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IBM Systems and Technology                                                                                              Education
Case Study




                                                       Swiss National
                                                       Supercomputing Center
                                                       Gains low-latency, high-bandwidth storage with
                                                       IBM General Parallel File System


                                                       Founded in 1991, CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Center,
            Overview                                   develops and promotes technical and scientific services for the Swiss
                                                       research community in the field of high-performance computing
            The need
                                                       (HPC). CSCS enables world-class scientific research by pioneering,
            With data volumes doubling each
                                                       operating and supporting leading-edge supercomputing technologies.
            year, researchers at the Swiss National
            Supercomputing Center (CSCS) needed        Located near Lugano, in the south of Switzerland, CSCS is an
            a centralized storage solution offering    autonomous unit of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
            low latency, high bandwidth and            Zurich (ETH Zurich).
            extreme scalability.

            The solution                               CSCS serves dozens of different research institutions, supporting a
            CSCS engaged IBM to build a                broad range of computational projects across theoretical chemistry,
            centralized storage solution based         material sciences, biological sciences and climate science. Simulations
            on IBM® General Parallel File
            System (GPFS), IBM System x® and           and other computational projects running on the organization’s com-
            IBM System Storage® hardware, and          pute clusters process many terabytes of data and generate large sets of
            InfiniBand networking technology.           intermediate results ready for further computation. During the actual
            The benefit                                 simulation run time, all of this data resides on the ’scratch’ storage sys-
            The solution supports massively parallel   tems that are directly attached to each cluster.
            read/write operations and provides a
            single namespace for all systems. It       In the past, research teams would store intermediate simulation results
            offers extremely high availability and
                                                       on tape - but the limited bandwidth of the tape library made this
            nondisruptive online scaling of the file
            system.                                    impractical as data volumes grew rapidly. To analyze their results fully,
                                                       users would have needed to transfer the data back to their own institu-
                                                       tions, which was not feasible because of the low transfer speeds.

                                                       “Even over high-speed leased lines, copying data back to a university
                                                       network could take weeks, so we wanted to give our users the possibil-
                                                       ity of storing their data locally at CSCS for the duration of their proj-
                                                       ects,” comments Dominik Ulmer, CSCS general manager. “Equally,
                                                       the typical HPC workflow has become more sophisticated: Instead of
                                                       simply running a simulation on an input data set, we now often run
IBM Systems and Technology                                                                                        Education
Case Study




                                                   multiple simulations in series, using the output data from one as the
                                                   input data for the next. This tendency to reuse data was another reason
         “We selected IBM GPFS                     for creating a permanent, centralized data storage solution at CSCS.”
          as it offered the best
          combination of high                      Choosing the best solution
                                                   The amount of data handled in the HPC environment at CSCS
          scalability, compatibility               roughly doubles each year, making it imperative to select a highly scal-
          with our distributed                     able architecture for the proposed centralized storage solution. It was
                                                   also critical to choose a file system that could be mounted on multiple
          operating systems, par-                  different HPC systems simultaneously, and that would offer both per-
          allelism of access, and                  formance and reliability.
          failover between nodes.”
                                                   “We tested a number of file systems and narrowed our choice down
                                                   to Oracle Lustre and IBM General Parallel File System [GPFS],”
          —Hussein Harake, HPC systems engineer,
           CSCS                                    says Hussein Harake, CSCS HPC systems engineer. “We selected
                                                   IBM GPFS, as it offered the best combination of high scalability, com-
                                                   patibility with our distributed operating systems, parallelism of access
                                                   and failover between nodes. Our data can be very long-lived, so it was
                                                   also important to choose a solution that would offer longevity—both in
                                                   terms of the reliability of long-term data storage and in terms of the
                                                   vendor support and roadmap. Selecting GPFS from IBM enabled us to
                                                   meet these requirements.”

                                                   Managing rapid growth
                                                   GPFS supports single cluster file systems of multiple petabytes and
                                                   runs at I/O rates of more than 100 gigabytes per second. Individual
                                                   clusters may be cross-connected to provide parallel access to data even
                                                   across large geographic distances. At CSCS, GPFS offers both low
                                                   latency (needed for high-speed access to small files) and high band-
                                                   width (vital for delivering very large files to compute clusters).

                                                   “Our GPFS-based central file store is becoming a really important
                                                   resource for us,” says Harake. “Users really appreciate the option to
                                                   store their data locally rather than needing to copy it back to their own
                                                   institution. They are requesting more capacity than we originally antic-
                                                   ipated, so the environment is growing faster than expected.”

