Hitachi Data Systems, provider of Application Optimized Storage solutions and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today unleashed the industry’s most advanced midrange storage system—the Hitachi TagmaStore Adaptable Modular Storage model AMS1000. This new storage system transcends the boundaries of other midrange storage offerings with advanced business-enabling capabilities such as 32 Logical Cache Partitions, non-disruptive “on-the-fly” data movement across multiple tiers of storage, and a key industry-first: fully embedded multi-protocol support for iSCSI, NAS, and Fibre Channel, with no reliance on external servers or adapters. The AMS1000 brings unprecedented tiered storage capabilities to the midrange market enabling organisations to strategically align business applications and storage infrastructure so that cost, performance, reliability and availability can be matched to specific business requirements. The AMS1000 is generally available immediately on a worldwide basis directly from Hitachi Data Systems or through over 500 value-added resellers.

The AMS1000 is excellent as a standalone storage system—offering clients the extreme flexibility to mix and match multiple tiers of storage in a single rack (including 250GB, 400GB, and 500GB SATA HDDs), enabling them to run online applications demanding the fastest response time on high-speed Fibre Channel drives, then non-disruptively move data to economical SATA drives for archiving or data mining. The AMS1000 can also serve as externally-attached tiered or archive storage in a virtualised environment managed by the Hitachi TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform or Network Storage Controller using Hitachi Universal Volume Manager software.

The channel-optimized TagmaStore AMS1000—successor to the popular Thunder 9585V™ ultra high-end midrange storage system—delivers 13 GigaBytes per second of cached bandwidth, full 4Gb/s Fibre Channel connectivity, support for 4,096 LUNs, and 16 GigaBytes of cache, increases of 70 percent, 100 percent, 100 percent, and 100 percent, respectively, over its predecessor—with no increase in price for similar capacity configurations, delivering the densest capacity at the lowest price per terabyte in the industry.

"Hitachi is known for its high-end enterprise-class storage systems," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "Hitachi has brought this same level of quality and functionality to its midrange. The Hitachi AMS1000 is an extremely competitive midrange storage system with impressive performance, feature-rich capabilities, and a compelling and flexible architecture. ESG believes that Hitachi is well-positioned to do battle in the mid-market and can shake things up in this arena as they have done with the high-end of the market."

The AMS1000 extends the family of next-generation Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage Systems introduced in July, 2005. Like the AMS200 and AMS500, it features Logical Cache Partitioning and Virtual Storage Ports with secure Host Storage Domains—an integrated set of enterprise-class capabilities not available on various other midrange systems—to help IT organisations optimise the performance of and provide secure data access in multi-server environments to vital business applications, such as e-mail, ERP, CRM, or databases. Using Cache Partition Manager, the AMS1000 can be intelligently configured to match an application’s performance requirements, such as for high-performance computing environments, rich media applications, automotive and seismic modeling applications, and online transaction processing (OLTP)—enabling a concurrent mix of up to 32 secure, partitioned workloads—optimizing cache performance for each individual application.

Commenting on today’s announcement, Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems, said, “The problem with the boxes that are being delivered by the competition is that they still scale capacity faster than they scale performance. Hitachi, Ltd., however, continues to take a balanced approach to scaling its storage systems. We have taken as much time to improve performance, cache management, and maintain quality-of-service in a highly consolidated, finely partitioned environment as we did with capacity.
In addition, we have taken a virtual machine approach in that we have ensured secure multi-tenancy for individual applications—that’s what comes from our systems expertise, and that’s the real business benefit to our clients. It looks like some other vendors in this industry are still pushing a complex assortment of off-the-shelf parts lashed together, and without any form of partitioning capabilities, are just creating more chaos for customers.”

“Most data centres, including small and medium-sized enterprises, are beginning to merge their SAN and network attached storage using a NAS gateway to link into the SAN,” according to Carl Greiner, senior vice president, Infrastructure, Software and IT Services, Ovum. “Ideally, customers would like the choice of including multiple protocols within a given array: FC, IP, and iSCSI. While these technologies have often been viewed as ‘either/or’ technologies, as we predicted, these have now become ‘and’ technologies and will be for at least the next ten years.”

