F5, NetApp team to streamline AI app deployments

F5 and NetApp announced plans to combine their technologies to help enterprise customers securely deploy AI applications across multicloud environments.

The deal will bring together F5’s secure multicloud networking technology and NetApp’s BlueXP suite of data management products to streamline the use of large language models (LLM) across hybrid environments. The combination will make it easier for customers to build LLMs using enterprise data and create AI-based applications that can help monitor, manage and troubleshoot distributed networked systems.

Distributed Cloud Network Connect is F5’s connectivity service that ties together multiple cloud provider networks. NetApp’s BlueXP offers a single integrated pane of glass for monitoring, troubleshooting and managing NetApp storage systems including OnCommand Network Attached Storage Protocol (ONTAP), All flash (AFF), and the Microsoft-NetApp developed Azure NetApp Files (ANF).

“By integrating F5’s secure, high-performance multicloud networking capabilities with NetApp’s data management solutions, we’re making it possible to quickly retrieve company data no matter where it’s located and securely combine it with an LLM,” wrote Hunter Smit, a marketing strategist with F5, in a blog post about the integration. “NetApp’s Cloud Volumes ONTAP and Azure NetApp Files optimize cloud storage costs and performance while enhancing data protection and compliance. When combined with F5 Distributed Cloud Network Connect, data can be quickly and securely connected and moved across zones and regions regardless of where it’s stored.”

Then, by using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), enterprises can combine a pre-trained LLM such as ChatGPT with their own proprietary data to obtain accurate, contextually aware responses, Smit stated.   

RAG is an AI technique that combines retrieval-based and generation-based approaches to improve the quality and relevance of responses by incorporating relevant, often proprietary, documents or information from a large dataset into generated answers without exposing them to public LLMs, according to Smit.

“They can restrict the data that’s used by pulling only from the most relevant sources such as approved company procedures, policies, or product information. And because RAG retrieves information in real time from a company’s vector database, they can make sure they always obtain the latest information as new data is added,” Smit wrote.

As businesses look for ways to deliver LLM applications that advance the business, the joint solution will offer a way to manage, protect, and optimize their data, Smit stated. 

This AI-related partnership is an extension of work F5 and NetApp have done over the years to bring together networking and storage management. Other packages integrate F5 and NetApp technologies to streamline management of cloud-based applications, for example, and the vendors have also worked together to integrate NetApp’s storage offerings with F5’s Application Delivery Controller in cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.