AI Storage by VAST Data

AI Data Storage: High-Performance Solutions for Modern Workloads

The growth of AI in recent years has brought about new ways of handling the vast quantities of data required to produce AI models and unlock the value in distributed Enterprise data sets. So, what is AI data storage exactly? How does it work? And how is it different from legacy data storage methods? Read on to discover the answers to these questions and learn how AI storage can benefit your organization.

See It In Action
Introduction
What is AI Storage?
How AI Storage Works
Overcoming AI Storage Obstacles
What to Look For in an AI Storage Solution
Why VAST Data?
Introduction

AI data storage drives new requirements.

Every big technological leap throughout history has necessitated a new way of thinking to support its existence — automobiles required a more structured and linear assembly model, computers required robotics to compile micro parts, and smartphones required touchscreen technology to enable flexible UIs. Artificial intelligence is no different.

AI requires new approaches to data storage, data management, and data access to properly perform its intended function and add exponential value to today’s companies and consumers. Without a mobile processor, a smartphone isn’t smart. Without a fast and flexible data platform, AI isn’t intelligent.

AI storage is the new foundational technology supporting AI growth. Next, let’s dig a bit deeper into what it is, and why it matters.

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What is AI Storage?

Data is the fuel that powers AI, making AI storage the foundational technology driving its growth. Redesigned from the ground up, it optimizes speed, scale, and availability for AI applications.

AI data storage is specifically designed to meet the unique needs of artificial intelligence pipelines. As AI models process unprecedented volumes of data to learn, test, and evolve, a new approach to storage is necessary to capture, process, and manage all that information.

To accomplish this task, AI data storage technology typically leverages flash-based storage, advanced data reduction techniques, and linear scaling multi-protocol performance to achieve optimal data processing speeds at exabyte-scale.

What is flash storage?

The most common example of flash storage is a solid-state drive (SSD). SSDs can store large amounts of data without any moving parts, allowing applications to access data almost instantaneously. This technology improves performance significantly by eliminating the slow refresh cycles and data migrations associated with traditional spinning-platter hard drives.

Why does AI storage matter?

Legacy data storage solutions slow AI down and limit its effectiveness. With the AI market estimated to grow by 37% between now and 2030, organizations are collectively investing billions of dollars each year in AI projects to solve challenges spanning nearly every industry. Without proper AI data storage in place as the backbone supporting those projects, billions of dollars will also be wasted on ineffective outcomes due to reduced data availability and the lack of 24/7/365 AI model training and real-time inferencing.

How AI Storage Works

Re-Engineered for Scale and Availability

New AI data storage approaches have reinvented data architecture to suit the modern world. AI storage platforms such as VAST Data accelerate the entire AI data pipeline to address the needs of today’s data-driven organizations.

Single-Tier Design

Simple, universal storage infrastructure that unifies data environments into a single, resilient tier of flash storage. No hard drives or additional data storage tiers required.

Disaggregated Architecture

Ensure resource speed and availability by provisioning, maintaining, and scaling storage needs and compute power separately, delivering predictable, linear scale with no forced coupling or system-wide upgrade requirements.

Unlimited Availability

With sophisticated data protection and reduction technologies, modern AI storage platforms deliver industry-leading data availability and durability, ensuring uninterrupted 24/7/365 operations.

Single-Tier Design

Simple, universal storage infrastructure that unifies data environments into a single, resilient tier of flash storage. No hard drives or additional data storage tiers required.

Disaggregated Architecture

Ensure resource speed and availability by provisioning, maintaining, and scaling storage needs and compute power separately, delivering predictable, linear scale with no forced coupling or system-wide upgrade requirements.

Unlimited Availability

With sophisticated data protection and reduction technologies, modern AI storage platforms deliver industry-leading data availability and durability, ensuring uninterrupted 24/7/365 operations.

Dive Deeper into AI Storage

How AI Storage is Revolutionizing Data Pipelines

The rapid evolution of AI is changing how organizations approach infrastructure for large-scale model training, with legacy data storage approaches falling short of their needs. Check out this blog post to learn how new advancements in AI data storage, such as object storage and asynchronous workflows, are greatly improving the speed and efficiency of AI modeling.

Read Blog Post
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Why Now is the Time for AI Storage

Existing Data Infrastructures Weren’t Built for AI

AI has changed the game. Legacy infrastructures were designed for lower data volumes, and newer cloud-native environments were built for lightweight, transactional tasks. But today’s AI engines need massive amounts of data and compute power to excel.

The Rise of Generative AI

AI has exploded in recent years, with 77% of companies now either using or exploring the use of AI in their businesses. This growth has resulted in immense pressure being placed on legacy infrastructures.

High Data Complexity

Multi-modal data has ballooned over time and current solutions have become slow and complex to maintain. AI data storage offers a streamlined solution with no need for separate storage systems or multi-layer orchestration.

Shrinking Budgets

Data teams are increasingly pushed to do more with less, and managing disjointed systems drives up costs. Smart AI storage lowers the total cost of ownership and improves budget predictability.

The Rise of Generative AI

AI has exploded in recent years, with 77% of companies now either using or exploring the use of AI in their businesses. This growth has resulted in immense pressure being placed on legacy infrastructures.