A Virtual Continuum
Hitachi continues on its steadfast path of innovation by offering a dual storage product family, with a lineup of intelligent virtual storage controllers—powered by massively parallel, multi-processor, crossbar switch architectures and characterized by their unique ability to function as stand-alone storage controllers that support external storage devices through a virtualisation layer, and a lineup of advanced midrange storage systems, which are powered by attractively priced dual controller high-speed bus technology and offer the benefits of Logical Cache Partitioning, Virtual Ports, and Host Storage Domains within a single system, or complement the Network Storage Controller or Universal Storage Platform as tiered or archive storage, especially when configured with SATA disk for lower costs.

From its low-end Hitachi TagmaStore Workgroup Modular Storage model WMS100 SATA-based advanced midrange storage system, to its mega-scalable USP1100 intelligent virtual storage controller; with products spanning the small and medium business markets to Global 500 companies, Hitachi provides a Virtual Continuum™ of storage virtualisation solutions, addressing the smallest to the most intricately complex data management issues with sophisticated virtualisation innovations that mask complexity and simplify overall management.

Key business-enabling features of the new AMS1000 include:

• New Logical Unit Migration Software, a future capability, delivers non-disruptive “on-the-fly” data movement across multiple tiers of storage in a single rack
• Support for Multiple Tiers of Storage
7,200 RPM SATA HDDs (250GB, 400GB or 500GB) 15,000 RPM FC HDDs (73GB or 146GB) 10,000 RPM FC HDDs (73GB, 146GB or 300GB)
• Nearly 13 GigaBytes per Second of Cached Bandwidth, delivering blistering midrange storage system performance and scalability
• Logical Cache Partitioning Software, enables customers to dedicate cache to specific applications and volumes, thereby optimizing the performance of their critical business applications
• 4 Gigabit Per Second Fibre Channel Connectivity, enhances the performance of applications such as video-on-demand and medical imaging
• Embedded iSCSI Functionality, allows IP-based volumes to be managed with the same precise tools as SAN volumes, significantly reducing management overhead
• Embedded NAS, supports NFS, CIFS, and FTP protocols; provides advanced snapshot and replication software
• RAID-6 Dual Parity Striping, provides greater availability in the event of an HDD problem
• Native Disk-Based Write Once Read Many (WORM) Software—Hitachi Data
• Retention Utility—for immutable record retention and the creation of compliant storage environments, unavailable on comparative offerings
• Copy-on-Write Snapshot Software, for non-disruptive, high-speed snapshot data replication within the AMS1000 system
• Full RoHS Compliance, designed to meet the European Union Reduction of Hazardous Substances directive that restricts the use of six substances in electrical and electronic equipment brought to market from July 1st 2006 onwards
• TrueCopy Extended Distance Replication, a future capability, is an economical business continuity solution for the midrange marketplace and provides very high data protection by replicating to a remote location over long distances
• Simplified Software, for quick and easy configuration and management. New Hitachi Installation Wizard software enables Channel partner engineers with minimal experience and training to become proficient in installing the new Hitachi AMS1000 system

For additional information about Hitachi Data Systems’ latest innovations in the midrange storage market, visit http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems leverages global R&D resources to develop storage solutions built on industry-leading technology with the performance, availability and scalability to maximize customers' ROI and minimize their risk. By focusing on the customer's perspective as we apply the best hardware, software, and services from Hitachi and our partners, we uniquely satisfy our customers' business needs.

With approximately 2,900 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts business through direct and indirect channels in the public, government and private sectors in over 170 countries and regions. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 347,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2004 (ended March 31, 2005) consolidated sales totaled 9,027.0 billion yen ($84.4 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 Website at http://www.hitachi.com.

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© 2006, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. TagmaStore is a trademark of Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. All other trade names, trademarks, and service marks used herein are the rightful property of their respective owners.