VAST Data, the data platform company for the AI-powered world, has announced support for a next-generation storage platform concept called Ceres. Enabled by VAST’s Universal Storage data platform, Ceres is built leveraging new hardware technologies including NVIDIA BlueField DPUs (data processing units) and ruler-based hyperscale flash drives that improve performance, simplify serviceability and reduce data centre costs.
Designed by VAST and industry partners to advance storage into the modern AI era, Ceres brings new levels of speed, resilience, modularity and data centre efficiency. Ceres furthers VAST’s mission to equip enterprises and service providers with new capabilities that have otherwise been the exclusive domain of the world’s largest hyperscale cloud providers. These new hardware platforms, powered by VAST Universal Storage software, enables customers to adopt cutting-edge technologies, providing the following benefits: increased performance, better power and space efficiencies; ultra-dense flash capacity configurations; and simplified serviceability for disaggregated storage clusters.
In addition to storage-side DPUs, VAST is collaborating with NVIDIA on new storage services to enable Zero Trust security and offload functionality with client-side DPUs, such as those introduced in the recently announced NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD configurations. This new platform design will initially be manufactured by VAST design partners such as AIC (for commercial applications) and Mercury Systems (for rugged/defence applications) and will serve as the data capacity building blocks of VAST’s Universal Storage clusters.
