Belgium Water Treatment Specialist Aquiris Selects Hitachi Vantara VSP One Block

Hitachi Vantara LLC, data storage, infrastructure, and hybrid cloud management subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd announced that Aquiris S.A., subsidiary of  Veolia Environment, a wastewater management operator in Belgium, has upgraded its storage infrastructure with Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One Block (VSP One Block).

The modernization effort improves the performance, scalability and resilience for Aquiris’ critical water treatment operations, helping it efficiently manage wastewater processes, reduce operational risk and decrease power usage while lowering its carbon footprint.

Aquiris operates the Brussels-North Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest facility of its kind in Belgium, processing more than 110 million cubic meters of wastewater each year. The plant removes contaminants and purifies water before releasing it into the Senne river, ensuring the safe return of clean water to the ecosystem. The around-the-clock operation relies on a complex digital infrastructure, collecting more than one million data points daily to optimize and automate critical processes.

To minimize the risk of disruption, Aquiris is implementing Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One Block storage platform, which includes a 100% data availability guarantee – assuring uninterrupted access to essential systems, even during peak loads or unexpected events. The solution also supports Aquiris’ environmental goals through VSP One’s Sustainability Guarantee, which helps track and reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions through efficient power usage and reporting tools.

“Hitachi Vantara is helping us fulfill our goal of creating a sustainable process for safeguarding supplies of clean water and supporting the growth and development of Brussels,” said Juan Ochoa, managing plant director, Aquiris. “The performance gains with VSP One Block will be significant. We are constantly collecting data, tracking KPIs and monitoring our purification processes. The improvement in storage capabilities will help us respond quickly to issues and optimize our plant operations.“

To modernize its infrastructure, Aquiris partnered with Aretech SRL, a trusted Hitachi Vantara channel partner based in Belgium that specializes in storage, management and integration solutions.

The upgrade replaces aging hybrid storage with all-flash VSP One Block arrays, delivering 30,000 IO/s – a critical measure of system speed and responsiveness – and a 4:1 data compression ratio. The system also supports more than 50 VMs, migrated using vSphere vMotion for uninterrupted performance.

Additionally, the compression and de-dupe features of VSP One Block not only enable Aquiris to manage its data more efficiently but also reduce energy consumption and lower its carbon footprint. By handling large volumes of data while ensuring constant availability, the system supports Aquiris’ sustainability goals and helps maintain uninterrupted service for the region.

“Providing reliable and sustainable infrastructure is essential for critical services like water treatment,” said Mikhael Wyns, country manager for Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg, Hitachi Vantara. “With the VSP One Block, Aquiris has the reliability and resilience needed to keep operations running smoothly while supporting their environmental objectives.“

These upgrades reflect Hitachi Vantara’s ongoing commitment to innovation, including the recently introduced VSP 360 software platform for unified data management and a series of new VSP One guarantees covering performance, cyber resilience, and sustainability, designed to give customers greater control over critical data environments.

Resources:
Hitachi Vantara’s storage solutions   
Case study: Ensuring Sustainable, Safe and Efficient Water Treatment with a Resilient Storage Infrastructure