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

Japan-based Hitachi Ltd. Tuesday said it has reorganized its data center infrastructure, big data and Internet of Things capabilities into a new business called Hitachi Vantara.

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

The new Hitachi Vantara business was formally unveiled Tuesday at the Hitachi Next 2017 conference being held this week in Las Vegas.

[Related: Hitachi Data Systems Lays Off Over 100 While Increasing Hiring For IoT, Cloud Initiatives]

Hitachi Vantara plans to continue developing its Hitachi Data Systems data infrastructure, storage and compute technologies; its Pentaho big data technology, and its Hitachi Insight strategic software and services capabilities including Hitachi Smart Data Center software and services, even as it brings them closer to each other in the new company

Hitachi and Hitachi Vantara Tuesday also jointly unveiled the commercial version of its first IoT platform, Lumada 2.0.

Lumada 2.0 is Hitachi’s first commercial Lumada IoT platform offering. Lumada was introduced in May 2016 as a co-creation platform to help customers learn the technology and provide feedback.

Lumada 2.0 brings customers a fully updated offering with a portable architecture that lets it be run both on-premises or in the cloud with support for industrial IoT deployments both at the edge and in the core.

The new IoT software is targeted at helping customers gain insight, predictions and recommendations from data in midscale to large-scale environments, and takes advantage of advanced analytics that were enhanced with artificial intelligence functionality at scale.

Lumada 2.0 also includes asset avatars that provide a digital representation of physical assets and rich metadata for analytics.

Hitachi is bringing Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight and Pentaho together in a new combined organization is a huge value-add to channel partners looking at how to tie together the various pieces that allow easy adoption of IoT and the cloud and especially the smart cities concept, said Joe Kadlec, vice president and senior partner at Consiliant Technologies, an Irvine, Calif.-based solution provider and longtime Hitachi channel partner.

Consiliant has been championing the smart city concept for some time and already is working closely to bring Hitachi technology to the city of Las Vegas, Kadlec told CRN.

"IoT plays right into the smart city," he said. "Smart city is tying security, smart lighting, smart trash cans and more. The city of Las Vegas is kind of a showcase for the rest of the country as to the benefits of the smart city concept."

Kadlec said that it was important that Hitachi rebranded its data infrastructure, IoT and big data assets as it brought them together in a new company .

"Hitachi can get a lot of mileage out of rebranding it all as Hitachi Vantara," he said. "A lot of people think of Hitachi Data Systems as a storage play. But with the rebranding, the company can have a whole new focus and a new brand with IoT and big data. We like it."

Hitachi Vantara spokespeople were unavailable to provide more information about the new company.

However, Hitachi Ltd. President and CEO Toshiaki Higashihara, in a prepared statement, said Hitachi Vantara marks a monumental change for the company and its customers.

"Now as the world is being transformed by digital tools and processes, we are unifying our strongest digital solutions companies together as a new Hitachi company that delivers exponential business impact for our customers and the betterment of society. The formation of Hitachi Vantara underscores Hitachi’s commitment to collaborative creation with customers and partners, and being a true innovation partner for the era of IoT," he said.