Los Alamos National Laboratory is to install a
1,400-node Linux cluster using a new object-based file system
technology for data storage.
Gary Grider, manager of scalable I/O systems at Los Alamos, said
the lab will use's network-attached storage (NAS) technology from
start-up Panasas to spread file management capabilities across
commodity servers while still achieving high levels of computing
power and I/O throughput.
Grider added that the Panasas ActiveScale device gives him
4GB/sec. throughput and the ability to store up to 600TB on the
planned cluster, which will be used to run simulations of nuclear
weapons tests.
Unlike conventional NAS products, which store metadata apart
from files, object-based devices like ActiveStage break files into
chunks that include file data, metadata and other information, such
as quality-of-service details.
Proponents said the technology should speed up the process of
accessing files.
Arun Taneja, an analyst at Taneja Group, said that with the
market for Linux-based server clusters on the rise, object-based
storage could offer users in the scientific community almost
limitless data scalability.
The Linux cluster will use Pentium-based servers priced at about
$2,000, Grider said. Los Alamos has been testing the cluster with
ActiveStage for about nine months and now has the production system
in place.
Panasas said ActiveScale includes 10 slots for specialised blade
servers, each supporting up to 500GB of storage. Pricing starts at
$25,000 for a 1.6TB configuration.
Lucas Mearian writes for Computerworld