VAST Data has announced a strengthened alliance with Google Cloud, enhancing its AI Operating System (AI OS) service capabilities. This expanded collaboration enables users to roll out the VAST AI OS as a fully managed service across hybrid infrastructures, utilizing a unified global namespace technology.
By leveraging the VAST DataSpace, enterprises can seamlessly integrate clusters hosted on both Google Cloud and on-premises settings. This integration bypasses the need for intricate data migrations, ensuring that data is readily accessible wherever AI processes are executed.
Addressing Fragmented Storage and Data Silos
One of the primary challenges faced by enterprises aiming to optimize AI deployments
One of the primary challenges faced by enterprises aiming to optimize AI deployments is that data is often distributed across various locations, making migrations time-consuming and expensive.
Fragmented storage solutions and isolated data pipelines hinder consistent, high-performance access necessary for AI accelerators, and any alteration in the environment increases compliance and governance workloads.
Connecting Clusters with VAST DataSpace
To tackle these issues, VAST Data and Google Cloud encourage data placement flexibility as opposed to a restrictive approach. In a recently demonstrated case study, VAST highlighted the capability of its DataSpace to connect clusters spanning over 10,000 kilometers, linking locations in the United States and Japan.
This setup provided near real-time data accessibility across both regions, facilitating inference tasks with vLLM, thus allowing AI models to operate on both TPUs in the US and GPUs in Japan without data duplication.
Managed AI OS for Seamless Integration
"Through our partnership with Google Cloud, we're meeting customers where they are by delivering a fully managed AI OS," said Jeff Denworth, Co-Founder of VAST Data.
This service, delivered via Google Cloud Marketplace, integrates governance, billing, and scalability in support of hybrid cloud operations, ensuring enterprise data is dynamically utilized.
Future-Ready Digital Transformation
The integration of the VAST AI Operating System with Google Cloud aims to expedite digital change
The integration of the VAST AI Operating System with Google Cloud aims to expedite digital transformation processes.
According to Nirav Mehta, Vice President of Compute Platform at Google Cloud, the platform allows customers to "quickly deploy, manage, and grow" their data solutions utilizing Google Cloud's secure infrastructure.
Performance Optimization and Integration
Recent tests underscore the VAST AI Operating System's ability to integrate efficiently with Google Cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) virtual machines.
By delivering model load speeds comparable to local NVMe disks, the system maintains reliable performance even during initial runs. This establishes the VAST AI OS not only as a data management platform but also as an engine for performance optimization, designed to maximize AI pipeline productivity.
Advanced Features of VAST AI OS
"The VAST AI OS is redefining what it means to move fast in AI. Loading models at speeds comparable to local NVMe while delivering a full suite of advanced platform features," said Subramanian Kartik, Chief Scientist at VAST Data.
This innovation drives greater efficiency and improves response times for AI workloads.
Deploying AI with VAST and Google Cloud
VAST can be deployed in Google Cloud, allowing for the immediate deployment of AI workloads
VAST can be deployed in Google Cloud, allowing for immediate deployment of AI workloads on existing data sets without complex migration strategies.
VAST DataSpace and smart data streaming facilitate a consistent global data namespace across on-prem and Google Cloud environments, thus minimizing transfer delays and compliance issues.
Cost Reduction and Data Management
Enterprises can cut expenses by streaming only the necessary data subsets, avoiding full-scale replication. This helps redirect resources from data movement to AI innovation, thus bolstering infrastructure for demanding AI pipelines across sectors such as genomics, biology, and finance.
The VAST AI Operating System offers a unified platform, combining DataStore, DataBase, InsightEngine, AgentEngine, and DataSpace, enabling them to scale and adapt across various environments without needing architectural changes. Joint validation and reference guidance for establishing a VAST DataSpace across Google Cloud and external clusters are available for qualified partners and customers.
VAST Data, the AI Operating System company, announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud, enabling customers to deploy the VAST AI Operating System (AI OS) as a fully managed service and extend a unified global namespace across hybrid environments.
Powered by the VAST DataSpace, enterprises can seamlessly connect clusters running in Google Cloud and on-premises locations, eliminating complex migrations and making data instantly available wherever AI runs.
