Hitachi Vantara has teamed up with Red Hat to launch a solution aimed at simplifying virtual machine (VM) migration.

The partnership sees Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization combined with Hitachi Vantara’s Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One) to allow users to run VMs and containers side by side on the same platform – ultimately eliminating the need for separate virtualization infrastructure and duplicate environments.

The combination provides a jointly developed reference architecture designed to help organizations reduce reliance on proprietary hypervisors. VSP One provides a unified data storage platform for both on-premises systems and the cloud.

“Organizations across industries are looking to modernize IT infrastructure while avoiding vendor lock-in and controlling costs,” Dan McConnell, SVP for product management and enterprise infrastructure at Hitachi Vantara., explained. “By combining Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with Hitachi Vantara’s high-performance VSP One infrastructure we’re enabling customers to simplify migration, reduce complexity, and accelerate application delivery on a modern hybrid cloud foundation.”

The partnership aims to cut through the complexity of vendor licensing and pricing. The pair cited figures from Azul and the ITAM Forum that around three-quarters (73%) of enterprises admit to conducting audits to source alternatives.

Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat have come together to support migration efforts, making it easier for firms looking to shift from legacy platforms while ensuring multisite resilience and failover features.

Polish financial firm Alior Bank was among the early users of the jointly developed offering, with CTO Piotr Krzak saying it helped to build a “unified and highly-available environment that accelerates innovation, enhances scalability, and allows us to better serve our customers.”

Hitachi Vantara and Red Hat earlier this year launched a joint migration toolkit for virtualization.