Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, and SAP AG today announced an expansion of their worldwide alliance by signing a global original equipment manufacturer (global OEM) agreement that introduces plans to include SAP HANA delivered by HDS. The collaboration focuses on providing future technology innovation and combined sales and marketing activities to customers worldwide.
With this agreement, the companies will extend further integration in areas such as cloud computing, the SAP Real-Time Data Platform and high-performance enterprise computing. Hitachi plans to build on its vision for social innovation, industries, and big data expertise with SAP HANA.
This global OEM agreement enables HDS to bundle a more complete Enterprise Data Center solution for SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) on SAP HANA, and is the first OEM agreement for SAP NetWeaver on SAP HANA. The tighter integration will allow customers to make purchases that consist of a unified computing platform, software and managed services from HDS. It is envisioned that customers can benefit from a platform that scales without affecting performance or adding needless complexity.
The global collaboration is designed to bring customers from SAP, Hitachi and HDS a more cohesive solution with a focus on SAP HANA, storage virtualisation, cloud computing, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and information life-cycle management (ILM) solutions. The parties expect that customers will be able to achieve maximum value from SAP and Hitachi solutions, including lower implementation and operational costs, higher availability and increased enterprise-class disaster tolerance.
“Today’s announcement represents a new level of collaboration with Hitachi and HDS, underscoring our commitment to ongoing innovation with our partners for the benefit of our customers,” said Steve Lucas, president, SAP Platform Solutions. “Through our expanded collaboration, we envision that customers will more easily be able to gain significant advantage with SAP HANA, which will provide them with more tightly integrated, innovative solutions and reduced time to market, while minimising migration costs.” Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) for SAP HANA provides 5x more data load than other offerings, with proven transactional and analytical performance for customers.
“While we are most certainly thrilled with today’s announcement, it’s our joint customers who have the most to gain as a result,” said Brian Householder, chief operating officer, Hitachi Data Systems. “HDS is now able to offer a tightly integrated Enterprise Data Center solution that delivers a 5x performance increase over competitive offerings, while minimising the data center footprint and resource requirements. This increased collaboration with SAP is expected to also result in greater OPEX and CAPEX efficiencies for customers, and sets the stage for future joint innovation between the two companies.”
Leading customers in various industries, including insurance, consumer products and retail, as well as online marketplaces, now can accelerate the power of SAP HANA on Hitachi UCP. Pre-configured software and hardware reduces implementation time, while rapid data loading and fast analytics are key to a successful engagement with an online marketplace.
“SAP and Hitachi have more than two decades of partnership, and today we are pleased to announce the expansion of our collaboration, especially on high performance SAP HANA platforms,” said Akinobu Shimada, general manager, IT Platform Business Strategy and Planning Operation, Information & Telecommunication Systems Company, Hitachi, Ltd. “We have had a successful relationship with SAP, and through this new partnership, we will be able to provide significant benefits to new and existing customers.”
Staff writer