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Rethink Cloud: Hitachi EverFlex with Cisco

The explosion of data, increases in complexity and security concerns haven't slowed down business requirements. In fact, the business's demand for digital transformation is ever-increasing and it demands more from the hybrid cloud environment. Hitachi Vantara and Cisco Systems have collaborated on a compelling advancement in cloud computing: Hitachi EverFlex with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud. It is an integrated management platform and flexible consumption model that aids companies in their fight against tightening budgets, rising costs, cyberattacks, new technology adoption, such as GenAI, talent gaps and ongoing demand for innovation. In short, it is the future of hybrid cloud, ready now at exactly the right time.

New Hybrid Cloud for Today's Business

There was a rush to public cloud by many of our customers. They soon found that they had overshot on that migration.  They really like the agility, flexibility, and scalability of the public cloud.  However, they found that the public cloud was much more expensive and more importantly, many found that the public clouds did not meet the security and compliance requirements of their business.  We found that many of the customers repatriating many of their applications back to the on-prem datacenters.  The current environment is definitely a hybrid environment with optimal placement of the applications in the public clouds, co-locations, and on-prem data centers.

This experience of the public cloud has also changed our customers' IT users' expectations of the on-prem infrastructure.  They are demanding the similar agility, flexibility, and scalability of the public clouds in their hybrid environment.

The demand on IT infrastructure is ever increasing, and there is a constant evolution of technologies, including cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and unified data platforms. They want the hybrid cloud to enable the adoption of  new technology faster and garner greater value from it at a lower cost and much less risk. 

Our customers can meet these requirements of the new hybrid cloud.  By adopting a cloud-like operating model through the modern hybrid cloud, they can break down their organization's data silos, streamline workflows and expand cross-functional collaboration. They can also apply advanced analytics to drive better-informed decision-making and optimize operational performance to new heights.

How To Put Next-Gen Cloud to Work

Hitachi has a long history of partnership with Cisco. For many years, Hitachi has offered Cisco Validated Design (CVD) with its Unified Compute Platform (UCP). UCP is a validated Converged Infrastructure (CI) consisting of Cisco UCS compute, Cisco Nexus/MDS switches, and Hitachi Storage systems. Hitachi EverFlex with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud solutions is the latest solution from Hitachi's partnership with Cisco.

This solution allows our customers to consume the most reliable, highly available, consumption-based hybrid cloud solutions in the industry.

The Advantage of Fresh Thinking

The cloud operating model enables our customers to focus on their core competencies, strategic initiatives and innovation instead of on the infrastructure.  Hitachi and Cisco deliver next-generation IT services and operations. This fresh approach to hybrid cloud has important advantages across many applications:

● Significant total cost-of-ownership (TCO) reduction.   Hitachi Managed Services has historically demonstrated 30-50% reductions across many industries.  This is accomplished through automation, orchestration, labor optimization, just-in-time delivery and the advantages of technologies such as Cisco Unified Networking and Hitachi Adaptive Solutions.

● Hybrid cloud acceleration through turnkey converged infrastructure solutions.

● Trusted platform for critical workloads: Enterprise compute from Cisco and 100% data availability from Hitachi Storage System.

● Service level catalog approach delivers scalability and flexibility by allowing you to adapt your infrastructure based on service level requirements, optimized performance and efficiency requirements, with a flexible pay-as-you-grow consumption model.

● Comprehensive infrastructure solutions from both companies' portfolios are high-performing, reliable and built to scale based on your unique business requirements.

● Improved sustainability solutions enable you to achieve sustainability goals with avenues to reduce hardware requirements. This has a cascading effect of reducing power, floorspace, cooling and CO2 metrics.

● API extensible platform is heterogeneous, allowing easy management and self-service of your existing and future infrastructure. It is integrated with your specific business processes and accelerates your modernization by adopting Cisco and Hitachi Vantara as-a-service solutions.

The Right Cloud for Today's Enterprise

Hitachi EverFlex with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud solutions meet your specific needs, no matter where your data is located, having the right apps, data and service in the right place, at the right cost and at the right time for your SLA. This includes:

Cloud Economics and Consumption Models

● Optimize costs through flexible consumption models.

●  Gain granular visibility into your cloud spending and identify optimization opportunities through advanced analytics and reporting tools.

Automation for Efficient Operations

●  Rightsizing workloads and automating resource provisioning. 

● Improve operational efficiency by automating routine tasks such as provisioning, patching and scaling resources, and eliminating human errors.

● Implement infrastructure as a service to automate deployment and configuration management to ensure consistency and compliance.

● Employ machine learning and AI to automate decision-making and optimize resource allocation.

Security and Compliance

● Implement a comprehensive security strategy for your hybrid cloud environment, including data encryption, access controls and threat detection and prevention.

● Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and industry standards.

● Continuously monitor and audit your cloud environment to identify and address security risks.

 

Next Steps

WWT ATC provides the ecosystem for our clients to preview this technology and run POC for their particular use cases.  Please contact your WWT account team to discuss the next steps.

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