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Hitachi Data Systems Helps Customers Address Most Critical Storage Management Challenges

Remote Storage Management Services Provide Cost Effective and Flexible Reporting, Monitoring and Provisioning

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — March 10, 2010 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT) and the only provider of Service Oriented Storage Solutions, today showcased the growing customer adoption of the Hitachi Data Systems Remote Storage Management Services portfolio of offerings. This portfolio provides customers access to a comprehensive set of remote managed services built on decades of Hitachi Data Systems best practices that enable customers to efficiently and cost effectively manage their storage environment.

With the Hitachi Data Systems Remote Storage Management Services, part of the Hitachi Data Systems Managed Services portfolio, customers can rely on Hitachi Data Systems to remotely manage their information infrastructure and provide solutions to the challenges of staffing and expertise gaps in their IT organizations.

“In the current economy, organizations are under pressure to reduce operating costs while trying to increase value to the business,” said Hicham Abdessamad, senior vice president, Global Services, Hitachi Data Systems. “Many IT organizations have reduced staff and are looking for ways to maintain and more efficiently manage growing storage needs by out-tasking important but time consuming storage management functions such as reporting, storage provisioning or monitoring. With our set of onsite and remote managed services, Hitachi Data Systems has a cost effective, efficient alternative to meet these customer needs by enabling them to leverage our expert ability to report, monitor, and provision storage 24/7.”

In addition to Hitachi Data Systems Remote Storage Management Services, Hitachi Data Systems also provides customers a comprehensive set of onsite residency services that fill onsite skill and staff shortages. As an integrated member of a customer’s storage management team, the services optimize the performance and utilization of a customer’s storage infrastructure through Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes, tools and Hitachi Data Systems best practices.

About the Remote Storage Management Services Portfolio
As part of the Hitachi Data Systems Managed Services, the Remote Storage Management Services portfolio provides specific capabilities to customers including:

  • Remote reporting: The service for Hitachi Tuning Manager Software provides the real time, end-to-end visibility required to isolate, identify and diagnose performance bottlenecks within a Storage Area Network (SAN) before they impact operations.
  • Remote provisioning: A flexible, efficient and cost effective alternative to managing data storage infrastructures in-house when budget or resource gap skill sets exist. The service includes Hitachi Data Systems storage administration and management expertise on a contract basis for an agreed upon number of hours each month. 
  • Remote monitoring and alerting: Provides remote management capability for proactive, end-to-end monitoring and alerting to help ensure performance of Storage Area Network (SAN)

Customer Benefits of the Remote Storage Management Services portfolio
In six months, Hitachi Data Systems has seen a 30 percent increase in customer adoption of the Remote Storage Management Services, showcasing the increasing role Hitachi Data Systems has as a strategic partner to its customers.

Hitachi Data Systems Remote Storage Management Services address customer and market needs, quickly and cost effectively providing best practice monitoring, reporting, and provisioning capabilities for storage management. Specific benefits include:

  • Reduced operating costs: Customers have seen operational costs reduced by 35 percent by implementing Hitachi Data Systems standardized governance processes.
  • Increase and understand utilization: Ensure storage systems are being used efficiently and to maximum utilization levels and ensure that storage provisioning is meeting service levels. Customers have seen an increase in utilization from 30 to 70 percent in the first six months by applying ITIL best practices.
  • Understand environment: Monitor partial or whole aspects of your storage environment and generate reports from application to the spindle providing in-depth analysis.
  • Comprehensive reporting: Supply customized recommendation reports, provide guidance on specific aspects of storage system, such as bottlenecks or future storage management capacity requirements.
  • Reduced headcount costs: Remove headcount constraints by supplying a team of certified experts which eliminates resource or skill set gaps.
  • Proactive maintenance: Manage host bus adapter firmware and microcode upgrades, compatibility checks and reclaiming of old storage and auditing documentation.
  • Adherence to service levels: Support to meet customer service level agreements and objectives.

Supporting Quotes

  • IDC: “Customers are increasingly looking for innovative models to manage their growing storage environments. The pressures are mounting to reduce spending while increasing storage management expertise and ensuring an agile, flexible IT organization. Comprehensive remote storage management capabilities, such as those offered by Hitachi Data Systems Remote Storage Management Services, are increasingly in demand as customers seek to reduce operational costs while still meeting stringent and growing requirements in the data center.” ~Brad Nisbet, IDC Storage Services
  • o2: “o2 is committed to providing the highest levels of availability and performance for our customers. Hitachi Data Systems has helped us achieve that by providing the highest levels of performance and managing and monitoring our infrastructure. With Hitachi’s flexible and reliable residency and remote management services and storage management expertise, Telefónica o2 Germany can provide 24/7 monitoring and incident handling, and we can scale our storage management, provide full SLA management reporting and initiate the proper corrective actions necessary.” ~Ingo Roeske, Operations Manager
  • Technical Solutions, Inc.: “Technical Solutions provides integrated services for our customers to effectively develop, distribute and manage critical data. In doing so, we have worked with Hitachi Data Systems and have seen the value that Hitachi Data Systems remote reporting and remote provisioning services have provided our customers. These services help our customers manage their storage environments with highly skilled storage management expertise through very cost effective remote delivery.” ~Mark Oakes, Chief Information Officer

Web Resources

About Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems Corporation provides Services Oriented Storage Solutions that enable heterogeneous storage to be dynamically provisioned according to business needs and centrally managed via industry leading Hitachi storage virtualization software. With more than 4,100 employees, and as an integral part of the Hitachi Storage Solutions Group, Hitachi Data Systems delivers storage infrastructure platforms, storage management software, and storage consulting services through direct and indirect channels in more than 170 countries and regions. Its customers include nearly 60 percent of the top 100 companies on the Fortune 500®. For more information, visit the company's website at http://www.hds.com/.

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT/TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo,  Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 400,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2008 (ended March 31, 2009) consolidated revenues totaled 10,000 billion yen ($102.0 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, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com/.

Press Contacts:

Hitachi Data Systems
Melissa Rische
(408) 970-4849
melissa.rische@hds.com

Bite Communications
Cate Powers
(970) 846-3857
cate.powers@bitecommunications.com

© 2010, Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. in the United States and other countries.