DDN and Google Cloud unveil managed Lustre service for enterprises

In early 2025, DDN officially partnered with Google Cloud to offer a new managed Lustre service aimed at enterprises and startups focused on artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications. This service is built on the Lustre parallel file system, which provides substantial capabilities for file storage and fast access, essential for demanding workloads in AI and HPC. By utilizing this service, businesses can take advantage of up to 1 terabyte per second in throughput and seamlessly scale their storage from terabytes to petabytes, optimizing their operations in the cloud. The partnership represents a significant evolution in the infrastructure landscape for AI and HPC, as emphasized by Alex Bouzari, Co-Founder and CEO of DDN. He remarked on the transformative nature of the collaboration, suggesting it would not only enhance AI performance but also foster an unprecedented scale of AI innovations. Bouzari’s statements underline the potential of the deal to shift how enterprises operate and handle their AI workloads, signifying a move towards greater efficiency and performance in data handling. Despite being a notable advancement, it is important to note that Google had previously made Lustre available on its cloud services. The distinction now lies in the managed aspect of the offering, which simplifies usage for customers and distinguishes it from other Lustre services available, including those offered by competitors like AWS and Azure. With this new service, DDN claims that those who operate Lustre in on-premises environments can effortlessly transition their workloads to the cloud, facilitating innovation and operational flexibility. The managed Lustre service links with various Google Cloud offerings, including Compute Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, and Cloud Storage, providing a connected infrastructure that enhances workflow efficiency for AI model training, tuning, deployment, and even real-time inferencing. Furthermore, Google Cloud has also introduced DAOS-powered ParallelStore, showcasing its commitment to providing powerful data management solutions aimed at meeting the growing demands of modern compute-intensive applications.