The German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ) has selected StrongBox Data Solutions (SBDS), provider of autonomous large-scale data management and archive solutions, for a five-year contract to expand the center’s climate science research data services.
The project will be driven by SBDS’s StrongLink software and will replace the existing HPSS Hierarchical Storage Management with a new system based on open standard LTFS and S3, according to StrongBox.
StrongLink will enable DKRZ to automate 120PB per year of HPC workflows plus the migration of 150PB of research data from its legacy HPSS system to LTFS. In addition, StrongLink will automate multi-tier storage workflows, virtualizing flash, disk, and LTFS tape to support at least 120PB per year of new HPC research data flows.
The new system leverages StrongLink’s metadata-driven workflow engines, enabling DKRZ to maintain daily production access to all data, even after the HPSS system has been decommissioned, StrongBox said. “Users will continue to access data as before, with StrongLink presenting a global normalized view of all data across all storage types.”
“This new system will enable DKRZ to expand and modernize essential data services to our research community, while also seamlessly transitioning to a new open-standard platform that can grow as we do,” said Prof. Thomas Ludwig, CEO at DKRZ. “This will provide a solid foundation to ensure researchers have on-going access to the critical data needed for climate modeling and improved climate projections.”
StrongLink will be deployed in a scale-out architecture to prioritize 120PB per year in frontside production workflows between existing Tier-0 HPC storage and the new multi-tier system. To do this, StrongLink’s metadata-driven workflow engines will virtualize 1PB of new high-performance Tier-1 cache, and the five legacy Tier-2 tape libraries, automating both day-to-day tiering operations plus the background HPSS-to-LTFS migration of 150PB of existing data. In all, tape IO will be parallelized across 90 tape drives in the five libraries with together more than 75.000 media slots, according to StrongBox.
“StrongLink was designed to provide customers like DKRZ with a vendor-neutral platform that could seamlessly automate data management and high speed data movement across otherwise incompatible storage types at any scale,” said Floyd Christofferson, CEO of StrongBox Data Solutions. “As DKRZ will increase its supercomputing power, their data needs continue to grow to advance cutting edge climate science research. We are thrilled to assist in this important work.”
Installation, configuration and project management for the new DKRZ data management system will be provided by Cristie Data GmbH, with headquarters in Niedernberg, Germany. Cristie Data will also provide integration services for all of the hardware needed for the project, including servers for StrongLink software, 1PB of Tier-1 storage, and all networking and other components.
DKRZ central national service facility for climate and earth system research. Its high-performance computers, data storage and services form the central research infrastructure for simulation-based climate science in Germany. The data management system is one of the largest in the world.
DKRZ provides its resources (computing time, hard-drive storage and archive capacity, consultancy and visualizations) free of charge. Any scientists conducting research in the field of climate and earth system science in Germany, and requiring HPC resources for their work may apply for resources at DKRZ.
