Migrates to SAN on Lightning 9970V enterprise solution;reduces backup window; Implements Disaster Recovery
Hong Kong — 11 August 2003— Hitachi Data Systems Limited (HDS) - a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Hitachi Limited, today announced the successfulmigration to a Storage Area Network (SAN) and implementation ofremote data mirroring for disaster recovery by Wing Lung Bank withthe deployment of the market-leading Hitachi Freedom Storage™Lightning 9970V™storage systems and Hitachi TrueCopy™software.
"HDS achieved the highest score in terms of ease of transition,overall quality of SAN storage solutions, technology leadership,technical support, product excellence, local and global bankingreferences, and management level engagement," said Alice Wong,assistant general manager, Wing Lung Bank. "In particular, we chosethe Lightning 9970V storage system for two reasons: quick return tooperation after a power down, which is important for rapid DisasterRecovery, and a file lock cache function (Hitachi FlashAccess™) that we use to reduce the chances of performancebottlenecks during high volume database file access. HDS is alsoable to offer a Service Level Guarantee that ensures a presetperformance level is met."
"We are delighted that Wing Lung Bank has chosen to implementHDS storage solutions," said Andrew Sampson, country manager forHong Kong and Macau. "This is further testament to the strength ofour products and services and to our leadership position incentralized storage in Hong Kong and across the world. We lookforward to growing an already excellent relationship with Wing LungBank and in helping them to prosper by maximizing their return oninvestment in storage systems."
Wing Lung Bank's growth in recent years has led to an impendingshortage of data storage capacity, as well as decreased networkperformance and growing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Prior toinstalling the SAN, Wing Lung Bank's storage was based ontraditional Direct Access Storage Devices (DASD).
According to Alice Wong, assistant general manager, Wing LungBank, the high cost associated with the long backup window of thestorage was a concern. To enable batch jobs to be completed beforethe start of business of the following day, the Bank has had toinvest tremendously in finding ways to tune and shorten the batchprocessing window.
In addition, the Bank also wanted to implement a full-fledgedDisaster Recovery (DR) solution for non-mainframe storage.
In April this year, Wing Lung Bank made the decision to migrateto a SAN model, which effectively decouples expansion andmanagement of the storage devices from the servers, saving moneyand improving scalability at the same time.
After a stringent evaluation process of offerings from variousvendors, Wing Lung Bank chose the Lightning 9970V as the corecomponent of its SAN implementation together with BrocadeCommunications SilkWorm 3800 Fibre Channel fabric switches.
Wing Lung Bank also chose Hitachi TrueCopy™ to performremote copy for the DR function, with very satisfactoryresults.
"We use TrueCopy for remote mirroring between our two datacenters in Mongkok and Quarry Bay over an ESCON link," continuedWong. "We are migrating our open servers over to the Lightning9970V to reduce high running costs associated with scattered DRsolutions on different servers."
After the new system was deployed with the Lightning 9970V inplace, the overall batch processing window has been reduced bythree hours every night, a 35% improvement.
The resources that were previously dedicated for batch cycletuning can now be reallocated to normal services, aiding our focuson system enhancement and support. In addition, the improvement inthe DR solution after using TrueCopy has deferred the installationof additional ESCON links.
"Besides our confidence in HDS products and SAN solutions, theirtrack record and success in implementing similar solutions for thefinancial services industry is reassuring," concluded Wong. "Wewere also impressed by the smooth transition and non-disruptiveupgrade process. HDS storage products are great in terms ofperformance, reliability, scalability and technical support. Thetransition has been incredibly smooth, requiring just two week-endsto migrate from the previous storage platform."
Established as Wing Lung Ngan Ho in 1933 in Hong Kong to dateholds 38 banking offices and have employed over 1,200 staffmembers. Wing Lung Bank has gone from strength to strength over thepast years and this year celebrated its 70th anniversary; itremains to be one of Hong Kong's modern (local) banks.
The Bank provides comprehensive banking services, includingdeposits, loans, bills, foreign exchange, syndicated loans,corporate financing, credit cards, NET Banking, MPF, wealthmanagement, etc. The Bank also provides hire-purchase and leasing,trustee, nominee, insurance agency and broking, insuranceunderwriting, futures broking and securities broking servicesthrough its wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Hitachi Data Systems enables organizations worldwide to exploitthe full potential of information. Adhering to our TrueNorth™vision and strategy, we provide customers with a broad range ofstorage solutions to simplify, protect and optimize theirinformation infrastructures. Our offerings include centralized anddistributed storage solutions complemented by best-of-breedproducts from 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. Our 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 Japan's largestelectronics company and ranked as number 4 in the world. It has340,000 employees worldwide. For fiscal year 2002, ended on March2003, consolidated sales totalled US$ 68 billion. The companyoffers a wide range of systems, products and services in marketsectors, including information systems, electronic devices, powerand industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financialservices. For more information on Hitachi, please visit thecompany's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.
Contacts:
Allan Tan, Hitachi Data Systems, Tel: +852-2110-7879, E-mail:allan.tan@hds.com
Winnie Lai, Shout Communications,Tel: +852-2578-2595,E-mail: winnie@shoutasia.com
Rita Ng, Shout Communications, Tel:+852-2578-2815,E-mail: rita@shoutasia.com
Press release and high resolution photoscan be downloaded from: http://www.shoutasia.com/hds.
Freedom Storage, Lightning 9900,TrueNorth and HiCommand are trademarks of Hitachi Data Systems. Allother trademarks are properties of their respectiveowners.
© Hitachi Data Systems isregistered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademarkand service mark of Hitachi, Ltd.
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