Hitachi Vantara entered into a strategic partnership with Cisco to launch a new managed offering designed to help enterprises control their data in hybrid cloud architectures. The move targets an increasingly complex pain point for data-heavy enterprises.

The Hitachi EverFlex with Cisco Powered Hybrid Cloud product uses automation and predictive analytics to better support infrastructure management. Vendor specific offerings tied into the managed platform include Hitachi Infrastructure Orchestration as a Service and Cisco’s Intersight cloud management platform.

Intersight uses machine learning (ML), analytics and automation to manage its entire Server portfolio and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) across data centers, clouds and network edges. The networking giant initially launched Intersight in 2017, spinning it out of its Project Starship efforts.

The new integrated package includes infrastructure-as-a-serivce (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), storage-as-a-service (STaaS), containers-as-a-service (CaaS), data protection, managed operations services, professional services and learning services. Customers can also select different management and pay-per-use pricing levels using Hitachi’s EverFlex consumption model.

This combination allows users to handle data storage across diverse cloud locations; use automation on routine tasks and to reduce costs; and implement comprehensive security postures. That last item is an increasingly complex management area for enterprises challenged by a diverse vendor and cloud landscape.

Cisco, in its “2022 Global Hybrid Cloud Trends Report,” found that 37% of enterprises surveyed said security concerns are a “significant challenge” to deploying to multiple clouds; 35% said operational complexity were a “key challenge” when using multiple clouds; and one-third cost management was an issue as they adopted more public cloud resources.

“The goal is for Hitachi Vantara to empower a cloud-like experience for IT organizations on-premises and in the cloud,” Jeremy Foster, SVP and GM for Cisco Compute, noted in a blog post. “Customers benefit from improved data availability, hybrid cloud observability, better operational and infrastructure efficiency, including the enablement of hybrid cloud automation.”

The product launch follows on an agreement between the two vendors last year. That agreement integrated Hitachi Vantara into Cisco’s Service Provider and Solution Technology Integrator (STI) partner program, which allows Hitachi Vantara to integrate Cisco’s technologies into its storage products.

Ashish Nadkarni, group VP and GM for worldwide infrastructure research at IDC, in a statement tied to the latest news noted the status of Hitachi Vantara and Cisco in the market “are instrumental in effectively addressing the mounting complexities enterprises face on their hybrid-cloud journeys.”