NetApp and Cisco Accelerate and Secure AI Innovation

New FlexPod solutions deliver proven performance, security, and unified management for AI

NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, and Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced that they have collaborated to offer new validated solutions for secure, scalable, and simplified AI. Expanding the proven success of FlexPod, the new solutions provide a simple, reliable path for enterprises to address the specific challenges AI workloads place on compute, network, and storage infrastructure.

“As IT teams are tasked with delivering reliable, consistent performance across environments, AI workloads are placing increasing demands on their data infrastructure,” said Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer at NetApp. “NetApp and Cisco’s longstanding partnership on FlexPod has already proven effective, saving customers up to 20 percent of their time in infrastructure management and maintenance. Now, we are applying our combined expertise to modern challenges to accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk with built-in security.”

NetApp and Cisco are expanding FlexPod to support AI adoption across different organizational sizes and maturity levels, using pre-tested, validated architectures and enterprise-grade data management as a consistent foundation. These solutions support use cases such as:

• Enterprise AI Deployments: Enterprises can simply and quickly deploy high-performance infrastructure for AI use cases including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and semantic search using this validated architecture. FlexPod reduces integration complexity while allowing AI capabilities to run directly where the data resides, with built-in, end-to-end security. This architecture includes disaggregated storage for independent scaling of performance and capacity with NetApp AFX; future functionality of data discovery, preparation and governance capabilities from NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE) which integrates the NVIDIA AI Data Platform reference design; and distributed security and Zero Trust-aligned controls across the AI pipeline for AI-specific risks from Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA. Underpinning the Secure AI Factory, Cisco AI networking infrastructure with Nexus One transforms the network into a deterministic, high-performance fabric to maximize XPU utilization, reduce job completion times, and deliver predictable AI outcomes at scale. Targeting full-stack enterprise AI use cases, NetApp and Cisco have collaborated with NVIDIA to build FlexPod Solutions based on NVIDIA Enterprise Reference Architectures, enabling organizations to design, deploy, and scale high-performance AI factories.
• AI Inferencing and RAG Workflows: To enable teams and departments to tap into the benefits of AI with their existing data, this simplified, pre-integrated solution is designed to lower the cost, complexity, and specialized skill requirements associated with deploying AI infrastructure.
• Edge Computing: This solution enables enterprises to support AI inferencing, containerized, and virtualized workloads at the edge while maintaining low latency and operational consistency. By extending proven FlexPod architecture to remote and edge locations, customers benefit from faster time to value and reduced operational complexity compared to bespoke infrastructure or isolated IT stacks at each site. Combining Cisco Unified Edge with flexible NetApp storage options delivers a flexible, validated converged solution. Centralized fleet management, policy-based configuration, and automated orchestration enable repeatable deployments and simplified operations across highly distributed environments.

“As organizations move from AI experimentation to real‑world deployment, security can’t be an afterthought. It has to be built in from the start,” said Jeremy Foster, GM and SVP at Cisco. “By collaborating with NetApp to extend Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to our validated FlexPod solution, we’re helping customers address AI‑specific risks such as data exposure, governance gaps, and compliance challenges while simplifying how AI infrastructure is deployed and operated.”

"Enterprises are sitting on vast amounts of data, but without the discovery, governance and preparation built into the infrastructure itself, enterprises will struggle to power production AI,” said Jason Hardy, vice president, Storage Technologies at NVIDIA. “NetApp AI Data Engine, co-engineered on the NVIDIA AI Data Platform and validated with the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA, gives organizations the secure, AI-ready data foundation to deploy AI factories on FlexPod infrastructure at scale."

"The new AI capabilities in FlexPod expand our ability to help customers navigate the AI era with confidence," said Brian Bartell, Practice Manager, Compute & Storage at WWT. "Through our long-standing partnerships with NetApp and Cisco, the introduction of NetApp's AI Data Engine, and the ability to validate these architectures hands-on in WWT's AI Proving Ground, we can compress the time from concept to execution, giving our customers a pre-tested, industry-leading foundation to move at the speed of the market and unlock the power of their data."

To learn more about NetApp's partnership with Cisco, visit the NetApp booth #7414 at Cisco Live!, May 31-June 4 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Additional Resources

• FlexPod: A Secure, Smart, Sustainable, Hybrid Platform
• NetApp AI Data Engine: An End-to-End, Storage-Integrated AI Data Service
• NetApp AFX: The Best Data Infrastructure for AI
• NetApp Collaborates with Cisco on Enterprise-Grade Converged Infrastructure with Disaggregated Storage for AI
• Cisco & NetApp: Powering Enterprise Data Centers with AI Networking and Storage

About NetApp

For more than three decades, NetApp has helped the world’s leading organizations navigate change – from the rise of enterprise storage to the intelligent era defined by data and AI. Today, NetApp is the Intelligent Data Infrastructure company, helping customers turn data into a catalyst for innovation, resilience, and growth.

At the heart of that infrastructure is the NetApp data platform – the unified, enterprise-grade, intelligent foundation that connects, protects, and activates data across every cloud, workload, and environment. Built on the proven power of NetApp ONTAP, our leading data management software and OS, and enhanced by automation through the AI Data Engine and AFX, it delivers observability, resilience, and intelligence at scale.

Disaggregated by design, the NetApp data platform separates storage, services, and control so enterprises can modernize faster, scale efficiently, and innovate without lock-in. As the only enterprise storage platform natively embedded in the world’s largest clouds, it gives organizations the freedom to run any workload anywhere with consistent performance, governance, and protection.

With NetApp, data is always ready – ready to defend against threats, ready to power AI, and ready to drive the next breakthrough. That’s why the world’s most forward-thinking enterprises trust NetApp to turn intelligence into advantage.

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NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that is revolutionizing the way organizations connect and protect in the AI era. For more than 40 years, Cisco has securely connected the world. With its industry leading AI-powered solutions and services, Cisco enables its customers, partners and communities to unlock innovation, enhance productivity and strengthen digital resilience. With purpose at its core, Cisco remains committed to creating a more connected and inclusive future for all. Discover more on The Newsroom and follow us on X at @Cisco.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco’s trademarks can be found at http://www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word ‘partner’ does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

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