Turn Data Privacy Regulation into Competitive Advantage

2019-01-29T14:00:00Provided by Hitachi Vantara

If you are feeling challenged by new privacy regulations, you’re not alone. It’s increasingly difficult to create a consolidated view of data across borders to enable innovation and more efficient controls. So how do you keep innovation projects running amidst “data minimization” initiatives?

‘It’s a very Hitachi approach. We’re not going to do a Dell and you know, kill a product line and panic. We’re taking customers on a journey,’ says Ian Clatworthy, director of data platform marketing for Hitachi Vantara.

Hitachi Vantara Tuesday unveiled Virtual Storage Platform One, a new data platform and data management technology that will over time bring all the company’s storage technologies into a single hybrid cloud data platform.

For Hitachi Data, the goal is to have a single common data platform for infrastructure alongside a single common data management software family, said Ian Clatworthy, director of data platform marketing for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

“We’re taking their entire portfolio of data storage offerings and collapsing them into a single data platform,” Clatworthy told CRN. “We’re taking their block, file, object, and mainframe storage capabilities, and offering that as a single data platform. And customers will be able to take that either as an appliance, as software-defined, or natively running in the public cloud.”

[Related: Storage Vendors Evolve With The Times: 2023 Storage 100]

Hitachi Vantara’s Virtual Storage Platform One, or VSP One, is not aimed at replacing the company’s current various storage lines including its original VSP arrays, Clatworthy said.

“It’s not an elimination, it’s an amalgamation,” he said. “So they will not be chucking things out. There’s no forklift upgrades. It will all have a transition plan into the new strategy. It’s a very Hitachi approach. We’re not going to do a Dell and you know, kill a product line and panic. We’re taking customers on a journey.”

Hitachi Vantara was formed in 2017 by combining the Hitachi Data Systems storage and data center infrastructure business, the Hitachi Insight Group IoT business, and its Pentaho big data business into a new combined company aimed at delivering collaborative data offerings for commercial and industrial enterprises.

With VSP One, the company plans to eventually have a combined operating system across all the different data types, Clatworthy said.

“We will offer block, file, object, and mainframe storage across a common data plane,” he said. “Because having an underlying OS across all of those different data types, it gives us an ability to transport data across deployments. We’re going to manage it as one with a single control plane, so common management, common embedded data protection, and all the AIOps stuff that they have. So not just an AIOps capability only aligned to block. We’ll be able to do that across file and object. And then we’ll then pull together a common data fabric, allowing us to look at data discovery, classification, integration, and things like that.”

VSP One will also offer native storage as code so all of those applications can directly consume the infrastructure, Clatworthy said.

“Today, about 30 percent of their customers never use their UI or GUIs, or interfaces,” he said. “They just do it natively in code. And we’re seeing that growing. With VSP One, they may have a head start with that on the block side. How do they bring that parity across into the object and file sides. This pushes us to have parity across the data types on the one platform.”

Hitachi Vantara also has not had real native cloud capability, Clatworthy said.

“As part of their first release in February, you will now be able to natively run VSP One block in the public cloud,” he said. “And there will be a cadence of go-to-market around that too as they build more capability around file and then object.”

While the majority of data exists in file form, Hitachi Vantara is starting VSP One on the block data side, Clatworthy said.

“Being completely transparent, there are limitations in their file capability today,” he said. “What I need is a true distributed scale-out file architecture that they don’t necessarily have with their legacy BlueArc [NAS platform] acquisition. That is currently being developed.”

Hitachi Vantara VSP One was developed entirely using the company’s own intellectual property, Clatworthy said. However, he said, the company will be bringing together a community of vendor partners to build on its platform, he said. It will include technologies certified to work with VSP One including technologies from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Epic, Cisco, Broadcom, Commvault, Oracle, VMware, Veeam, and Veritas, he said.

VSP One is software-designed storage, meaning that it will work with physical or a virtual appliance or natively in a cloud, Clatworthy said.

A key part of VSP One is Hitachi Ops Center infrastructure software, Clatworthy said. For VSP One, it includes Ops Center Clear Sight to manage block, file, software-defined storage, and object data. It also includes Ops Center Advanced for analytics, automation, data protection, and data intelligence, he said.

“You want to see what your entire Hitachi estate is doing, and your virtualized estate as well,” he said. “You want to take your Dell stuff and have a look what that’s doing. They can do that with Clear Sight.”

Clear Sight is really a starting point for VSP One, Clatworthy said.

“What they found is, even with their biggest customers, they love this, because it’s just a quick dashboard overview,” he said. “Tell me what’s happening. I love the fact that I can do live telemetry on-prem for analytics. But actually, I still want that nice, easy to view dashboard of what’s happening.”

Ops Center Advanced is really focused on automation, Clatworthy said.

“This is the true, fully-featured full automation with live analytics and data protection, and we’re also going to be bringing data intelligence,” he said. “So now you can go and find out what data you’re storing. Is it dark data? Is it being used as part of Ops Center? And you can manage your server estate as part of Ops Center.”

Cloud-native capabilities will be provided by Virtual Storage Platform 360, which offers infrastructure as code, Clatworthy said. VSP 360 will manage the entire platform itself, extrapolated into the public cloud or on premises depending on customer need, he said.

“Your applications specifically go and talk to 360, and 360 will go and deploy and consume the infrastructure that is needed for that application,” he said.

