VAST Data, the storage company breaking decades-old tradeoffs, announced a new reference architecture based on NVIDIA DGX A100 systems and VAST Data's Universal Storage platform. This reference architecture is designed to significantly increase storage performance for AI use cases such as large-scale training of conversational AI models and petabyte-scale data analytics. Jointly designed, built and tested by NVIDIA and VAST Data, the reference architecture eliminates the guesswork of building a solution from the ground up by providing enterprises with a turnkey petabyte-scale AI infrastructure solution that maximizes performance without adding needless cost and complexity.

Historically, enterprises have been forced to choose between two specific infrastructure configurations based on workload (i.e. GPU-intensive or storage-intensive), but as applications and data science teams' requirements evolve, that infrastructure choice may limit and negatively impact performance. Built on VAST Data's recently released LightSpeed platform and NVIDIA's universal AI system, DGX A100, the architecture leverages VAST's unique capabilities such as NFS-over-RDMA, NFS Multipath, and support for NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage as well as a converged fabric design. The joint reference architecture delivers more than 140GB/s of throughput for both GPU-intensive and storage-intensive AI workloads.

"For the first time, enterprises, and more importantly data science teams, are no longer constrained by the limitations of rigid infrastructure configurations," said Jeff Denworth, Co-founder and CMO at VAST Data. "We've worked with NVIDIA on this new reference architecture, built on our LightSpeed platform, to provide customers a flexible, turnkey, petabyte-scale AI infrastructure solution and to remove the variables that have introduced compromise into storage environments for decades."

"AI workloads require specialized infrastructure, which is why we've worked with VAST Data, a new member of the NVIDIA DGX POD ecosystem, to combine their storage expertise with our deep background in optimizing platforms for AI excellence," said Tony Paikeday, Senior Director of AI Systems at NVIDIA. "This new reference architecture provides customers with a winning formula to achieve their AI success."

For more information on VAST's GPU Reference Architecture, including specific tests showcasing both infrastructure level microbenchmarks as well as benchmarks representative of real-world AI training workloads, please visit https://vastdata.com/gpu-reference-architecture/. VAST and NVIDIA will also be participating in a webinar with IDC, "Smart Coupling of Next Generation AI Computing with Hyperscale Low-Cost Flash," on Thursday, January 21 at 1 pm ET. For more details on the groups' participation and to register for the event, please click here.

VAST Data AI-Ready Ecosystem Quotes 

Organizations looking to take advantage of AI can now access AI assessments to guide them as they build out and deploy high-throughput AI architectures based on NVIDIA DGX systems and VAST LightSpeed storage with the following resellers today.  

Mark III Systems

"We offer a diverse and unique portfolio of full stack technology platforms. As our team of data scientists, DevOps, and solution architects work with enterprises to build out and manage their applications and pipelines from end to end, we are constantly looking for ways to provide the performance needed for innovative organizations. We're seeing significant interest with VAST in multi-petabyte solutions looking to increase technology adoption while removing complexity." - Stan Wysocki, President at Mark III Systems

Trace3 

"Our customers are increasingly looking to AI to provide meaningful insights to give them a competitive advantage and deliver a better experience to their customers. At Trace3, we are helping our customers at every level of what it takes to make AI impactful. With NVIDIA's DGX A100 and VAST's Universal Storage Platform, our customers can focus on the business problem and be completely free of worry about the limitations of their infrastructure. VAST Data's LightSpeed with NVIDIA's DGX A100 systems allow them to unleash the full potential of their data - from ingest to insights." - Matt Fornito, Head of AI at Trace3 

 Cambridge Computer Services 

"Providing clients the resources, ideas, and expertise needed to leverage cutting-edge technologies to drive their business forward is our core tenet. We're constantly identifying new capabilities that can help our clients optimize their workflows and overcome the cost, capacity, scale, and resilience challenges they've been facing for decades. VAST and NVIDIA's joint reference architecture provides these capabilities for mission-critical enterprises that want to transcend the limitations of rigid infrastructure configurations." - Jose Alvarez, Director of Industrial and Scientific Computing at Cambridge Computer Services 

UClick

"We continue to work towards solving the data processing bottleneck that has emerged as a concern for many of our customers as they build out and operate their AI data centers. VAST's best-in-class performance combined with NVIDIA's DGX A100 systems have paved the way for GPU-efficient computing using the industry standard NFS file system and has eliminated all bottlenecks. With this new reference architecture, we can further strengthen our AI solution lineup and provide our Korean customers with the latest and greatest as they look to maximize the value of their data." - Namhan Eom, CEO of UClick

XENON Systems

"Providing our customers with the right technologies to drive outcomes for their clients has remained an important focus of ours. We recognize that data-intensive AI will always be a big part of that strategy. With NVIDIA's DGX A100 servers and VAST's Universal Storage Platform we can provide a petabyte-scale AI infrastructure solution for GPU-intensive and storage-intensive AI workloads." - Dragan Dimitrovici, CEO XENON Systems