Hitachi Data Systems (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. and VMware Global Innovation OEM Partner of the Year, has announced Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) RS series, a fully integrated, software-defined data center (SDDC) rack-scale platform, powered by VMware Cloud Foundation.

Hitachi UCP RS enables customers to embrace hybrid cloud for faster time to market and pay-as-you-go economics. It also gives customers the freedom to optimise their IT investments by leveraging private and public cloud as an agile extension to their business. UCP RS provides flexibility to customers to either deploy integrated SDDC stack or build their own using Hitachi’s vSAN ready node and VMware software.

Alongside the launch of Hitachi UCP RS, the company has enhanced its hyperconverged system Unified Compute Platform (UCP) HC. Hitachi UCP HC all-flash and hybrid systems are now enabled with non-volatile memory (NVMe) and new sixth-generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors to deliver faster performance and reduced operating costs, maximising business value for customers. This enhancement allows for higher performance, lower latency and accelerated workloads through the use of modern data centre technology.

Questions answered

John Gilmartin, vice president and general manager, Integrated Systems, VMware commented, “Hitachi’s strong track record of innovation led them to be recognised as VMware Global Innovation OEM Partner of the Year at VMware Partner Leadership Summit 2017. This new Hitachi UCP RS solution powered by VMware Cloud Foundation is no exception. The solution improves productivity, delivers faster time to business value and accelerates the customer’s ability to realise the true power of their data.”

“Open questions exist regarding the extent to which advances in SDI technology can support a common virtual data center foundation upon which improved end-to-end IT service interoperability, resilience, elasticity and agility across a hybrid cloud infrastructure can be effectively realised,” according to Market Trends: Software-Defined Infrastructure — Who Can Benefit? (Gartner, June 2017). In addition, the report states that,  “Given the current state of public cloud service deployment and the maturity state of SDI, one of two options is possible: The first is an application-independent, common virtual data center infrastructure that can run atop an existing private data center infrastructure, a public cloud service or a combination of the two. This variation is called infrastructure-upward.”

Stronger together

Understanding the new demands placed on IT by data center modernisation initiatives, Hitachi has collaborated with VMware to develop the fully integrated, turnkey Hitachi UCP RS system to deliver reliable IT infrastructure for hybrid cloud deployments. Hitachi UCP RS also helps to minimise the complexity and guesswork of deploying and managing IT by uniquely automating provisioning, managing and monitoring for SDDCs, giving customers a competitive advantage, and delivering faster time to market and high availability of business applications.

“Our deep, collaborative partnership with VMware has led to the creation of powerful systems and innovative solutions that help our customers modernise their IT environments and put data at the center of their business,” said Bob Madaio, vice president of Integrated Solution Marketing at Hitachi. “With the launch of our UCP RS in addition to advancements in our hyperconverged UCP HC, Hitachi is empowering our customers to transform their IT environments, accelerate hybrid cloud deployments and further their digital business initatives,” he concluded.