The News: NetApp announced it is collaborating with NVIDIA to advance retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) for generative AI applications using data infrastructure platforms. Read more on the NetApp website.
NetApp Announces NVIDIA Collaboration for Secure Generative AI RAG
Analyst Take: The intersection of generative AI and data science is taking positive strides in creating operational efficiencies and innovation for organizations of all sizes. The release of ChatGPT has brought a significant new level of investment in AI and, more recently, RAG. RAG is enhancing pretrained large language models (LLMs) with proprietary data, thereby generating results that have been trained with internal information. This approach to AI can rapidly bring new operationally enhanced approaches to marketing, human resources, customer service and IT operations, to name a few areas.
At The Futurum Group, we recognize the rapid impact of RAG and the promise it holds. However, one of the pervasive issues with generative AI and AI as a whole is data security and governance. This is due both to internal policies as well as pending policies seen in government regulations. Addressing these concerns head-on, NetApp and NVIDIA are collaborating to deliver RAG as a secure, compliant enterprise initiative.
The key component to this collaboration is between NVIDIA’s NeMo Retriever and NetApp’s intelligent data infrastructure offerings. NVIDIA’s NeMo Retriever offers a pathway to integrate RAG capabilities into existing AI applications. By leveraging NetApp’s extensive data repositories, which include ONTAP and StorageGrid systems on premises and in clouds, generative AI pipelines can access stored data along with extensive data management tools. The NetApp and NVIDIA solution prioritizes data governance and compliance, along with access controls and permissions that are enforced throughout the data pipeline.
The scalability and the availability in the public cloud makes the solution potentially accessible to a very broad set of enterprises, especially given supply chain issues. We are seeing a major rush to capture this technology, given its potential to change up business economics.
As stated by NetApp, “Customers can now query their data, whether spreadsheets, documents, presentations, technical drawings, images, meeting recordings, or even data from their [enterprise resource planning] ERP or [customer relationship management] CRM systems through simple prompts – all while maintaining the access control they’ve already established when storing the data.”
The RAG process is a key enabler in transforming general-purpose AI models into highly accurate, context-aware solutions for specific industries or organizations. As organizations increasingly adopt AI, use of internal data with RAG will be instrumental in developing valuable AI solutions. With this announcement, NetApp has provided a simple and secure way for organizations to leverage their existing NetApp storage in their AI pipelines with RAG.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group:
NetApp Gets Insightful on Generative AI, Cyber Recovery
Demystifying AI, ML, and Deep Learning
Generative AI: From the Manufacturing Plant to the Car – Six Five In the Booth with IBM and AT&T
Author Information
Now retired, Camberley brought over 25 years of executive experience leading sales and marketing teams at Fortune 500 firms. Before joining The Futurum Group, she led the Evaluator Group, an information technology analyst firm as Managing Director.
Her career spanned all elements of sales and marketing including a 360-degree view of addressing challenges and delivering solutions was achieved from crossing the boundary of sales and channel engagement with large enterprise vendors and her own 100-person IT services firm.
Camberley provided Global 250 startups with go-to-market strategies, creating a new market category “MAID” as Vice President of Marketing at COPAN and led a worldwide marketing team including channels as a VP at VERITAS. At GE Access, a $2B distribution company, she served as VP of a new division and succeeded in growing the company from $14 to $500 million and built a successful 100-person IT services firm. Camberley began her career at IBM in sales and management.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from California State University – Long Beach and executive certificates from Wellesley and Wharton School of Business.
Mitch comes to The Futurum Group through the acquisition of the Evaluator Group and is focused on the fast-paced and rapidly evolving areas of cloud computing and data storage. Mitch joined Evaluator Group in 2019 as a Research Associate covering numerous storage technologies and emerging IT trends.
With a passion for all things tech, Mitch brings deep technical knowledge and insight to The Futurum Group’s research by highlighting the latest in data center and information management solutions. Mitch’s coverage has spanned topics including primary and secondary storage, private and public clouds, networking fabrics, and more. With ever changing data technologies and rapidly emerging trends in today’s digital world, Mitch provides valuable insights into the IT landscape for enterprises, IT professionals, and technology enthusiasts alike.