“It will literally be, ‘I need to deploy something for Oracle,’” he said. ‘Okay. Is this mission critical?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Okay, what’s the capacity you need?’ ‘I need this done.’ And it will go and deploy it. It’s that simple. And it will do that based upon calling up AIOps and saying, ‘Well, what’s the right solution? Where do they have hotspots? Where do they have space? Do they need more capacity? They might need to order that on the back end? Can I put that in the public cloud?’

It’s an exciting time to be a Hitachi Vantara channel partner, said Joe Kadlec, vice president and senior partner at Irvine, Calif.-based Consiliant Technologies.

“VSP One looks to provide a tremendous amount of flexibility, and make it easy to manage the entire storage infrastructure,“ Kadlec told CRN. “If you don’t want file data on one infrastructure and block on another, bring them together on one data infrastructure with one data management. That could be a deadly combination.”

Hitachi Vantara has been a leader in enterprise storage, but with VSP One, instead of customers needing to manage multiple bricks, they will be able to overcome a lot of the performance limitations of the competition, Kadlec said.

Hitachi Vantara VSP One will initially be generally available early next year with block data capabilities, Clatworthy said. He expects the full roll-out to take about 36 months as Hitachi Vantara builds on the technology over time.

The Hitachi Vantara layoffs appear to be across the board and are happening as the company deals simultaneously with both a fast-growing digital transformation market and a maturing storage market.

Global analytics, IoT and storage technology developer Hitachi Vantara confirmed Thursday that it has begun laying off some of its 12,000 employees.

The layoffs could impact up to 1,500 Hitachi Vantara employees across the board, according to online news site Blocks & Files, which first reported the layoffs.

Hitachi Consulting was merged into Hitachi Vantara in January. The combined Santa Clara, Calif.-based entity brings together the former Hitachi Data Systems storage and data center infrastructure business, the Hitachi Insight Group IoT business, and the Pentaho data analytics business. The firm also own REAN Cloud, which was No. 403 on CRN’s 2019 Solution Provider 500 list.

[Related: Hitachi Combines Data Center Infrastructure, IoT, Big Data Capabilities In New Company: Hitachi Vantara]

A Hitachi Vantara spokesperson confirmed via email to CRN that there are layoffs happening but did not provide details on the number of employees or areas of the business that will be impacted.

The spokesperson denied that the layoffs would impact 1,500 people, saying the number is substantially lower.

The spokesperson wrote that, thanks to the exact integration with Hitachi Consulting and the January acquisition of intelligent data management technology developer Waterline Data, Hitachi Vantara is transforming into a new kind of digital infrastructure and solutions company.

"We are now simultaneously operating in the fast growth data management and analytics market and in the mature global data storage market. The global storage market is currently delivering only modest growth – a trend many of their competitors have also noted.

"We remain committed to the success of both their infrastructure and digital solutions businesses, however, like many of their industry peers, they have had to make some tough decisions to simplify and streamline their operations, Boost their financial performance and position ourselves for long-term success – this includes headcount reductions to optimize their organization," the spokesperson said in the email.

The spokesperson further wrote that Hitachi Vantara is taking steps to provide assistance and support to affected employees. And, the spokesperson wrote, the company is continuing to focus on its storage business even as the industry continues to mature.

"We remain optimistic that they can take share from their storage competitors with the exact introduction of the Hitachi VSP 5000 – the world’s fastest and most reliable data storage array. Initial customer response to the VSP 5000 has already surpassed expectations and they have other exciting innovations in the pipeline for 2020," the spokesperson wrote.

A solution provider who works closely with Hitachi Vantara told CRN that there has been word that there were going to be layoffs. However, the solution provider said, there was no word about where the layoffs were happening.

This story has been updated.

Hitachi ZX 225US LC-6

Hitachi’s UK operation has taken a multimillion pound writedown on the value of its plant in County Durham, as concerns mount over the future of the UK’s train manufacturing sector.

In its latest company accounts, Hitachi revealed a £64.8m impairment to the value of its plant in Newton Aycliffe, citing issues including a production gap and inflation.

Britain’s train manufacturers are reeling from a slowdown in rolling stock orders. Low passenger demand and increasing home working since the pandemic have decimated rail operator’s finances across the country, restricting orderbooks.

The French giant Alstom is currently consulting on up to 1,300 job cuts at its Litchurch Lane factory in Derby, which has no confirmed workload beyond the first quarter of 2024. 

The company’s chief executive warned this week that suppliers of the plant were already facing insolvency, as they await clarity from government before work stops in six weeks. The issues have been made worse by the government’s decision to axe the Northern Leg of HS2.

Hitachi’s £82m plant in the North East delivers trains to Avanti West Coast and East Midlands Railway and was the group’s first European factory.

Its accounts noted that the writedown should “not be interpreted that Newton Aycliffe is entering into a period of cessation” and would not have “any operational impact on its ability to deliver current or future orders.”

Industry warnings over future job losses have grown amid the deep cuts at Alstom. The Railway Industry Association (RIA), the trade body representing the UK rail supply community, has called for clarity over the time frame of future orders.

Speaking to the Transport Select Committee last week, RIA technical director David Clarke, said: “We need a visible and smoother pipeline for new and refurbished rolling stock, to provide clarity for rail suppliers and protect UK rail manufacturing… in the short to medium term.”

Hitachi was approached for comment. In a statement published in the Financial Times, who first reported the writedown, the company said: “We continue work with industry stakeholders and the UK government on opportunities surrounding new rolling stock orders such that they can continue to support and further enhance their investments here in the UK.”  

The Department for Transport was approached for comment.