HDS Storage Cluster for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., announced a new end-to-end server-to-storage virtualization initiative to drive efficiencies across virtualized environments. To support this strategy, Hitachi Data Systems also announced two business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for virtual environments – Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V, and Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager.

“Hitachi Data Systems helps customers extend the benefits of virtualization beyond the physical server,” said Mark Bowker, Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “With the introduction of Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V and Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, Hitachi not only demonstrates this end-to-end capability but also its ability to integrate across virtualization platforms. Hitachi’s advances in business continuity and disaster recovery help customers quickly see the value of virtualization extended throughout the IT infrastructure.”

Separately, server and storage virtualization enable many important benefits such as resource consolidation, improved performance, improved data protection, high availability, and improved utilization. Together, server-to-storage virtualization can help organizations optimize performance, minimize planned and unplanned downtime and importantly, extend data protection to additional applications and data types, helping them save money. As the undisputed storage virtualization leader with more than 11,000 virtual controllers shipped worldwide, coupled with market-proven system-based replication technologies including Hitachi Universal Replicator and Hitachi TrueCopy software, Hitachi Data Systems is uniquely able to bridge the gap between server and storage infrastructures in customers’ data centers. Hitachi Data Systems integrated end-to-end virtualization solutions helps customers achieve significant improvements in operational efficiency and overall cost savings.

“Business continuity and disaster recovery are increasingly critical requirements, but in today’s difficult economic climate, preventing business downtime is absolutely essential,” said Asim Zaheer, Vice President of Product and Competitive Marketing, Hitachi Data Systems. “By offering both Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V and Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, we provide organizations the ability to select business continuity and disaster recovery solutions that best meet their specific needs and requirements over the short and long term.”

Hitachi Storage Cluster for Microsoft Hyper-V combines the key platform capabilities of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 including high availability through Microsoft Multipath I/O, server virtualization and clustering with the rich platform capabilities of Hitachi storage virtualization and system-based replication.

“Customers are adopting Microsoft virtualization software across datacenters and desktops, along with integrated physical and virtual management tools so they have a holistic view of their entire environment,” said Dai Vu, Director of Virtualization Solutions, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft Corp. “Working with Hitachi Data Systems, Microsoft customers can use intelligent storage, data protection, high availability and site recovery capabilities so they can realize the full value of virtualization.”

The second generation of Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter for VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager adds important support for the midrange Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage family and provides customers continuous, real time local and remote replication and automatic failover capabilities to help ensure resilient data protection, high availability and disaster recovery.

“At a time when customers are forced to stretch their budgets farther and farther, the VMware vStorage technologies and interfaces contained in VMware vSphere 4, together with Hitachi Storage Replication Adapter, provide a winning combination that helps our customers lower infrastructure costs without compromising on critical disaster recovery functionality,” said Parag Patel, Vice President, Alliances, VMware. “We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with Hitachi Data Systems to improve both server and storage asset resilience as customers move toward building internal clouds to deliver IT as a service.”