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NetApp buying Peak:AIO to give ONTAP Parallel NFS injection NetApp is acquiring Peak:AIO with its AI-focussed parallel NFS system software and metadata architecture. Manchester, UK-based Peak:AIO is a software-defined all-flash storage company that was founded in 2021 by Chief Strategy Officer and CTO Mark Klarzynski and Eyal Lemberger, Chief of AI and Cyber Security Strategy. US-based CEO Roger Cummings came on board in May 2024. Its technology originated from collaborations with leading research institutions, including Los Alamos National Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University, Peak says its software provides a global file namespace and parallel NFS data access for massively parallel workloads. The SW “delivers dramatically faster performance while consuming less energy,” and Peak has talked about a CXL memory-based KV cache offload system. George Kurian, NetApp’s CEO, said: "AI clouds need high-performance shared storage that can scale alongside growing GPU clusters while maintaining the resilience, security, and operational simplicity organizations depend on. With PEAK:AIO, we are delivering on our vision for a new generation of AI infrastructure that combines scalable metadata services with the proven foundation of ONTAP to help customers maximize infrastructure efficiency and support AI at hyperscale cloud." NetApp aims to accelerate its AI infrastructure roadmap by building an architecture that disaggregates metadata from data and enables metadata services to scale independently, creating a foundation for AI infrastructure capable of supporting trillions of files, exabyte-scale environments, and massively parallel workloads. The company says existing traditional storage architectures, such as ONTAP, “were not designed for the unprecedented scale, concurrency, and performance requirements of AI factories, AI clouds, and next-generation data-intensive applications.” The two companies are aiming to reduce data-related GPU stalls and give AI clouds a clear path to scale shared storage as fast as their compute grows. ONTAP with added Peak:AIO metadata capabilities and parallel namespace features will have a a differentiated architecture that preserves its resilience, security, and operational maturity, while introducing a new level of scalability for AI workloads. Mark Klarzynski said: "NetApp and PEAK:AIO connected through the shared belief that the AI era demands a fundamentally new approach to data infrastructure. What excites us most about joining NetApp is the opportunity to pair our culture of innovation with the reach, scale, and customer trust of a global leader. Together with NetApp, we have an opportunity to help shape that future and deliver technologies that make managing data at a massive scale both practical and accessible.” NetApp emphasized that there would be a clear evolution path for existing ONTAP customers. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Peak:AIO secured around $7 million in seed funding in October last year. We understand the acquisition is likely not material in a financial sense to NetApp, with its $410 million in free cash flow in its latest quarterly results. Bootnote In March last year, Peak:AIO announced a 2RU DataServer, a parallel NFS NAS system based on a Dell server with Solidigm NVMe SSDs and Nvidia CX7 Ethernet NICs. It also has an NVMe flash-based PEAK:ARCHIVE product offering up to 1.4 PB capacity in a 2RU chassis.
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