E-Business
HDS Unveils Solutions to Free Data from Traditional Hardware
Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., has made another leap forward in its technology leadership for delivering software-defined infrastructures that enable customers to simplify IT and free data from traditional hardware and location constraints, making it more accessible for all existing and new analytics-driven workloads.
With the newest additions to the Hitachi VSP family – the G200, G400, G600 and the upcoming G800, unveiled in Lagos on Tuesday, Hitachi Data Systems as an IT vendor addresses customer workload requirements from entry to the mainframe with a single software stack.
Extending the reach of powerful software capabilities that are built into Hitachi SVOS allows the entire VSP family to offer native heterogeneous storage virtualisation and multi-site active-active storage – as well as fully compatible data migration, replication and management.
Customers now have the ability to choose systems based on the necessary capacity, performance and price required to meet their business goals, not because of functional difference.
According to Ben Jooste, regional sales manager, Sub Saharan Africa, “To effectively unlock the value of a software-defined infrastructure, technology must simplify operations through automation, drive insight through better access to information, and improve agility through abstraction that turns fixed assets into flexible resources”.
Customers looking at smaller systems will now get access to the same virtualisation technology that has existed in prior HDS high-end systems that have achieved the highest overall product and use-case specific scores within Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for General-Purpose, High-End Storage Arrays1.
Best of Breed Converged Platforms for Any Workload: The Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) portfolio has been expanded with new hyper-converged and converged infrastructure models that now cover customers’ needs to rapidly and more easily support core to edge IT workloads.
The latest additions to the UCP family include the hyper-converged Hitachi UCP 1000 for VMware EVO:RAIL, and the converged Hitachi UCP 2000, both use new rack servers and target small to medium or remote or branch office environments.
The Hitachi UCP 6000 converged model integrates the recently launched Hitachi CB 2500 blade servers, and delivers unmatched price-performance for mission critical workloads.
Creating the Active Data Lake for Big Data Analytics: The hyper-converged architecture of the new Hitachi Hyper Scale-Out Platform (HSP) provides cost-effective compute performance and on-demand capacity.
Capable of ingesting massive amounts of mixed data types across a distributed, clustered architecture, the simple, automated management of HSP allows elastic data growth by using Hitachi file system technology with open source management and virtualisation software.
HSP is the ideal scale-out platform for Hadoop environments, allowing users to analyze data in place and eliminate the need to move large data sets to perform analytics functions for big data.
Automated, Application-Led Storage Provisioning and Data Protection: Hitachi Automation Director, a new application that works with the Hitachi Command Suite management infrastructure, provides configurable best-practice-based service templates for simple, application-specific provisioning of storage resources to databases, applications and VDI environments.
Built-in support for role-based access control means that, once established, these templates can be used by business users in a move to self-service provisioning.
As a lightweight complement to Hitachi Command Suite, Hitachi Infrastructure Director is a new storage configuration and management application that uses the new VSP systems’ APIs to provide simple, intuitive management, guided by a built-in recommendation engine, for environments in which simplicity is more important than the need for manual control of every detail.
Hitachi Infrastructure Director gives users the power to direct simplified management operations to rapidly deploy new storage systems and services for the new models in the VSP family.
“For us to truly unlock the value of software-defined storage, the chosen technology must simplify operations through automation, drive insight for more flexible and robust access to data and create agility through abstraction by making fixed resources flexible. Hitachi offers a portfolio to make our goal of a software-defined infrastructure a reality,” said Darius Harris, senior IT manager, Nedbank, South Africa. “In a big move toward this goal, Hitachi is extending its Storage Virtualisation Operating System (SVOS) to an expanded Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) family, essentially bringing the power and potential of storage virtualisation within reach to organisations like ours.”
Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., builds information management and Social Innovation solutions that help businesses succeed and societies be safer, healthier and smarter. We focus on big data that offers real value – what we call the Internet of Things that matter.
Its IT infrastructure, analytics, content and cloud solutions and services drive strategic management and analysis of the world’s data.
Only Hitachi Data Systems integrates the best information technology and operational technology from across the Hitachi family of companies to deliver the exceptional insight that business and society need to transform and thrive.
Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has launched an investigation into allegations that the confidentiality and integrity of candidates’ personal data may have been compromised by hackers.
The Commission initiated the inquiry following concerns over possible data breaches during examinations.
Preliminary findings indicate that several examination centres may not have implemented adequate technical and organizational measures to safeguard candidates’ personal information, as required under data protection regulations.
Although the incident reportedly affected 379, 997 candidates, the NDPC’s investigation is poised to cover a systemic audit of data processing and third parties.
It will be recalled that JAMB recently admitted that a technical error on its platform affected a total of 379,997 candidates in 157 examination centres across Lagos and the South-East.
Further investigation led to the arrest of at least 20 suspects who are currently in the custody of the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force.
Cyber security firm, Kaspersky, has once again warned that sophisticated cybercriminals increasingly target Africa as ransomware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) escalate across the region.
Speaking at the company’s annual Cyber Security Weekend for the Middle East, Turkiye and Africa (META) region, the cybersecurity firm’s Global Research and Analysis Team highlighted growing digital threats affecting African nations.
Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa emerged as hotspots, with Kenya recording one of the highest web threat incident rates at 20.1% in first quarter 2025.
“While ransomware is less prevalent in Africa due to lower levels of digitisation and economic constraints, countries like South Africa and Nigeria are seeing a sharp rise in attacks,” said Sergey Lozhkin, head of META and APAC regions at Kaspersky.
Kaspersky noted a 0.01 percentage point increase in African ransomware cases year-on-year, reaching 0.41%, still below global and Middle Eastern averages, but a troubling sign for the continent’s emerging digital infrastructure.
Experts warned that attackers are refining their tactics, shifting focus to unconventional entry points like IoT devices, smart appliances, and misconfigured hardware.
“As these economies expand digitally, sectors such as manufacturing, finance and government are becoming key targets,” said Lozhkin
The cyber-crime landscape is evolving quickly, fuelled by AI tools and dark web access to large language models, which enable less skilled actors to launch convincing phishing and malware campaigns.
Groups like FunkSec, which uses AI-generated code and a low-cost ransom model, are redefining ransomware operations.
“African organisations face the dual challenge of expanding digital footprints and limited cybersecurity awareness. This makes layered defense strategies, including network segmentation, real-time monitoring and regular staff training, essential,” stated Lozhkin
Kaspersky continues to monitor 25 active APT groups in the META region, including SideWinder and MuddyWater, some of which are known to target African institutions.
To bolster defenses, the firm recommends using tools such as its free Anti-Ransomware Tool for Business and the Kaspersky Next suite for threat visibility and response.
Nigeria recently launched a new joint case team to step up its response to cybercrimes that affect people and businesses at home and abroad.
The ‘Joint Case Team on Cybercrime’ brings together Nigeria’s key justice and security agencies to work as one, making it easier to detect, investigate, and prosecute digital offences.
It is supported by the UK National Crime Agency, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Commonwealth Secretariat, as part of a wider effort to promote international cooperation on cybercrime.
Speaking at the launch in Abuja, Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN, minister of justice and attorney general of the federation described the initiative as “a bold and transformative stride in Nigeria’s justice system.”
He said that although Nigeria has a national legal framework to address cyber offences, laws alone are not enough.
Nigeria is among the countries most affected by cybercrime around the world, with increasing financial losses.
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