Hitachi Vantara, the digital infrastructure arm of Hitachi Ltd., has partnered with Belgian wastewater operator Aquiris to modernize the data storage infrastructure at the Brussels-North Wastewater Treatment Plant, the country’s largest facility of its kind. Announced on June 24, the upgrade equips the plant with Hitachi’s Virtual Storage Platform One Block, delivering high performance, resilience, and sustainability to mission-critical operations.

Processing over 110 million cubic meters of wastewater annually, the Brussels-North plant relies on round-the-clock data collection—capturing more than one million data points daily—to oversee purification cycles and environmental compliance. To support this data-heavy monitoring regime, Aquiris replaced aging hybrid storage arrays with all-flash VSP One Block systems. The new setup delivers up to 30,000 IOPS, a 4:1 data compression ratio, and seamless support for over 50 virtual machines via VMware vSphere vMotion.

Guarding against downtime has been a top priority. The platform comes with a 100% data availability guarantee, ensuring operational continuity even during peak system usage or unexpected incidents. This reliability is especially important for wastewater treatment infrastructure, where delays can disrupt service and endanger compliance.

Sustainability was another core focus of the project. The VSP One Block features Hitachi Vantara’s Sustainability Guarantee, enabling Aquiris to monitor and reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Combined with advanced data compression and deduplication, the infrastructure promises both efficiency and lower environmental impact.

Juan Ochoa, Managing Plant Director at Aquiris, noted the transformative effect of the upgrade, stating that increased storage speed and resilience will enable the team to respond more effectively to operational anomalies and optimize purification performance. The modernization was carried out through Aretech, Hitachi’s trusted integration partner in Belgium, who oversaw the migration from hybrid to all-flash storage. The move enhances system responsiveness and provides the versatility needed for scalable future operations.

From Hitachi’s perspective, the deployment demonstrates its dual commitment to innovation and sustainability, especially in critical public infrastructure. By embedding strong cyber-resilience, high performance, and clear sustainability metrics into the VSP One platform, Hitachi Vantara aims to deliver unified infrastructure solutions aligned with ESG goals.

This initiative builds on Hitachi’s longstanding presence in water and wastewater management, reinforcing its track record in supporting intelligent infrastructure across more than 40 countries—linking its storage and hybrid cloud expertise with environmental stewardship.

In summary, this project positions the Brussels-North facility as a benchmark for digitalized water treatment. By combining high-performance storage, guaranteed availability, and sustainability features, Hitachi Vantara and Aquiris are setting new standards for resilient, eco-conscious critical services infrastructure.