AI-powered apps are becoming more common and seeing significant user growth. An analysis of 2023 data found that while new mobile app downloads were only up 1% year over year, the top 20 apps that had integrated AI in their feature sets saw an average of 11% growth.1 However, easily deploying and securing the AI models to power these apps can be a barrier for developers and IT teams.
Powering smarter apps with AI
The new generation of intelligent apps uses AI automation based on data inputs—for example, an insurance app that monitors for severe weather—or it might use machine learning to adapt and improve the user experience. Gartner estimates that by 2026, 30% of new applications will use AI to drive personalized adaptive user interfaces, up from less than 5% today.2
But many organizations lack the skills to build or use the AI models they need. According to a World Economic Forum survey, executives estimate that up to 40% of their overall workforce may need to reskill to work effectively alongside AI.3 In response, new solutions are emerging to allow developers to leverage AI models with minimal code.
AI models also require significant computing power, which can create limitations. While placing AI models close to the input source reduces latency for inference, edge locations often lack the resources needed for acceptable AI performance.
Making AI more accessible
To address developer ease of use and resource optimization, Intel has developed OpenVINO, an open-source toolkit that accelerates AI inference while offering a smaller footprint and a “write once, deploy anywhere” approach. It enables programmers to develop scalable and efficient AI solutions with relatively few lines of code. OpenVINO also can convert and optimize AI models to run them in data centers, in the cloud, or at the edge.
While OpenVINO makes AI more accessible for real-world scenarios, such as AI inference, it needs security and delivery features much like applications do. An OpenVINO deployment may consist of hundreds or thousands of container-based model servers. To reliably provide inference results to users or applications, you need a way to monitor server health and manage traffic. F5 NGINX Plus can secure OpenVINO model servers.
Securing AI models with F5 NGINX Plus
While it is possible to use the open-source version of NGINX with OpenVINO, using NGINX Plus adds valuable features like high availability, active health checks, and award-winning support. NGINX Plus also provides load balancing and SSL termination so apps and users can reliably and securely connect with your OpenVINO model servers.
For improved availability, NGINX Plus can be deployed as an active-passive pair. This creates a high availability solution, using the primary to actively process traffic while the backup monitors health and takes over in the event of an issue. Content caching and SSL termination improve performance by reducing the load on your OpenVINO model servers.
Active health checks in NGINX Plus monitor your model servers to ensure traffic is only sent to available servers. Secure and validate incoming encrypted traffic using mTLS certificates and use analytics and dashboards to anticipate or troubleshoot issues with your servers. The lightweight nature of NGINX Plus, as well as top-tier support for installation, deployment, and debugging, make it easy to adopt for your AI-powered application needs.
Building AI-powered apps with confidence
The combination of NGINX Plus and OpenVINO makes it easier to add AI to apps anywhere in a secure and consistent way. Easily deploy to data centers, clouds, or edge sites while maintaining availability and performance.
Using NGINX Plus with OpenVINO is just part of an ongoing collaboration between F5 and Intel. Learn more about the partnership at f5.com/intel.
Sources
1. Data.ai, State of Mobile 2024, Jan. 2024
2. Gartner, Demand Grows for Intelligent Applications Powered by AI, Sep. 2023
3. World Economic Forum, Why we must bridge the skills gap to harness the power of AI, Jan. 2024
About the Author
Related Blog Posts
F5 accelerates and secures AI inference at scale with NVIDIA Cloud Partner reference architecture
F5’s inclusion within the NVIDIA Cloud Partner (NCP) reference architecture enables secure, high-performance AI infrastructure that scales efficiently to support advanced AI workloads.
F5 Silverline Mitigates Record-Breaking DDoS Attacks
Malicious attacks are increasing in scale and complexity, threatening to overwhelm and breach the internal resources of businesses globally. Often, these attacks combine high-volume traffic with stealthy, low-and-slow, application-targeted attack techniques, powered by either automated botnets or human-driven tools.
F5 Silverline: Our Data Centers are your Data Centers
Customers count on F5 Silverline Managed Security Services to secure their digital assets, and in order for us to deliver a highly dependable service at global scale we host our infrastructure in the most reliable and well-connected locations in the world. And when F5 needs reliable and well-connected locations, we turn to Equinix, a leading provider of digital infrastructure.
Volterra and the Power of the Distributed Cloud (Video)
How can organizations fully harness the power of multi-cloud and edge computing? VPs Mark Weiner and James Feger join the DevCentral team for a video discussion on how F5 and Volterra can help.
Phishing Attacks Soar 220% During COVID-19 Peak as Cybercriminal Opportunism Intensifies
David Warburton, author of the F5 Labs 2020 Phishing and Fraud Report, describes how fraudsters are adapting to the pandemic and maps out the trends ahead in this video, with summary comments.
The Internet of (Increasingly Scary) Things
There is a lot of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that gets attached to any emerging technology trend, particularly when it involves vast legions of consumers eager to participate. And while it’s easy enough to shrug off the paranoia that bots...