Hitachi Vantara storage named leader in GigaOm AI era

Hitachi Vantara has been named a Leader and Outperformer in GigaOm's latest Radar report for primary storage for the second year in a row, based on its Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One) hybrid cloud data platform.

The independent assessment placed VSP One in the Innovation/Platform Play quadrant. It evaluated 19 vendors across primary storage for traditional applications, hybrid cloud, AI and machine learning workloads, and edge computing.

GigaOm's report states that primary storage is now a core business risk decision. It links this shift to rising data volumes from AI and a higher level of AI-enabled cyber threats.

Industry research cited in the report found a 47% global rise in reported AI-enabled cyberattacks this year. It also found that 68% of cyber threat analysts see AI-generated phishing attempts as harder to detect than before.

GigaOm says modern primary storage now acts as a last line of defence against cyberattacks. It also says storage platforms have a role in supporting data-intensive analytics and AI model training.

Whit Walters, Field CTO at GigaOm, said the primary storage market is changing fast as organisations deal with mixed workloads. "The primary storage market has rapidly evolved as organizations work to support a wide range of traditional and modern workloads," said Walters, field CTO at GigaOm. "Hitachi Vantara's VSP One platform exemplifies this strategy by delivering a single, resilient platform that can span edge, core and cloud deployments to support workloads from traditional mainframe and business applications to modern, AI-driven use cases. At the same time, the company is maintaining an emphasis on innovation, with an aggressive roadmap focused on expanding data services, enhancing hybrid cloud integration and preparing for the future demands of AI-driven workloads."

Cyber resilience focus

GigaOm highlighted VSP One's ransomware protection features. These include immutable storage, guarantees of 100% data availability and support for rapid, clean data recovery.

Hitachi Vantara says customers can recover clean data in seconds after a ransomware incident. It compares this with longer recovery periods that are common with traditional backup methods.

The evaluation also pointed to VSP One's data protection and support for diverse workloads. This includes support for software-defined storage versions of the platform in the AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure marketplaces.

Octavian Tanase, Chief Product Officer at Hitachi Vantara, said the recognition aligned with the company's infrastructure strategy for AI workloads. "This recognition from GigaOm validates our efforts to build modern data infrastructure that delivers the performance, scalability and cybersecurity protection capabilities that the AI era demands," said Octavian Tanase, chief product officer at Hitachi Vantara. "Cyberattacks are a constantly evolving threat. By providing eight nines of availability, coupled with Hitachi's Cyber Resilience Guarantee, we can offer near-zero data loss and rapid recovery, giving customers greater resilience in their IT operations."

Unified management

GigaOm's report cited VSP One's integration with the VSP 360 unified management tool. VSP 360 uses an API-first design.

The product includes AIOps-based analytics and observability. It also includes guided workflows and mobile access for storage administration.

Hitachi Vantara offers Kubernetes integration for DevOps teams that run cloud-native deployments. The tools support storage management as part of application deployment processes.

The company says this integration supports automation of persistent volume provisioning and routine data management tasks in container environments.

Consolidated evaluation

This year, GigaOm combined its large enterprise and mid-size business primary storage evaluations into a single report. It says vendors now need to address requirements that span different scales of deployment.

Under the new framework, VSP One is recognised for its role in mixed workload environments. These include traditional mainframe and business applications as well as newer AI-driven use cases.

Sustainability and awards

Hitachi Vantara has positioned VSP One as a platform that targets sustainability and cost as well as data security. The company says some VSP One Block systems deliver a 30% to 40% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with older systems.

CRN recently named VSP One as its 2025 Storage Product of the Year in the cloud storage category. ENERGY STAR has also ranked the platform as its top storage solution in its energy efficiency category.

Hitachi Vantara has introduced flexible licensing models for VSP One. It also offers non-disruptive upgrade paths.

The company has launched VSP One Block High End, which is an all-flash NVMe block storage system. It targets mission-critical business workloads and emerging AI uses.

Hitachi EverFlex sits alongside the storage platform and provides pay-as-you-go and subscription purchasing options. The company describes this as a way for customers to align storage costs more closely with usage.

This latest GigaOm placement extends a series of industry awards for Hitachi Vantara in infrastructure, security and sustainability. The company says it will continue to expand VSP One's data services and hybrid cloud integrations as AI-related storage demands increase.