                                                   Ulmer adds, “The rapid rate of growth in data volumes is partly a con-
                                                   sequence of researchers being able to run more complex simulations on
                                                   the newer HPC clusters. So, to an extent, they are catching up on




                                                        2
IBM Systems and Technology                                                                                     Education
Case Study




                                                 projects that couldn’t be done before. GPFS gave us an infrastructure
          Solution components:                   that would grow with user demand but in a way that was predictable in
                                                 budgetary terms.”
          Hardware
          ●   IBM® System x® 3650 M2             A key decision factor for GPFS was its support for nondisruptive
          ●   IBM System Storage® DS5100
          ●   IBM System Storage DS5300          migrations and upgrades. Since first implementing the IBM file
          ●   IBM System Storage EXP5000         system, CSCS has upgraded through three phases of different storage
          ●   IBM System Storage EXP5060         arrays and network switches, all without loss of data or service inter-
          Software                               ruption. Today, the centralized storage solution is based around three
          ●   IBM General Parallel File System   IBM System Storage DS5100 controllers with eight IBM System
                                                 Storage EXP5060 Storage Expansion Enclosures (containing high-
          Services                               capacity SATA disks) and four IBM System Storage EXP5000 Storage
          ●   IBM Global Technology Services
                                                 Expansion Enclosures (containing high-performance Fibre Channel
                                                 disks). IBM System x 3650 M2 servers running GPFS act as the file
                                                 servers; Mellanox gateways and switches provide high-speed InfiniBand
                                                 networking.

                                                 Says Harake, “We have upgraded the file system several times, changed
                                                 the disk controllers and even changed the disks themselves, all without
                                                 taking the solution down. We will soon upgrade the controllers from
                                                 DS5100 to DS5300 and add four more expansion enclosures, which
                                                 will expand our total capacity to 2 PB without any interruption to
                                                 service.”

                                                 Holistic approach
                                                 IBM is responsible for supplying and supporting every element in the
                                                 centralized storage environment, from the disks up to the network
                                                 infrastructure. “We wanted IBM to take ownership of the core net-
                                                 work, so that we have a single point of support for the whole environ-
                                                 ment,” says Ulmer. “This holistic approach helps us minimize risk and
                                                 delays in support.”

                                                 He adds, “We consider HPC technology know-how to be our core
                                                 competence, and we want to find external partners that are willing to
                                                 tackle the really cutting-edge stuff and learn alongside us. Our rela-
                                                 tionship with IBM is very good, and we see a lot of value in our shared
                                                 workshops. With the GPFS-based centralized storage solution, we
                                                 feel that we have the ideal building-block for the coming years. The
                                                 IBM solution will enable us to expand our capacity enormously with-
                                                 out disruption and without loss of performance.”




                                                      3
For more information
Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner.
Visit us at: ibm.com

For more information about CSCS visit: cscs.ch

Additionally, financing solutions from IBM Global Financing can
enable effective cash management, protection from technology obso-
lescence, improved total cost of ownership and return on investment.
Also, our Global Asset Recovery Services help address environmental
concerns with new, more energy-efficient solutions. For more informa-
tion on IBM Global Financing, visit: ibm.com/financing




© Copyright IBM Corporation 2010

IBM Systems and Technology Group
Route 100
Somers, New York 10589
U.S.A.

Produced in the United States of America
September 2010
All Rights Reserved

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, System Storage and System x are trademarks of
International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries
or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first
occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols
indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this
information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law
trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the
web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of
others

References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that
IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates.
Offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice. All client
examples cited represent how some clients have used IBM products and the results
they may have achieved.

The information in this document is provided “as-is” without any warranty, either
expressed or implied.


         Please Recycle




                                                              DCC03006-USEN-00

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Swiss National Supercomputing Center

