The News: Hitachi Vantara hired storage industry veteran Octavian Tanase as chief product officer, responsible for the vision, strategy, development, and execution of the company’s product portfolio. You can read the release on the Hitachi Vantara website.
Hitachi Vantara Names NetApp Vet to Lead Storage Product Strategy
Analyst Take: Tanase joins Hitachi Vantara from NetApp, where he spent the past 12 years. Most recently, he was senior vice president of hybrid cloud engineering at NetApp. At NetApp, he was responsible for the core technologies of NetApp’s All-Flash Array (AFF) and its flagship ONTAP storage and management software.
Of critical note, Tanase helped integrate NetApp’s software as “first class” citizens in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform clouds. Over the years, we have reported on this progress and its significance to the company. He previously held engineering and product development positions at Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and several startups.
Tanase’s hiring comes at a pivotal time for Hitachi Vantara. Last October, Hitachi spun out of Digital Services unit from Hitachi Vantara. That enabled Hitachi Vantara to focus solely on storage under the leadership of new CEO Sheila Rohra. Tanase reports to Rohra, who also spent a decade at NetApp. Her time at NetApp with CEO George Kurian was spent on corporate structuring, of which there is a Harvard Business Case Study. Clearly both these executives are no strangers to strategic changes.
The reorganized Hitachi Vantara’s goal is to become the global leader and storage and infrastructure. Hitachi has for long been respected for its storage technology but has not been as visible in the marketplace—particularly outside high-end enterprises—as competitors such as Dell, NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Pure Storage, and IBM. Of note, The Futurum Group’s client interactions hold Hitachi Vantara in esteem, particularly the company’s service and support. However, its visible absence, including communication on engineering investments will need to be ramped up for the company to regain its core market.
New leadership is focused on expanding its share in the commercial and mid-sized markets. The short-term plan is to defend and strengthen its core storage business, with the longer-term goal of becoming the overall No. 1 hybrid cloud infrastructure provider. That will require expanding its software-defined storage products on-prem and in public clouds, and its storage-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service offerings. Hitachi also plans to add AI-powered data analytics to help customers gain greater value from their data.
During Tanase’s time at NetApp, the company co-engineered services with the three major hyperscalers’ incorporating its software into their clouds. NetApp in 2022 launched BlueXP, a management plane for all of its storage systems.
Hitachi bills VSP One as its hybrid cloud data platform. VSP One is one fabric, data plane and control plane for all Hitachi Vantara’s products, although it will take time to integrate everything. The vision is to create common management for its storage products, including Virtual Storage Platform block and mainframe storage, Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) object storage, Hitachi NAS (HNAS) file storage, and Virtual Storage Software (VSS) software-defined storage.
Tanase’s time at NetApp, co-engineering services with the three major hyperscalers’ incorporating its software into their clouds and their BlueXP, a management plane for all of its storage systems, will be a big gain for Hitachi Vantara. We look forward to seeing his impact on this strong legacy company.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
Storage as a Service Consumption Programs Multiplied in 2023 – The Futurum Group
Key Trends in Hybrid Cloud and Infrastructure for 2024 – The Futurum Group
2024 Trends and Predictions for Data Storage – The Futurum Group
Author Information
Dave’s focus within The Futurum Group is concentrated in the rapidly evolving integrated infrastructure and cloud storage markets. Before joining the Evaluator Group, Dave spent 25 years as a technology journalist and covered enterprise storage for more than 15 years. He most recently worked for 13 years at TechTarget as Editorial Director and Executive News Editor for storage, data protection and converged infrastructure. In 2020, Dave won an American Society of Business Professional Editors (ASBPE) national award for column writing.
His previous jobs covering technology include news editor at Byte and Switch, managing editor of EdTech Magazine, and features and new products editor at Windows Magazine. Before turning to technology, he was an editor and sports reporter for United Press International in New York for 12 years. A New Jersey native, Dave currently lives in northern Virginia.
Dave holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Journalism from William Patterson University.
Camberley brings over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career has spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley has provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
