Infrastructure Solutions

David Shyu here, solution product manager at Hitachi Vantara..  I would like to provide an update on engineering work we are doing on OpenStack at Hitachi Vantara, highlighting some recent accomplishments and what's coming next, as well as give you a behind-the-scenes look at the in-tree community upstreaming process and benefits. 

 OpenStack has seen a resurgence within our Enterprise customers, GSI partners, managed services partners and in several industry verticals.  This second coming, driven by public cloud repatriation, VMware migration, digital transformation with containerization and growing AI demands, has led Hitachi Vantara do double down on its storage R&D investment for this ever-popular on-prem cloud platform.  We are on the front seat, constantly refining our community-sourced in-tree Cinder driver (more on this later), aka Hitachi Block Storage Driver (HBSD), and we are only getting started! Consider this a response to the many queries we have seeking a status update and updates around VSP One Block B20 series.

In 2024-25, we have deepened our ecosystem partnership with leading OpenStack distribution vendors, notably with Red Hat, with whom we have worked tirelessly to provide Cinder driver support for RHOSO 18 with both FC and iSCSI protocols, supporting the majority of our VSP storage products,  with backport to earlier RH OSP releases as well.  

And we have just submitted our latest HBSD v25.F community driver for code review, which adds support for our latest and greatest midrange VSP One Block B20 family, with uncompromised security and sustainability built-in for the masses, as well as adding support for Thin Image Advanced (TIA) vClone; Expect the new HBSD code to be approved and upstreamed into the tree by the end of this month (September 2025). Until then, we are happy to provide this driver as "tech preview" to our VSP One Block B20 customers (please reach out if interested).

We are coordinating with Red Hat engineering to get the upstreamed code merged into RHOSO v18.0.x, and optionally backported into older RH OSP versions.  We are aiming for RHOSO 18.0.14 (Feature Release 4), with a tentative release date of November 13th 2025.  The backport to RH OSP 17.1.x would likely happen in December 2025, with other backports to follow within their own respective quarterly cycles.  We are working on a whole lot more with Red Hat, including our Hitachi Storage Plug-in for Containers (HSPC plugin)on Red Hat OpenShift, which will be covered on a separate blog.

In addition, with Canonical and a mutual GSI partner, we have completed a PoC that demonstrated the reliability and resiliency of a multi-site stretched-cluster OpenStack topology (Non-Uniform, Active-Active) backed by our VSP Global-Active Device (GAD) technology, and using our existing HBSD community driver on OpenStack Caracal and Bobcat.  This successful PoC led to further collaboration and co-creation work with Canonical's engineering team, for a substantial engagement with a leading IT Consulting Services firm.  Expect some more buzz later this year, but perhaps let's just say that the third time is a Charm, and it definitely kicks @ss like Jujutsu 🙂 

There's definitely a lot to get excited about when thinking about OpenStack, and 2026 will be an even greater year, with more features and enhancements coming into our HBSD driver! 

To close out, and as mentioned earlier, Hitachi Vantara engineers actively contribute to the HBSD Cinder driver's development, and its code is now maintained directly within the OpenStack Cinder project's source code repository.  This is a major shift from past so-called "Enterprise" drivers.  This in-tree, community-based model offers several advantages:

• Wider availability: The driver is included by default with the Cinder service in major OpenStack distributions, making it easier to deploy.
• Community maintenance: The driver benefits from continuous integration (CI) testing and review by the broader OpenStack community, ensuring quality and stability.
• Official support: Red Hat and other distribution vendors can more easily certify the driver, providing better support experience for enterprise users.
• Upstream development: Enhancements and bug fixes are developed and integrated into the main Cinder code base, rather than being managed separately.

 I hope you found this content helpful and informative.

References and Resources:

https://compatibility.hitachivantara.com/products/openstack

https://docs.hitachivantara.com/api/khub/documents/cZnLwtM7OoHeNxr_LUmIKw/content

https://docs.openstack.org/cinder/latest/reference/support-matrix.html

https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_openstack_platform/9/html/configuration_reference_guide/ch_configuring-openstack-block-storage#idm140352820786992

David Shyu (Solution Product Manager) in the Virtualization, Modern Apps,  Integrated Systems and Hybrid Cloud team at Hitachi Vantara