HPC Storage Evolution Ramps Up 

sponsored content by Seagate Technology

With Seagate’s announcement that it will be integrating IBM® Spectrum Scale® software with its award winning¹ ClusterStor high performance parallel storage system, the evolution of HPC and enterprise storage just took another leap forward.

IBM Spectrum Scale, formerly known as IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS), is a proven, scalable file and object management solution that has made its mark primarily in commercial environments. Lustre, the open source parallel file system for HPC, is already integrated into the ClusterStor family.

With the addition of IBM Spectrum Scale later this year, ClusterStor customers will be able to choose the file system that most closely meets their most demanding big data and HPC storage requirements.

We’ve come a long way from the early days of NAS.

Dealing with a Deluge of Data

These days, CIOs are expected to deliver more than “just IT.“ Long gone are the days where simple network attachment of more “filers” passes as an adequate response to departmental needs. Now CIOs are dealing with a constantly increasing influx of intelligent information and applications that are an essential part of the core business process in today’s big data world.

Organizations strategic initiatives are seeking to leverage big data and deep analytic applications to gain competitive advantage made possible by faster time to insight, discovery, and ultimately, market game-changing business outcomes. High performance computing (HPC) and storage are an essential part of this equation.

However, all high performance storage is not created equal. Conventional IT architecture relies on traditional storage such as NAS that typically does not provide the performance and capacity scaling required to effectively manage and help accelerate big data processing. This is particularly true for organizations that depend on the use of highly specialized, data-intensive applications, which require the analysis of huge data sets to drive productivity – oil and gas, life sciences, pharmaceutical and financial trading are typical examples.

Because of a legacy reliance on NAS, organizations may be running up against efficiency problems and not even realize their issue. NAS cannot provide the high I/O bandwidth and scalability required by next generation apps. The technology lacks a single contiguous file system name-space to support data-intensive applications, leading to unacceptable administrative costs and lost productivity. NAS is a built-in bottleneck due to its inherent serial access to file system data. Organizations lacking the strategic ability to step up their pace in processing big data utilizing deep analytic applications will invariably find themselves on the wrong end of the next market game-changing business outcome. Don’t let this happen to you.

Lustre and IBM Spectrum Scale to the Rescue

Given these shortcomings, it’s understandable why organizations that rely on HPC or powerful enterprise systems have adopted Lustre, and IBM Spectrum Scale. Seagate has uniquely manufactured, delivered and supported some of the largest Lustre installations in the world. This includes highly optimized drives, storage enclosures , file system tuning, tuning and support – a state-of-the-art engineered solution that is pre-tested, pre- configured and easier to deploy.

IBM Spectrum Scale is also actively used by the HPC community. Ready to use out of the box, it provides robust enterprise-ready features and management tools. The file system has become a mainstay in a wide range of commercial applications and environments such as Linux and beyond. Applications include genomic research, computer aided design, digital media, data analytics, financial model analytics and electronic design simulation to name just a few.

Choose Your File System

Now Seagate is bringing its customers their choice of these two widely adopted parallel file systems. They come with all the benefits of Seagate manufacturing, file system tuning, optimization and support. Both file systems meet the need for high quality, high availability, high productivity up-time via the ClusterStor state-of-the-art engineered solution that is pre-tested, pre- configured and ready to use.

You can choose one or both of these file systems depending on the specific needs within different parts of your IT environment. The full-rack storage system that arrives at your facility is 100% operational out of the box within hours.

You will quickly discover that Seagate’s highly engineered solution delivers the fastest time to results and productivity, whether it’s a ClusteStor system running Lustre in an HPC environment or IBM Spectrum Scale handling big data enterprise applications.

Seagate offers two great ways to strategically accelerate your next market game-changing business outcomes.

To learn more how Seagate’s efficient file systems can improve business outcomes please click here.

¹HPCwire Readers Choice Award SC’14 – HPC Storage Product or Technology