SYSTEMS

SANTA CLARA and SUNNYVALE, Calif., -- Hitachi Data Systems Corporation and Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) announced today that the companies have signed an agreement to market and sell enterprise NAS solutions. Under terms of the agreement, Hitachi Data Systems will offer NetApp® enterprise NAS gateway solutions for Hitachi Freedom Storage™ environments managed by HiCommand™ Management Framework tools. Together, Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems are focused on making it easier for enterprise customers to deploy a storage pool that can be shared across SAN and NAS applications, providing better storage asset management and investment protection. The agreement is a result of both companies' commitment to an open and collaborative business model, emphasizing delivery of high-performance, reliable, interoperable storage solutions based on industry standards. The enterprise NAS gateway is expected to ship in the first calendar quarter of 2003, and additional details will be available from both companies in that timeframe. As Dave Roberson, Hitachi Data Systems president and COO noted, "A key principle of our TrueNorth strategy is the simplification of storage management. Working closely with Network Appliance to develop an enterprise NAS gateway offering, we can empower customers to unify their storage pools and leverage their enterprise-class SAN infrastructures to deliver all application and data types. This will reduce the complexity of customers' IT infrastructures and lower their management costs." "Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems are clearly best-in-class vendors in storage, and this relationship continues our evolution as a full-line enterprise storage solutions provider," said Dan Warmenhoven, CEO of Network Appliance. "But the real winners are our customers, who are looking to leverage their investments, reduce the complexity of their IT infrastructures, increase data availability, and simplify storage management. Working closely with Hitachi Data Systems to deliver an enterprise NAS gateway solution based on open standards allows us to offer a more robust array of full-line storage solutions for all types of business data." Today's enterprise demands fast, reliable access to data to power a wide range of business applications, making storage the critical component for that data need. The Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems agreement is designed to solve customers' diverse needs for storage solutions that are easy to manage, flexible, and tightly integrated for maximum simplicity, performance, and reliability with minimum IT overhead and a low total cost of ownership (TCO). By working together, Network Appliance and Hitachi Data Systems offer customers investment protection, allowing storage assets to be shared across SAN and NAS data types based on customer preference or application requirements. The NAS gateway will be available for Hitachi Freedom Storage high-end and modular products in a phased approach starting in the first calendar quarter of 2003.