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NetApp G.K., an intelligent data infrastructure company, announced the joint delivery of new validated solutions for secure, scalable, and simple AI environments. Building on the success of the proven FlexPod, these solutions provide enterprises with a simple and reliable deployment path to address the unique challenges that AI workloads bring to compute, network, and storage infrastructure.
Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of NetApp, said: “IT teams are required to deliver stable and consistent performance across environments, but AI workloads are rapidly increasing the demands on data infrastructure. NetApp and Cisco’s long-standing collaboration on FlexPod has already proven effective, with customers reducing the time spent on infrastructure operation management and maintenance by up to 20%. Now, by applying the expertise of both companies to the latest challenges, we will help accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk through built-in security.”
The two companies have extended FlexPod to support AI adoption tailored to enterprise size and maturity, using a pre-validated architecture and enterprise-grade data management as a common foundation. These solutions address the following use cases:
Also Read: SK Telecom and NVIDIA build AI infrastructure to drive AI innovation in South Korea.
Enterprise AI adopters
can leverage this validated architecture to quickly and easily deploy high-performance infrastructure for AI use cases such as Search Augmentation Generative (RAG) and semantic search. FlexPod reduces integration complexity, allows AI to be leveraged directly where the data resides, and provides end-to-end security.
This architecture includes:
- NetApp AFX offers isolated storage (performance and capacity can be scaled independently).
- NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE) provides data discovery, preparation, and governance capabilities (planned to integrate with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design).
- Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA provides distributed security and zero-trust compliant controls to address AI-specific risks. Furthermore, an AI network infrastructure powered by Cisco Nexus One evolves the network into a high-performance, deterministic fabric, maximizing XPU utilization, reducing job completion times, and enabling predictable AI processing scalability.
Furthermore, an AI network infrastructure powered by Cisco Nexus One evolves the network into a high-performance, deterministic fabric, maximizing XPU utilization, reducing job completion times, and enabling predictable AI processing scalability.
NetApp and Cisco also collaborate with NVIDIA to build a FlexPod solution based on the NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architecture, enabling enterprises to design, deploy, and scale high-performance AI factories.
AI Inference and RAG Workflows
provide a pre-integrated, simple solution to unlock AI value by leveraging existing data, reducing the cost, complexity, and high-level expertise required for AI infrastructure deployment.
Edge Computing
supports AI inference, containers, and virtualization workloads in edge environments while maintaining low latency and operational consistency. Extending the proven FlexPod architecture to remote locations and the edge reduces time to value and simplifies operations compared to individually built infrastructures and fragmented IT environments. Combining Cisco Unified Edge with flexible NetApp storage delivers a validated converged solution. Centralized fleet management, policy-based configuration, and automated orchestration enable reproducible deployment and simplified operations even in large, distributed environments.
Jeremy Foster, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Cisco, stated, “As enterprises move from AI experimentation to production, security should be built in from the start, not as an afterthought. Our collaboration with NetApp extends Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to FlexPod, simplifying the deployment and operation of AI infrastructure while addressing AI-specific risks such as data breaches, lack of governance, and compliance challenges.”
Jason Hardy, Vice President of Storage Technology at NVIDIA, stated, “Enterprises possess vast amounts of data, but without mechanisms built into their infrastructure to discover, manage, and leverage that data, full-scale AI utilization is difficult. The NetApp AI Data Engine, co-designed with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform and validated with Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, provides a secure and AI-ready data foundation for a scalable AI factory on FlexPod.
Brian Bartell, Practice Manager for Compute & Storage at WWT, stated: “The new AI capabilities added to FlexPod expand our ability to help customers confidently navigate the AI era. Our long-standing collaboration with NetApp and Cisco, the deployment of NetApp’s AI Data Engine, and the hands-on validation at WWT’s AI Proving Ground have significantly accelerated time from concept to execution, providing a pre-validated, industry-leading foundation for maximizing data value while keeping pace with market speed.”
SOURCE: PRTimes
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