NetApp Enhances AI Innovation with Intelligent Data Infrastructure

NetApp, the provider of intelligent data infrastructure, unveiled new features that enhance the effectiveness of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) initiatives, offering users a competitive edge. By integrating NetApp's intelligent data infrastructure with NVIDIA's high-performance computing, networking, and software, customers can elevate their AI projects to new heights.

Gen AI has garnered worldwide interest for its ability to automate mundane tasks, reveal fresh insights, and foster product innovation. According to the NetApp 2023 Data Complexity report, nearly three-quarters of companies are already leveraging Gen AI.

To fully tap into its potential, organizations require secure, high-performance access to data dispersed across intricate hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

With a proven track record of expertise, NetApp offers solutions that ensure management simplicity across diverse data locations, deliver high performance without necessitating new infrastructure silos, and furnish reliable, secure data to drive responsible AI initiatives.

“NetApp is the intelligent data infrastructure company, with solutions optimized to unleash the full potential of our customers’ investments in AI”, said Ravi Chhabria, Managing Director at NetApp India. “Our distinct approach to AI provides complete access and control over their data across the entire pipeline, moving seamlessly between public cloud and on-prem environments. Through the strategic tiering of object storage tailored to each phase of the AI process, our customers can fine-tune performance and costs precisely where they want. Our unified approach ensures the performance, productivity, and protection customers need to innovate with AI.”

NetApp has rolled out updates to its intelligent data infrastructure capabilities to aid companies utilizing Gen AI to enhance their operations and strategic decision-making. These updates include:

NetApp AIPod stands as NetApp's AI-optimized converged infrastructure tailored for organizations' most critical AI initiatives, covering both training and inferencing tasks. Certified as part of NVIDIA DGX BasePOD solutions, NetApp AIPod leverages NVIDIA DGX H100 systems alongside NetApp AFF C-Series affordable capacity flash systems to enhance cost-efficiency and performance.

Meanwhile, It optimizes rack space and sustainability. Additionally, NetApp AIPod supports NVIDIA DGX A100 systems to ensure continued compatibility and support for various AI workloads.

The latest FlexPod for AI reference architectures expands upon the renowned converged infrastructure solution offered by NetApp and Cisco. These updated configurations now incorporate support for the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform. Moreover, FlexPod for AI can be extended to integrate with RedHat OpenShift and SuSE Rancher.

Enhanced scaling and benchmarking capabilities have also been introduced to accommodate the growing demands of GPU-intensive applications. Customers can utilize these updated FlexPod solutions as comprehensive blueprints to effectively plan, implement, and manage the FlexPod platform for various AI use cases.

NetApp has received validation for NVIDIA OVX systems. By integrating NetApp storage with NVIDIA OVX computing systems, enterprises can streamline their AI deployments, covering tasks such as model fine-tuning and inference workloads.

These validated NVIDIA OVX solutions, powered by NVIDIA L40S GPUs, are offered by top server vendors and include NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, alongside NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand or NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet, and NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs. NetApp stands as one of the pioneering partners to accomplish this new storage validation for NVIDIA OVX.

“Gen AI is catapulting Asia Pacific enterprises to the vanguard of the impending technological revolution. To empower organizations in navigating today’s complex IT environment, NetApp is providing an intelligent data infrastructure that breaks down silos, fosters agility, and tailors optimization for AI applications,” stated Masahiro Waki, AI Business Lead for NetApp Asia Pacific. “Our pivotal partnerships with AI trailblazers such as NVIDIA also allow us to create sophisticated data pipelines for enterprises embarking on innovative AI ventures.”

In its ongoing pursuit of AI excellence, NetApp introduces groundbreaking cyber-resilience features, including pioneering the integration of AI/ML directly into storage systems to combat ransomware.

The innovative Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) represents one of the initial implementations of AI and machine learning within ONTAP. This advancement promises heightened accuracy and performance in identifying and countering evolving and sophisticated cyber threats, ensuring enhanced protection against ransomware attacks.

“AI powers mission-critical use cases in every industry, from healthcare to manufacturing to financial services,” said Tony Paikeday, Senior Director of AI Systems at NVIDIA. “NetApp AIPOD certified for NVIDIA DGX BasePOD provides a powerful reference architecture that helps enterprises eliminate design complexity, reduce deployment time frames, and simplify ongoing operations.”

“GenAI has massive potential to help organizations harness their data to uncover business insights and improve operational efficiency,” said Archana Venkatraman, Research Director, Cloud Data Management, IDC. “NetApp has continuously adapted to deliver the services and solutions customers need to effectively manage their data pipelines. These updates further illustrate NetApp’s willingness to evolve and bring innovations to customers that unlock the full potential of AI.”

NetApp provides a cohesive strategy for infrastructure and data management, eradicating data silos and delivering improved performance and reliable data protection to customers' AI solutions. This unified approach enables customers to expedite the time to achieve results for their AI projects.