Riverbed WAN Solution Qualified by HDS

Riverbed Technology announced that Hitachi Data Systems has qualified its Steelhead appliances, which allow companies to optimize Disaster Recovery (DR) processes between data centers while reducing overall IT costs.

Riverbed Steelhead appliances are qualified by Hitachi Data Systems for use with both Hitachi TrueCopy Remote Replication and Hitachi Universal Replicator products. This adds to Riverbed’s previously obtained qualification to optimize replication with Hitachi High-performance NAS. Hitachi Data Systems customers can now deploy Riverbed WAN optimization solutions with the assurance of interoperability between the two company product lines. The Riverbed and Hitachi solutions working together will enable customers to obtain higher performance for their business continuity and DR initiatives.

The health of a company’s IT infrastructure is dependent on its data protection, which requires organizations to make data replication a top priority. However, replication performance is almost always limited by WAN bandwidth and latency, which limits how fast data can be moved and often decreases the amount of data being effectively protected. Riverbed Steelhead appliances can remove a huge amount of repetitive data from the WAN during data center to data center operations, and as a result dramatically reduce bandwidth requirements associated with protecting more data.

To address replication needs, enterprises have depended on Hitachi Data Systems replication software, which allows them to effectively mirror data to remote facilities, protecting their mission-critical data for DR purposes – a key element of business continuity plans. Hitachi TrueCopy Remote Replication software provides a continuous, non-disruptive, host-independent remote data replication solution for DR or data migration over any distance; and Hitachi Universal Replicator software delivers simplified asynchronous data replication for internal and external storage attached to the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform family. By implementing Riverbed WAN optimization solutions in conjunction with these data replication solutions, enterprises are better able to accelerate DR initiatives.

"Hitachi TrueCopy Remote Replication and Hitachi Universal Replicator are among our flexible and customizable selection of business continuity technologies that address our customers’ most stringent requirements for operational resilience and disaster recovery," said Asim Zaheer, vice president of product and competitive marketing, Hitachi Data Systems. "We’ve worked closely with Riverbed to test the joint solution that addresses the performance challenges enterprises encounter during DR operations between data centers. The qualification provides assurance to our customers that they can take advantage of Riverbed WAN optimization solutions to accelerate their DR initiatives."

"Our WAN optimization solution delivers huge improvements in data center to data center replication performance across the WAN, enabling Hitachi TrueCopy, Universal Replicator and NAS replication environments to protect more, in less time, and recover faster," said Alan Saldich, vice president of product marketing, Riverbed. "Customers using Hitachi Data Systems and Riverbed products together can more efficiently conduct their data protection and business continuity initiatives. This joint effort is a result of both companies recognizing the unique pressures on the WAN generated by replication utilities."