From its first-ever NV1 GPU to the unveiling of its new data centre chips, NVIDIA has been evolving over the years. Recently, the company ticked yet another box with the introduction of the NVIDIA Base Command Platform with NetApp. The AI Workflow and Cluster Management Software has been launched in collaboration with NetApp, an American hybrid cloud data services and data management company.
The NVIDIA Base Command Platform is a cloud-hosted development hub that will quickly accelerate AI projects’ life cycle from prototypes to production. The tool is comprehensive and designed for large-scale, multi-user or multi-team AI development workflows hosted on-premises or in the cloud. It could thus help enterprises build upon their valuable AI infrastructure and improve the productivity of their expert developers by enabling them to work on accelerated computing resources simultaneously.
Why is this helpful?
This novel solution comes in light of the rapidly increasing deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in enterprises. Manuvir Das, Enterprise Computing Head at NVIDIA, believes that having access to robust computing infrastructure and resources is vital for allowing companies and their customers to benefit from AI.
A variety of AI and data science tools such as the NVIDIA NGC (which helps supercharge end-to-end workflows through a hub of GPU-optimised AI, high-performance computing and data analytics software) are increasingly used by businesses globally. Many businesses employ other essential machine learning tools, including Application Programming Interfaces (API) for integration with MLOps software and Jupyter notebooks. These systems help researchers and data scientists plan and schedule workloads, refine models and gain insights more efficiently.
As per Brad Anderson, executive vice president of NetApp’s hybrid cloud group, “A majority of enterprises now see AI as critical to the success of their digital transformation initiatives but are challenged by the complexity of deploying and integrating it into their organisations.” NVIDIA claims that businesses today need a solution that can ‘accelerate their AI initiatives with simplified experimentation, workflow and data management that their IT teams can support with ease. The NVIDIA Base Command Platform with NetApp provides a ready-to-use premium infrastructure solution required by these businesses and data scientists. Thus, enabling scientists and researchers to focus on developing their AI capabilities rather than operating their systems.
The Base Command Platform facilitates the easy sharing of resources through a graphical user interface, command-line APIs and via integrated monitoring and reporting dashboards. Thus, making an extensive range of AI and data science tools available to help researchers gain insights, plan workloads and polish models instantly. The NVIDIA Base Command Platform with NetApp includes various components: the NVIDIA Base Command Platform, which is a cloud-hosted AI development suite; an AI job execution on an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD starting with a minimum of three NVIDIA DGX A100 systems; and NetApp Keystone Flex Subscription, which is a file-based storage subscription service. The platform also includes 24/7 support and a subscription model.
Future plan
In the future, Google Cloud has planned to collaborate with NVIDIA to support the deployment of the Base Command Platform in Google Cloud’s marketplace. Manish Sainani, the Director of Product Management for Google Cloud’s machine learning infrastructure, had announced that this partnership would allow a true hybrid AI experience for users, enabling access to multiple NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs. Such advancements will help accelerate AI development for enterprises that leverage on-demand accelerated computing.
AI does not look like it is going anywhere, especially considering its rapidly increasing usefulness. Given this, methods that help make the deployment of AI for everyone are a brilliant way to make AI less cumbersome, less costly and less esoteric. Therefore, NVIDIA and NetApp’s new platform sound like a step in the right direction.
Base Command Platform is available through a premium monthly subscription, starting at $90,000, offered by NVIDIA and NetApp for early access customers.
