DataDirect Networks announces AI storage appliance integrating Nvidia BlueField-3 DPU for hardware-accelerated I/O.

DDN announced on March 19, 2024, at NVIDIA GTC (booth #816) the demonstration of its reference architecture integrating NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs into DDN EXAScaler and Infinia storage appliances. The integration extends benefits across the full end-to-end AI data center stack and synergizes with networking platforms such as NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet for accelerating multi-tenant AI clouds.

DDN's reference architecture utilizes the processing power of client-side DPUs to intelligently offload critical functions such as S3 API calls, delivering extraordinarily low latency at any scale. The ability to distribute data operations to client or storage DPUs proves critical for effective management and processing of AI data for generative AI clouds and data centers.

"Delivering AI acceleration is a full-stack problem and integrating our storage systems with BlueField-3 DPUs will allow us to deliver efficient storage services to a wider range of applications," said Sven Oehme, chief technology officer at DDN. "This move toward disaggregating services will allow us to scale systems as generative AI and large language models continue to grow in model size and enterprise popularity at breakneck pace." Rob Davis, vice president of storage technology at NVIDIA, added: "DDN has seamlessly integrated NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs into its storage solutions, enabling organizations to scale their AI infrastructures with enhanced efficiency and delivering exceptional performance and value at rack- and data center-scale."

DDN maintains a long history of collaboration with NVIDIA, building solutions that deliver the highest value, performance and power efficiency for AI at rack- and data center-scale. The integration addresses the growing need for generative AI and AI frameworks to operate and scale reliably and cost-effectively as organizations deploy AI infrastructures in their data centers and in the cloud. DDN's solutions serve over 11,000 customers across sectors including autonomous driving, AI chatbots, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, energy, government, public sector, research institutions, and generative AI and data analytics applications. The DDN Infinia and EXAScaler solutions with NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs were on display at booth #816 at NVIDIA GTC through March 21.