Unveils New High-end Storage Virtualization Platform with Industry’s First Dynamic 3D Scaling

Delivers up to 33 Percent Reduction in Total Cost of Ownership, and More Than 30 Percent Reductions in Power, Cooling and Floor Space Costs

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today further solidified its position as the leader in storage virtualization with a series of announcements that represents a major milestone in the company’s vision of data center transformation. At a Hitachi Information Forum event today at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Hitachi Data Systems will unveil its new Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) and new Hitachi Command Suite management software that together set a new industry benchmark for virtualized, enterprise-class IT solutions.

“Under conditions of shrinking budgets, organizational change and increased competition, enterprises are being challenged to make information both available and secure while their IT organizations are asked to do more with less,” said Jack Domme, CEO, Hitachi Data Systems. “We are solving the industry’s most pressing challenges with our approach of one platform for all data, coupled with our leadership in virtualization technology. Our new Virtual Storage Platform represents another major step toward transforming the way companies implement IT and turn their raw data into valuable information that offers scalability and adaptability for the future.”

“Organizations face the daunting tasks of dealing with rapid data growth and the efficient transformation of their data center environments,” said Richard Villars, vice president, Storage and IT Executive Strategies, IDC. “The expansion of the Hitachi Data Systems business vision beyond storage products to delivering efficient, scalable and information-enabling IT solutions will better arm customers with a platform that enables IT transformation.”

Exploding Data Growth: Adding Capacity Not Enough
According to recent research, data is growing at a rate of approximately 50 percent year-over-year, with unstructured data such as emails, images, and audio and video files growing at 10 times the rate of structured data. In the healthcare industry alone, the amount of data being generated quadruples every two years. The rapidly rising operational costs to manage this increasing volume of data, which now amount to more than 65 percent of the total cost of storage, have caused IT departments to realize that yesterday’s strategies of simply adding more storage or increasing computing capacity are no longer viable.

Data Center Transformed
The concept of data center transformation – turning the data center into a flexible and efficient “information center” that can quickly adapt to changing business needs – has been a driving force in the IT industry for several years. By delivering on its vision that IT must be virtualized, automated, cloud-ready and sustainable, Hitachi Data Systems is enabling customers to transform their aging data centers into information centers that closely align business objectives with infrastructure performance to optimize return on assets.

Introducing 3D Advancements in IT
At the heart of Hitachi Data Systems vision for data center transformation is a single, virtualized platform for all data with the ability to manage multivendor environments. The new Virtual Storage Platform is the industry’s first 3D scaling storage platform designed for all data types. The Virtual Storage Platform is the only solution that can dynamically scale up, scale out and scale deep to flexibly adapt for performance, capacity and virtualization of multivendor storage. As such, it can dynamically scale from small configurations and adapt as customers’ needs evolve. More information on 3D scaling and further details on the key features of the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform can be found in the following press release also issued today: “Hitachi Data Systems Unveils the World’s First 3D Scaling Storage Platform for Unprecedented Cost Savings and Agility.”

The new Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and Hitachi Command Suite management software provide significant benefits in performance, flexibility, power consumption and total cost of ownership (TCO) to customers. In comparison to non-tiered and non-virtualized storage platforms, the new solution from Hitachi Data Systems enables customers to reduce disk drive costs by up to 70 percent through the use of tiered storage, storage reclamation and dynamic tiering. Leveraging the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, customers can realize up to 33 percent reduction in TCO per terabyte in the first year of implementation. In addition, the new platform can achieve more than 30 percent reductions in power, cooling and floor space costs when compared with other high-end storage platforms currently available today.

As the leader in storage virtualization, Hitachi Data Systems works closely with a vast network of strategic partners to provide integrated solutions to customers. Please reference the following press release issued today for more information on the ecosystem of partner support building around the new Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and Hitachi Command Suite: “Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Embraced by Global Partner Ecosystem.”

Live Unveil Today at the Hitachi Information Forum Event
The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform and new Hitachi Command Suite will be unveiled today at the Hitachi Information Forum event at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif. Mr. Domme will deliver a keynote address titled “Transforming the Data Center into the Information Center” at 9:00 a.m. PT that can be viewed online here.Following Mr. Domme onstage will be presentations from Tadahiko Ishigaki, senior vice president and executive officer, chief executive for the Americas, Hitachi, Ltd. and Hu Yoshida, vice president and chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems. In addition, senior executives from several of the company’s strategic partners and customers will deliver presentations at the event.

Today’s event in Santa Clara is the first in a series of global Hitachi Information Forums that will take place throughout the year. These events are designed to bring together Hitachi Data Systems executives with customers, partners, media, analysts and other industry leaders to discuss the latest innovations in information infrastructure. For a full schedule of upcoming Hitachi Information Forum events, please visit: https://www.hds.com/go/information-forum/us/locations.html

Web Resources

• Announcement hub: https://www.hds.com/go/virtualizeIT
• Hitachi VSP: https://www.hds.com/products/storage-systems/hitachi-virtual-storage-platform.html
• Hitachi Command Suite: https://www.hds.com/products/storage-software/hitachi-command-suite.html
• Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HDScorp

About Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems provides best-in-class information technologies, services and solutions that deliver compelling customer ROI, unmatched return on assets (ROA) and demonstrable business impact. With a vision that IT must be virtualized, automated, cloud-ready and sustainable, Hitachi Data Systems offers solutions that improve IT costs and agility. With more than 4,200 employees worldwide, Hitachi Data Systems does business in more than 100 countries and regions. Hitachi Data Systems products, services and solutions are trusted by the world’s leading enterprises, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 100 and more than 80 percent of the Fortune Global 100. Hitachi Data Systems believes that data drives our world – and information is the new currency. To learn more, visit: https://www.hds.com