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Raid Inc. and University of Florida Team Up to Drive High-Performance Computing to New Levels
| Source: Raid Incorporated
METHUEN, MA--(Marketwire - May 13, 2008) - RAID Inc., a customer-centric storage solutions
provider specializing in custom manufacturing of leading edge storage
solutions, today announced that the University of Florida's
High-Performance Computing (HPC) Center has chosen RAID Inc. for a large
implementation of over 100 TB of performance-intensive 4Gb Fibre to SATA-2
storage. The storage solution, which was designed in a clustered
architecture, is networked in such a way to allow shared access not only
between multiple research facilities across campus, but by scientific
groups at various educational and government research facilities that span
the state of Florida and the entire country.
The University's HPC Center is linked to five satellite facilities on
campus via its 20 Gb/s Ethernet Campus Research Network (CRN). Their
distributed storage solution consists of six RAID Inc. Falcon III (24-bay,
4Gb FC to SATA-2) subsystems. This storage is made available to users as
a cluster file system (Lustre) hosted by three servers. Two of the
servers are configured with three dual-port Fibre Channel (4 Gb/s) HBAs, an
InfiniBand (4X SDR) HCA, and a 10 Gb/s Ethernet adapter. The Fibre
Channel HCAs provide access to the storage while the InfiniBand and
Ethernet adapters distribute the file system to the HPC cluster (locally)
and to the satellite facilities over the CRN. The resulting architecture
has sustained throughput of up to 2 GB/s (read and write) from both local
and remote clients.
"This novel approach to sharing scientific data will facilitate analysis
and increase the likelihood of important discoveries. It raises the bar
for storage innovation in the HPC arena," stated Bob Picardi, Chief
Operating Officer at RAID, Incorporated. "We are thrilled that RAID's
Falcon III, 24-bay product was integral to the success of this exciting
storage solution."
Research groups at other universities within the state will also be able to
take advantage of this RAID Inc. storage solution. The University is one of
ten academic institutions across the state to be a member of the Florida
LambdaRail (http://www.flrnet.org/), Florida's research and education
network. The FLR is complementary to the National LambdaRail
(http://www.nlr.net/) initiative, a national high-speed research network
for research universities and technology companies. The FLR provides
opportunities for faculty, researchers, and students within the state of
Florida to collaborate with colleagues around the world on leading edge
research projects. The FLR also supports the State of Florida's economic
development and high-tech aspirations.
"The High-Performance Computing Center at the University of Florida seeks
best of breed providers that can push the technology envelope in support of
our research projects, " said Charlie Taylor, associate director of the
University of Florida's HPC Center. "RAID Inc. was the ideal partner for
our challenging storage needs, and their Falcon III product was a key
component in the success of this project."
Thus far, the storage has been distributed between the University of
Florida in Gainesville and Florida
International University (FIU) located in Miami. This type of work between
research groups at geographically distant universities is a major step
towards a large collaborative effort that has been in the planning phase
for several years now and is beginning to finally take shape. Among other
projects, researchers at University of Florida and FIU are working towards
finding evidence of a hypothetical particle that has been theorized by
physicists, but as of yet never observed. Researchers at these universities
will also be working remotely with a new particle accelerator currently
under construction at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. As their work begins to
move forward, it is likely that more research labs across the state and the
country will also have the ability to access the same storage pool.
About RAID Incorporated
Headquartered in Methuen, MA, RAID Incorporated is a managed storage
service provider (MSSP) and designs customized storage systems and
solutions. RAID Incorporated's flagship service StorageWatch® is the
industry's only real-time monitoring and managed storage service which
reduces customers total cost of ownership by reducing operational costs
associated with maintaining and administering storage systems while
increasing data availability. Since 1994, RAID has been devoted to
researching and developing leading edge technologies while providing
twenty-four hour support services to become one of the industry leaders.
RAID specializes in solving compute, application, and disaster recovery
needs with a unique platform combining hardware, software, and services.
www.raidinc.com.