Trend for mergers & acquisitions drives demand for data centre compatibility; Hitachi today can further reduce data centre space, power & cooling costs for customers

Dubai, UAE, Sept 18, 2007-- The increase in merger and acquisition activity in the Middle East is leaving many organizations with a sea of incompatible IT infrastructures across multiple locations, particularly storage arrays. In the face of this complexity, and global pressures to reduce carbon output, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today rounded out the industry's most comprehensive line of storage systems, the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform™ V series, to address these pressing issues.

The all-new Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM is the world's first heterogeneous storage services platform that offers customers the operational, financial and environmental benefits of enterprise-class virtualization, thin provisioning and tiered storage in a package that does not require a raised floor data center and operates on an industry standard 220-volt power supply.

"An increasing number of mergers and acquisitions in the Middle East is driving businesses to make significant investments in restructuring, infrastructure overhaul and data consolidation challenges," said Tony Ward, general manager and sales director, Hitachi Data Systems Middle East. "Hitachi today is offering enterprises of any size the opportunity to take back control of their heterogeneous storage assets without introducing the reliability and scalability drawbacks of virtualization appliances. It is also lowering the entry point for smaller enterprises who desire all of the benefits of enterprise-class virtualization, thin provisioning and business continuity services in an affordable, comprehensive storage services platform."

Many customers also struggle with a complex assortment of software license schemes from different vendors, expensive capacity-based tier one licensing policies, and a server infrastructure that is both underutilized and unable to get to required data easily. The Universal Storage Platform VM joins the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V as the industry's most complete enterprise-class platforms developed explicitly to address these vital concerns.

"SAN silos have crept into the data center making storage management and provisioning onerous for many organizations," said Dave Vellante, CEO of leading CIO consultancy ITCentrix. "Storage migrations in particular are expensive and disruptive. Our independent analysis confirms that for every dollar spent on array hardware and software, an additional fifty cents is spent on incremental migration costs over the life of an array. Approaches like Hitachi's USP VM can dramatically reduce this cost from 50-percent down to less than 10-percent through the combination of heterogeneous tiered storage support, virtualization and thin provisioning."

No Compromise Virtualized Tiered Storage
Building on the innovations introduced with the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V, the new Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM is the only virtualization platform that offers enterprises of any size the opportunity to take back control of heterogeneous storage assets without introducing the reliability and scalability drawbacks of virtualization appliances.

Introducing the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM                                                         
As a core part of Hitachi Services Oriented Storage Solutions, the Universal Storage Platform VM enables smaller enterprises to package and deliver common storage services such as virtualization, thin provisioning, and business continuity across heterogeneous storage assets, whether file, object or block-based. The Universal Storage Platform VM delivers all of the advanced storage services available in the Hitachi flagship storage solution, the Universal Storage Platform V.

World's Only Heterogeneous, Nondisruptive Data Migration Solution
Leveraging the worldwide success of the Hitachi large scale, heterogeneous storage virtualization layer, the Universal Storage Platform VM enables non-disruptive heterogeneous data migration in Windows, Linux, UNIX and mainframe environments. Unlike competitive offerings that rely on host-based replication software for data migration, the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM utilizes sophisticated virtualization services to elegantly transfer data without any impact to critical applications or requiring system reboots. Ideally suited for migrating data from storage systems reaching the end of their useful/environmental lives, to new storage systems added to the data center or for load balancing purposes to improve application performance, Hitachi enables customers to migrate data in heterogeneous environments without risk.

Hitachi Increases the Green Quotient for Storage
With global energy costs rising and looming energy surcharges, green storage solutions are rapidly becoming a top business concern and companies are demanding more efficient power consumption and capacity utilization tools. The new Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM enables customers to increase their Green Quotient (GQ) by a significant factor, through the deployment of large-scale, enterprise-class virtualization for massive consolidation; thin provisioning to increase utilization rates and reduce power, cooling, and space costs by reducing the number of physical disks required to support workloads; all with a virtual controller that plugs into a standard wall outlet.

The Hitachi Universal Storage Platform VM further supports the reduction in heat output and power consumption by dramatically compressing the time to provision new arrays and/or migrate capacity from many months down to weeks or days, meaning older, less efficient capacity is replaced sooner by greener storage.

-Ends-

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 Web site at http://www.hds.com.   

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), 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 http://www.hitachi.com.

© 2007, Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries.  Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. in the United States and other countries.  All other trademarks, services marks, company names are properties of their respective owners.

© Press Release 2007