Established in 2009, DiRAC provides high-performance computing (HPC) services to the U.K.’s Scientific Research Communities in theoretical cosmology, nuclear physics, astrophysics, particle physics, and solar and planetary science. DiRAC hosts three HPC services across the U.K.: The Extreme Scaling Service (University of Edinburgh), The Data Intensive Service (University of Cambridge and University of Leicester), and The Memory Intensive Service (Durham University).
Our Spectra tape libraries provide cost-effective storage that doesn't consume a lot of power. We’ve received very good support and advice from the Spectra team at every step of the way.
The Challenge
The DiRAC Memory Intensive Service at Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology leverages the COSMA7 and COSMA8 supercomputers to power simulations that generate petabytes of invaluable research. As data volumes grew, DiRAC’s support team required a backup that could scale reliably and avoid high costs associated with disk-based storage.
The Solution
DiRAC deployed three Spectra T950® tape libraries using a mixture of LTO-7, LTO-8, and LTO-9 tape media to enhance its storage capacity to 20 petabytes. Atempo Miria software moves data into the long-term Spectra archives.
The Result
DiRAC is now preparing to manage the large volumes of data that are being created from increasingly high-resolution cosmological simulations. The three T950 libraries consume 10-20 times less electricity than traditional disk storage, cutting energy costs and allowing DiRAC to direct resources toward scientific high-performance computing.
The Environment Snapshot
- 3x Spectra T950 tape libraries
- LTO-7, LTO-8, and LTO-9 tape media
- Atempo Miria for Archiving software
- BlueScale® Standard Encryption
- 2x Dell EMC PowerEdge C6525 servers
