SAN over WAN - a new way of solving the GRID data access bottleneck

1. SAN over WAN - a new way of solving the GRID data access bottleneck Presented by: Dr. Wolfgang Mertz Business Development Manager for Storage in EMEA wmertz@sgi.com Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

2. Data Growth Trends From 2001 to 2005 it is projected to grow at 83% CAGR From 1998 to 2000 Storage Shipped grew at 78% CAGR (in Terabytes) 7,000,000 6,000,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000,000 2,000,000 1,000,000 - 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Data under management in an HPC environment is currently growing at over 100%/year. Source: Lyman, Peter and Hal R. Varian, "How Much Information", 2000. Retrieved from http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info on 12/19/2002. Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

3. 2 Buzzwords in IT Industry • Server Consolidation • maybe in a commercial environment • usually not in a technical environment • a hammer is a hammer, a screwdriver is a screwdriver • an HPC system cannot be used as a HPV system • Storage Consolidation • DAS -> NAS -> SAN Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

4. History of Storage ArchitecturesDAS - Direct Attached Storage • pro • appropriate performance • con • distributed, expensive administration • data may not be where it is needed • multiple copies of data stored Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

5. History of Storage ArchitecturesNAS - Network Attached Storage • pro • centralized, less expensive administration • one copy of data • access from every system • con • network performance is the bottleneck Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

6. History of Storage Architectures SAN - Storage Area Network Switch • pro • centralized administration • performance equivalent to DAS • con • NO FILE SHARING • multiple copies of data stored Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

7. How does that translate to a GRID Environment? • Storage Consolidation • useful in a local environment (GRID node) • does not work between remote GRID nodes • Current Data Access between GRID Nodes • Data has to be copied before/after the execution of a job • Problems • copy process has to be done manually or included in the job script • copy can take long • multiple copies of data • additional disk space needed • revision problem Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

8. What if... • ... a SAN would have the same file sharing capability as a NAS? • ... one could build a SAN between different buildings/sites/cities and not loose performance? Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

9. Storage Area Networks (SAN)The High Performance Solution • A first step: • each host owns a dedicated volume consolidated on a RAID array. • Storage management is centralized. • Offers a certain level of flexibility. LAN SAN Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

10. SGI InfiniteStorage Shared FileSystem (CXFS) • A unique high performances solution: • Each host shares one or more volumes consolidated in one or more RAID arrays. • Centralized storage management • High modularity • True High Performances Data sharing • Heterogeneous Environment IRIX Windows NT, 2000 and XP Linux, Mac OS LAN SAN SOLARIS, AIX, HP-UX Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

11. Fibre Channel over SONET/SDHThe High Efficiency, Long Distance Alternative Hours Distance (kilometers) Data re-transmission due to IP packet losslimits actual IP throughput over distance New York Boston Chicago Denver Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

12. LightSand Solution for building a Global-SAN WAN LAN LAN Client Client Servers Servers IP Router IP Router DWDM SAN SAN Dedicated Fiber Fibre Channel Switch Fibre Channel Switch SDH SONET IP FC Tape System Storage Storage Tape System SONET Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

13. LightSand Products • S-600 • 2 ports FC and/or IP 1Gb/s • Point-to-point SAN interconnect over SONET/SDH OC-12c (622 Mb/s bandwidth) • Low latency (approximately 50 µSec) • S-2500 • 3 ports FC and/or IP 1Gb/s • Point-to-point SAN interconnect over SONET/SDH OC-48c (2.5 Gb/s bandwidth) • Point-to-multipoint SAN interconnect over SONET/SDH (up to 5 SAN islands. 622 Mb/s per link) • Low latency (approximately 50 µSec) Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

14. Scientists at LANL currently dump 100GB of supercomputing data to tape and FedEx it to SNL because it is faster than trying to use the existing 155Mb/s IP WAN connection Actual measured throughput of 16Mb/s! (10% bandwidth utilization) http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/discovery/wufeng.htm Data Movement Today – A Recent Case Study IP Network Server Server Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) Los AlamosNational Laboratory(LANL) Fibre ChannelStorage Area Network Fibre ChannelStorage Area Network Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

15. Using LightSand gateways, the same data could be transferred in a few minutes! The Better Way – Directly Between Storage Systems IP Network Server Server LocalData Center RemoteData Center FC SAN FC SAN Telco SONET/SDH Infrastructure LightSand Gateway LightSand Gateway Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

16. What does that mean for a GRID Environment? GDAŃSK GDAŃSK POZNAŃ POZNAŃ ŁÓDŹ ŁÓDŹ WROCŁAW WROCŁAW KRAKÓW KRAKÓW • Full Bandwidth Data Access across the GRID • No Multiple Copies of Data • avoid the revision problem • do not waste disk space • Make GRID Computing more efficient WARSZAWA Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

17. Highly Integrated, Massively Scalable Systems High- Performance Computing Advanced Graphics Storage Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

18. SGI InfiniteStorage Product Line High Availability DAS NAS SAN Redundant Hardware and FailSafe™ XVM Data Protection Legato NetWorker, XFS™ Dump, OpenVault™ HSM High Availability Data Protection HSM Data Sharing SGI Data Migration Facility (DMF), TMF, OpenVault™ Data Sharing XFS, CIFS/NFS, Samba, ClusteredXFS (CXFS™), SAN over WAN Storage Hardware TP900, TP9100, TP9300, TP9400, TP9500, HDS 99x0, STK Tape Libraries, ADIC Libraries, Brocade Switches, NAS 2000, SAN 2000, SAN 3000 Choose only the integrated capabilities you need Cracow ‘03 Grid Workshop

19. www.sgi.com/products/storage