IoT, a New Class of Data

Over the past 10 years Hitachi has been working diligently to build-out a world class team intently focused on storing, managing, protecting, and analyzing all classes of data. We see 3 distinct classes of data, each with unique requirements: business data, unstructured data, and machine data. Business data includes data that lives in transactional systems; such as Oracle databases, SAP ERP systems, and SaaS offerings such as Salesforce and Workday. Unstructured data includes digital assets such as audio, video, photos, email, and Microsoft Office documents. Today, unstructured data typically lives in object storage platforms, such as Amazon S3 and the Hitachi Content Platform. Machine data includes real-time data that is streaming off of machines, living beings, and software systems. IoT platforms, such as PTC’s ThingWorx and Hitachi’s Lumada, are emerging as robust repositories for machine data.

Hitachi has been developing market-leading enterprise class storage systems for 20 years now. Many of the biggest companies in the world run their mission-critical back-office business systems on Hitachi storage. In 2010 Hitachi began to move up the stack, providing fully converged infrastructure offerings that combine server, network, and storage technology with virtualization and application software. Hitachi’s Unified Compute Platform is a turnkey offering that enables VMware and application administrators to manage millions of dollars of enterprise class hardware with minimal knowledge of server, network, or storage technology. That is, Hitachi can roll-in Oracle systems, SAP systems, VMware systems, etc. Simply plug them in, power them on, connect them to the network, and off you go. Hitachi has made it ultra simple to deploy and consume IT infrastructure that manages mission-critical business data.

In 2007 Hitachi acquired Archivas, a Boston-based start-up focused on digital archiving. This technology became the core of Hitachi’s hybrid cloud storage portfolio – the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP). HCP is able to store and protect massive amounts of human-generated unstructured data. HCP accomplishes this by virtualizing and pooling prem-based and cloud based storage capacity. That is, you can onboard Hitachi storage, 3rd party storage, and cloud based storage. You can then create policies that manage the placement and movement of unstructured data to the appropriate pool of storage. You can also change these policies at anytime and HCP will transparently rebalance the existing and net new incoming content. This offering is so powerful that it is used to manage all the digital assets for the previous two US Presidents – 16 years worth of data.

In 2016 Hitachi announced the Lumada IoT platform and it has rapidly been building out the Lumada organization and platform. In September of 2017 Hitachi announced the Hitachi IoT Appliance, a turnkey offering for modeling, managing, analyzing and visualizing massive amounts of real-time machine data. As part of this offering Hitachi introduced the Asset Avatar, a digital representation of a physical machine, a living being, or a software system. Customers are able to very easily create Asset Avatars, connect them to their real-world counterparts, and visualize and analyze the incoming real-time streaming data. Asset Avatars translate raw cryptic machine data into human readable information, that can be blended with other classes of data. Hitachi technology is making it very easy to design and deploy IoT solutions in a number of settings; including data centers, factories, mining sites, and cities. And, Hitachi is proud to be recognized with a 2018 IoT Breakthrough Award for our efforts.

Many companies cobble together a portfolio via multiple acquisitions and homegrown solutions. But, very rarely do they arrive at an integrated portfolio where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. At Hitachi we are proud to be one of the only companies on the planet that can roll-in a complete portfolio that meets your unique needs for business data, unstructured data, and machine data. Business systems are deployed on our Unified Compute Platform. Audio, video, images and end-user documents land on our Hitachi Content Platform. And, machines get connected to our Hitachi IoT Appliance. In addition, Hitachi technology enables customers to make powerful decisions across all of their data, creating dynamic views that cut across Oracle databases, SAP ecosystems, SaaS solutions, end-user documents, and fleets of machines. This is a vision that we have been executing against for the past 10 years. With the advent of IoT and our Lumada platform we are now able to turn this vision into a reality for our customers.