Storage Leaders Hitachi Data Systems and NetworkAppliance Introduce Co-developed, Co-branded Enterprise NASGateway
Customers Reap Benefits from NAS GatewaySolution
STORAGE NETWORKING WORLD— Phoenix, Arizona (Booth # P3)— April 15, 2003— Storage industryleader Hitachi Data Systems Corporation today announced theavailability of the co-developed, co-branded HDS NetAppÒEnterprise NAS Gateway. The gateway enables customers to leveragethe unsurpassed performance, capacity, and availability of HitachiFreedom Storage™ systems and NetApp storage solutions toconsolidate disparate SAN, NAS, and DAS islands into a common openstorage pool under the HiCommand® Management Framework. TheNAS Gateway will be available exclusively through Hitachi DataSystems and selected resellers.
Customers benefit from the HDS NetApp Enterprise NAS Gatewaythrough better storage asset utilization, consolidated storageresources, and simplified management. For customers who havedeployed Fibre Channel SANs, the addition of a NAS gateway allowsdata accessibility to a broader range of servers and applicationsand helps today's business share its valuable data across widercorporate networks.
"The convergence of NAS and SAN is a clear trend in the market,"said Tony Prigmore, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Storage Group."These two leaders in storage have come together to provide asolution that will be a boon to customers seeking to add the powerof a high-performance storage system like the Lightning 9900 VSeries to their NAS environment."
"We are excited about working closely with Network Appliance,the NAS market leader. Our combined leadership in SAN and NAStechnology makes this gateway the best-of-both worlds solution formany customers," said Dave Roberson, president and COO, HitachiData Systems. "We will leverage our expertise in storage networkingto ensure success in delivering SAN-NAS solutions. Enabling NASservices for Hitachi Freedom Storage systems is critical forHitachi Data Systems to achieve overall storage marketleadership."
"Customers need solutions that extend their SAN deployments withadditional capabilities for data and file sharing over broadercorporate networks," said Mark Santora, senior vice president ofmarketing at Network Appliance. "Customers can now deploy the HDSNetApp Enterprise NAS Gateway to expand and enhance thefunctionality of their existing SAN infrastructure and easilyprovision SAN storage for NAS applications. Together, NetApp andHitachi Data Systems are able to provide a best-in-class solutionthat helps customers integrate storage resources on their ownterms, according to their own needs, and without compromise."
The HDS-NetApp Enterprise NAS Gateway is a special-purpose NASserver that can attach directly or through a Fibre Channel SANfabric to external Hitachi Freedom Storage systems rather thanrelying on in-the-server storage. The solution thus leveragescustomers' existing investments in enterprise-level storage and SANinfrastructures to provide scalable, high-performance file accessservices using inexpensive Ethernet connections. The resultingconsolidation of storage maximizes flexibility in planning storagegrowth, improves storage utilization, and taps the full value ofHitachi Freedom Storage systems and management software. Reducedoperational costs are achieved through vastly simplified enterprisedata management, improved data protection, and greater disasterpreparedness.
The products within the HDS NetApp Enterprise NAS Gateway areincluded in the gFiler series. The GF940 and GF960 (and clusteredversions) scale in capacity to 48TB, attach to the Hitachi FreedomStorage Lightning 9900ä V Series systems and are availableimmediately. The GF825 and clustered version of the GF825 scale incapacity to 6TB, attach to Thunder 9500™ V Series systems,and will be available June 30, 2003.
Philips Medical Systems, manufacturer of advanced X-rayequipment, MRI and CT scanners, already familiar with NetworkAppliance technology, chose an Hitachi Lightning 9970V incombination with a NetApp FAS940c because of its reliability,scalability and SAN/NAS connectivity.
"The outstanding performance and ease of installation werebeyond our expectations," said Philips Medical Systems Unix systemsmanager Harry den Harink. "A first measurement showed theperformance of the NAS solution to be 3 times faster than thecurrent production environment. Also the cluster fail over set upand tests appeared to be very easy and functioned withoutnoticeable interruption to the users."
