Home > Workload Solutions > Data Analytics > White Papers > GenAI on Dell APEX File Storage for Azure using Databricks, HuggingFace, and MosaicML > Overview
Developing infrastructure for advanced AI models, such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and diffusion models, requires substantial investment. This includes not only powerful compute resources but also critical data storage infrastructure. Additionally, the vast training datasets, ranging from terabytes to petabytes, demand simultaneous access by numerous processes. Equally vital is the Saving checkpoints during LLM training, each potentially hundreds of GB, is equally vital.
Transitioning to distributed file storage addresses these challenges, yet many providers impose prohibitive egress fees, limiting flexibility and efficiency. Overcoming these hurdles requires an intricate balance of high throughput, efficient network utilization, determinism, and elasticity when transferring data between storage and compute clusters. Crafting reliable training software that manages these aspects remains a substantial challenge.
Integrating cloud apps with data repositories presents businesses with challenges, including data accessibility, cloud migration, and cost issues. Dell, partnering with Databricks, addresses these challenges by offering direct access to Dell APEX File Storage for Azure. This collaboration enables seamless use of Dell APEX File Storage with Databricks for AI training and fine-tuning. The solution enhances access, ensures security, and preserves data integrity and privacy.
Databricks accounts are hosted and supported on Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. This document is validated on the Microsoft Azure architecture.
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APEX File Storage for AZURE is a software-defined and customer-managed scale-out storage solution running on AZURE cloud infrastructure. It brings the Dell Technologies PowerScale OneFS distributed file system into the public cloud to provide users with the same management experience as an on-premises PowerScale cluster. You can run OneFS on multiple EC2 instances backed by EBS volumes, and then form a OneFS cluster using the EC2 instances virtual nodes. PowerScale delivers rich S3 and NFS compatibility empowering organizations to support enterprise workloads such as cloud-native, archive, IoT, AI, and big data analytics applications at scale.
Databricks, founded by the creators of Apache Spark, leads in data and AI solutions. Their unified platform accelerates innovation and enables data-driven decision-making. Databricks unifies data engineering, data science, and business analytics, promoting seamless collaboration and swift insights. Thousands of global companies trust Databricks for its secure and scalable cloud-based solutions. Databricks is revolutionizing how businesses leverage data, with a mission to simplify and democratize AI.
Hugging Face, a leading AI company, pioneers in natural language processing. They offer an acclaimed open-source platform granting access to state-of-the-art NLP models. Their Transformer library, a pivotal resource in the NLP community, provides a diverse range of pretrained models for various tasks. Hugging Face plays an active role in advancing NLP research and applications. With a dynamic and extensive community, they persist in innovating and democratizing access to cutting-edge NLP technology.
The Open-source MosaicML Composer library empowers machine learning practitioners with a versatile toolkit. It facilitates seamless development and deployment of models through its extensive functions and utilities. Users can efficiently prepare data, train models, and conduct evaluations with its intuitive interface. The library's compatibility with machine learning frameworks enhances flexibility. Its open-source nature fosters community collaboration and continuous advancements in the field of machine learning.