INDUSTRY

TOKYO, JAPAN -- Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE: HIT; TSE: 6501) and SGI (NYSE: SGI) have agreed to jointly develop the SGI® CXFS(TM) shared filesystem, which provides data sharing among multiple hosts for SAN environments. Under the terms of the agreement, Hitachi and SGI will collaborate to extend the multiplatform capabilities of SGI CXFS. Hitachi will incorporate SGI CXFS into its SAN solutions to provide data sharing. Today, customers are experiencing an unprecedented growth in data, creating the need for a technology that provides high performance and unlimited access to that data via a SAN without concern for how it is stored or what host system is being used. SGI CXFS enables multiple computers running different operating systems to directly access a single shared filesystem, giving all systems in a CXFS environment simultaneous access to the same file at local or near-local speeds. The capabilities that CXFS provides are essential to creating SAN infrastructures that can address the needs of the most demanding data environments. According to the terms of this agreement, Hitachi and SGI will work together to increase the support for multi-OS environments and to extend the market reach of CXFS. Today, users can share files with the Network File System, but because they must access data via TCP/IP networks, the speed is not remotely comparable to that of local disk access. SGI CXFS enables high-speed data access from multiple hosts on a heterogeneous SAN. Implementing CXFS reduces costs by centralizing and consolidating storage, reducing data duplication, lowering administration costs, removing local area network bottlenecks, and streamlining the application workflow. Single files as large as 9 million terabytes and filesystems as large as 18 million terabytes are currently supported, ensuring that CXFS users never hit the limit of file or filesystem size. "SGI's agreement with market leader Hitachi will accelerate the development and deployment of next-generation storage area networks," said Paul McNamara, vice president of products and platforms at SGI. "The combination of SGI's intellectual property and technology know-how, along with Hitachi's engineering prowess and market leadership, will make this strategic relationship a potent force across the entire computing industry for many years to come." "SGI has long been a leader in high-performance, scalable technology," said Kazuo Masai, manager of storage software, Software Division, at Hitachi. "Through this agreement, SGI CXFS will greatly benefit our customers by providing data sharing between multi-operating system-based platforms with the performance of a SAN environment." For more information visit http://global.hitachi.com or www.sgi.com