High Data Complexity

Multi-modal data has ballooned over time and current solutions have become slow and complex to maintain. AI data storage offers a streamlined solution with no need for separate storage systems or multi-layer orchestration.

Shrinking Budgets

Data teams are increasingly pushed to do more with less, and managing disjointed systems drives up costs. Smart AI storage lowers the total cost of ownership and improves budget predictability.

AI-Native Data Storage Addresses All the Gaps of Legacy Solutions

Download Detailed Feature Comparison

Legacy NAS & HPC Systems

Low-High

Low-Medium

Low-High

Medium-High

Medium

AI-Native Storage Systems

High

High

High

High

High

Overcoming AI Storage Obstacles

Getting Started Is Easier Than You Think

Learn how CoreWeave overcame these challenges when selecting VAST Data to power its global GPU cloud for generative AI.

When deciding whether or not to invest in AI data storage, some companies face the following obstacles:

Having already made significant investments in their current data infrastructure, organizations want to maximize those investments by maintaining current systems. While the most efficient long-term strategy would be to replace current systems entirely and eliminate data silos, AI storage can also integrate with existing setups to help future-proof an organization’s data strategy.

Implementing any new system requires an up-front investment. However, by consolidating the data management layer and providing native integrations, AI storage through providers such as VAST Data lowers the total cost of ownership. The reduced system complexity translates into management efficiency and fewer ongoing maintenance headaches.

With its streamlined structure, implementing AI data storage is quite simple — certainly more straightforward than legacy systems. There’s no need to set up separate storage systems or multi-layer orchestration. AI storage reduces operational overhead and complexity so organizations can focus on extracting value from their data.

What to Look For in an AI Storage Solution

Data Storage Designed for the Future

When assessing AI data storage options, it’s important to consider these forward-thinking capabilities to meet your AI storage needs for decades to come.

Maximum Performance

Above all, any infrastructure used for AI data storage needs to handle the volumes of data that AI requires without slowing down the AI engine or impacting other internal systems.

Enterprise Capabilities

An AI data storage solution should support enterprise-level features such as multi-tenancy, flexible snaps, data replication and audits, and enhanced system security measures.

Data Reduction

For maximum system efficiency and speed, an AI storage solution should come with global data reduction capabilities and efficiency algorithms to provide absolute storage-level power savings.

Exabyte-Scale

An AI storage solution should allow organizations to independently and linearly scale performance and capacity in a single massive namespace, to handle any workload efficiently.

Simple Admin

An AI data platform should feature a single, unified UI for intuitive workload monitoring and analytics, plus secure administrative access with multi-factor authentication.

Remote Upgrades

Being able to receive automated, online platform updates and expansions is an important feature of any AI data storage system in order to avoid the time and hassle of manual system upgrades.

When assessing AI data storage options, it’s important to consider these forward-thinking capabilities to meet your AI storage needs for decades to come.

Maximum Performance

Above all, any infrastructure used for AI data storage needs to handle the volumes of data that AI requires without slowing down the AI engine or impacting other internal systems.

Enterprise Capabilities

An AI data storage solution should support enterprise-level features such as multi-tenancy, flexible snaps, data replication and audits, and enhanced system security measures.

Data Reduction

For maximum system efficiency and speed, an AI storage solution should come with global data reduction capabilities and efficiency algorithms to provide absolute storage-level power savings.

Exabyte-Scale

An AI storage solution should allow organizations to independently and linearly scale performance and capacity in a single massive namespace, to handle any workload efficiently.

Simple Admin

An AI data platform should feature a single, unified UI for intuitive workload monitoring and analytics, plus secure administrative access with multi-factor authentication.

Remote Upgrades

Being able to receive automated, online platform updates and expansions is an important feature of any AI data storage system in order to avoid the time and hassle of manual system upgrades.

Why VAST Data?

The Data Platform for the AI Era

Designed from the ground up to make all data instantly available for AI, VAST is ending the trade-offs of scalability, performance, resiliency and efficiency that have held organizations back from realizing their AI ambitions.

Lightning Speed

The VAST Data Platform’s unified, intelligent architecture delivers all-flash performance and enterprise simplicity for optimal data availability and system speed.

  • Single-tier infrastructure

  • NFSoRDMA and GPU-optimized

  • Massively parallel architecture

  • Maximize GPU utilization

  • Acceleration for query engines

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Enterprise Grade

VAST’s reliable, enterprise-grade platform supports all of your structured and unstructured data storage needs without sacrificing security.

  • Multi-tenant

  • QoS and secure isolation for multiple workloads

  • Multi-protocol: Unified NFS, SMB, S3, and GPU-optimized

  • Enterprise reliability and ease of use

  • Online upgrades and expansions

  • Zero Trust Security

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Exabyte Scale

With VAST’s flash storage technology and compounding data efficiencies, it’s now affordable to make any volume of data AI-ready, on-prem or in the cloud.

  • Embarrassingly parallel performance and scale

  • No compromise data reduction technology

  • All data is AI-ready on affordable flash

  • Transactional and analytical database services

  • Integrated metadata indexing

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Innovate Freely with AI Storage

Bring your AI projects to life with data storage designed specifically to support them. VAST’s AI-native storage solution maximizes the capabilities of AI engines, improving model outcomes and accelerating time-to-insight.

Schedule a demo with our team today to see how AI data storage can address your particular circumstances and challenges.