"Data storage and big data are hot topics today, creating dynamic opportunities for support services providers. Major player DataDirect Networks recently made several announcements regarding key partnerships formed with companies seeking best-of-breed data storage and processing architecture.
LANL Selects DDN
Los Alamos National Laboratory announced its choice of DataDirect Networks’ high-performance storage specifically to support its Institutional Computing program, which is comprised of unclassified study in fields such as physics, oceanography, cosmology, earth science and biology. LANL is a diverse and geographically dispersed institution, meaning it has unique needs that must be met when it comes to data storage. The program has a mission to provide all LANL engineers, scientists and research colleagues around the world with access to high-performance computing resources, making this a particularly noteworthy announcement.
“In supporting LANL’s broad range of scientific computing projects, it’s imperative that our scientists, researchers and colleagues have instant access to the data they need to analyze results and improve scientific outcomes,” said Bob Tomlinson, institutional computing program manager at LANL. “With DDN’s high-performance storage and site-wide file system approach, LANL will be equipped to support our compute-intensive demands both now and in the future.”
DDN announced that its solution will be comprised of HPC platforms, specifically the DDN SFA12K-40, which enables as many as 1.7 million IOPS to cache and 1.4 million IOPS to disk, depending on the configuration. In regard to rack space, the system supports 1,680 SSD disk drives in a three-rack configuration. LANL detailed its particular storage requirements, which range from small compute to large tasks that span tens of thousands of computing cores in parallel. The DDN SFA high-performance storage-based EXAScaler Lustre file system appliance will be able to effectively meet these needs, the release explained.
Since LANL operates 11 unique computing clusters that collectively deliver 4.3 PBs of storage capacity, the Lustre file system was an optimal choice. DDN has ample experience meeting high-performance computing demands, as the company is responsible for powering more than two-thirds of the 100 fastest supercomputers in the world.
“DDN is extremely pleased to provide Los Alamos National Laboratory with a high-throughput, scalable file and storage subsystem, which will enable taking advantage of the highest levels of storage performance, reliability and scalability to ensure fast and efficient data access and sharing while accelerating scientific discoveries,” said Jeff Denworth, vice president of marketing at DDN."
