Hitachi Vantara’s latest news highlights their leadership in sustainable data center solutions, focusing on energy efficiency, carbon reduction, and eco-friendly tech.
When MSPs, VARs, and other channel business leaders see the word sustainability, they likely have a variety of reactions, from “what is it?” to “why do I need to care as a business leader?” and maybe even, “what can I do about environmental issues?” For Kim King, SVP of Strategic Partners and Alliances at Hitachi Vantara, the answer to all of those questions is quite a lot, actually.
Issue spans carbon, energy and water usage at data centers and within infrastructure builds
To Hitachi Vantara, sustainable technology is the cornerstone of infrastructure and data center builds.
“We have this, just, integral wanting to leave the planet better than we found it,” King said of the approach Hitachi takes to its products and corporate objective. “A lot of companies talk about it, but Hitachi lives it end to end.”
The company’s top three storage and infrastructure solutions are the three highest-graded products ranked by ENERGY STAR in the NVSS Disk Online 4 category. Hitachi’s storage configurations are built with cutting-edge and industry-leading carbon dioxide reduction technology. The company’s supply chain, including deployment, and corporate distribution centers and offices are examples of success in carbon footprint management, recycling programs, and more.
Across its portfolio, Hitachi Vantara’s products are reducing the carbon footprint, energy usage, and other resource needs of data centers worldwide. This is important from an ecological sense, and it also drives cost efficiencies for customers. In fact, many of Hitachi Vantara’s partners can take advantage of flexible pricing structures, advisory groups and business resources, and detailed business planning that all aim to best support the partner as they work to best serve their customers.
“We’ve been doing this for so long, I think Hitachi might be the best-kept secret in the world at this point,” said King.
Good for the planet, good for the bottom line: eco-friendly infrastructure, budget-friendly decisions
As King highlights, energy efficiency is not just an environmental imperative; as electricity prices rise, it is also key to cutting costs. Infrastructure spending also increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, as companies rushed to upgrade outdated builds to support remote working policies, but now many enterprises are cutting budgets at a time when computing ability is required more than ever.
King and Hitachi Vantara see their focus on sustainable technologies a natural fit for customers who are already considering changes to their infrastructure or need to upgrade their systems. The explosion of the use of GenAI and large language models (LLMs) has also exacerbated how resource-heavy data centers are while increasing the demand for their availability. All of this further encourages King and her team to drive home the value of sustainability in the industry with their partners.
“Since AI tools have really hit the market, most enterprises have shifted their focus to that, but AI is intrinsically tied to our sustainability goals,” King said. She highlighted the increasing demand for heating and cooling capabilities to keep data centers running has led to an uptick in energy consumption and emissions. Because Hitachi’s technology already accounts for reducing emissions and leads in sustainable practices as compared to competitors, the company sees an opportunity to aid partners and enterprises in balancing the demand for AI with the desire for sustainable tech.
To support partners on their adoption journey, Hitachi Vantara offers flexible financing and payment plans that allow MSPs and others to pay over time for new systems. King stresses the importance of balancing short-term spending with the need for long-term efficiencies.
“You might pay more in the short term, and we want to help mitigate that, but in the long-term, savings in energy and cooling costs to maintain your data make the benefits over the lifecycle much more tangible,” King said.
Partner ecosystem at the heart of value-driven conversations with clients
Hitachi Vantara works with a number of vendor partners, including Oracle and Cisco, and supports large enterprises around the world. For King, though, their resale and managed services partner ecosystem remains a crucial part of customer adoption.
“Our partners really almost do a better job than we do with value-based communications to customers,” King said. “Partners really live within their clients’ businesses, really understand them, and they are ultimately the ones helping those clients make the tough decisions. We’re here to support them.”
MSPs are not just product deployers; in most cases, they are also IT operational consultants, working with their clients to identify business opportunities, resource gaps, and how emerging tech like GenAI can best be practically applied to their workflows. King sees sustainable storage as a natural fit for the outcome-based conversations partners should have with their customers.
“I think we can all encourage a conversation around, ‘if you’re going to spend the money on the tech, why not spend it in a more sustainable way,’” King said. “Once we win partners over, and they see the outcomes, they want more and more info on how to adopt this with their customers.”
Hitachi Vantara’s focus on sustainability is not just a business play, and it doesn’t have to be for partners, either
Even with the various tangible business outcomes sustainability can provide, the focus on carbon dioxide emission reduction and programs like recycling models is about more than profit for King, the Hitachi Vantara team, and many of their partners. Hitachi Vantara is a mission-driven organization that includes sustainability in everything they execute, and King believes that all businesses can do so if they align their organizations with the right partners.
“If a partner is going to really care about sustainability or any other cause they care for, then they need to surround themselves with vendors and other companies who drive outcomes that reflect the values,” said King.
Hitachi Vantara’s partner ecosystem are some of the MSPs adopting sustainability as a business opportunity ahead of what might become a much larger international demand for sustainable technology advising in the future.
Article Credit: channelinsider