NetApp E5400 Storage System Benchmarked for Use With Lustre

HPC applications put stress on an organization’s IT infrastructure as a result of the amount of data and information that must be stored, managed, and processed. Addressing this challenge is no easy task and requires a storage solution that can deliver the performance, bulletproof reliability, and efficiency necessary to enable customers to succeed in today’s hypercompetitive business environment.

In May, NetApp, Inc. unveiled the E5400 storage system, which is available to OEMs as part of the E-Series Platform, to help customers manage the massive amount of data resulting from big-bandwidth and high-performance applications. To help meet the growing needs of customers in high-performance environments, NetApp announced that the E5400 has been benchmarked for use with the Lustre file system, an open-sourced file system used by the majority of organizations on the Supercomputer 500 list.

E5400 Benchmarked
for Use in  High-Performance Environments
Together with Whamcloud, NetApp recently benchmarked the E5400 with the Lustre file system on the Lawrence Livermore Hyperion test bed. In a 4U storage system, Whamcloud achieved 5GB/s for read performance and 3.5GB/s for write performance with the E5400. This combination enables customers with a 40U rack to achieve up to 50GB/s in read performance per rack. This benchmark, along with NetApp and Whamcloud’s ability to provide Lustre support, provides customers deploying configurations based on the E5400 with the ability to advance their Lustre storage environments in real-world applications.

"Teaming with NetApp to provide expanded support options for Lustre environments gives a distinct advantage to our HPC customers," said Brent Gorda, CEO, Whamcloud. "We’re extremely excited with the benchmarking of the E5400 with Lustre in the Lawrence Livermore Hyperion test bed. Lustre is gaining in importance within the HPC community, and working closely with NetApp allows our two companies to deliver outstanding support services, ensuring that customers get the most out of their Lustre environments."

New Solution Details
The E5400 enhances its modular flexibility with support for three drive enclosures (4U 60 drive, 2U 24 drive, 2U 12 drive), multiple drive technologies (SSD, 15K SAS, 10K SAS, NL-SAS), and scalability to 600 drives per 40U. These new features enable customers to optimize for capacity and performance requirements, resulting in improved productivity while helping to keep costs down and increase overall efficiencies.

With a new 40Gb InfiniBand interface option, the E5400 can integrate into IB infrastructures and provide flexibility for high-performance storage networking requirements.

Architected to provide reliability and availability, the E5400 enables continuous data delivery to help customers improve computational efficiencies.

E5400 Foundational for OEM HPC Storage Solution
Bull, a global OEM provider based in Europe, is the first NetApp OEM partner to build and deploy an HPC storage solution on the E5400 and have it in customer production with CEA, a French government-funded technological research organization. Additional HPC storage solutions from NetApp OEM partners built on the E5400 are planned and will enable OEMs to expand their market reach and increase the number of customers who can take advantage of solutions based on the E5400.

"High-performance computing applications are the backbone of our ability to conduct scientific research that requires us to manage and process immense amounts of data and information in real time," said Jacques-Charles Lafoucriere, Department Leader, CEA. "NetApp technology provides us with the ability to meet our increasing data demands with zero downtime, allowing us to focus our efforts on our research."

"We are thrilled to be working with NetApp, and the E5400 is evidence of NetApp’s commitment to working closely with its OEM partners to deliver the storage platform and technology needed in today’s demanding HPC environments," said Pascal Barbolosi, vice president, Extreme Computing, Bull. "We look forward to building on our partnership and collaborating to deliver the most comprehensive and powerful range of Extreme Computing solutions to the market."

"Less than two months ago, we pledged our commitment to delivering the product and technology innovation necessary to help fuel our OEM partners’ success by addressing the growing customer requirements around big-bandwidth and high-performance applications," said Rick Scurfield, vice president and general manager of NetApp’s OEM business. "Today’s announcement is undeniable proof that NetApp is serious about serving the HPC market and is just the beginning of what will be many other OEM solutions built on the NetApp E-Series Platform."

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