Hitachi Data Systems Reaffirms Commitment to Open Standards
for Storage Management Interoperability
Company Pledges Support for SNIA Storage Management
Initiative
SANTA CLARA, California, August 12, 2002 ― Hitachi Data Systems, the world's fastest growing enterprise storage provider and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced further commitment to the adoption of open standards for storage networking with its full support of the SNIA Storage Management Initiative (SMI). Hitachi Data Systems' endorsement of the SNIA SMI aligns with the company's TrueNorth™ vision and strategy for open information management. The goal of both efforts is to provide customers with the freedom of choice to take advantage of multi-vendor, interoperable storage networking solutions based on industry standards.
The SNIA SMI is an organization-wide program to develop, standardize, and drive the adoption of an open storage management interface based on the Bluefin draft specification. The Bluefin specification is the cornerstone of the SMI standard and describes an enhanced CIM (Common Information Model) / WBEM (Web Based Enterprise Management) interface for discovering, managing, and monitoring devices on a storage network. Hitachi, Ltd. is a founding supporter of the Partner Development Process (PDP) and technical contributor to the Bluefin specification. By providing a standard storage management interface, the SMI will enable simplified storage management of multi-vendor SANs.
"As heterogeneous storage networks grow, management and interoperability are customers' top concerns. By removing the management interoperability bottleneck, a standard interface will allow customers to select the best management solutions based on their ability to solve critical business issues rather than on their ability to work with particular products," said Scott Genereux, vice president, Global Marketing, Hitachi Data Systems. "We have worked closely with the SNIA from its inception and fully support the Storage Management Initiative. The SMI vision is consistent with our commitment to an open, collaborative approach to the storage market. This is a significant milestone in providing customers with the ability to manage multi-vendor storage infrastructures based on open industry standards."
Under the TrueNorth strategy, Hitachi Data Systems recently announced its next-generation Hitachi Freedom Storage(tm) Lightning 9900(tm) V systems and the HiCommand(tm) Management Framework, an open, standards-based tool. This strategy provides customers with freedom of choice in integrating best-of-breed products to manage their storage infrastructures while leveraging high-performance storage systems.
"Hitachi Data Systems and other PDP companies have significantly accelerated the process for developing a storage management standard for the industry by creating the Bluefin specification and submitting it to SNIA for further development. The SNIA looks forward to having Hitachi Data Systems' continued involvement in SNIA work group activities to develop Bluefin into a complete management standard," said Arnold Jones, SNIA Technical Director.
Hitachi Data Systems, the fastest growing enterprise storage provider, is a leading supplier of storage hardware, software, solutions and services. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), Japan's largest electronics company, HDS is committed to providing the storage infrastructure for the world's most information-intensive corporations. With 2,600 employees, Hitachi Data Systems does business through direct sales and resellers in the public and private sectors in 170 countries and regions on six continents. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2001 (ended March 31, 2002) consolidated sales totaled 7,994 billion yen ($60.1 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 Web site at www.hitachi.com.
At an exchange rate of 133 yen to the dollar.
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970-1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com
Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
Freedom Storage, Lightning 9900, and Thunder 9200 are trademarks of Hitachi Data Systems.
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