Hitachi launches managed AI Data Hub to boost analytics success
Hitachi Vantara has launched Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service, a new fully managed infrastructure offering designed to address the challenges of AI data preparation for enterprises.
The Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service provides organisations with a modern data lakehouse that combines integrated workbench capabilities for artificial intelligence (AI), business intelligence (BI), and broader enterprise data needs. The service aims to help organisations better integrate and manage their distributed data sources during a period of rapid AI adoption and complex data management requirements.
Recent research from Hitachi Vantara's State of Data Infrastructure Report highlights the scale of the challenge, revealing that 98% of surveyed organisations currently use more than one storage platform. Over half of these organisations store data across on-premises, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and public cloud environments. This proliferation of data platforms complicates AI data preparation.
The same research also indicates that up to 80% of AI and data projects do not succeed, with more than USD $100 billion lost annually due to difficulties in AI data preparation, enablement, and operational costs. The new service is intended to help address these issues by enabling customers to pay only for the infrastructure required, with built-in security and governance aligned to hybrid cloud models.
Data management for AI
Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service enables organisations to create a single view of enterprise data, which can be used to power both AI and BI initiatives with complete and timely information. This, according to the company, has potential to speed up insights and improve business decision-making. "Through this new offering, we're helping customers integrate, prepare and gain more control over relevant data despite the ensuing boom of unstructured data created by AI," said Jeb Horton, Senior Vice President, Global Services at Hitachi Vantara. "Ultimately, this solution empowers organisations to meet their data where it is, accelerating AI innovation and experimentation, delivering real-time insights, and significantly reducing the cost and complexity of managing today's distributed data landscape."
Built on Hitachi's Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One), the AI Data Hub integrates data in real time without duplication, providing a focus on data governance and quality at source. The system is designed to comply with data quality and regulatory requirements across diverse enterprise ecosystems.
Technology integration
The new service combines several technologies, including Hitachi EverFlex STaaS, VSP One and iQ, with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure that features GPU Compute and Networking as a Service. This approach aims to bring unified data management and AI capabilities into a single managed platform.
According to Hitachi Vantara, VSP 360 forms the core of unified data management by supporting block, file, object, and software-defined data infrastructures. The platform allows orchestration and automation of data services, policy compliance management, and predictive capabilities through AIOps observability.
Hitachi iQ infrastructure supports AI and analytics workloads through GPU servers, high-speed storage, and integrated networking to ensure performance and reliability. Quality, security, and flexible deployment options are prioritised.
The integration with Zetaris software provides a modern data lakehouse for real-time connection to diverse data sources and supports federated analytics. This ensures that data can be analysed in situ while maintaining governance standards, streamlining data pipelines and removing technical and cost barriers to analytics and machine learning deployments.
Business context
The arrival of the Hitachi EverFlex AI Data Hub as a Service comes amid growing attention on the limitations of traditional data architectures, which struggle to support the scale and operational tempo required for contemporary AI applications. The data hub enables customers to adopt a consumption-based model, improving cost efficiency and flexibility in resource allocation.
This service provides a unified platform for managing both AI and BI workloads, offering customers the opportunity to reduce operational complexity, ensure compliance, and harness business data for advanced analytics and real-time insight generation.
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