Hitachi Data Systems to resell Ciena CN 4200 and CN 2000 platforms as part of high-availability solutions to reduce replication costs and improve remote storage connectivity: Ciena Corporation, the network specialist, today announced that Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. and the only provider of Services Oriented Storage Solutions, will resell the CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform and CN 2000 Storage and LAN Extension Platform. Specifically, Hitachi Data Systems, a Ciena BizConnect partner, will leverage Ciena’s CN 4200 and CN 2000 platforms as part of its advanced network attached storage (NAS) services, including the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform, powered by BlueArc. In addition, Ciena's CN 4200 and CN 2000 have been qualified for distance extension with Hitachi Universal Replicator (HUR) and TrueCopy Remote Replication software on Hitachi’s Universal Storage Platform V and Universal Storage Platform VM across the metropolitan area network or wide area network (MAN/WAN). Ciena’s CN 4200 platform will support long-distance replication for cost-effective, high-bandwidth connectivity for Hitachi’s High-performance NAS Platform to provide customers the ability to synchronously transport high-bandwidth replication traffic between geographically-dispersed environments using Hitachi TrueCopy synchronous replication software. Hitachi customers can also benefit from Ciena’s CN 2000 for cost-effective extension of their business continuance and disaster recovery applications. “The continued proliferation of file servers and appliances is creating complexity within the storage infrastructure, which requires a dynamic environment that is not just for storage of files, but a true consolidation that can optimize NAS environments,” said Steve TenBarge, vice president, Global Product Marketing, Hitachi Data Systems. “With Ciena’s CN 4200 and CN 2000, our High-performance NAS Platform can help organizations with performance-driven applications consolidate their ever-expanding NAS solutions and simplify the supporting infrastructure while reducing costs and improving data availability.” The Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform focuses on lowering total cost of ownership (TCO), reducing management complexity and improving performance and productivity. It is an ideal solution for NAS or file server consolidation. In addition, a number of vertical markets are ripe for such solutions, including entertainment, Internet services, life sciences, electronic engineering, oil and gas, government and education, given the prevalence of high-volume e-mail traffic, data-intensive e-commerce, expansive ERP and CRM applications and large databases. Ciena’s CN 4200 has passed a series of interoperability tests for the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform, powered by BlueArc. Under guidance of Hitachi Data Systems and following rigorous testing through the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform testing and validation program, the CN 4200 met all requirements and is authorized as an interoperable platform for mutual customers. “Storage requirements are growing significantly, and organizations need to bring those costs under control while continuing to provide improved availability and better time-to-change within the data center,” said Mike Aquino, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Ciena. “With our CN 4200 platform, the Hitachi High-performance NAS Platform helps users in data-intensive, high-performance computing markets, as well as enterprise customers that need large-scale consolidation, address their high-performance computing storage requirements.” CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform The CN 4200 platform’s carrier-grade functionality and proven interoperability with mainstream storage environments are easily translatable to enterprise environments that command support for high-end applications such as business continuity, disaster recovery and mirroring across the WAN. Ciena’s transport-optimized approach allows enterprises to easily transition to new technologies and services as dictated by market demands. Ciena is a member of the Storage Networking Industry Association and Wall Street Technology Association, and its equipment is helping a variety of leading enterprises to create customized bandwidth to fit connectivity requirements for emerging applications, data replication and legacy traffic. CN 2000 Storage and LAN Extension Platform The CN 2000 is a small, user-friendly, and highly flexible storage and LAN extension platform for the evolving data center connectivity needs of today's enterprises. Qualified by all major storage vendors ,the platform uses hardware compression and Dynamic Bandwidth Assignment to condense virtually all enterprise network traffic onto a single WAN that is optimized for the critical performance requirements of business continuance, disaster recovery and other vital applications. With this simplified WAN, data can be extended across the entire enterprise up to thousands of miles—dramatically increasing bandwidth while cutting recurring costs by up to 70 percent. Ciena BizConnect Ciena’s BizConnect partner program offers the Company’s best-of-breed network solutions and world-class technical support to an elite community of strategic partners, driving mutual success and enabling the delivery of maximum value for customers worldwide. BizConnect supports three types of Ciena partners: resale partners, service provider solutions partners and referral partners.