Railway Company Ensures Continuity of Critical Business
Applications and Data with Hitachi Data Systems' Solution
SANTA CLARA, California — October 2, 2002 — Hitachi Data Systems, the world's fastest growing enterprise storage provider and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced that Norfolk Southern Railway Company has selected Hitachi Data Systems for their complete Mainframe disaster recovery solution. In order to maintain continuous uptime for the critical data and applications that keep their trains running on more than 21,000 route miles of track in 22 states, Norfolk Southern has installed Hitachi TrueCopy™ and Hitachi ShadowImage™ software along with five Hitachi Freedom Storage™ Lightning 9900™ Series systems.
"We are truly a 24x7 shop. No down time is acceptable because our trains run every day of the year. It is always important for us to be running at full production," said Lajuana Earwood, Director of Mainframe Operations, Norfolk Southern. " To address the possibility of suspension of Norfolk Southern mainframe services, a solution was required that would protect our mainframe mission-critical applications and data, as well as provide recovery time in less than four hours. Our current system comes in under that time frame. We chose Hitachi Data Systems based on the ability to transmit data quickly, reliably, and without affecting our production performance."
The Hitachi Data Systems' solution stores and mirrors the mainframe mission-critical real-time applications data that helps keep Norfolk Southern's trains moving, as well as the company's business applications data including personnel data, payroll, and billing. In order to ensure continuous availability and immediate recovery, Norfolk Southern has installed two Lightning 9900 storage systems at a remote site that mirror three Lightning 9900 storage systems at their corporate headquarters via TrueCopy software. With ShadowImage software installed at the remote site, the company can also create test data copies without disrupting critical production data mirroring. The total installation handles over 18 terabytes of data.
"With Hitachi Data Systems' solutions, Norfolk Southern can not only protect, but continue to use one of their key assets — information. A solid networked storage infrastructure built with Hitachi Freedom Storage allows companies like Norfolk Southern to create a flexible, adaptable, and scalable business continuity program," said Curt Wittich, vice president, US Sales and Service, Hitachi Data Systems. "We are committed to working with our customers to provide them with solutions that meet their most challenging business needs and ensure the integrity and availability of their assets."
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, Hitachi Data Systems 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.
Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970-1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com
Freedom Storage, Lightning 9960, TrueCopy and ShadowImage are trademarks of Hitachi Data Systems.
© Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
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