Hitachi Data Systems Unveils One of the Industry’s Most Robust and Reliable Green Data Centers

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, today announced the opening of its green data center in Yokohama, Japan. The Yokohama Third Center is one of the most robust and reliable in the industry and occupies 10,000 square meters of total floor space. The newly opened green facility incorporates power-efficient data center technology designed to achieve a benchmarking rating of 1.6 PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness)¹, while offering among the industry’s highest level of reliability, availability and data security.

To maintain a competitive edge, today’s businesses demand technology infrastructure with a 100 percent uptime. With machines running constantly, businesses quickly find that such high levels of energy usage are not sustainable and have a negative impact on the bottom line. To meet customer needs for security, cost management and efficiency, the new data center has been established with the objective of helping businesses adopt a ‘greener’ and more sustainable approach that enables them to streamline operations and lower operational expenditures.

Hitachi’s Yokohama Third Center is as robust and reliable as a Tier IV data center², providing customers a full range of flexible operations management services, including storage management, with a centrally managed and prompt troubleshooting service to help enterprises align the operation and management of information systems in a way that lowers the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), streamlines operations and contributes to the overall business strategy. Equipped with the latest storage technologies ranging from Hitachi Storage Virtualization to Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning, the green data center is well poised to cater to the ever-changing corporate needs.

"Hitachi Data Systems is focused and committed to delivering green data storage technology that infuses eco-friendly innovation across the entire portfolio of products,” said Asim Zaheer, vice president of product and competitive marketing, Hitachi Data Systems. "Many of our products like the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V and VM and Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning, and today with the Yokohama Third Center, provide significant improvements in capacity utilization, while lowering customers’ power and cooling consumption rates.”

With Hitachi Data Systems, organizations require fewer storage devices and ultimately, less electricity and space, which results in immediate improvements to the overall economics of managing storage. The new data center marks another milestone in support of Hitachi’s ongoing green projects like the IT Power-saving Plan³ and Eco-friendly Datacenter Project⁴ which are aimed at reducing 330,000 tons of carbon emissions and cutting down power consumption by as much as 50 percent by 2012.

Key Features of Yokohama Third Center

• Environmentally Friendly Data Center: The achievements made by the Eco-friendly Datacenter Project, the Hitachi Group's data center power-saving project, and power-saving IT equipment from the IT Power-saving Plan for reducing IT power consumption, together create a new environmentally friendly data center that incorporates the collective efforts of the Hitachi Group.
• Integrated Control Center: The integrated control center centrally monitors the operational status of IT equipment, server room environments, and building facilities 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, enabling the visualization of systems and prompt response to trouble.
• Energy Efficient Facilities: The data center uses a series of power source facilities, including a three-dimensional thermal hydraulic simulator called AirAssist® to optimize the cooling and layout of hardware and a new air-conditioning control technology, interlocking the air conditioning system with the energy load of the information technology equipment.
• Natural Cooling Systems for Lower Environmental Building Load: A rooftop garden provides the building with shade that contributes to the lowering of summertime indoor temperature by as much as three degrees Celsius. Nitrogen gas fire extinguishers and cooling systems using outdoor air, both of which have zero ozone depletion and global warming potentials, are installed as measures contributing to the improvement of regional and global environments.
• Robust Structural Design: A foundation spread over solid ground combined with a seismic isolator provides a structural design capable of withstanding most earthquakes of the magnitude that can reasonably be expected to occur in the region. The floor load bearing capacity of the server room will be 1 t/m2, which is strong enough for the installation of highly integrated blade servers.
• Security: High-level security environment is achieved with a fully redundant electrical power source, finger vein authentication system, IC card access control system, alarm sensors linked with cameras and tailgating prevention system.⁵

Web Resources:

For more information on Hitachi Data Systems green initiatives, visit: http://www.hds.com/solutions/storage-strategies/eco-friendly.html

View photos of Yokohama Third Center: http://tiny.cc/X135o

About Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation provides Services Oriented Storage Solutions that enable heterogeneous storage to be dynamically provisioned according to business needs and centrally managed via industry-leading Hitachi storage virtualization software. With over 4,100 employees, and as an integral part of the Hitachi Storage Solutions Group, Hitachi Data Systems delivers storage infrastructure platforms, storage management software, and storage consulting services through direct and indirect channels in over 170 countries and regions. Its customers include nearly 60 percent of the top 100 companies on the Fortune 500®. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT) (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 400,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2008 (ended March 31, 2009) consolidated revenues totaled 10,000 billion Yen ($102.0 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, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

© 2009, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation. Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. in the United States and other countries.

¹ Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), as classified by the Green Grid, is a metric to help enable data center operators quickly estimate the energy efficiency of their data centers, and determine if any efficiency improvements need to be made. The lower the PUE, the more efficient the data center.

² The tiered classification system, as defined by the Uptime Institute, is an industry standard approach to site infrastructure functionality and addresses common benchmarking needs. Tier IV is the current highest level of availability.

³ IT Power-saving Plan: a technology and product development plan that aims to reduce power consumption for major IT products.

⁴ Eco-friendly Datacenter Project: a data center power-saving project that incorporates the collective efforts of the Hitachi Group to reduce the power consumed by data centers by up to 50% of FY2007 levels by FY2012.

⁵ Tailgating prevention system: a system that prevents people from gaining unauthorized entry by following the person before them into the building.