Dutch neo cloud provider Nebul partnered with NetApp to build a sovereign European AI Factory – a high performance, multi tenant infrastructure that makes enterprise AI accessible to organizations of all sizes and transforms how Dutch businesses adopt AI.
Algemene beschrijving (incl. samenvatting van onderstaande vier punten)
Nebul, a forward-thinking Dutch neo cloud service provider, has created an "AI Factory" – a purpose-built infrastructure platform that democratizes artificial intelligence for enterprises. In partnership with NetApp, Nebul deployed NetApp ONTAP all-flash storage as the foundation for scalable, high-performance enterprise AI and ML workloads.
The Challenge: As AI adoption accelerates, many organizations struggle with the complexity and cost of building AI infrastructure. Nebul recognized this gap and envisioned an AI-as-a-Service model that would lower barriers to entry, requiring an intelligent data infrastructure capable of handling intense AI/ML performance demands while supporting multiple tenants securely and efficiently.
The Solution: NetApp ONTAP provides the data backbone, delivering enterprise-grade performance with remarkable efficiency. The platform achieves a significant data reduction ratio, supports multiple protocols (NFS, SMB, S3, NVMe/TCP), and scales seamlessly as customer demands grow. Built-in enterprise features including snapshots, replication, and ransomware protection ensure reliability and business continuity.
The Impact: The AI Factory enables customers to launch AI/ML projects without massive upfront infrastructure investments. The storage efficiency translates to significant cost savings and reduced environmental footprint. Organizations can now experiment with AI, bring successful projects into production at scale, and innovate faster than ever before. Customers report 40-60% reduced infrastructure costs compared to self-built alternatives and the ability to support 3-5x more AI projects with the same budget and timeline.
The Innovation: This project represents a paradigm shift – rather than each organization building siloed AI environments, Nebul's multi-tenant AI Factory provides enterprise-grade capabilities as a service. NetApp's unified data platform handles diverse workloads from traditional applications to cutting-edge AI models, eliminating the complexity of managing separate storage silos while achieving exceptional efficiency without compromising the security and performance AI workloads demand.
Beschrijf de complexiteit en/of risico’s van de implementatie/ingebruikname van deze digitale innovatie
Multi-Tenant Performance Isolation: Building a data platform that securely isolates multiple customers while maintaining peak AI performance was the primary technical challenge. AI applications generate massive datasets requiring consistent, low-latency access. NetApp ONTAP's multi-tenant and quality-of-service capabilities prevented "noisy neighbor" scenarios where one tenant's workloads could impact others.
Performance vs. Efficiency Trade-off: AI model training demands extreme throughput and IOPS. Simultaneously achieving significant data reduction through compression and deduplication without creating performance bottlenecks enabled serving more customers with less hardware – a delicate balance that typically forces compromise.
Protocol Complexity: Supporting NFS, SMB, S3 and NVMe/TCP simultaneously while maintaining optimal performance across all protocols normally required deep technical expertise. Different AI frameworks have varying storage access patterns and protocol preferences. NetApp’s ONTAP platform provided this out of the box.
Integration Risk: Integrating NetApp storage with Nebul's existing cloud orchestration, billing, and management systems required marginal API development to ensure seamless provisioning and lifecycle management across the technology stack.
Risk Mitigation Approach:
• Extensive proof-of-concept testing with representative AI workloads
• Phased implementation allowing for adjustment
• Close NetApp-Nebul technical collaboration
• Comprehensive monitoring from day one
Beschrijf de gerealiseerde waarde van deze digitale innovatie voor de externe klant in desbetreffende branche
Time-to-Value: Customers provision high-performance AI environments in hours versus the 6-12 months traditional infrastructure projects require. This acceleration enables rapid experimentation and faster deployment of AI-driven business solutions.
Cost Efficiency: Customers report 40-60% reduced infrastructure costs versus self-built alternatives and can support 3-5x more AI projects with the same budget. The consumption-based model aligns costs with actual usage.
Sustainability Impact: Storage efficiency significantly reduces carbon footprint – less physical storage means lower energy consumption for both storage systems and cooling infrastructure, critical for Dutch and European enterprises pursuing environmental commitments.
Democratized Access: Small and medium-sized organizations gain enterprise-class features (automated snapshots, replication, disaster recovery) that would typically require significant investment and expertise, leveling the competitive playing field.
Industry Applications: Healthcare organizations analyze medical imaging; manufacturers implement predictive maintenance; financial services enhance fraud detection; retailers optimize inventory – demonstrating versatility across sectors.
Beschrijf de originaliteit en/of innovatieve kracht van deze digitale innovatie
"AI Factory" Business Model: Treating AI infrastructure as a standardized, multi-tenant utility service is genuinely original in the European market. This industrialization mirrors the historical shift from companies generating their own electricity to consuming it as a utility – a fundamental reimagining of AI infrastructure delivery.
Unified Architecture: Most implementations create separate storage silos for different workload types. Nebul's architecture unifies AI training, inference, and traditional applications on a single platform supporting NFS, SMB, S3 and NVMe/TCP simultaneously – eliminating traditional architectural boundaries.
Technical Breakthrough: Achieving significant data reduction while maintaining AI workload performance challenges conventional storage trade-offs. Typically, efficiency features introduce latency unacceptable for AI training; this solution delivers both.
Democratization of AI: Making enterprise-grade AI infrastructure accessible to organizations of all sizes represents societal innovation. Dutch companies now leverage the same AI capabilities as multinational corporations, fostering innovation across the entire economy rather than deepening competitive divides.
Sustainable AI: As AI's environmental impact faces scrutiny, the efficiency-first approach positions AI adoption as compatible with environmental responsibility – a critical reframing for European markets prioritizing sustainability.
Dutch Innovation Leadership: In an AI infrastructure market largely shaped by U.S. hyperscalers, this showcases a distinctly European approach – focused on efficiency, sustainability, and broad accessibility – strengthening digital sovereignty.
Beschrijf de rol van de interne of externe leverancier(s) bij deze digitale innovatie
Technology Foundation: NetApp ONTAP all-flash storage provides the technical backbone. The ONTAP operating system's data reduction, multi-protocol support, QoS, and snapshot capabilities enable the AI Factory's core value propositions – the storage efficiency and multi-tenant performance isolation would be impossible without this foundation.
Co-Design Partnership: NetApp technical specialists collaborated with Nebul's infrastructure team during architecture design, contributing expertise in AI workload characteristics and performance optimization. This wasn't product delivery but co-creation – resulting in an optimized architecture neither party could achieve independently.
Performance Engineering: NetApp engineers worked alongside Nebul's team to implement both proven and custom best practices and QoS policies specifically for multi-tenant AI operations – hands-on collaboration beyond typical vendor support.
Knowledge Enablement: NetApp invested in training Nebul's staff on ONTAP's advanced features and AI storage best practices, transforming Nebul's team into storage experts capable of independent operation and customer support.
Ongoing Innovation: NetApp provides early access to new features and emerging AI capabilities, ensuring the AI Factory remains cutting-edge. This ongoing partnership extends beyond initial implementation to continuous evolution.
Market Validation: NetApp's reputation as a global storage leader provides credibility to Nebul's offering, giving customers assurance of enterprise-grade quality and long-term viability – accelerating Nebul's customer acquisition.
NetApp served simultaneously as technology provider, solution architect, implementation partner, and ongoing innovator – a multifaceted strategic partnership essential to the AI Factory's success.