CHATSWORTH, Calif., Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- DataDirect Networks, Inc. the
data infrastructure provider for the most extreme, highest performance
computing environments in the world, today announced that Lawrence Livermore
National Labs (LLNL) has selected the company's S2A9900 data infrastructure
platform to provide scalable I/O for its next-generation computational
simulation environment. The storage will be used by a number of LLNL
supercomputers, including its newest system, Dawn. In addition, DDN storage
will be utilized in a new project, Hyperion, to evaluate scalable storage
architectures capable of more than one terabyte per second.
Dawn is the first of two scheduled system additions that will increase the
lab's computational resources. Initially expected to achieve 500 teraFLOPs per
second, the solution utilizes 16 DataDirect Networks' S2A9900 high performance
storage platforms. The S2A(TM) platforms are the foundation for a site-wide
Lustre(R) file system environment, which provides a dynamically scalable
storage infrastructure that delivers mission-critical uptime, maximum
performance and scalability across tens of thousands of drives.
"The high performance scientific computing we need to fulfill our national
security missions requires industry-leading storage density, optimized
performance for scalable compute environments, real-time RAID 6 for maximum
data protection, reliability and the quality-of-service needed for massive
data environments," said Dr. Mark Seager, Assistant Department Head for
Advanced Technology at LLNL. "Previous experience has shown us that high-
quality, dedicated support in helping us achieve our program objectives for
performance, reliability and usability is an integral part of this partnership
-- a partnership enabling the lab to succeed in its mission, under tight
timelines and extreme pressure."
As further validation of the lab's scale-out storage strategy, LLNL
recently received a "Best Practices in Storage" Award from Computerworld's
Storage Networking World for successfully deploying one of the world's fastest
supercomputers, BlueGene/L, based upon DataDirect Networks' S2A storage and
the Lustre file system.
"Lawrence Livermore is a perfect example of why our Silicon Storage
Architecture is being utilized by half of the Top100 supercomputers in the
world and why that number continues to increase every year," said Alex
Bouzari, CEO and Co-Founder of DataDirect Networks. "We've always believed
that our technology provides our customers with a distinct performance and
capacity advantage, as it was built from the ground up to handle the world's
most demanding applications. The fact that Lawrence Livermore has once again
selected DataDirect Networks further demonstrates our leadership in this
industry. As the only HPC solution provider to consistently deliver storage
platforms with extreme levels of performance and scalable capacity required to
address high-speed scientific simulation, computation, data analysis and
visualization, we look forward to helping LLNL fulfill its mission and to
continue pushing the boundaries of performance and innovation."
LLNL and DataDirect Networks will extend the success of their award-
winning partnership in a new project, called Hyperion, which brings together
11 leaders in the computing industry to jointly deploy a large-scale Linux
cluster testbed. DataDirect Networks and LLNL will focus on using Hyperion as
a Petascale I/O testbed to evaluate scalable storage architectures capable of
more than one terabyte per second. The first half of Hyperion is now on-line
and being used by the collaboration. When fully deployed in March, 2009, the
Hyperion cluster will have at least 1,152 nodes with 9,216 cores; with about
100 peak teraFLOPs per second; over nine terabytes of memory; an
InfiniBand(TM) DDR interconnect and access to over 13 gigabytes per second of
storage bandwidth based on DataDirect Networks' S2A(TM) high performance
storage platforms.
With over 160 petabytes installed worldwide, DataDirect Networks' S2A
solutions deliver more aggregate bandwidth to the Top500 Supercomputers than
any other IT vendor, including six of the world's Top10, 28 of the Top 50 and
48 of the Top100 fastest supercomputers.
Company Demonstrations at SC08
At SC08 the industry-leading S2A9900 storage platform will power the
SCinet 40Gb/s Infiniband Network -- the world's largest 40Gb/s networking
ecosystem demonstration -- supporting a real-time rendering application of a
Boeing 777 jetliner. With its unparalleled high bandwidth capabilities, the
S2A9900 will also serve as the extreme storage behind Caltech's entry for the
SC08 Bandwidth Challenge. DataDirect Networks will demonstrate its
comprehensive portfolio of high-bandwidth HPC storage solutions from Nov.17-
20, at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas at exhibit #1233.
About the S2A9900
As DataDirect Networks' flagship eighth generation S2A platform, the
industry-leading S2A9900 provides extreme performance and capacity, with the
ability to manage 1.2 petabytes in only two floor tiles and deliver sustained
throughput of up to 6 gigabytes per second for both writes and reads, per
appliance.
The S2A9900 enables HPC sites to run multiple applications simultaneously
in parallel, whereas conventional, general purpose storage systems force them
to run applications sequentially, costing more time, more money and more
management personnel. Additionally, the S2A9900 is the only storage platform
that writes data as fast as it reads it, with guaranteed QoS, which translates
into consistently predictable performance for large content files -- critical
for HPC environments.
For more information about DDN S2A platforms, visit:
http://www.datadirectnet.com/s2a-platform/s2a-platform
About DataDirect Networks
DataDirect Networks, Inc. is the data infrastructure provider for the most
extreme, content-intensive environments in the world -- including the largest
online gaming and music sites, social networking applications developers,
photo and video sharing services, high performance computing environments, and
more than 400 broadcast and post-production facilities around the globe. With
more than 160 petabytes installed worldwide, the company's S2A(TM) (Silicon
Storage Architecture(TM)) technology delivers massive throughput, scalable
capacity, consistency, efficiency and data integrity for today's extremely
competitive and evolving markets. Founded in 1998, DataDirect Networks serves
customers through its global partnerships with Dell, IBM, Sony and other
industry leaders; and through its offices in Europe, India, Asia Pacific,
Japan and throughout the U.S. For more information, go to
www.datadirectnet.com or call +1-800-TERABYTE (837-2298).
DataDirect Networks, S2A and Silicon Storage Architecture are trademarks
of DataDirect Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
Media Contacts:
DataDirect Networks
Kim Nelson
+1 (818) 336-2162
knelson@datadirectnet.com
Steve Zivanic
+1 (818) 675-2821
szivanic@datadirectnet.com
