Dot Hill Systems and Xiotech Announce Partnership for Storage Virtualization Solutions

LONGMONT, Colo., June 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dot Hill Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: HILL), a provider of world-class storage solutions and software for OEMs, open storage partners and system integrators, today announced that it has signed a letter of intent to enter into a technology partnership with Xiotech to enable new virtual storage solutions. This is Dot Hill's first major collaboration involving the Intelligent Storage Networking (iSN™) software platform acquired in January 2010 along with Cloverleaf Communications Inc. Dot Hill's iSN software provides advanced heterogeneous storage virtualization and the ability to unify storage technologies.

The iSN platform enables OEM partners to build custom solutions thereby gaining access to and maintaining control of critical information without limits. It is based on a powerful, flexible virtualization engine that scales to over two petabytes (2PB) of actual storage with virtual volumes, tiered storage, thin provisioning, snapshots, replication, and data migration built-in. For companies building private and public cloud storage systems to complement virtual servers, the Dot Hill technology provides a foundation for a new class of midrange and enterprise storage systems.

"End users deploying desktop and server virtualization, or implementing cloud storage solutions are demanding a high-performance, versatile storage platform that eliminates the traditional boundaries of physical storage architectures and first-generation virtual storage systems," stated Alan Atkinson, president and chief executive officer of Xiotech Corporation. "We are looking forward to collaborating with Dot Hill to bring exciting new innovations to market to meet these customer requirements."

The Intelligent Storage Network (iSN) platform can be the basis for cloud storage solutions which require sophisticated management feature sets. Dot Hill's software provides a solution that enables companies to gain access to and maintain control of critical information without limits and across multiple tiers of storage arrays. This enables users of iSN to harness both structured and unstructured information, so they can make optimal use of resources, whether data, infrastructure, or IT staff.

"Dot Hill iSN technology offers a very strong value proposition -- giving users the ability to easily manage and monitor extremely complex heterogeneous storage networks, all but eliminate down time, and reduce the overall cost of storage," said Mark Peters, senior analyst, Enterprise Systems Group. "Xiotech has been a leader in highly reliable storage solutions with its Intelligent Storage Element (ISE™) technology and the CorteX environment based on standard Internet access and management interfaces. The Dot Hill/Xiotech partnership should result in powerful, innovative solutions that meet many of today's most critical business needs."

"We acquired Cloverleaf at the beginning of the year intending to move up the storage value stack and increase our gross margins," said Dana Kammersgard, president and chief executive officer of Dot Hill Systems. "Our relationship with Xiotech is initial validation of the software we purchased and we believe will lay the foundation for expanded market presence and a vibrant software business for Dot Hill."

About Xiotech

Xiotech Corporation is one of the world's largest privately held data storage companies and the leader in Intelligent Application Storage. Xiotech's scale-out storage blades represent the industry's most efficient, cost-effective way to build a data center. Xiotech's CorteX API is a new way for partners and customers to unlock the power of ISE technology, and an integral component of an Intelligent Application Storage architecture.

About Dot Hill

Offering enterprise-class security, availability and data protection, Dot Hill provides responsive and adaptive storage solutions to meet 24/7/365 business demands. With Dot Hill, businesses can proactively safeguard and manage business data, and leverage operational efficiencies to save time, effort and expense today, while meeting the evolving business needs of tomorrow, strategically and cost effectively. Headquartered in Longmont, Colo., Dot Hill has offices and/or representatives in China, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States.

For more information, visit us at www.dothill.com.

Certain statements contained in this press release regarding matters that are not historical fact are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Because such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the statements. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding: the fact that the parties have signed only a letter of intent, and still must finalize and sign a full agreement before the virtualization solutions can be brought to market; the expected gross margins to be realized by Dot Hill on orders for iSN licenses; the size and timing of orders placed by Xiotech for iSN licenses; any improvement to Dot Hill's financial results due to its relationship with Xiotech; the size of the market for virtualization solutions; the success of the solutions; the parties' ability to bring the solutions to market from a technological standpoint and marketing standpoint; and the benefits, value or performance of Dot Hill's iSN software in any particular environment. The risks that contribute to the uncertain nature of the forward-looking statements include; that only a letter of intent has been entered into by Dot Hill and Xiotech, and they have yet to finalize a full agreement; that the solutions have not yet been finalized and brought to a production level; that the relationship between Dot Hill and Xiotech is not likely to include minimum purchase requirements and likely will allow for termination under various circumstances; that the iSN product is relatively new for Dot Hill; changing customer preferences in the open systems computing market; and unforeseen supply, technological, intellectual property or engineering issues. However, there are many other risks not listed here that may affect Dot Hill's business, as well as the forward-looking statements contained herein. To learn about such risks and uncertainties, you should read the risk factors set forth in the company's public filings with the SEC, including the Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q most recently filed by Dot Hill. All forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date on which they were made.  Enterprise Systems Group ("ESG") is independent of Dot Hill, and Dot Hill is not responsible for the accuracy of statements or predictions made by ESG.

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SOURCE Dot Hill Systems Corp.