NetApp and Cisco have come together to collaborate and deliver new validated solutions that enable secure, scalable and simplified AI. Expanding on the proven success of FlexPod, the new solutions provide enterprises with a simple and reliable path to address the specific challenges that AI workloads pose to compute, network and storage infrastructure.
“As IT teams are tasked with delivering consistent, reliable performance across environments, AI workloads are placing increasing demands on their data infrastructure,” said Dallas Olson, chief commercial officer at NetApp. “NetApp and Cisco’s long-standing collaboration on FlexPod has already proven effective, saving customers up to 20% of their time managing and maintaining infrastructure. Now, we’re applying our combined expertise to today’s challenges to accelerate AI adoption and reduce risk with built-in security.”
New FlexPod solutions
NetApp and Cisco are expanding FlexPod to facilitate AI adoption across organizations of varying sizes and maturity levels, using pre-tested and validated architectures and enterprise-grade data management as a solid foundation. These solutions respond to use cases such as:
- Enterprise AI Deployments: Organizations can quickly and easily deploy high-performance infrastructure for AI use cases, such as retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and semantic search, with this validated architecture. FlexPod reduces integration complexity while allowing AI capabilities to run directly where data already resides, with built-in end-to-end security.
- This architecture includes disaggregated storage for independent scaling of performance and capacity with NetApp AFX; future data discovery, preparation, and governance capabilities of NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE), which integrates with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design; and distributed security and controls aligned with the Zero Trust model throughout the AI process for specific AI risks, thanks to Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA.
- As the foundation of Secure AI Factory, Cisco AI Network Infrastructure with Nexus One transforms the network into a high-performance, deterministic fabric to maximize XPU utilization, reduce job completion times, and deliver predictable AI results at scale. Targeting full-stack enterprise AI use cases, NetApp and Cisco have collaborated with NVIDIA to create FlexPod solutions based on NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architectures, enabling organizations to design, deploy and scale high-performance AI factories. AI Inference and RAG Workflows: To enable teams and departments to leverage the benefits of AI with their existing data, this simplified, pre-integrated solution is designed to reduce the cost, complexity, and specialized skill requirements associated with implementing AI infrastructure.
- Edge Computing: This solution enables enterprises to support virtualized, containerized, and AI inference workloads at the edge while maintaining low latency and operational consistency. By extending the proven FlexPod architecture to remote and edge locations, customers benefit from rapid time-to-value and reduced operational complexity compared to bespoke infrastructure or isolated IT stacks at each site. Combining Cisco Unified Edge with NetApp’s flexible storage options delivers a converged, flexible, and validated solution. Centralized fleet management, policy-based configuration, and automated orchestration enable repeatable deployments and simplified operations in highly distributed environments.
Address risks associated with AI
“As organizations move from experimental AI to real-world deployment, security cannot be an afterthought. It must be built in from the beginning,” said Jeremy Foster, general manager and senior vice president, Cisco. “By collaborating with NetApp to extend Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to our validated FlexPod solution, we help customers address specific AI risks, such as data exposure, governance gaps, and regulatory compliance challenges, while simplifying how AI infrastructure is deployed and managed.”
Combining Cisco Unified Edge with NetApp flexible storage options delivers a converged, flexible and validated solution
“Enterprises have enormous amounts of data, but without discovery, governance and preparation capabilities built into the infrastructure itself, it will be difficult for them to drive AI into production,” said Jason Hardy, vice president of storage technologies at NVIDIA. “NetApp AI Data Engine, co-developed on the NVIDIA AI Data Platform and validated with Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, provides organizations with a secure, AI-ready database that enables them to deploy AI factories on FlexPod infrastructure at scale.”
“FlexPod’s new AI capabilities expand our ability to help customers confidently navigate the age of AI,” said Brian Bartell, director of WWT’s compute and storage practice. “Through our long-standing partnerships with NetApp and Cisco, the ingestion of NetApp’s AI Data Engine, and the ability to validate these architectures hands-on in WWT’s AI Proving Ground, we can reduce the time from concept to execution, providing our customers with an industry-leading, pre-tested foundation to move at the pace of the market and unlock the potential of their data.”
