Pure Storage Launches FlashStack With FlashBlade to Accelerate Data Warehouses

Pure Storage, Inc. announced FlashStack with FlashBlade to accelerate data warehouses.

The company also announced that AIRI and AIRI Mini, the AI-ready infrastructure solutions from the firm and Nvidia Corporation are available with Cisco Nexus Ethernet switches. Cisco Technology, Inc. and the company customers can establish a spectrum of data analytics to turn data into innovation, no matter what phase in their data journey.

In time, more data will live in ‘hot’ or ‘warm’ tiers, where value can easily be extracted. With this shift, organizations must leverage the latest tools of extraction, and the storage models that allow these tools to work most effectively and efficiently.

“Data is the lifeblood of today’s economy and the fuel for innovation. New cures, new industries, new possibilities will arise – all because of data. This new era demands a new data mindset and strategy,” said Michael Sotnick, VP, partners, services and business development, Pure Storage. “For organizations to stand the test of time, they must understand how to innovate and differentiate through data.”

AI-ready-infrastructure
Data is the fuel driving today’s AI revolution. While many pioneers have pushed the limits of what’s possible with AI within their own industries, the vast majority of enterprises have had to struggle to get started. Today, not all data’s value is accessible. Without fast, easy access, data becomes an organization’s most expensive asset rather than its most valuable. AI needs to reach more enterprises faster, and provide value immediately. The company is working with Cisco to make this reality for customers with AIRI, an industry solution to simplify AI-at-scale, powered by the Nvdia DGX-1.

“The days where value is measured in dollar perGB have passed. Value is now measured in simulations per day. The industry focuses on outcome orientation because simplicity, performance and resiliency afford us the time to do so,” said Ed Horley, VP, engineering, IT solutions provider, Groupware Technology, Inc. “With AIRI, customers can begin their AI initiatives within hours and its simple scalable design allows it to grow with your AI needs. By eliminating these infrastructure complexities, cusomers can focus on what’s important – creating innovative products and services.“

Nvidia DGX-1

AIRI is a complete AI-ready infrastructure, architected by the company and Nvidia to extend the power of NVIDIA DGX systems. Powered by FlashBlade storage and NVIDIA DGX-1 servers, it offers enterprises a simple, fast, and future-proof infrastructure. It is configured with four DGX-1 Systems, four petaFLOPS of deep learning performance, FlashBlade 15x17TB blades, 1.5 million NFS IO/s, and two 100Gb switches with RDMA.

AIRI Mini is powered by one FlashBlade, configured with 7x17TB blades, two NVIDIA DGX-1 servers, Cisco 100 GbE switches, supporting GPUDirect RDMA for maximum distributed training performance, and delivers two petaFLOPS of deep learning performance. All software comes included, so that data scientists can get started on their projects by simply turning the system on.

FlashStack powered by FlashBlade
While some organizations are using Data Lakes or AI data pipelines, many organizations still deploy most of their mission critical work on a data warehouse. FlashStack powered by FlashBlade, purpose-built for Oracle Data Warehouse, is an integrated infrastructure solution validated by Cisco.

“While AIRI is the perfect fit for organizations that need to deploy AI, there are many organizations just dipping their toes into single server solutions,” said Matt Burr, GM, FlashBlade, Pure Storage. “For organizations that need an interim step between single-server and AIRI, FlashStack is the solution.“

There are three primary problems with existing data warehouse solutions:

• Performance – Data warehouse appliances historically have not kept up with data growth.

• Pricing – When compute and storage are coupled, as is with warehouse appliances, organizations end up buying too much of one or the other.

• Flexibility – An inflexible appliance is only effective for a single workload. Data warehouses aren’t protected for the future when data pipeline and AI are involved.

The FlashStack, built on FlashBlade and engineered specifically to modernize the Oracle Data Warehouse, delivers more than 2x faster performance than the next-best system. Customers only pay for the amount of compute and blades needed for their project or initiative.

FlashStack for FlashBlade is ready for extension into modern analytics and AI when ready.

AIRI and AIRI Mini are available through select reseller partners. FlashStack for FlashBlade is available through all FlashStack certified reseller partners.

Read also:
Pure AIRI Mini: Complete AI-Ready Infrastructure
With 7x17TB blades, powered by Nvidia
2018.05.31 | Press Release
Pure Storage AIRI/AI-Ready Infrastructure Powered by Nvidia
Built on FlashBlade and Nvidia DGX-1 with Arista Networks 100GbE switches
2018.04.06 | Press Release