Philips Medical Systems department of Medical IT believes thisconsolidated NAS/SAN environment is the right choice for furtherexpansion of a reliable, manageable, scalable and high performancestorage platform.
"At GRZ we are constantly looking for ways to make our storageinfrastructure simpler, faster, and easier to manage," said DrHermann Sikora, Managing Director, GRZ IT Center GmbH Austria. "Byusing the Hitachi Data Systems/NetworkAppliance gateway, we can nowmaintain and manage all of our NetApp and Hitachi storage systemsin a cohesive, consolidated environment."
"As a longtime partner of both Hitachi Data Systems and NetworkAppliance, we share their commitment to creating storageenvironments that are simpler, more secure, and easier to manage,"said Jay Kidd, Brocade Vice President of Product Marketing. "We'repleased to see them deliver a high-quality solution that allowscustomers consolidate SAN, NAS, and DAS islands into a common openstorage pool under the HiCommand Management Framework."
"More and more of our customers are demanding a way to get themost out of their storage networks. By bridging the gap between SANand NAS with the Enterprise NAS Gateway, Hitachi Data Systems hasgiven us the best-of-both worlds solution to bring to ourcustomers," said Charlie Westling, vice president of marketdevelopment, Datalink. "As a key channel partner for Hitachi DataSystems, we believe this will create new revenue growth for bothour companies."
"Hitachi Data Systems has demonstrated their commitment to theNAS market with this new product," said John McArthur, Group VicePresident, Worldwide Storage Research IDC. "By partnering withNetwork Appliance, a leader in the NAS market, they have produced asolution that allows customers to consolidate the management andsupport of their NAS and SAN environments."
"Hitachi Data Systems and Network Appliance have taken asignificant step toward the future of consolidated storage bybuilding a robust connection between leading NAS and SANenvironments. McDATA supports the use of NAS Gateways as theintelligent approach to SAN/NAS convergence, and this solution isinteroperable with and can be optimized by a McDATA storagenetwork," said Mike Gustafson, senior vice president of worldwidemarketing, McDATA. "As a key partner of both companies, McDATAapplauds their vision and is working with both companies to provideour mutual customers scalable, high-performance storagesolutions."
"Hitachi Data Systems is making a strong move to meet customerrequirements for enterprise class file storage services based oncommon data center storage infrastructure, said Robert Montague,Managing Director, Systems Area Network Research, RBC CapitalMarkets. "The coupling of Network Appliance's leading NAStechnology with Hitachi's high-performance Lightning RAID systemshould provide customers a strong offering, and support Hitachi'scontinued market penetration efforts."
Hitachi Data Systems is committed to enabling organizationsworldwide to exploit the full potential of information. Byfollowing and deploying our TrueNorth™ strategy, we providecustomers with a broad range of storage solutions to simplify,protect and optimize their information infrastructures. Ourofferings include centralized and distributed storage systems andsoftware, professional services, complemented by best-of-breedproducts through channel partners and industry alliances.
With 2,700 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts businessthrough direct and indirect channels in the public, government andprivate sectors in over 170 countries and regions. Its customersinclude more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For moreinformation, please visit our Web site at www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leadingglobal electronics company, with approximately 320,000 employeesworldwide. Fiscal 2001 (ended March 31, 2002) consolidated salestotaled 7,994 billion yen ($60.1 billion). The company offers awide range of systems, products and services in market sectors,including information systems, electronic devices, power andindustrial systems, consumer products, materials and financialservices. For more information on Hitachi, please visit thecompany's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.
Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970-1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com
Hitachi Freedom Storage, HiCommand,Lightning 9900, Thunder 9500 and TrueNorth, are trademarks ofHitachi Data Systems.
NetApp is a registered trademark andNetwork Appliance and The evolution of storage are trademarks ofNetwork Appliance, Inc..
© Hitachi Data Systems isregistered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademarkand service mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
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