They include Virtual Storage Software Block, a new software-defined data platform that extends Hitachi’s virtual storage platform to cloud native applications, but the most interesting one for channel partners may be the VSP E1090, their new top of the line mid-range storage array.

Today, in their MegaLaunch announcement, Hitachi Vantara is making a series of major new hybrid cloud products and services. These include Virtual Storage Software [VSS] Block, a new software-defined data platform that extends Hitachi’s virtual storage platform to cloud native applications. They also include the VSP E1090, their beefiest E series mid-range storage array to date, Hitachi Cloud Connect, a colo-based offering in partnership with Equinix that enables the extension of the data fabric to near-cloud, Hitachi Ops Center Clear Sight, an AI-driven cloud management tool that extends the functionality of the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform with simplified cloud-based reporting and analytics, and Unified Compute Platform RS, an expanded hyperconverged “cloud in a box” offering

“In October we talked about driving companies’ journey to the hybrid cloud., said Radhika Krishnan, Chief Product Officer at Hitachi Vantara. “That’s also what todays announcements are geared toward. What we are really trying to do is deliver, evolve and ensure what we provide in traditional infrastructure, and build on that journey. Software-defined infrastructure allows you to instantiate the same value propositions in the cloud.”

“This is a very exciting announcement for us,” said Marcel Escorcio, GM & regional VP of Hitachi Vantara Canada. “It’s not easy for enterprise technology to come down in the market.”

Hitachi’s VSS Block is a new software-defined data platform that provides cloud agility and scalable storage support for traditional and cloud-native applications running on commodity x86 servers. It provides customers with a single data plane across Hitachi’s mid-range, enterprise, and software defined storage portfolio by using Hitachi’s universal, Storage Virtualization Operating System (SVOS). This will connect to Hitachi’s near-cloud offerings and ultimately extend into the public cloud.

“The same OS running both our high-end storage ensures that this gets the same value proposition from our high-end storage, including extreme levels of scaling,” Krishnan said. “Our patented Polyphase Erasure Coding also gives better data read performance and efficiency compared to traditional erasure coding.”

Krishnan also indicated that while VSS Block will appeal to Hitachi’s largest customers, the market is broader than that.

“It’s definitely enterprise customers, but also midmarket,” she said. “It’s anyone who wants to standardize on x86 building blocks.”

Hitachi Cloud Connect provides new near-cloud data services for cloud applications with enterprise class storage speed and reliability combined with cloud compute provisioning and scaling. Hitachi Cloud Connect at Equinix is a colo-based offering, initially available in partnership with Equinix. It lets customers run Hitachi VSP enterprise-class storage at Equinix International Business Exchange data centers worldwide and includes the option for customers to procure this solution through one agreement and one invoice.

“A lot of customers in the public cloud face egress charges, which they can avoid when partnered with the Equinix facility,” Krishnan said. “We are starting out with Equinix but we plan to expand to other colos, especially in APAC and other places where other colo brands are more popular.”

The VSP E1090 becomes the newest and most powerful member of Hitachi Vantara’s midrange portfolio, and can support larger configurations and broader consolidation. It has the lowest latency of any NVMe midrange storage on the market at 41µs and a performance of 8.4M IOPs, non-disruptive data-in-place migration.

“This has the value proposition of the high end in a 2U form factor,” Krishnan said. “What we have added to the E series with this is virtual storage scale out, so that it is able to get significant scaling and federated data management. It provides the ability to take advantage of the same performance resilience of the high end down to the midmarket.”

“The VSP E1090 is a great bridge for the Canadian marketplace and our partners in particular, in terms of its ability to solve distributed data-type issues,” Escorsio said. “From the partner side, what we have announced gives them a simplified data management strategy. And we just added an MSA storage assurance program. Don’t ever underestimate a 100% data availability guarantee, even though we don’t really promote it enough.”

The Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) family of converged and hyperconverged solutions now provides ‘cloud in a box’ functionality, which lets  businesses improve application release time, enhance operational simplicity and reduce costs with cloud flexibility, intelligent automation, and scalable performance.

“This adds support for VMware Tanzu, ensuring that we stay concurrent with what the market is demanding,” Krishnan said. “We also have certified on all the new Intel and NVIDIA offerings.”

Also new is Hitachi Ops Center Clear Sight, a cloud-based, AI-driven app for monitoring assets from anywhere that becomes part of Hitachi Ops Center. Ops Center Clear Sight lets administrators observe, analyze and optimize VSP storage infrastructure remotely, generate AI-driven insights show up-to-date inventory asset views, health status, risk management, and capacity planning. This can resolve up to 90% of support issues using predictive analysis before they affect your environment.

“We believe to get to outcome-based SaaS driving, you need self driving infrastructure,” Krishnan stated. “It is able to dramatically reduce manual processes up to 70%, and improve customer uptime and support experience.”

New services include an expansion of their on demand, subscription, and managed service solutions, portfolio, Everflex. Hitachi Infrastructure Orchestration as a Service has been added. The new offering extends Hitachi Vantara’s data storage management and automation expertise to complex, multi-site IT environments, and helps create service-based infrastructures that facilitate autonomous, ‘self-driving’ IT operations that adapt to changing requirements for ongoing infrastructure modernization.

Hitachi also announced the new Commvault HyperScale X for Hitachi Data Protection Suite, which accelerates hybrid cloud adoption with an integrated solution that delivers comprehensive data protection from a single, extensible platform.