Research Note: VDURA Data Platform 11.2
Earlier this month, VDURA announced Version 11.2 of its Data Platform, featuring native Kubernetes CSI support, end-to-end encryption, and the VDURACare Premier support package.
The release also includes a technology preview of V-ScaleFlow, a data movement capability that VDURA claims will reduce flash requirements by over 50% through intelligent tiering between QLC flash and high-capacity HDDs.
NAND Insider Newsletter: Week of April 28, 2025
Each week NAND Research puts out a newsletter for our industry customers taking a look at what’s driving the week, and what happened last week that caught our attention. Below is a excerpt from this week’s, April 28, 2025.
Research Note: Hammerspace $100M Series B to Accelerate AI Infrastructure Growth
Hammerspace, which provides a high-performance data orchestration solution for AI and hybrid cloud environments, announced it’s raised $100 million in a Series B funding round.
The round, led by Altimeter Capital and including participation from ARK Invest and other strategic investors, values Hammerspace at more than $500 million.
Research Note: Dell’s Data Protection & Storage Updates
Dell Technologies this week announced a comprehensive set of updates spanning its data protection and storage platforms, including PowerProtect Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Manager, PowerScale, and PowerStore.
Research Note: WEKA Augmented Memory Grid
At the recent NVIDIA GTC conference, WEKA announced the general availability of its Augmented Memory Grid, a software-defined storage extension engineered to mitigate the limitations of GPU memory during large-scale AI inferencing.
The Augmented Memory Grid is a new approach that integrates with the WEKA Data Platform and leverages NVIDIA Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage (GDS) to bypass CPU bottlenecks and deliver data directly to GPU memory with microsecond latency.
Research Note: NVIDIA AI Storage Certifications & AI Data Platform
At its annual GTC event in San Jose, NVIDIA announced an expansion of its NVIDIA-Certified Systems program, including the new NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design, to include enterprise storage certification to help streamline AI factory deployments.
Research Note: VDURA V5000 All-Flash AI Storage Appliance
VDURA recently announced its new V5000 All-Flash Appliance, a high-performance storage solution engineered for AI and high-performance computing workloads. The system integrates with the VDURA V11 Data Platform for a combination of high throughput, low-latency access, and seamless scalability.
Research Note: Pure Storage FlashBlade//EXA
Pure Storage recently announced the launch of its new FlashBlade//EXA, a high-performance storage platform designed for AI and HPC workloads. FlashBlade//EXA extends the company’s Purity operating environment and DirectFlash technology to provide extreme performance, scalability, and metadata management that addresses the increasing demands of AI-driven applications.
Research Note: WEKA & HPE Set SpecStorage Records
WEKA and HPE recently announced record-breaking results across all five benchmark workloads in the SPECstorage Solution 2020 suite. The results were achieved using the WEKA Data Platform on the HPE Alletra Storage Server 4110, powered by Intel Xeon processors.
The results show the system’s ability to handle data-intensive workloads, including AI, genomics, software development, and video analytics, with high efficiency and low latency.
Research Note: Hammerspace Global Data Platform v5.1 with Tier 0
Hammerspace recently announced the version 5.1 release of its Hammerspace Global Data Platform. The flagship feature of the release its new Tier 0 storage capability, which takes unused local NVMe storage on a GPU server and uses it as part of the global shared filesystem. This provides higher-performance storage for the GPU server than can be delivered from remote storage nodes – ideal for AI and GPU-centric workloads.
SC24: Shaping the Future of IT with High-Performance Computing and AI
Last week’s Supercomputing 2024 (SC24) conference in Atlanta brought together IT leaders, researchers, and industry innovators to unveil advancements in HPC and AI, with even a little quantum computing thrown in.
Research Note: WEKA’s New WEKApod Nitro & Extreme
WEKA this week expanded its footprint in the AI data infrastructure space with the release of two new data platform appliances designed to meet diverse AI deployment needs.
The new products, WEKApod Nitro and WEKApod Prime, are WEKA’s latest offerings for high-performance data solutions that support accelerated AI model training, high-throughput workloads, and enterprise AI demands. The new solutions address the rapid growth of generative AI, LLMs, and RAG and fine-tuning pipelines across industries.
Research Report: Impact of Storage Architecture on the AI Lifecycle
Traditional storage solutions, whether on-premises or in the cloud, often fail to meet the varying needs of each phase of the AI lifecycle. These legacy approaches are particularly ill-suited for the demands of distributed training, where keeping an expensive AI training cluster idle has a real economic impact on the enterprise.
Quick Take: WEKA Brings Data Platform to NexGen Cloud
WekaIO is partnering with NexGen Cloud, the leading UK-based sustainable infrastructure-as-a-service provider, to establish a high-performance foundation for NexGen Cloud’s upcoming AI Supercloud. This Supercloud and NexGen Cloud’s Hyperstack GPU-as-a-Service platform will leverage WEKA’s technology.
WEKA Lights Up the Vegas Sphere for U2
Supplying the data infrastructure for something like U2’s show at the Sphere in Las Vegas is significant challenge.
This piece looks at how WEKA stepped up to meet the demanding challenges of one of the biggest bands in the world.