BANGALORE, INDIA: Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. and  provider of services oriented storage solutions, announced data protection and disaster recovery solutions for VMware vSphere 4.

These business critical solutions combine technologies from Brocade, Cisco, CommVault and Symantec with Hitachi modular and enterprise storage platforms and software, giving organizations a quick, cost effective way of optimizing the operational efficiency and resiliency of their IT environments.

Brian Byun, vice president of global alliances, VMware, said: “Operational resilience is increasingly important to organizations today, as the risk and cost of downtime is simply too great for most organizations to ignore. By combining the powerful VMware vSphere 4 platform and the VMware vCenter management  product family with Hitachi's innovative modular and enterprise storage platforms, customers can extend comprehensive and compelling business continuity benefits to more workloads across a broader customer base for maximum protection and cost savings.”

John Mansfield, senior vice president, Global Solutions Strategy and Development, Hitachi Data Systems, said: “Today’s announcement marks another important proof point in the evolving Hitachi Data Systems solutions portfolio. Hitachi Data Systems is well positioned to partner with industry leaders like VMware to enable end-to-end server to storage virtualization in customer data centers. During a time when business continuity and disaster recovery is a critical part of everyday operations, Hitachi virtualization technologies can extend the economic and optimization benefits customers can achieve, both short and long term.”

Hitachi Data Protection Solutions for VMware vSphere 4
The Data Protection solutions are designed for VMware environments and centre around the Hitachi Data Protection Suite powered by CommVault and Symantec NetBackup:

· Hitachi Storage, Software and Services: The Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family and/or the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V, Universal Storage Platform VM, Hitachi ShadowImage®, in-system replication snapshot software, and data protection planning and deployment services (available through partners).

· VMware Software: VMware vSphere 4, VMware’s virtualization platform including VMware ESX and the VMware vStorage technologies and interfaces that enable block-level incremental image-, volume-, or file-level backups.

· Backup and Recovery Software: Hitachi Data Protection Suite or Symantec NetBackup.

Hitachi Disaster Recovery Solutions for VMware vSphere 4

Hitachi Disaster Recovery Solutions for VMware vSphere 4 are important next chapters in Hitachi’s evolving relationship with VMware (previously announced April, 2009). These solutions combine Hitachi storage, replication software and services with VMware datacenter solutions, as well as data networking gear from Brocade or Cisco, to enable highly resilient VMware environments:

· Hitachi Storage, Replication Software and Services: Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family and/or the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform family, the second generation of Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, Hitachi TrueCopy and Hitachi Universal Replicator system-based replication software and Remote Copy Planning and Design services (also available through partners). Hitachi software enables real or near real time local and remote replication with automated failover.

· VMware Software: VMware vCenter Server, VMware’s virtualization management platform, and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, VMware’s disaster recovery automation software.

· Data Networking Hardware: Brocade 7500 switch or DCX director with FR4-18i blade and/or Cisco MDS 9222i multi-protocol switch or MDS 9513 Director with Multi-protocol Services Module (MSM).