There is a growing trend in the enterprise environment to move away from classic virtualisation platforms to more flexible Kubernetes-native solutions. Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat are meeting these expectations by presenting an integrated solution that combines the functionality of Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with the Hitachi Vantara VSP One platform. The aim: to simplify the migration of existing virtual machines and consolidate infrastructure into a single, hybrid environment.
What does integration actually offer?
The new stack allows virtual machines (VMs) and containers to run side-by-side, avoiding duplication of infrastructure and reducing the cost of licences for both layers. At the heart of it lies the integration of components:
- Hitachi VSP One acts as a storage layer (block, file and object), supporting both VM (via CSI) and container operations.
- Global Active Device (GAD) enables active access to data in multiple locations, which promotes distributed resilience.
- The jointly developed reference architecture supports high availability – in stretched clusters, with an optional third-site quorum, including an OpenShift master in a public cloud or isolated location.
- Hitachi provides a plug-in for containers (HSPC / CSI driver) that supports, among other things, the ReadWriteMany access model, snapshots, cloning and dynamic space allocations.
- In addition, storage offload is offered during ‘cold’ migration, i.e. transferring data copy tasks from the network/server to the array, reducing downtime.
This configuration allows companies to more easily move out of VMware (or other classic hypervisor) ecosystems and build a cloud platform based on Kubernetes and OpenShift. In practice, Hitachi is targeting this offering at organisations ‘off VMware migrators’.
Why now?
Several trends support the pace of adoption:
1. escalating licensing costs – according to the release, 73% of companies have undergone a licensing audit and more than 1/3 indicate licensing compliance as a major issue.
2. increasing requirements for workload mobility – businesses want to move components between locations and the cloud with minimal downtime.
3 Pressure to consolidate infrastructure – instead of maintaining two stacks (VM + containers), a homogeneous, consistent environment is desirable.
4 There is a growing market for open source virtualisation solutions in Kubernetes, not least thanks to KubeVirt as the OpenShift Virtualisation engine.
Implementation case: Alior Bank
Alior Bank, which operates in Poland, has been identified as an early adopter of the integration. The bank decided to migrate to the Red Hat OpenShift Virtualisation platform using VSP One, in response to increased licensing costs and limitations on the flexibility of its existing environment. In its context, a key motivation was the desire for a ‘future-ready’, resilient and scalable infrastructure.
The new solution brings significant benefits: the ability to consolidate VMs and containers, reduced licensing costs, simplified migration and increased resilience in distributed environments. However, challenges remain:
- Migrating large environments – even with an offload option – requires thoughtful planning and testing; not every VM is immediately convertible.
- Complexity of the reference architecture – extended stretch clusters require advanced network management and operational compliance.
- Lock-in risk at the storage and CSI layer – although the solution goes out of its way to avoid hypervisor dependency, the customer still uses a combination of Red Hat + Hitachi.
- Ecosystem maturity – adopting a new stack from OpenShift Virtualisation + VSP One requires that integrations and operational support are mature in the customer environment.
