OREANDA-NEWS. April 13, 2012. ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter ITOCHU) announced today its decision to create a hybrid cloud*1 environment for its domestic Group companies in cooperation with ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Yoichi Okuda, President & CEO; hereinafter ЃgCTCЃh, URLЃFhttp://www.ctc-g.co.jp/en/), an ITOCHU Group company engaging in system architecture and operation services.

Hybrid cloud is a cloud infrastructure that combines the public cloud with high versatility using shared resources and the private cloud able to create architecture offering a high degree of freedom using dedicated resources. Companies that have introduced a hybrid cloud environment are able to build flexible IT infrastructure tailored to their needs and circumstances, optimizing usage of each cloud's characteristics.

ITOCHU has a little more than 150*1 domestic Group companies, which have thus far individually procured and operated servers necessary for developing their IT infrastructure. In using their servers jointly as the entire Group by virtualizing and consolidating them, ITOCHU will work to reduce information and communication costs and level the operational quality.

The creation of the hybrid cloud environment also aims to provide infrastructure to support a solution for the issue of large-scale disaster control, which has become a significant challenge of the ITOCHU Group in the wake of last year's Great East Japan Earthquake. With respect to the BCP*2, though the development of IT infrastructure is a significant element to consider, companies with difficulty developing an optimal environment due to limited human resources and costs were included in the Group. ITOCHU has been promoting development of an environment for BCP and has currently established servers in two data centers in Kobe and Yokohama that are able to mutually back up their operations. Since this current project also follows this concept, a reliable environment will be readily available at a low cost for Group companies with limited human resources and budget.

ITOCHU has been making proposals to Group companies in series since April 2012. Since it plans to operate the hybrid cloud environment from July 2012, ITOCHU intends a phased shift to the cloud environment (with the aim of consolidating approximately 500 servers into 100 over five years). ITOCHU will continue to proactively support the promotion of IT strategies and cost reduction of the Group companies.

*1 There are 155 domestic consolidated companies as of the end of December 2011.
 *2 Business continuity plan