NetApp is using AI/ML in ONTAP arrays to provide real-time file ransomware attack detection. Its AIPOD has also been certified by Nvidia so customers can use NetApp storage for AI processing with DGX H100 GPU servers.
The sales pitch is that NetApp is adding Autonomous Ransomware Protection with Artificial Intelligence (ARP/AI) to its ONTAP storage array software, with adaptive AI/ML models looking at file-level signals in real time to detect – we’re told – even the newest ransomware attacks with planned 99 percent-plus precision and recall.
NetApp CSO Mignona Cote claimed in a statement: “We [were] the first storage vendor to explicitly and financially guarantee our data storage offerings against ransomware. Today, we are furthering that leadership with updates that make defending data comprehensive, continuous, and simple for our customers.”
There are four more allied anti-ransomware initiatives from NetApp:
- BlueXP Ransomware Protection’s single control plane, now in public preview, coordinates and executes an end-to-end, workload-centric ransomware defense. Customers can identify and protect critical workload data with a single click, accurately and automatically detect and respond to a potential attack, and recover workloads within minutes.
- Application-aware ransomware protection via SnapCenter 5.0 offers immutable ransomware protection, applying NetApp’s ransomware protection technologies, previously used with unstructured data, to application-consistent backup. It supports tamper-proof Snapshot copy locking, SnapLock protected volumes, and SnapMirror Business Continuity to protect applications and virtual machines on-premises with NetApp AFF, ASA, and FAS, as well as in the cloud.
- BlueXP Disaster Recovery, now generally available, offers seamless integration with VMware infrastructure and provides storage options for both on-premises and major public cloud environments, eliminating the need for separate standby disaster recovery (DR) infrastructure and reducing costs. It allows smooth transitions from on-premises VMware infrastructure to the public cloud or to an on-premises datacenter.
- Keystone Ransomware Recovery Guarantee extends NetApp’s current Ransomware Recovery Guarantee to the Keystone storage-as-a-service offering. NetApp will warrant snapshot data recovery in the event of a ransomware attack and, if snapshot data copies can’t be recovered through NetApp, the customer will be offered compensation.
AIPOD
AIPOD is NetApp’s new name for its current ONTAP AI offering, which is based on Nvidia’s BasePOD. The company says it’s an AI-optimized converged infrastructure for organizations’ highest priority AI projects, including training and inferencing.
Arunkumar Gururajan, VP of Data Science & Research at NetApp, said: “Our unique approach to AI gives customers complete access and control over their data throughout the data pipeline, moving seamlessly between their public cloud and on-premises environments. By tiering object storage for each phase of the AI process, our customers can optimize both performance and costs exactly where they need them.”
NetApp announced the following:
- AIPOD with Nvidia is now a certified Nvidia BasePOD system, using Nvidia’s DGX H100 platform attached to NetApp’s AFF C-Series capacity flash systems. It is claimed to drive a new level of cost/performance while optimizing rack space and sustainability. It continues to support Nvidia’s DGX A100 and SuperPOD architecture.
- New FlexPod for AI reference architectures extend the NetApp-Cisco FlexPod converged infrastructure bundle to support Nvidia’s AI Enterprise software platform. FlexPod for AI can be extended to use RedHat OpenShift and SUSE Rancher, and new scaling and benchmarking have been added to support increasingly GPU-intensive applications.
- NetApp is the first enterprise storage vendor to formally partner with Nvidia on its OVX systems. These provide a validated architecture for selected server vendors to use Nvidia L40S GPUs along with ConnectX-7 network adapters and Bluefield-3 DPUs.
We think all primary file storage vendors will add integrated AI-based real-time ransomware detection and it will become a standard checkbox item. Learn more about the NetApp offerings to support Gen AI here, and find out more about its cyber-resiliency offerings here. NetApp will be offering the first technology preview of the ONTAP ARP/AI within the next quarter.
