NetApp and Cisco Announce Joint Solution to Accelerate AI Innovation and Enhance Security
NetApp and Cisco have jointly announced new validated solutions for FlexPod to accelerate AI innovation. By integrating NVIDIA technologies, they provide a simple, secure, and scalable data infrastructure for RAG and edge AI workloads.
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- 📰 Published: June 12, 2026 at 11:00
- 🔍 Collected: June 12, 2026 at 11:29 (29 min after Published)
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NetApp, the intelligent data infrastructure company, has announced a new set of validated solutions jointly provided with Cisco to deliver a secure, scalable, and simple AI environment. Expanding on the proven success of FlexPod, these solutions provide enterprises with a simple, reliable path to address the unique challenges AI workloads bring to compute, network, and storage foundations.
Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer at NetApp, stated, "IT teams are under pressure to provide consistent performance across environments, and AI workloads are rapidly increasing demands on data infrastructure. The long-standing collaboration between NetApp and Cisco on FlexPod has already proven effective, helping customers reduce time spent on infrastructure operation and maintenance by up to 20%. By applying our combined insights to modern challenges, we are helping accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk through embedded security."
These solutions support the following use cases:
- Enterprise AI Deployment: Enterprises can rapidly deploy high-performance infrastructure for AI use cases such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and semantic search. The architecture includes disaggregated storage via NetApp AFX, data discovery/governance features through NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE), and distributed security and zero-trust controls via Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA.
- AI Inference and RAG Workflows: Provides pre-integrated, simple solutions to unlock value from existing data, reducing costs, complexity, and high-level skill requirements.
- Edge Computing: Supports AI inference, container, and virtualized workloads in edge environments while maintaining low latency and operational consistency. This extends the proven FlexPod architecture to remote locations, improving time-to-market and operational simplicity.
Jeremy Foster, Senior Vice President and GM at Cisco, noted, "As companies move from experimentation to production, security must be built-in from the start, not as an afterthought. By extending Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to FlexPod in collaboration with NetApp, we simplify AI infrastructure deployment and operation while addressing AI-specific risks such as data leakage and compliance gaps."
Dallas Olson, Chief Commercial Officer at NetApp, stated, "IT teams are under pressure to provide consistent performance across environments, and AI workloads are rapidly increasing demands on data infrastructure. The long-standing collaboration between NetApp and Cisco on FlexPod has already proven effective, helping customers reduce time spent on infrastructure operation and maintenance by up to 20%. By applying our combined insights to modern challenges, we are helping accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk through embedded security."
These solutions support the following use cases:
- Enterprise AI Deployment: Enterprises can rapidly deploy high-performance infrastructure for AI use cases such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and semantic search. The architecture includes disaggregated storage via NetApp AFX, data discovery/governance features through NetApp AI Data Engine (AIDE), and distributed security and zero-trust controls via Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA.
- AI Inference and RAG Workflows: Provides pre-integrated, simple solutions to unlock value from existing data, reducing costs, complexity, and high-level skill requirements.
- Edge Computing: Supports AI inference, container, and virtualized workloads in edge environments while maintaining low latency and operational consistency. This extends the proven FlexPod architecture to remote locations, improving time-to-market and operational simplicity.
Jeremy Foster, Senior Vice President and GM at Cisco, noted, "As companies move from experimentation to production, security must be built-in from the start, not as an afterthought. By extending Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA to FlexPod in collaboration with NetApp, we simplify AI infrastructure deployment and operation while addressing AI-specific risks such as data leakage and compliance gaps."
FAQ
Why does FlexPod simplify AI deployment?
It integrates and pre-validates storage, networking, security, and AI engines, eliminating the complexity of custom builds and enabling rapid deployment.
What security measures are included?
It adopts Cisco Secure AI Factory, utilizing distributed security and zero-trust controls to prevent AI-specific risks and data leakage.
Is it suitable for edge environments?
Yes. Cisco Unified Edge and NetApp's flexible storage enable consistent, centrally managed operations even across distributed remote locations.