HDS adds to advanced analytics portfolio with Pentaho buy

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) today closed its acquisition of data integration, visualization and analytics specialist Pentaho, building on its growing presence in Internet of Things (IoT), operational technology (OT), big data and machine-to-machine (M2M) analytics.

“IoT isn’t just about ‘big’ data — it’s also about small data that drives big outcomes,” Vernon Turner, IDC senior vice president of Enterprise Systems and IDC Fellow for The Internet of Things, said in a statement Thursday.

“Hitachi Data Systems is building a robust analytics framework that combines Hitachi’s formidable industrial, societal and business expertise with its rich portfolio of data infrastructure and analytics solutions,” he added. “The Pentaho platform provides a key unifying element that complements HDS’ OT and IT heritage and will pave the way for new innovations in the company’s IoT, analytics and Social Innovation solution portfolios.”

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Pentaho will now become ‘Pentaho, a Hitachi Data Systems company.’ It will retain its brand and operate independently under CEO Quentin Gallivan, who will now report to Kevin Eggleston, senior vice president of Social Innovation at HDS. While Pentaho will continue to offer its platform independently, it has also been integrated into HDS’ advanced analytics foundation software, which HDS says will enhance its existing big data analytics and processing technologies while extending the capabilities of its broader information management product and services portfolio.

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HDS has been on an acquisition tear in the past year or so in support of its Social Innovation and analytics portfolio. In addition to Pentaho, HDS has snapped up:

• oXya, which specialized in helping IT organizations manage private and hybrid cloud environments, and designed infrastructure for more effective and efficient implementations of SAP solutions, including the SAP HANA platform
• Avrio RMS, an integrator that specialized in designing, engineering and deploying turnkey wireless IP surveillance solutions for government and private organizations
• Pantascene, provider of a video and sensor interoperability application and investigative tool for public safety
• Sepaton, a specialist in disk-less data protection appliances for backup, restore, deduplication, replication and disaster recovery

HDS’s goal to to bringi these solutions together with its existing technologies to create a unified, integrated stack that combines IoT with operational technology and IT infrastructure.

The new Social Innovation solutions, unveiled in April, include the following:

• Hitachi Live Insight for IT Operations. This cloud-based M2M analytics solution provides the ability to analyze all machine data in the data center — from enterprise applications and data storage, to power distribution units and temperature sensors — to detect and identify the root cause of data center outages.
• Hitachi Clinical Repository (HCR) for Connected Health. This enhanced release of HCR has been expanded to support connected health with secure mobile access. HCR provides a multipurpose data repository where all clinical and nonclinical data can be stored, backed up, preserved and retrieved on a single, integrated platform, making patient records and health records sharable and discoverable across multiple caregivers.
• Hitachi Live Insight Center of Excellence. This center of excellence is intended to offer best of breed services, consulting and industry best practices around advanced data analytics solutions, applications, platforms and integrated solutions.

The new solutions built on and augmented existing solutions including Hitachi Visualization for Public Safety (a solution built on the Avrio and Pantascene acquisitions to help law enforcement by integrating data from cameras, sensors, emergency dispatch and social media) and Hitachi Live Insight for Telecom (providing real-time insight for network analysis). Together with Pentaho, HDS also recently delivered a new Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) solution for SAP HANA to enable developers to process and refine big data from any source, at scale.

HDS says it plans to continue to aggressively build on its IoT, OT, M2M and big data analytics footprint throughout 2015 and will introduce new solutions and services for things like connected cars and connected energy.

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