today, amongst other uses, the HNAS clustered 2100 solution delivers excellent performance for our digital media streaming requirements."

Today, Hitachi is continuing to build on its lead over the competition with the introduction of the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series. With significant performance and capacity enhancements over its predecessor, the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series is ideal for large enterprises focused on consolidation and companies requiring intensive file processing. The Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series enables enterprise-class data management, virtualization and data protection for file services. It is the first NAS solution in the industry that consolidates and manages up to four petabytes of data in a single storage pool and each file system reaches up to 256 terabytes. The Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series has also doubled in performance from its previous generation delivering up to 1600 MB/sec for sequential workload and up to 200,000 IOPS.

The increase in performance allows the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series to easily scale as data grows or as performance demands increase, address workload requirements from a seamless storage pool with all available performance and capacity--enabling the system to quickly respond to rapidly changing IT environments. Both the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform and High-performance NAS Platform 3000 Series can be managed with a single management interface using the Hitachi HiCommand Storage Management Suite.

Commenting on today's announcement, John Mansfield, senior vice president, Global Solutions Strategy and Development, Hitachi Data Systems, said, "Hitachi is continuing to strengthen its file services portfolio in both breadth and depth. With our new line-up of advanced storage services, we are able to meet both our medium sized and enterprise customers' file-based storage needs. With the Hitachi Essential NAS Platform, we are the value leader. With the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform, we lead the industry file-based virtualization innovation and performance. These offerings are a powerful one-two punch for the competition and a bigger win for our customers."

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 virtualization software. 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 Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit the company's website at www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 384,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2006 (ended March 31, 2007) consolidated revenues totaled 10,247 billion yen ($86.8 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 and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at www.hitachi.com.

SOURCE: Hitachi Data Systems