Enhancing Al Performance with Dell Infrastructure

Overview of AI infrastructure optimization webinar with F5 and Dell

Moving artificial intelligence from early experimentation into scalable production requires more than high-performance compute; it requires a fast, resilient, and secure data path. GPU-hungry training and inferencing pipelines are only as fast as their data supply, making storage data paths a critical bottleneck.

In this technical webinar, experts from F5 and Dell Technologies demonstrate how integrating high-performance Dell infrastructure with F5 BIG-IP traffic management solutions eliminates data bottlenecks, prevents GPU starvation, and secures critical object storage paths. Explore real-world test topologies, loose-coupling resiliency demonstrations, and performance benchmarking outcomes that prove you can scale AI data delivery without compromising throughput or uptime.

What you’ll learn

• Architecting for production AI: How to design an AI infrastructure architecture that connects enterprise data stores to Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and agentic workflows.
• Driven AI infrastructure optimization: Practical methods to use F5 BIG-IP as a "storage front door" to optimize TCP/HTTPS flows, manage S3 traffic, and offload cryptographic processing.
• Resiliency through loose coupling: How shielding Dell infrastructure (Dell ObjectScale) with F5 BIG-IP mitigates unmanaged traffic surges, SYN floods, and thundering herd scenarios.
• Empirical benchmarking results: In-depth review of joint performance testing on VELOS chassis systems and 32-node Dell ObjectScale clusters under emulated WAN latencies.
• Zero-downtime traffic rerouting: How intelligent health monitoring automatically reroutes S3 client connections during node outages without disrupting active workloads.

Webinar breakdown and key topics

1. Object storage as a critical AI asset

Object storage is no longer just for backups or cold archives. Modern RAG architectures and autonomous AI agents rely on low-latency, dynamic S3 calls to access vast data stores. However, bursty AI traffic and security threats make unmanaged storage clusters vulnerable to outage spikes and idle GPUs.

2. The role of F5 BIG-IP as the storage front door

To achieve true AI infrastructure optimization, enterprises are deploying Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) ahead of their storage fabric. Acting as an intelligent proxy, F5 BIG-IP delivers:

• Smart S3 load balancing and steering: Directs queries to optimal storage nodes based on proximity, load, and health.
• Protocol and connection optimization: Custom TCP tuning that minimizes latency across varied payload sizes (from 8 KiB to 100 MiB).
• Hardware-accelerated security: Cryptographic offloading, DDoS protection, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) delivered via FPGA and CPU hardware acceleration.

3. Benchmarking and network topology outcomes

The session walks through joint validation testing conducted across a high-density topology featuring:

• 32 Dell ObjectScale Nodes across two server racks connected via a high-speed non-blocking fabric.
• F5 VELOS Chassis handling multi-terabit client traffic generation.
• WAN Emulation: Simulating real-world network latency and jitter across enterprise and campus environments.

Key finding: Introducing F5 BIG-IP into the storage path maintains predictable performance with no material throughput degradation while adding robust security and high availability.

4. Resiliency and node failure demonstrations

Discover how establishing loose coupling between S3 clients and Dell infrastructure insulates your environment from network disruptions:

• Attack mitigation: SYN flood attacks targeted at storage are absorbed by BIG-IP hardware ASICs before reaching the cluster, keeping ObjectScale healthy and operational.
• Node outage protection: When a storage node goes offline, BIG-IP seamlessly redirects client requests to healthy cluster members without client-side retransmissions or dropped sessions.

Who should watch?

• AI and enterprise architects responsible for designing scalable AI infrastructure architecture.
• Storage and data engineers seeking to optimize throughput and resiliency across Dell infrastructure object storage.
• Infrastructure and security leaders focused on AI infrastructure optimization, threat mitigation, and GPU efficiency.

Access the on-demand webinar

Fill out the form at the top of the page to watch the full recording and discover how F5 and Dell Technologies can accelerate your path to production AI.