SDSC Deploys Superfast Data Oasis Filesystem

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego has completed the deployment of its Lustre-based Data Oasis parallel filesystem. The system features four petabytes (PB) of capacity and 100 gigabytes per second (GB/s) to handle the data-intensive needs of the center’s new Gordon supercomputer in addition to its Trestles and Triton high-performance computer systems.

According to the announcement, sustained transfer rates of 100 GB/s have been measured using the I/O power of Gordon, Trestles, and Triton, making Data Oasis one the fastest parallel filesystems in the academic community. The sustained speeds mean researchers could retrieve or store 64 terabytes (TB) of data – the equivalent of Gordon’s entire DRAM memory – in about 10 minutes, significantly reducing research times needed for retrieving, analyzing, storing, or sharing extremely large datasets.

“We believe that this is the largest and fastest implementation of an all-Ethernet Lustre storage system,” said Phil Papadopoulos, SDSC’s chief technical officer. “The three major client clusters use different bridging technologies to connect to Data Oasis: Triton uses a Myrinet-to-10 gigabit ethernet (GbE) bridge (320 gigabits per second), Trestles uses an InfiniBand-to-Ethernet bridge (240Gb/s), and Gordon uses its I/O nodes as Lustre routers for more than one terabit-per-second of network ‘pipe’ to storage.” 

SDSC’s Gordon and Trestles systems and their storage systems are available for use to any researcher or educator at a U.S.-based institution and not-for-profit research through the NSF’s XSEDE program. More details are available here.