New Hitachi VisionBase 8890R brings proven eight-way experience and refined system architecture to the marketplace.
Microsoft, Oracle, TRW, Embark.com, Bridgestone, Fuji Xerox, and City of Boston already deploying Hitachi eight-way servers.
23 August, 1999 — Capitalizing on the success of the Hitachi VisionBase™ 8880R — the world's first Intel Profusion®-based eight-way server for the Microsoft Windows NT operating system — Hitachi Data Systems today announced its new VisionBase 8890R, an enhanced next generation eight-way server backed by Hitachi's unparalleled experience in eight-way server implementations worldwide.
As other manufacturers are announcing their first eight-way efforts, Hitachi is unveiling a thoroughly refined, more powerful eight-way server, featuring numerous design enhancements to memory architecture resulting in a memory access speed of 1.6 Gigabytes (GB) per second — 23 percent faster than competing Profusion-based eight-way servers which produce only 1.3 GB per second. Fast memory access is important for such memory-intensive applications as data mining, e-transaction processing, Java™ and Active X processing, and Web serving.
"Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition and Hitachi's VisionBase eight-way servers provide our mutual customers with the increased performance, high availability, and scalability they demand for mission-critical applications," said Jim Ewel, Director of Marketing, Business and Enterprise Division at Microsoft. "We look forward to continuing to work with Hitachi to serve our customers' enterprise computing needs."
Accordingly, Hitachi's new VisionBase 8890R pushes the limits of Microsoft 2000-class technology and provides the necessary bandwidth, flexibility, and security that Internet-based companies demand on a 24 x 7 x 365 basis. The server also has multinode failover support, and supports existing "cluster aware" applications written for Microsoft Cluster Services, including Oracle, IBM DB2® Lotus Domino™, and others.
Commenting on Hitachi's new VisionBase 8890R, Michael Krieger, Vice President of Windows NT Server Marketing at Hitachi Data Systems, said, "Hitachi's new eight-way server is designed to ensure the mainframe-class reliability that our customers expect. It enters the market with increased storage capacity, better cooling, faster memory access, and superior configurability than competing models from other manufacturers. Hitachi's eight-way servers are advancing at a much quicker pace than the competition."
Current users of Hitachi eight-way servers include TRW, which is implementing Hitachi eight-way technology to support its new Application Service Provider (ASP) strategy, Embark.com and CityofBoston.com, which are using Hitachi eight-way servers to power their booming e-transaction-oriented Web sites; Bridgestone Corporation, which is using two Hitachi eight-way servers to power its SAP R/3 implementation designed to support 1,000 concurrent users; and several other companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Fuji Xerox are leveraging Hitachi's Profusion-based servers to run a variety of business-critical applications.
"Oracle financial applications are incredibly fast on Hitachi's eight-way server," said Doug Rhoades, Consulting Practice Director, Oracle Corporation. "After implementing Hitachi's VisionBase 8880R, in conjunction with a Hitachi Freedom Storage™ 5800 subsystem, our disk-to-disk backup time was slashed from one hour to around ten minutes. The Hitachi VisionBase 8880R's architecture has proven to be extremely reliable."
Philip Joung, Chief Technology Officer for Embark.com, formerly CollegeEdge.com, the number one on-line resource for exploring and applying to college and graduate schools, said, "The Hitachi Profusion-based eight-way platform provides the power and scalability needed as site traffic continues to grow while allowing for ease of manageability because the total number of servers is able to be reduced.
"We found that Hitachi's eight-way server gave us significant improvements in performance when compared to our existing 4-way servers. Hitachi's eight-way server is an ideal platform for our many demanding on-line transaction processing (OLTP)-based Web sites due to its outstanding price/performance. Moreover, the advanced reliability features of Hitachi's eight-way server help contribute to higher uptime, further reducing overall risks."
Hitachi's new VisionBase 8890R extends customers the capability to handle millions of e-business transactions, large-scale Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications, and increasingly complex workloads. The server runs the same Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), same software, and the same binaries as any forthcoming Intel Profusion-based eight-way server.
Enclosed in a new reduced 10U cabinet, the VisionBase 8890R is available with up to eight Intel Pentium® III Xeon™ 550MHz processors with up to 2MB of Level-2 cache per processor, 32GB of 100MHz error checking and correcting (ECC) synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), a Gigabit-Ethernet upgradeable network interface card, six hot-swap 10,000 RPM low voltage differential (LVD) disk bays, 12 64-bit, 66MHz PCI expansion slots — 10 of which are hot-plug capable, and is cluster optimized, with support for RAID0, 1, 5, 6, and 7. The VisionBase 8890R will support up to 108 GB of storage internally, with up to 216GB of internal storage capacity available by Q499. The 8890R is ideally suited for consolidating a farm of smaller servers, and provides robust resiliency features, including surge protection and redundancy in cooling systems and power supplies.
"We may be the only company in the world whose name is on all the technology it sells," said Michael Krieger. "The disk drives, the controllers, the servers — everything is made by Hitachi. As can be evidenced by our clients' success with Hitachi eight-way servers, that's a powerful technology statement that translates into an equally powerful marketing message."
Hitachi Data Systems is currently shipping eight-way servers to industries such as finance, telecommunications, aerospace, energy, manufacturing, services, education, and government.
The VisionBase 8890R is shipped with Hitachi Systems Manager (HSM) software, which provides IT managers with network management and support. Derived from Hitachi's mainframe expertise, HSM's features include instant alert notification, asset management, remote control of servers, Windows NT cluster management in conjunction with Microsoft Cluster Server, and the ability to monitor from anywhere on the network. HSM contains a predictive failure analysis component that will allow users, VARs, or their support organizations to order repair components or dispatch a service technician before a problem causes any "hard" errors.
The VisionBase 8890R is orderable now and available in September in the Americas, with availability in Europe and Asia Pacific slated for later this year. VisionBase servers are available through Hitachi Data Systems' value-added resellers (VARs) — with selected configure-to-order options — and are fully backed by Hitachi Data Systems' service and support. As part of the service and warranty program, Hitachi Data Systems provides toll-free, 24 by 7 customer support at 1-800-776-6747 or via email at support@hds.com.
Recognized as a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most IT-intensive corporations, Hitachi Data Systems offers professional services, multiplatform storage subsystems, and the industry's broadest line of high-performance servers. The company's extensive range of products and services, coupled with its business alliances with key industry leaders, enable it to transform IT into business agility for high-end and middle-market customers. Hitachi Data Systems is owned by Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) and has its headquarters in Santa Clara, California.
PR Contacts: Hitachi Data Systems
Tracy Matsumoto, The Weber Group (650) 463-8645
Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. VisionBase is a trademark of Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. Intel, Pentium, Profusion and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation
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