Hitachi Virtualizes EMC Storage Systems

Business Wire, Jan 24, 2005

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Hitachi Data Systems (NYSE:HIT)

--EMC Symmetrix, DMX, and CLARiiON Customers Can Now Take Advantage of Superior Hitachi Software Functionality, Including Asynchronous Remote Copy and Logical Partitioning When Attached to the TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), today announced the immediate availability of Hitachi TagmaStore(TM) Universal Storage Platform virtualization support for EMC Symmetrix DMX 800, 1000, 2000, 3000 and Symmetrix 3000, 5000 and 8000 series storage systems. EMC CLARiiON CX series storage systems will be supported at the end of January. EMC customers can now take advantage of the Universal Storage Platform, which extends the useful life of their installed storage assets, reduces operational costs and software licensing fees, and provides superior software functionality, such as asynchronous remote copy and logical partitioning, a feature unavailable on any EMC products.

"Customers can now revitalize their existing EMC storage systems with the latest advanced Hitachi software by leveraging the virtualization layer within the Universal Storage Platform, which essentially 'maps' new functionality to all externally attached storage systems," said Yoshinori Okami, General Manager of Storage Systems Development, Hitachi, Ltd. "This means you can take a CLARiiON, virtualize it, and enable it to store mainframe data on SATA disks; you can take a DMX attach it to a Universal Storage Platform and virtualize it as part of a logical partition, assigning dedicated resources to an individual application; you can move data from CLARiiONs to Symmetrixes and back, enabling true ILM -- the possibilities are revolutionary, and Hitachi is bringing it to EMC customers first."

"Our virtualization solution, the first controller-based implementation in the industry, doesn't rely on API bartering between storage or switch vendors, or require any appliances or routers in the data path," said Hu Yoshida, Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Data Systems. "Indeed, Hitachi simply extended the internal virtualization capabilities it has developed over the last twelve years to external storage, especially leveraging the virtual storage ports concept. The Universal Storage Platform appears as a Fibre Channel Standard interface to all storage devices connected via Fibre Channel. As such, supported storage systems connect to the Universal Storage Platform via the Fibre Channel Standard interface, much like a Windows or UNIX server would. So, support wise, it's no different from attaching a CLARiiON, Symmetrix or DMX storage system to a host server through VERITAS Volume Manager. However, once an external device is virtualized and added to the Universal Storage Platform's storage pool, it gains the full functionality of the Universal Storage Platform and it's all managed from a single pane of glass."

"ESG believes that storage virtualization will re-invent storage networking based on the tremendous value it brings by significantly reducing cost and complexity," said Tony Asaro senior analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. "ESG research shows that the two most important things that customers want in a storage virtualization platform is reliability and high performance, two areas in which HDS excels. ESG considers the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform a compelling solution because it is an Enterprise-class storage system, and the only Enterprise-class storage virtualization platform in the market."

Since the announcement of the Universal Storage Platform in September 2004, Hitachi Data Systems has completed virtualization testing for numerous HP, IBM, Sun, and EMC storage systems. In addition, Hitachi Data Systems publicly demonstrated the Universal Storage Platform's capabilities of automatically discovering, virtualizing, and moving data with EMC Symmetrix DMX and IBM ESS storage systems at the SNIA Storage Networking World Fall 2004 Conference, in Orlando, Florida.

HP, which OEM's Hitachi's Universal Storage Platform technology for the HP StorageWorks XP12000 Disk Array, will support the same virtualization and partitioning capabilities in its XP12000. The XP12000, with its HP StorageWorks External Storage XP functionality, will support virtualization that spans the same breadth of devices, including EMC, IBM, and HDS arrays, as Hitachi's offerings.

"HP is committed to supporting heterogeneous storage. This is another example of that value and enables organizations to implement tiered storage across a broader set of arrays, providing customers with mission-critical information availability and lower cost tiered storage all in the same management view," said Chris Powers, Director, StorageWorks High-End Array Development for HP.

"In today's complex, heterogeneous storage environments, virtualization is the critical element in delivering simplified storage management," said John McArthur, Group Vice President and General Manager, Information Infrastructure and Enabling Technologies, IDC. "CIOs who want substantial, measurable improvement in the operational efficiency of their storage infrastructure must take a very different approach to managing their storage resources. A new category of products, which IDC calls Network Storage Controllers and includes solutions such as the TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform, will play a pivotal role in delivering virtualization to heterogeneous environments."