Hitachi Data Systems Corporation announced VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration, or VAAI, support on Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform. This makes the platform the first one to offer VAAI support for virtualized storage, which can also reportedly extend to more than 100 virtualized multivendor storage arrays. This is meant to further assist end-clients looking to avoid vendor lock-in, and represents the big picture trends taking place in the cloud today.

“While other vendors may support VAAI, only Hitachi Data Systems has the external storage virtualization necessary to address our customers’ top business needs to optimize application performance and reduce IT costs,” said Hu Yoshida, CTO, Hitachi Data Systems”

The vStorage APIs the Hitachi Virtual Storage platform supports include Fast Copy which speeds VM cloning and Storage vMotion by up to 18%, Block Zeroing and SCSI Reservation Lock.

Hitachi cities an earlier 2011 CIO Peer2Peer Research Panel that reported 97 percent of the respondents are currently investing in server virtualization, and 50 percent intend to initiate such projects within a year. Hitachi is based is Asia, and team ups such this one with VMware further aid it to expand on a global scale; the same is true for the virtualization leader.

VMware also had its share of good, but mainly profitable news this week. We discussed the VMware Partner Exchange 2011 event where the company is going to announce new solution competency and toolkits to name a couple. A bit earlier Gluster announced Gluster Virtual Storage Appliances for VMware and AWS, and Zimbra 7 was officially announced.

Earlier, Hitachi reported its quartile profits have soared.