Dell PowerScale
Saif Aly was overcome with pride and joy as he watched the Dell Technologies World 2024 keynote in Las Vegas. As Dell Technology unveiled each of the company’s AI-optimized infrastructure components as part of the Dell AI Factory, the atmosphere was electrifying and professionals and fans alike were buzzing. New innovations have always been unveiled at Dell innovations World, and this year was no exception.
PowerScale F900 series
A noteworthy accomplishment was reached when Dell Technologies unveiled the PowerScale F910 at the keynote, finishing their all-flash file storage lineup revamp. With the PowerScale F910, Dell Technologies has demonstrated its unwavering commitment to offering AI-ready infrastructure that will revolutionise corporate operations by delivering huge AI performance at the highest density.
Boosting AI Tasks with Exceptionally Quick Data Delivery and Scale
Organisations now face a new difficulty as a result of high-speed data volumes and increasingly sophisticated GPUs: maintaining fully used AI systems that operate at optimal efficiency without experiencing bottlenecks. PowerScale F910 takes on this difficulty head-on. PowerScale speeds up the model training stage of the AI pipeline with high-speed data input at scale and keeps your AI machines well-fed in an era where GPUs are consuming storage and data at previously unheard-of rates.
Massive AI Performance with the Highest Density in PowerScale F910
PowerScale is the first provider in the world to offer NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD certified storage that is ethernet-based, while Dell Technology is elevating AI-optimized storage with the release of the F910. “PowerScale F910 supercharges an already great platform,” says a beta user of the F910, Technical Solutions Architect at World Wide Technology (WWT). Customers of Dell Technologies are exploring the field of artificial intelligence and are searching for a single platform that can tackle any challenge.
Among the PowerScale F910’s salient features are:
AI-capable output With the F910, streaming performance is improved by up to 127% by utilising the newest Intel Xeon CPUs, DRAM, and Gen 5 PCIe technologies. This keeps GPUs fully utilised with up to 300 PBs of storage per cluster, ensuring faster time to AI insights and speeding up the model checkpointing and training phases. Anywhere your data resides, PowerScale’s software-defined OneFS and APEX File Storage for AWS and Microsoft Azure streamline your multicloud journey to genuinely fuel your AI.
Improved effectiveness of storage. With its 2U node architecture, the F910 maximises storage utilisation and provides 20% more density per RU than Dell Technologies previously announced PowerScale F710. With hardware and software upgrades over the past year, this newest addition to the PowerScale portfolio also helps organisations achieve their sustainability goals by delivering up to twice the performance per watt. It also boasts the best scale-out NAS data reduction guarantee in the world, which essentially lets you accomplish more with less.
Aside from these salient characteristics, the PowerScale F910 also includes sophisticated security features like real-time cyber attack prevention, encryption both in transit and at rest, and encryption of sensitive AI data. In addition, it provides low latency storage access with NFSoRDMA, GPUDirect support with NVIDIA, multi-tenant capabilities, 6x9s availability and resilience to guarantee continuous uptime, and simultaneous multiprotocol support with S3 compatibility to enable flexibility for various AI workflows.
The zeal and excitement on the show floor
It was an amazing experience to see the PowerScale F910 in person on the expo floor. Enthusiastic about seeing the new product up close, attendees were pulled to Dell Technologies’ stand. The response was very positive, with many people sharing their joy and the reasons they adore PowerScale. Given that it tackles actual issues and opens up new avenues for AI-driven enterprises, it was easy to understand why Dell is the leading provider of NAS storage.
The Prospects for Artificial Intelligence-Driven Storage
Another exciting turning point has been reached with the release of the PowerScale F910, and Dell Technologies is dedicated to carrying on its legacy of innovation and excellence in AI-optimized infrastructure. The maximum capacity of 61 TB QLC drives, which will double in order to further reduce data centre footprint, is one of the next improvements. Furthermore, to enhance inter-cluster scalability, Dell Technologies, the first vendor of certified NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD storage with an Ethernet foundation, will strengthen its alliance with NVIDIA by launching 200GbE connectivity, which will shortly be compatible with the newest NVIDIA backend networking switches (NVIDIA Spectrum-4).
Furthermore, Dell Technology introduced PowerScale: Project Lightning, a parallel file system tailored for AI workloads, to meet the cutting-edge storage requirements of the most sophisticated AI factories of today (tens of thousands of GPUs and beyond). PowerScale: Project Lightning, which is scheduled for release next year, will guarantee that even the biggest AI clusters’ storage requirements are satisfied.
With the ability to adapt to the changing needs of artificial intelligence, Dell Technologies is well-positioned to give its clients the resources they require for success.
Going Ahead with Pride and Expectation
Saif Aly is quite happy of what Dell Technologies has accomplished with the PowerScale and is thinking back on Dell Technologies World 2024 and the incredible interactions the company had with partners and customers. As they look to the future, Dell Technologies is committed to expanding the realm of artificial intelligence and providing products that enable their clients to prosper in a world that is becoming more and more data-driven.