Fragmented storage and siloed data pipelines
Enterprises want to run AI where it performs best, but data rarely lives in one place and migrating can take months and costs millions.
Fragmented storage and siloed data pipelines make it hard to feed the AI accelerators with consistent, high-throughput access and every environment change multiplies governance and compliance burdens.
VAST DataSpace to connect clusters
VAST and Google Cloud address this challenge by making data placement a choice rather than a constraint. In this recorded demonstration, VAST showcased the power of the VAST DataSpace to connect clusters across more than 10,000 kilometers, linking one in the United States with another in Japan.
This configuration delivered seamless, near real-time access to the same data in both locations while running inference workloads with vLLM, enabling intelligent workload placement so organizations can run AI models on TPUs in the US and GPUs in Japan without duplicating data or managing separate environments.
Fully managed AI OS
“Through our partnership with Google Cloud, we’re meeting customers where they are by delivering a fully managed AI OS,” said Jeff Denworth, Co-Founder at VAST Data.
“When leveraging our global namespace with intelligent streaming, Google Cloud customers can auto-deploy a VAST-managed cluster via Google Cloud Marketplace and start production in minutes, providing integrated governance and billing, elastic scale, and supporting the hybrid cloud mission – and it’s all handled by VAST, making enterprise data instantly usable for agentic workloads.”
Digital transformation journeys
“Bringing VAST AI Operating System to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow the data solution on Google Cloud's trusted, global infrastructure," said Nirav Mehta, Vice President, Compute Platform at Google Cloud.
“VAST can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys.”
Powering Google Cloud TPUs with data access and near-local version
Recent performance results also show how the VAST AI Operating System connects seamlessly to Google Cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) virtual machines, integrating directly with Google Cloud’s platform for large-scale AI.
In testing with Meta’s Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct model, the VAST AI Operating System delivered model load speeds on par with local NVMe disks, while maintaining predictable performance during cold starts. These results confirm that the VAST AI OS is not just a data platform but a performance engine designed to keep accelerators fully utilized and AI pipelines continuously in motion.
Advanced platform features
“The VAST AI OS is redefining what it means to move fast in AI. Loading models at speeds comparable to local NVMe while delivering a full suite of advanced platform features,” said Subramanian Kartik, Chief Scientist at VAST Data.
“This is the kind of acceleration that turns idle accelerators into active intelligence, driving higher efficiency and faster time to insight for every AI workload.”
With VAST on Google Cloud, customers can benefit
- Deploy AI in Minutes, Not Months: Organizations can run production AI workloads on Google Cloud today against existing on-premises datasets without migration planning, transfer delays, or extended compliance cycles. Using VAST DataSpace and intelligent streaming, they can present a consistent global namespace of data across on-prem and Google Cloud instantly.
- Reduce Data-Movement Costs: Stream only the subsets that models require to avoid full replication and reduce egress – cutting footprint and redirecting budget from data movement to AI innovation with infrastructure that is future-ready for the demanding AI pipelines in genomics, structural biology, and financial services.
- Maximize Google Cloud Innovation with Flexible Data Placement: Choose what to migrate, replicate, or cache to Google Cloud while keeping one namespace and consistent governance by applying unified access controls, audit, and retention policies everywhere to simplify compliance and reduce operational risk. Leverage VAST DataStore and VAST DataBase to unify prep, training, inference, and analytics without rewiring pipelines.
- TPU-Ready Data Path: Feed TPU VMs over validated NFS paths with optimized model-load and small-file/metadata-aware I/O, achieving warm-start load times on par with local NVMe while maintaining predictable, steady behavior during cold-starts.
- Build on a Unified Platform: The VAST AI Operating System delivers a DataStore, DataBase, InsightEngine, AgentEngine and DataSpace that scales across on-premises and Google Cloud environments and adapts to changing business needs without architectural rewrites, enabling data scientists to use a variety of access protocols with a single solution.
VAST can be deployed today in Google Cloud. Joint validation and reference guidance for establishing a VAST DataSpace spanning Google Cloud and external clusters are available to qualified customers and partners.
