Hitachi Data Systems Endorses Brocade Intelligent Fabric
Services Architecture for Next Generation Storage Networks
STORAGE NETWORKING WORLD, PALM DESERT, Calif.-April 9, 2001 — Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Japan (NYSE: HIT) and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCD) today announced the expansion of the companies' reseller relationship. Hitachi now offers the Brocade SilkWorm® 6400 64-port integrated fabric solution to provide a high-port density networking foundation for Hitachi Data Systems SAN solutions. In addition, the two companies have teamed to release new Brocade SOLUTIONware that showcases a pre-tested networked storage solution for clustering that addresses the enterprise need for high availability and fault tolerance.
The SilkWorm 6400 is part of the SilkWorm product family, the industry's leading networking foundation for storage area networks. The SilkWorm 6400 enables customers to easily deploy managed SANs that span hundreds and thousands of interconnected storage and server devices. The SilkWorm 6400 is part of the Brocade Intelligent Fabric Services Architecture, also announced today by Brocade. The Brocade Intelligent Fabric Services Architecture defines a networking foundation to support the requirements of next-generation enterprise storage applications, such as resource optimization through server and storage consolidation; simplified management through storage virtualization and centralized management; and high availability architectures such as server clustering and data replication for disaster recovery. Together, the Brocade SilkWorm family of fabric switches-including the SilkWorm 6400-and the Brocade Fabric operating system form the industry standard for next-generation enterprise class SANs.
"Hitachi Data Systems is pleased to offer the Brocade SilkWorm 6400 to its customers worldwide, as we continue to expand our relationship with Brocade," said Ron Gervenack, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Products and Solutions Business Unit, Hitachi Data Systems. "Because of Brocade's commitment to forward and backward compatibility, customers can migrate their existing SAN to support a full core-to-edge network architecture based on the Brocade networking foundation. We are also pleased to support the Brocade Intelligent Fabric Services Architecture as a basis for enterprise storage environments."
"The SilkWorm 6400 provides customers with a cost-effective, manageable solution to support the deployment of large SAN fabrics," said Jack Cuthbert, Brocade vice president of Worldwide Sales, Marketing, and Support Services. "By working closely with Hitachi Data Systems to verify real-world solutions through Brocade SOLUTIONware, we are jointly simplifying the design and implementation of enterprise SANs."
Committed to helping customers exploit the value of information technology for success in the Internet economy, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), is a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most information-intensive corporations. For further information on Hitachi Data Systems, access www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1999 (ended March 31, 2000) consolidated sales of 8,001 billion yen ($75.5 billion). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://www.hitachi.co.jp.
Contacts: PR
1 At an exchange rate of 106 yen to the dollar.
Hitachi Data Systems, together with the Brocade SAN Integration and Application lab, has tested and verified a heterogeneous, high-availability clustering solution using the Hitachi Data Systems Thunder 9200 storage sub-system with the Brocade SilkWorm 6400 integrated fabric, running VERITAS Volume Manager, and VERITAS Cluster Server on Solaris and NT platforms. The benefits of the high availability made possible by clustering include the elimination of single points of failure, increased network resiliency that maximizes system and data availability, and the ability to perform non-disruptive server and storage maintenance. The results of this verification testing are being published as Brocade SOLUTIONware, which is a set of pre-tested "recipes" for enterprise SAN configurations. The library of SOLUTIONware is available on the Brocade web site at www.brocade.com
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