Highlights:

  • Nvidia’s DGX appliance series is engineered to streamline the deployment of its graphics cards in customer data centers.
  • An application from Nvidia, Base Command, allows administrators to centrally manage the configuration settings of a BasePOD system’s compute and storage components.

Pure Storage Inc. has achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first data center storage provider to attain Nvidia Corp.’s BasePOD technical certification.

The certification was awarded for its AIRI offering. It refers to its architecture, a blueprint that integrates various technology products into a unified system. AIRI seamlessly incorporates Pure Storage flash appliances, Nvidia chips, and management software into a system designed for enterprises to execute artificial intelligence models.

Pure Storage’s recent announcement reveals that AIRI is officially certified to meet Nvidia’s BasePOD technical specification. Launched in the previous year, this specification guarantees the seamless compatibility of the components within an AI system’s reference architecture. Before certifying a system, Nvidia rigorously assesses and ensures that it meets the “expected performance” for common AI workloads.

The recently BasePOD-certified AIRI system by Pure Storage comprises two primary hardware components. The system comprises an Nvidia DGX appliance and Pure Storage’s FlashBlade//S storage system.

Nvidia’s DGX appliance series is engineered to streamline the deployment of its graphics cards in customer data centers. Each machine integrates multiple graphics cards with central processing units, networking gear, and other essential hardware components. Integrating these components into a single, pre-integrated chassis eliminates the need for customers to assemble them, expediting the deployment process manually.

The second crucial component of AIRI is Pure Storage’s FlashBlade//S storage system. It offers a flash capacity of up to 1,920 terabytes, allowing companies to store data for their AI models. In practice, the system’s capacity can be significantly expanded using built-in compression software, which reduces the space required for datasets.

The Flash//S is built on quadruple-level cell (QLC) flash technology. QLC flash offers increased capacity compared to other flash types, but it comes with trade-offs of slower speed and lower durability. To overcome these drawbacks, Pure Storage ships the QLC memory, powering its systems in specialized packages and enhancing the hardware’s overall performance.

AIRI and other reference architectures built to Nvidia’s BasePOD specification come equipped with various preinstalled software tools. The chipmaker developed numerous tools in these systems.

An application from Nvidia, Base Command, allows administrators to centrally manage the configuration settings of a BasePOD system’s compute and storage components. Additionally, the software facilitates various maintenance tasks, including patching, making system management more efficient. Each BasePOD system also comes with Nvidia NGC, a curated collection of pre-trained neural networks and associated components that have undergone rigorous cybersecurity vulnerability scans by the chipmaker.

Nvidia’s Vice President of Global AI Solutions, Matthew Hull, said, “Enterprises everywhere are embracing AI to enrich customer experiences and significantly increase business efficiencies. With a certified NVIDIA DGX BasePOD solution for AIRI, data architects, IT, and business leaders in every enterprise can now operationalize AI at scale.”

Pure Storage unveiled the BasePOD certification for AIRI and introduced new models to its FlashStack reference architecture series. The reference architectures integrate Pure Storage flash systems with servers and networking equipment from Cisco Systems. The FlashStack series, like AIRI, is specifically optimized for AI workloads.