  • 1. IBM Systems and Technology Education Case Study Swiss National Supercomputing Center Gains low-latency, high-bandwidth storage with IBM General Parallel File System Founded in 1991, CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Center, Overview develops and promotes technical and scientific services for the Swiss research community in the field of high-performance computing The need (HPC). CSCS enables world-class scientific research by pioneering, With data volumes doubling each operating and supporting leading-edge supercomputing technologies. year, researchers at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) needed Located near Lugano, in the south of Switzerland, CSCS is an a centralized storage solution offering autonomous unit of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in low latency, high bandwidth and Zurich (ETH Zurich). extreme scalability. The solution CSCS serves dozens of different research institutions, supporting a CSCS engaged IBM to build a broad range of computational projects across theoretical chemistry, centralized storage solution based material sciences, biological sciences and climate science. Simulations on IBM® General Parallel File System (GPFS), IBM System x® and and other computational projects running on the organization’s com- IBM System Storage® hardware, and pute clusters process many terabytes of data and generate large sets of InfiniBand networking technology. intermediate results ready for further computation. During the actual The benefit simulation run time, all of this data resides on the ’scratch’ storage sys- The solution supports massively parallel tems that are directly attached to each cluster. read/write operations and provides a single namespace for all systems. It In the past, research teams would store intermediate simulation results offers extremely high availability and on tape - but the limited bandwidth of the tape library made this nondisruptive online scaling of the file system. impractical as data volumes grew rapidly. To analyze their results fully, users would have needed to transfer the data back to their own institu- tions, which was not feasible because of the low transfer speeds. “Even over high-speed leased lines, copying data back to a university network could take weeks, so we wanted to give our users the possibil- ity of storing their data locally at CSCS for the duration of their proj- ects,” comments Dominik Ulmer, CSCS general manager. “Equally, the typical HPC workflow has become more sophisticated: Instead of simply running a simulation on an input data set, we now often run
  • 2. IBM Systems and Technology Education Case Study multiple simulations in series, using the output data from one as the input data for the next. This tendency to reuse data was another reason “We selected IBM GPFS for creating a permanent, centralized data storage solution at CSCS.” as it offered the best combination of high Choosing the best solution The amount of data handled in the HPC environment at CSCS scalability, compatibility roughly doubles each year, making it imperative to select a highly scal- with our distributed able architecture for the proposed centralized storage solution. It was also critical to choose a file system that could be mounted on multiple operating systems, par- different HPC systems simultaneously, and that would offer both per- allelism of access, and formance and reliability. failover between nodes.” “We tested a number of file systems and narrowed our choice down to Oracle Lustre and IBM General Parallel File System [GPFS],” —Hussein Harake, HPC systems engineer, CSCS says Hussein Harake, CSCS HPC systems engineer. “We selected IBM GPFS, as it offered the best combination of high scalability, com- patibility with our distributed operating systems, parallelism of access and failover between nodes. Our data can be very long-lived, so it was also important to choose a solution that would offer longevity—both in terms of the reliability of long-term data storage and in terms of the vendor support and roadmap. Selecting GPFS from IBM enabled us to meet these requirements.” Managing rapid growth GPFS supports single cluster file systems of multiple petabytes and runs at I/O rates of more than 100 gigabytes per second. Individual clusters may be cross-connected to provide parallel access to data even across large geographic distances. At CSCS, GPFS offers both low latency (needed for high-speed access to small files) and high band- width (vital for delivering very large files to compute clusters). “Our GPFS-based central file store is becoming a really important resource for us,” says Harake. “Users really appreciate the option to store their data locally rather than needing to copy it back to their own institution. They are requesting more capacity than we originally antic- ipated, so the environment is growing faster than expected.” Ulmer adds, “The rapid rate of growth in data volumes is partly a con- sequence of researchers being able to run more complex simulations on the newer HPC clusters. So, to an extent, they are catching up on 2
  • 3. IBM Systems and Technology Education Case Study projects that couldn’t be done before. GPFS gave us an infrastructure Solution components: that would grow with user demand but in a way that was predictable in budgetary terms.” Hardware ● IBM® System x® 3650 M2 A key decision factor for GPFS was its support for nondisruptive ● IBM System Storage® DS5100 ● IBM System Storage DS5300 migrations and upgrades. Since first implementing the IBM file ● IBM System Storage EXP5000 system, CSCS has upgraded through three phases of different storage ● IBM System Storage EXP5060 arrays and network switches, all without loss of data or service inter- Software ruption. Today, the centralized storage solution is based around three ● IBM General Parallel File System IBM System Storage DS5100 controllers with eight IBM System Storage EXP5060 Storage Expansion Enclosures (containing high- Services capacity SATA disks) and four IBM System Storage EXP5000 Storage ● IBM Global Technology Services Expansion Enclosures (containing high-performance Fibre Channel disks). IBM System x 3650 M2 servers running GPFS act as the file servers; Mellanox gateways and switches provide high-speed InfiniBand networking. Says Harake, “We have upgraded the file system several times, changed the disk controllers and even changed the disks themselves, all without taking the solution down. We will soon upgrade the controllers from DS5100 to DS5300 and add four more expansion enclosures, which will expand our total capacity to 2 PB without any interruption to service.” Holistic approach IBM is responsible for supplying and supporting every element in the centralized storage environment, from the disks up to the network infrastructure. “We wanted IBM to take ownership of the core net- work, so that we have a single point of support for the whole environ- ment,” says Ulmer. “This holistic approach helps us minimize risk and delays in support.” He adds, “We consider HPC technology know-how to be our core competence, and we want to find external partners that are willing to tackle the really cutting-edge stuff and learn alongside us. Our rela- tionship with IBM is very good, and we see a lot of value in our shared workshops. With the GPFS-based centralized storage solution, we feel that we have the ideal building-block for the coming years. The IBM solution will enable us to expand our capacity enormously with- out disruption and without loss of performance.” 3
  • 4. For more information Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at: ibm.com For more information about CSCS visit: cscs.ch Additionally, financing solutions from IBM Global Financing can enable effective cash management, protection from technology obso- lescence, improved total cost of ownership and return on investment. Also, our Global Asset Recovery Services help address environmental concerns with new, more energy-efficient solutions. For more informa- tion on IBM Global Financing, visit: ibm.com/financing © Copyright IBM Corporation 2010 IBM Systems and Technology Group Route 100 Somers, New York 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America September 2010 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, System Storage and System x are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates. Offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice. All client examples cited represent how some clients have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. The information in this document is provided “as-is” without any warranty, either expressed or implied. Please Recycle DCC03006-USEN-00