HDS in global partnership drive

HDS in global partnership drive

Storage solution provider Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has formed a global alliance with storage management software company AppIQ.

The first result of this partnership is HDS' delivery of new, co-branded storage management software applications based on the AppIQ's StorageAuthority suite.

HDS said the new products add standards-based SAN management, storage resource management, and heterogeneous provisioning solutions to its software portfolio, as well as expanding AppIQ's worldwide sales and support network. Additionally, HDS has licensed AppIQ's CIMIQ-X management platform to develop new software modules, and has the option to take an equity stake in AppIQ.

Timothy Smith, Marketing Manager of HDS Australia/New Zealand said, "After extensive evaluation of the key storage management software players, we determined that AppIQ's comprehensive, integrated, standards-based solutions were the best fit for our customers' needs.

"Hitachi has always recognised that no single company can meet all customer requirements, and has always promoted an ecosystem of strong storage partners. This new, open platform based on AppIQ's technology already supports products from Hitachi partners HP, McDATA, Sun Microsystems, NetApp, Brocade-as well as our competitors-and provides a foundation that supports the continued evolution of the Hitachi storage ecosystem."

David Lemont, President and CEO, AppIQ said, "It was important for AppIQ to find a partner as committed to the CIM and SMI-S industry standards as we are.  This global partnership will further advance AppIQ's enterprise software as a leading business solution for building an application-focused storage utility."

Meanwhile, HDS also announced that it has entered into a worldwide software development and distribution agreement with content management software provider IXOS Software that will see HDS provide IXOS' archiving and content management software to its customers, as well as integrating IXOS' products into its storage management software suite.

"We have long believed that archive management software and enterprise storage would logically converge," said Richard Gailer, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, IXOS. "Our product's capabilities map to Hitachi's vision. Together, we are enabling customers to manage unstructured content. And we will bring our full capability in the enterprise content management space-including archiving, document management, content management and workflow-into this partnership."

Michael Cremen, General Manager of HDS Australia/New Zealand said, "Our partnership with IXOS enables us to accelerate our data lifecycle management offerings. Addressing the storage requirements for unstructured content such as email is a priority at Hitachi Data Systems and the ability to provide a level of intelligence to thestorage and management of diverse content types is critical."

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