Flash storage vendor Fusion-io announced today that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has used their MLC-based flash technology to create a 100+ TB array as part of the Hyperion Data Intensive Testbed
LLNL created the testbed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Advanced Simulation and Computing program’s Hyperion initiative, a project designed to accelerate the development of the high-performance computing capabilities needed to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s aging nuclear deterrent without underground testing.
With the addition of Fusion-Powered I/O, the Hyperion testbed will deliver over 40,000,000 IOPS and 320 GB/s of bandwidth from just eighty 1U appliances. Consuming a mere fraction of the power required by traditional memory or hard disk-based alternatives, the project demonstrates that datacenters worldwide can achieve the performance they need without the cost, sprawl and environmental impact of powering and cooling today’s power-hungry data centers. For example, a comparable hard disk-based solution would require an estimated 43 racks of servers as opposed to only two racks of ioMemory-equipped appliances.
…“The Hyperion project meets significant performance requirements for current and emerging computing,” said Mark Seager, Head of Advanced Computing Technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “This new technology will allow us to meet the performance requirements critical to fulfilling our national security missions well into the future, while dramatically reducing power consumption and satisfying new energy conservation initiatives.”
This is the largest single deployment I know about for Fusion-io, and certainly a marquee win.
While I cannot deny my “inner-geek” and admit this is cool… w/o a price performance comparison, this is just like reading about some NBA superstar bling’ing out their Hummer.
Price/performance you say? Well, that would be an interesting thing to know. I’ll ask if they are disclosing terms of the deal, or at least for representative pricing.
Sorry FJW: Fusion-io won’t provide any pricing right now, whether on this deal or in general. Not very helpful.