ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President & CEO:Yoichi Okuda; hereinafter, "CTC") has signed the first Japanese reseller agreement with Rackable Systems Inc. (headquarters: Fremont, California, United States; President & CEO Mark Barrenechea; hereinafter, "Rackable"). CTC plans to commence sales of Rackable's products in late April.

In keeping with the global trend toward "green IT," CTC will employ Rackable's energy-efficient servers and storage as platforms for its own virtualized shared hosting service, an "IT integrated backbone service." CTC will aggressively target sales to entities that employ high-volume servers and face pressing needs to economize on energy usage. Such targets include major content providers and companies with heavy server demand for high-performance computing. Through this business, CTC aims to generate ¥10 billion in sales over a three-year period.

Although global warming countermeasures are gaining momentum worldwide, data center power consumption is on the rise, as IT equipment grows more highly concentrated. Consequently, the industry faces a pressing need to improve its energy efficiency.

The server/storage products that Rackable offers employ direct-current electricity. As a result, they use up to 30% less power and generate less heat than conventional products powered by alternating current. The company's server racks feature AC/DC switches, so they can also be used at data centers powered by conventional alternating current. Employing these racks reduces energy consumption by approximately 10%, even when used in conventional equipment environments.

Rackable's power-saving servers are "1U half depth," meaning that they are only half as deep as conventional servers. Servers within the racks are rear-facing, employing a back-to-back mounting technique, which offers high cooling efficiency. Heat from the servers is exhausted into the space between the servers and concentrated into a "hot chimney," which substantially improves server rack cooling efficiency by exhausting hot air out the top of the rack.

In October 2008, CTC will open the Mejirozaka Data Center (Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, an environmentally conscious data center. This center's energy-efficient equipment and infrastructure includes facilities to supply direct current, as well as a high-efficiency cooling system. In addition, in April CTC will begin employing Rackable's products as a platform for its own virtualized shared hosting service, the "IT integrated backbone service." As a result, CTC's data centers will consume up to 30% less power than centers using conventional servers.

An early advocate of efforts to address the issue of energy efficiency at Japanese data centers, in October 2007 CTC joined the Green Grid Association of the United States, a nonprofit organization established with the objective of improving data center energy efficiency. Through its tie relationship with Rackable, CTC plans to further enhance the efficiency of energy consumption at its data centers. We will also promote aggressively green IT solutions that use Rackable's products, thereby helping Japanese companies address environmental issues through their IT activities.'

Rackable Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: RACK) is a leading provider of Eco-Logical(TM) servers and storage for large-scale data center deployments. The company's products are designed to provide benefits in the areas of density, thermal efficiency, serviceability, power distribution, data center mobility and remote management. Founded in 1999 and based in Fremont, California, Rackable Systems is a founding member of The Green Grid and serves Internet, enterprise software, federal government, entertainment, financial services, oil and gas exploration and HPC customers worldwide. To learn more about Rackable Systems, visit www.rackable.com.