Hitachi Vantara, the data storage, infrastructure, and hybrid cloud management subsidiary of Hitachi, has launched Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service. This new as a Service offering provides a fully managed, all-in-one infrastructure consumption service, which addresses AI data preparation challenges by providing a modern data lakehouse with integrated workbench capabilities for AI, BI and data needs.
“It’s a pretty exciting time in the data industry,” said Marcel Escorcio, VP and GM of Canada. “There are a lot of challenges in the AI world around data preparation. Data is everywhere. It’s all about helping customers with their data preparation. Our EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service provides faster AI and BI insights and cost insights around that. The real time insights reduce cost complexity and management.”
The offering sees Hitachi Vantara involved in a three-way partnership.
“We take complexity away and manage it for customers, with the combination of our VSP, Cisco servers and the Zetaris software, which allows us to move the queries to the data,” Escorcio stated.
He emphasized that storage has become increasingly complex, with Hitachi Vantara’s recent State of Data Infrastructure Report finding 98% of organizations are using more than one storage platform for their data, and 57% storing data on all four types of platform: on-premises, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and public cloud.
“In addition to the AI data preparation challenges, AI projects tend to be ineffective,” Escorcio added. “From a Canadian perspective there are a lot of requirements to partner, particularly as 80% of initiatives fail. AI is supposed to HELP customers, and this isn’t happening. On the other hand, we deliver to a rigorous SLA.”
The Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service is designed to support robust data quality and governance, so that customers can leverage the service to enable a single view of enterprise data to feed their AI and BI initiatives with complete and timely data, unlocking faster insights and better business outcomes.
“This is distinct because it is moving AI to the data in real time,” Escorcio said. “Unlike traditional ETL-heavy approaches that require data replication and movement, Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub uses Zetaris modern lakehouse technology allows enterprises to analyze data in place, reducing data duplication, ensuring real-time access, and maintaining data quality and governance at the source.”
Built on Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One), the as a service solution brings together Hitachi EverFlex STaaS, VSP One and iQ technologies with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud IaaS solutions containing GPU Compute and Networking as a Service, and Zetaris software.
The market for this is comparatively broad
“It is for enterprises looking to modernize infrastructure, but not just enterprises, depending on the business the customer is doing,” Escorcio noted.
“All organizations are moving to something AI,” he added. “From a persona perspective, it provides different revenue streams and we offer it as a service where we do everything for you. In addition, this is a new stack, and not a ‘Rip and Replace’ offering. It’s not an upgrade, and not a widget, but is for those who need to implement AI. It’s very much thinking in partnership with the client.”
Zetaris is by far the least well known of the three partners. They make modern lakehouse for AI software, which enables real-time connectivity to diverse data sources and performs federated analytics for data in place, emphasizing data governance and quality at the source, reducing cost inefficiencies and technical barriers to analytics and business intelligence. Escorcio said they are highly effective at what they do.
“Zetaris is an Australian company with very good people,” he said. “This includes Robert Herjavec, who has joined them.” Well-known in Canada as both a business leader and a venture capitalist in media, Herjavec founded The Herjavec Group, a security solutions integrator, reseller, and managed service provider in 2003. He stayed as CEO for several years following their 2021 sale and subsequent rebranding as Cyderes. He became Executive Director of Global Strategy at Zetaris in March 2025.
“Zetaris has some point solution competitors, includes cloud lakehouse competitors, but their breadth and depth encompass all these categories,” Escorcio said. “The service accelerates data pipelines, enabling rapid AI and machine learning deployment, and provides a unified platform for AI, BI, and data operations.”