New FlexPod solutions deliver proven performance, security, and unified management for AI
NetApp®, the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, and Cisco announced that they have collaborated to offer new validated solutions for secure, scalable, and simplified AI. Expanding the proven success of FlexPod, the new solutions provide a simple, reliable path for enterprises to address the specific challenges AI workloads place on compute, network, and storage infrastructure.
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“As IT teams are tasked with delivering reliable, consistent 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 longstanding partnership on FlexPod has already proven effective, saving customers up to 20 percent of their time in infrastructure management and maintenance. Now, we are applying our combined expertise to modern challenges to accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk with built-in security.”
NetApp and Cisco are expanding FlexPod to support AI adoption across different organizational sizes and maturity levels, using pre-tested, validated architectures and enterprise-grade data management as a consistent foundation. These solutions support use cases such as:
- Enterprise AI Deployments: Enterprises can simply and quickly deploy high-performance infrastructure for AI use cases including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and semantic search using this validated architecture. FlexPod reduces integration complexity while allowing AI capabilities to run directly where the data resides, with built-in, end-to-end security. This architecture includes disaggregated storage for independent scaling of performance and capacity with NetApp AFX; future functionality of data discovery, preparation and governance capabilities from NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE) which integrates the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design; and distributed security and Zero Trust-aligned controls across the AI pipeline for AI-specific risks from Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA. Underpinning the Secure AI Factory, Cisco AI networking infrastructure with Nexus One transforms the network into a deterministic, high-performance fabric to maximize XPU utilization, reduce job completion times, and deliver predictable AI outcomes at scale. Targeting full-stack enterprise AI use cases, NetApp and Cisco have collaborated with NVIDIA to build FlexPod Solutions based on NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architectures, enabling organizations to design, deploy, and scale high-performance AI factories.
- AI Inferencing and RAG Workflows: To enable teams and departments to tap into the benefits of AI with their existing data, this simplified, pre-integrated solution is designed to lower the cost, complexity, and specialized skill requirements associated with deploying AI infrastructure.
- Edge Computing: This solution enables enterprises to support AI inferencing, containerized, and virtualized workloads at the edge while maintaining low latency and operational consistency. By extending proven FlexPod architecture to remote and edge locations, customers benefit from faster time to value and reduced operational complexity compared to bespoke infrastructure or isolated IT stacks at each site. Combining Cisco Unified Edge with flexible NetApp storage options delivers a flexible, validated converged solution. Centralized fleet management, policy-based configuration, and automated orchestration enable repeatable deployments and simplified operations across highly distributed environments.
“As organizations move from AI experimentation to real‑world deployment, security can’t be an afterthought. It has to be built in from the start,” said Jeremy Foster, GM and SVP at Cisco. “By collaborating with NetApp to extend Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to our validated FlexPod solution, we’re helping customers address AI‑specific risks such as data exposure, governance gaps, and compliance challenges while simplifying how AI infrastructure is deployed and operated.”
“Enterprises are sitting on vast amounts of data, but without the discovery, governance and preparation built into the infrastructure itself, enterprises will struggle to power production AI,” said Jason Hardy, vice president, Storage Technologies at NVIDIA. “NetApp AI Data Engine, co-engineered on the NVIDIA AI Data Platform and validated with the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, gives organizations the secure, AI-ready data foundation to deploy AI factories on FlexPod infrastructure at scale.”
“The new AI capabilities in FlexPod expand our ability to help customers navigate the AI era with confidence,” said Brian Bartell, Practice Manager, Compute & Storage at WWT. “Through our long-standing partnerships with NetApp and Cisco, the introduction of NetApp’s AI Data Engine, and the ability to validate these architectures hands-on in WWT’s AI Proving Ground, we can compress the time from concept to execution, giving our customers a pre-tested, industry-leading foundation to move at the speed of the market and unlock the power of their data.”
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