How Red Hat, NetApp, and Cisco simplify IT modernization

For enterprise IT, modernizing infrastructure isn't about following trends, it's the way to maximize efficiency and ensure continued support. The ideal path to modernization combines compute, storage, and networking into a single, cohesive system that's easy to deploy. It uses enterprise-grade storage for intelligent data management, and runs on an enterprise-tested application platform that handles containers and virtual machines (VM) in a unified environment. It allows you to  develop and deploy applications in your data center, and then move them to the cloud as needed, without retooling. Ultimately, modernization done well helps your developers deploy applications faster, lets your IT teams (from network to storage to sysadmins) coordinate, and saves you time and money.

Modernization is too important for trial and error

Enterprise IT cannot rely on trial and error. Consider hardware, for instance. It would take weeks (if not months) to piece together compute, storage, and networking from multiple vendors. Then there's integration testing, stress and load testing. Then there's the constant worry about whether you deployed the most efficient and cost effective solution. And that's before you even get to the application stack. Are you trying to modernize from a legacy monolithic architecture to a more modern, cloud-native approach? Do you need a hypervisor for virtual machines? Can you scale and migrate applications from on-premises to a cloud hyperscaler without refactoring? 

A solution to this problem is needed now, more than ever. Customers demand speed and agility, so deploying your applications quickly is paramount. But this can't come at the cost of security or dependability. Organizations also need choice to optimize costs. Spending weeks or months to engineer a solution is not always optimal, so a better solution is needed.  

Application modernization

The smart path is to use a proven, integrated design that's validated to work together, across on-premises or in the cloud. NetApp has partnered with Cisco and Red Hat on such a solution.

NetApp FlexPod is a converged infrastructure solution, combining compute, storage, and networking into one validated design.  Red Hat provides the application platform in the form of Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by  Kubernetes. This integration is thoroughly tested, with several Cisco Validated Designs (CVD) published by Cisco for various application use cases.

Application development

Modern application development is largely based around microservices. Deploying a monolithic application, where all components are bundled together, is  slow to deploy and upgrade, and it's difficult to scale. A cloud-native approach uses containers to deploy applications rapidly and at scale. These applications can then be deployed across multiple environments, from on-premises to the cloud. NetApp FlexPod with Red Hat OpenShift provides this cloud-native, enterprise-ready solution.

This approach has several advantages:

• Cloud-native: Red Hat OpenShift runs the same applications everywhere. Develop once, run anywhere.
• Microservices at scale: Small, independent services can be upgraded and scaled without impacting the whole system.
• Developer agility: Built-in CI/CD pipelines, GitOps workflows, and service catalogs help teams release features fast, while maintaining security and compliance.
• Portability: Run apps on private data centers, public clouds, or hybrid environments without retooling.
• Stateful support across hybrid-clouds: NetApp's enterprise data protection ensures applications get the mobility and data projects they need.

Modern virtualization

Legacy, or traditional, virtualization is at a turning point. Price increases and the growing need for app modernization has created uncertainty for many.  You might be interested in modernizing your apps, but hesitant to deploy and manage two platforms: One for VMs and another for containers. FlexPod and Red Hat OpenShift can bridge that gap.

FlexPod and Red Hat OpenShift provide a unified platform for both containers and virtualization. Based on the upstream KubeVirt project, OpenShift Virtualization enables a VM to be run as a pod alongside your containers. 

Simplifying operations

A single platform for containers and VMs lets your organization modernize at its own pace, and eliminates the need for separate systems for containers and VMs.

Optimizing costs

Consolidating workload management into a single license means you reduce the operational overhead of managing two separate systems.

Enabling hybrid cloud

You can easily migrate VM and container workloads between your data center and the cloud, providing the flexibility to optimize for performance and cost.

Robust data protection

Integrated NetApp storage provides a solid foundation for data protection, with features like snapshots and data replication.

AI and ML 

Organizations are increasingly investing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to drive innovation and gain competitive advantages. However, transitioning from proof-of-concept AI/ML projects to production-ready applications is the real challenge. The FlexPod AI solution with Red Hat OpenShift AI offers a comprehensive, scalable, and flexible platform designed to streamline and accelerate your AI/ML initiatives.

OpenShift AI is a powerful platform developed by Red Hat designed to provide a flexible and scalable environment for enterprise AI/ML initiatives. It integrates pre-configured and customizable environments, making it easier for your organization to develop, deploy, and manage AI/ML models. OpenShift AI offers automation, Jupyter notebooks, GitHub access, and multiple storage and database options, and provides a user-friendly interface that supports a wide range of AI/ML use cases.

Use cases with OpenShift AI on FlexPod AI

The integration of OpenShift AI with FlexPod AI supports a variety of AI/ML use cases. 

• Fraud Detection: Uses TensorFlow to classify transactions as fraudulent or valid, enhancing security and reducing financial losses by detecting fraud in real-time during transaction processing in financial institutions.
• Object Detection: Utilizes PyTorch and YOLOv8 to detect car accidents from camera feeds, improving road safety and enabling quick response to traffic incidents in traffic management systems.
• Text to Image: Generates images from text descriptions using PyTorch and CUDA 11.8, reducing time and effort in creating high-quality images for creative industries and content generation.
• NVIDIA Inference Microservices (NIM): Optimizes AI inferencing with performance-optimized models, accelerating deployment of generative AI applications and improving performance for real-time analytics and recommendation systems.
• RAG Chatbot: Uses Retrieval-augmented generation with Milvus Vector store and LLM for intelligent chatbot responses, enhancing user experience with accurate and context-aware responses in customer service and help desks.
• Fine-Tune Pre-Trained Llama3.1 Models: Fine-tunes LLMs using Ray on OpenShift AI for custom natural language processing (NLP) applications, customizing powerful LLMs to specific enterprise needs and enhancing performance in text generation, translation, and summarization.

Conclusion

The trial and error approach to IT infrastructure is not sufficient for the modern enterprise. Organizations that adopt a proven, validated design like NetApp FlexPod with Red Hat OpenShift can solve a wide range of business challenges. From app and VM modernization to AI/ML workloads, the FlexPod solution simplifies operations, optimizes costs, and prepares you for a hybrid cloud world. The smarter path is available today.