Hitachi Vantara simplifies digital innovation with VMware


Hitachi Vantara, the digital infrastructure and solutions subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), recently announced that the updated Hitachi Vantara Unified Compute Platform (UCP) HC is now a VMware vSAN Global Partner Appliance, a new category of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) deployment options to help simplify procurement, deployment and maintenance of HCI systems. Hitachi Vantara also announced an update to Hitachi UCP RS. 

This venture will give way to a next-gen technology HCI that will provide smooth and seamless management of data and cloud infrastructure.

Hitachi Vantara is the result of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group and Pentaho being combined under one umbrella in 2017. While this move was intended to create a product portfolio that was greater than the sum of its parts, the company hasn’t deviated from its established infrastructure business, and the HCI space is no exception. 

Hitachi Vantara Unified Compute Platform (UCP) portfolio includes both its converged and HCI systems, with the latter falling under the UCP HC moniker. Hitachi UCP HC integrated appliances are powered by VMware vSAN and they benefit from native integration with the VMware software stack. Hitachi management and orchestration software for UCP systems - UCP Advisor, delivers a flexible operations model that reduces OPEX. It provides a single view with automated provisioning of all physical, virtual components, and supports administration at bare metal level. Its ability to automatically apply patches, code upgrades, other system administrations function such as health and monitoring of the HCI environment minimizes applications downtime. Leveraging familiar VMware tool sets enable faster, easier deployments, while accelerating time-to-value and reducing risks.  The available UCP HC configurations include support for hybrid (disk and flash), all-flash, all NVMe (Intel Optane SSDs) and GPU (specifically NVIDIA Tesla cards) types of technologies, accommodating a wide range of use cases, especially for high performance workloads.

A host of additional options are also available to those UCP-HC systems leveraging the Hitachi value-added software, such as Hitachi Ops Center Protector and Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) for copy data management and file and objects services, respectively. 

These was discussed during the exclusive virtual meeting held last November 24 to local Philippine media attendees via MS Teams meeting room. The discussion included topics on how Hitachi Vantara Unified Compute Platform (UCP) and of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) boost productivity and efficiency in compatible with PH enterprises.

One of the most common use cases of vSAN solutions is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Hitachi helps businesses with improved data protection and cost savings through avoidance of need for any virtual desktop data backups in such solutions. While doing so, this solution empowers end users perform their own file recoveries and protect their data from ransomware attacks too. Combined with VMWare’ NSX technologies, Hitachi is able to provide individually firewalled desktops along with the applications and data. Hitachi also provides unique flexibility to extend the UCP HC series and VMware Cloud Foundation environment beyond hyperconverged infrastructure into external disk capacity from SAN storage with storage policy-based automation and common lifecycle management.

VMware technologies enable an any-cloud where you can build, run, manage, connect and protect across many datacenters and environments. Aligning to the industry demands for flexible, any-cloud, anywhere, it’s very important to connect developers with IT Operations. Kubernetes with its container orchestration has achieved industry consensus as a leading platform for private cloud, public cloud and edge. VMware Tanzu helps businesses build, run and manage modern applications on Kubernetes.  Building modern applications is further enabled through VMware technologies such as Bitnami (applications packaging and deployment) and Pivotal (premier developer experience to build cloud native applications).

These technologies enable customers embrace private, public or hybrid clouds strategies with absolute confidence on what businesses demand, which is equivalent to faster time to market, pay-as-you go economics, hardened security against data breaches and greater levels of automation.

“Digitalization is fundamentally changing the way organizations compete in the Philippines, especially as they pivot towards the rapidly developing innovation economy,” said Walter So, Country Manager, VMware Philippines. “With our partnership with Hitachi Vantara, we are now in a unique position to enable organizations with a next – generation infrastructure that offers greater simplicity, agility and security, providing Filipino enterprises with a robust digital foundation to accelerate business innovation as they grow and scale across the region.”

“Hitachi Vantara offers distinct operational efficiency with flash – accelerated, converged and hyperconverged infrastructure, which makes it stand out,” said Varghese Mathew, Business Director, Hitachi Vantara Philippines. “It also achieves unmatched reliability, flexibility, automation, and performance for the most demanding workloads, which is definitely a must in staying competitive in the Philippines market.”