INDUSTRY WATCH
An important factor influencing the infrastructure , system decision-making process is determining how much other workload consolidation a platform can support . This is critical in determining whether the platform has the performance and scalability to support workloads beyond AI . For example , a vendor can offer high-performance and highly scalable systems that help businesses to benefit from workload consolidation and infrastructure efficiencies .
Daniel Thenga , NetApp and SolarWinds
Architecture Manager and Business Unit Manager , Comstor Southern Africa
Bottom line ? Big data , big ideas , and better insights all need better data and the right storage systems . This is again where software-defined storage is essential as it supports businesses running workloads in integrated hybrid cloud environments and those who need to move data between on- and off-premises locations . With a software-defined storage environment , a user benefits from the flexibility and data mobility needed by hybrid cloud environments .
Notably , when a single storage system , like NetApp can meet the requirements of AI and enterprise storage , it provides the business with a better ROI and avoids the legacy trap of siloed storage . If we look at NetApp ONTAP AI , it is a converged infrastructure stack that combines NVIDIA DGX accelerated compute , NVIDIA high-speed switching , ONTAP-based storage , and tools to manage AI workloads . As a single stack , it delivers an integrated system that is easy to procure and deploy , is supported by third-party vendors , and offers unified management .
To demonstrate the success of the all-inclusive nature of NetApp , IDC found that almost 60 % of enterprises using this NetApp environment also run non-AI workloads on their storage .
One thing is clear . IT people not immersed in the AI or data science process should not be making decisions on what storage and data systems the data scientists need . It must be a collective decisionmaking process carefully architected around the model development and AI use cases being deployed in the business .
We are still in the fledgling stages of the enterprise AI revolution , but we know that it will form a strategic and central part of any business that wants to transform digitally . And if we factor in that IDC says that storage infrastructure spend in enterprises for AI workloads alone will be a $ 5.4 billion market by 2024 , we have only touched the tip of the iceberg . p
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