Pure Storage Embraces Next-Gen Networking for AI with Ultra Ethernet Consortium Membership

Pure Storage, Inc. joined Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), a Linux Foundation initiative dedicated to building a complete, open, and accessible Ethernet-based architecture to accelerate critical, data-intensive AI and HPC applications.

As the leading storage platform serving the most advanced enterprise AI initiatives, Pure Storage commits to further defining and integrating UEC technology standards, while building and delivering a forward-compatible platform to optimize performance for enterprise AI and HPC workloads using Ethernet, supporting rapid innovation and faster time to market.

Industry significance
As enterprises strive to achieve their AI goals, they face significant challenges with existing network solutions that are difficult to manage and scale, hindering the flexibility and efficiency needed for growing AI workloads.

To address these challenges, UEC aims to advance Ethernet technology, offering a scalable and efficient solution to support AI innovation.

Ethernet’s increased adoption in data centers, due to its lower TCO, extensive interoperability, and proven reliability, has made it the foundation for many of the world’s largest AI clusters. The advancement of new Ultra Ethernet standards will allow enterprises to maximize their existing AI and HPC investments while deploying performance-intensive applications, driving innovation, boosting productivity, and enhancing operational efficiency.

Highlights
By contributing to the standardization and growth of high performance Ethernet for large-scale AI and HPC initiatives, the company will accelerate platform development to support UEC standards long-term, delivering:

• Faster time to innovation: As AI and HPC workloads are accelerated, AI infrastructure powered by Ultra Ethernet will enable lower job completion times and higher frequency iterations that speed model building, training and inference, translating into faster time to innovation, faster time to market, and shorter time to insight.
• Cost-effective, efficient operations: Faster compute, network, and link speeds, as well as lower latency and higher network utilization provides enterprises with high performance AI and HPC networking and storage built on cost-effective and easy to manage Ethernet-based switches and storage.
• Enhanced choice for customers: Customers will have greater choice between IB and Ethernet networks, allowing them to extend their Ethernet networking investments into the AI and HPC applications they are adopting.

“Since its inception, Pure Storage has committed to delivering flexible, reliable, and high performance data storage technologies and services to simplify the enterprise data experience. Joining the UEC provides Pure with the opportunity to work alongside leaders in compute, networking, and storage to drive the development of a new ultra-Ethernet architecture for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads, said Maciej Kranz, GM, Enterprise, Pure.

“The UEC is a leader in driving the evolution of Ethernet technologies, accelerating innovation and setting new benchmarks for performance, reliability, and scalability in networking. As a member of the steering committee, Arista strongly supports the UEC, and Arista is excited to have Pure Storage’s deep storage expertise, in collaboration with other industry leaders, to advance Ethernet standards and ultimately empower organizations to meet the ever-growing demands of AI and HPC,” said Hugh Holbrook, chief development officer, Arista Networks, Inc.

“Ethernet stands as the leading networking technology for AI due to its unmatched performance and scalability. UEC has emerged as a unifying force, bringing together industry leaders to evolve Ethernet technology for the next generation of AI and HPC. Given the critical role of data storage and protection in a comprehensive AI solution, we are thrilled to see Pure Storage join the consortium, bringing their valuable expertise in these essential areas,” said Ram Velaga, SVP and GM, core switching group, Broadcom, Inc.

“Intel strongly believes in an open ecosystem driven approach. Intel is working with its ecosystem partners and customers to adapt Ethernet for highly scalable AI / HPC fabrics. We are excited to see our valued, long-time partner Pure Storage joining the UEC and looking forward to keeping working together on joint solutions driving AI everywhere,” said Dorin Vanderjack, VP and GM, U.S. OEM and strategic accounts, Intel Corp.

Resources:
Blog: Pure Storage Has Joined the Ultra Ethernet Consortium 
More about UEC