Commitment issues with AI? Break free of capex constraints

AI holds immense promise. But for many enterprises, turning that promise into production reality remains a challenge. Despite growing interest and investment, organizations often struggle to move beyond pilot programs. Why? Because operationalizing AI is hard.

The barriers are real: They can result from high costs of infrastructure and operations, misalignment with business goals, and limited access to skilled resources. Scaling AI workloads demands massive, diverse datasets, lightning-fast performance, and seamless integration with evolving frameworks—all while keeping costs predictable and operations manageable.

This is where storage as a service (STaaS) enters the picture.

Industry analysts increasingly recognize STaaS as a critical enabler of AI success. It offers the cost -efficiency, scalability, and performance needed to support data-intensive AI workloads, without the capital expense and management burden associated with a traditional storage infrastructure.

But not all STaaS solutions are created equal.

Breaking down the barriers to AI success

We’re removing the barriers to AI adoption with NetApp Keystone^® STaaS for Enterprise AI—a turnkey, consumption-based service in a single subscription that’s both AI-ready and AI-optimized.

Built on our powerful NetApp^® AFX architecture and AI Data Engine, this new Keystone offering transforms an AI infrastructure from a capital-heavy investment into a predictable operating expense. It enables you to kick-start AI initiatives without large upfront costs. And with pay-as-you-go pricing, you only pay for what you use, making it ideal for fluctuating storage needs and fast-moving AI initiatives.

Why Keystone STaaS for Enterprise AI?

• Cloud-like flexibility with on-premises control. Keystone delivers the cloudlike flexibility that enterprises need, while maintaining the control of an on-premises environment. By consuming NetApp AFX architecture as a service, you benefit from elastic scaling and usage-based billing, eliminating the need for overprovisioning or investing in hardware that quickly becomes outdated.
• Accelerated time to value. With STaaS, IT teams can focus on building AI models and pipelines rather than managing infrastructure. Keystone also introduces predictable economics, aligning costs directly with actual usage to improve budget accuracy and maximize ROI.
• Simplified operations. Operational complexity is significantly reduced, because NetApp takes on the responsibility for infrastructure lifecycle management—including upgrades, patching, and capacity planning—freeing IT and data science teams to concentrate on innovation.
• Start small, scale smart. Begin with as little as 50TiB and a 1-year commitment and then scale capacity and performance as demand grows.
• Secure and integrated. Keystone integrates seamlessly with popular AI frameworks while maintaining robust security and data protection, making it a comprehensive and future-ready solution for enterprise AI.

Keystone STaaS for Enterprise AI is designed to help you move past the pilot phase and into production—quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively. Whether you’re building models, training algorithms, or deploying inference at scale, Keystone provides the foundation to do it all without compromise.

Ready to commit to a new storage relationship for AI? Learn more about how NetApp Keystone STaaS can help you take the next step toward operationalizing AI with confidence. Visit the Keystone webpage  for more information.