Let’s dive into Hitachi Vantara, a division of the larger Hitachi group. Since we last checked in, they’ve revamped their storage lineup, particularly focusing on the VSP One family. This lineup covers block, file, and object storage, catering to diverse needs—from speedy NVMe flash to high-capacity HDDs. You can find their solutions in on-premise setups, cloud environments, and even mainframes.
Hitachi Vantara offers a range of as-a-service procurement models and provides a full stack of IT solutions, including computing and networking through partnerships. They’re also on board with containerization for cloud-native deployments.
As part of the Hitachi corporation, which ranked 196th in the Forbes Global 500 last year, Vantara plays a smaller role in a massive empire. Hitachi’s total revenue for the fiscal year 2020 hit $70.72 billion, with around 270,000 employees worldwide in 2024. Vantara formed in 2017 from a merger of Hitachi Data Systems and the Pentaho business intelligence and Hitachi Insight Group. The name “Vantara” is meant to suggest advantage and a vantage point, according to CEO Brian Householder.
In terms of performance, Hitachi Vantara reported revenues of 2,599 billion yen (about $18.4 billion) in their Digital Systems & Services segment for 2023, showing a 4% increase year-on-year. Still, their storage revenue is relatively modest. IDC estimates their external storage revenues at $1.55 billion, capturing a 4.9% market share, a slight rise from $1.42 billion and 4.4% the year before. This places Hitachi Vantara seventh among storage array providers, on par with IBM.
When it comes to key products, the flagship is the Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) One, launched in late 2024. VSP One integrates on-premise and cloud data, supporting all-QLC and object storage. Its VSP 5000 series leads in block storage, with models like the all-flash 5200 and 5600, which offer remarkable capacities and connectivity options. The 5200 supports nearly 300PB, while the 5600 enhances throughput considerably.
VSP One includes a more mid-range offering with a 2U form factor, scaling from 32TB to 1.8PB. The E series—E590 and E790—focus on similar scalability but without mainframe access.
In the file storage space, the VSP One File series caters to different needs—ranging from entry-level to high-performance models, each with varying connectivity options. For object storage, VSP One Object delivers S3-native capabilities, addressing data lake and AI/ML applications, while the Hitachi Content Platform manages unstructured data, scaling up to exabytes.
Hitachi Vantara targets a broad spectrum of workloads, from small businesses to enterprise-level demands, including AI and transactional processing. They launched the iQ portfolio in 2024 to integrate Nvidia’s technologies with their storage, aimed at AI use cases.
Cloud integration sits at the heart of their strategy. VSP One enables seamless data access across multiple datacenters and cloud providers, supporting hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Their container strategy connects VSP One with Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift, simplifying storage management for stateful applications.
Hitachi Vantara offers flexible consumption models through their EverFlex infrastructure as a service. This service allows on-demand, pay-per-use options ranging from self-managed to fully managed setups. They also provide data protection services based on VSP One infrastructure, with a cloud-based portal for service management that flexibly scales storage needs, starting from 50TB up to petabytes, and covers additional usage costs.