by Elizabeth Rosenthal
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Results from supercomputer simulations will reside in modernized tape library

Tape recorders and videocassette tapes may be considered archaic in the entertainment industry, but magnetic tape storage remains one of the most durable, secure, and cost-effective ways to archive big data generated by supercomputers.

After researchers run code on high-performance computing (HPC) systems, key results are initially stored on disks and then transferred to tape libraries for long-term storage. These systems contain tape drives that write data onto magnetic tape and hundreds or thousands of tape cartridges. Robotic arms place these cartridges in slots for safekeeping and retrieve them when users need to access data to cite experiment outcomes in academic articles or share accomplishments with colleagues. Read More

High performance computing (HPC) environments continually test the limits of technology and require peak performance from equipment—including storage. Spectra Logic builds some of the largest storage systems in the world. Spectra’s TFinity® ExaScale Tape Library, deployed in many HPC environments across the globe, is under continuous improvement to deliver the highest possible value for HPC customers. When it comes to storing data in HPC environments, organizations choose to work with Spectra because of our company culture and technology advancements. Developments like the TeraPack®, Time-Based Access Ordering System (TAOS) and TFinity Zoning provide unsurpassed performance, reliability, and scalability.  Spectra’s data storage solutions help push the boundaries of operational objectives. Read More

Last week, Spectra Logic exhibited at one of its largest industry trade shows of the year: Supercomputing 2018. Also referred to as SC18, Supercomputing is an international event dedicated to showcasing work in high performance computing (HPC), networking, storage and analysis. The show was held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, and was attended by HPC professionals from around the globe. This year’s conference also celebrated 30 years of the SC Conference Series and included anniversary exhibits that provided attendees with an opportunity to review and celebrate the collective accomplishments in HPC. Read More

Universities looking to contribute to society and attract top-tier employees and students from around the globe have found that investing in research and innovation is key to maintaining and growing their competitive edge. Engaging in groundbreaking research, their onsite labs, computational clusters and storage networks can be comparable in performance and capacity to many institutional high-performance computing (HPC) platforms.

University supercomputing environments can generate massive amounts of invaluable data from digital projects that must be stored and protected forever per extensive governmental security requirements.  These research institutions often handle a number of different user needs and navigate the data storage requirements of not only departments, researchers and grant projects across campus, but also external partners and industry collaborators.  Spectra has worked closely with numerous higher education organizations throughout the years, providing cost-effective data storage solutions that help them outperform short- and long-term goals. Find out what we’ve learned about performance, growth, and environmental needs in these educational environments below. Read More

Spectra Logic this week announced the support of the new IBM^® TS1160 tape drive and media in the TFinity^® ExaScale Tape Library and Spectra^® T950, T950V, and T380 tape libraries. This marks another milestone for the enterprise tape market with the new TS1160 tape drive capable of storing up to 20TB of uncompressed data on a single JE media cartridge.  It also means that a TFinity ExaScale tape library can hold over 800PB of uncompressed data or over 2EB of data with full compression in a single tape library, making it the largest data storage machine on the market today. The new drive also has improved throughput of 400 MB/s, enabling a fully loaded TFinity with 144 TS1160 drives to transfer data at a rate of over 57.5GB/s. This high level of throughput is not found on any other archive storage machine. Read More

Supercomputing research environments in universities must often accommodate different user needs, navigating the storage requirements of not only departments and researchers across campus, but also meeting the standards of external partners and industry collaborators.

This is certainly the case for the Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education (ACCRE) at Vanderbilt University, the foremost resource for the high-performance computing requirements of the various research teams and grant projects across the Vanderbilt community. Over 50 departments and more than 850 researchers turn to ACCRE for a multitude of services, from utilizing their Big Data cluster, to leveraging their large high-bandwidth distributed storage network, to employing their tape backup services. Read More

It’s been a few years since I last visited NAB NY. At the time of my last visit, the show was called HD World. More than a few things have changed since then. Now branded the NAB of the East, NAB NY has a fresh face and opens its arms to the eastern-seaboard of broadcasters, production shops, and media, entertainment and technology professionals looking for new and innovative ways to create, manage, deliver and monetize content on any platform.

With over 102,000 attendees, NAB NY 2018 showcased the trends shaping the future of media and entertainment and offered big-picture insights and critical details on the latest disruptive technologies in the industry. The two-day show provided an opportunity for Spectra to meet with its valued technical partners – the likes of CatDV and StorageDNA  along with many others – while also connecting us with numerous channel partners and value-added resellers. These meetings help drive the business,  fueling and strengthening commitments to grow our solution sets and integrations and ultimately providing our customers with modern storage solutions that fit seamlessly into their workflows. Read More

It’s been a busy quarter for Spectra Logic when it comes to earning accolades and awards.  Spectra Logic is honored to be recognized by a number of prestigious organizations who have identified Spectra Logic and our solutions as being at the top of our industry.  With over 100 patents and a strong investment in research and development, Spectra Logic continues to innovate and the company’s recent accolades underscore its commitment to and success in delivering groundbreaking data storage solutions to our global customer base.  Here’s the award lineup: Read More

Spectra Logic last month announced that the British Film Institute (BFI), the lead organization for film in the UK, commissioned OvationData to deploy two Spectra® T950 Tape Libraries and two Spectra® BlackPearl® Converged Storage Systems for long-term digital preservation of the UK’s film history, as part of its Unlocking Film Heritage digitization project.

The announcement and case study received widespread media coverage, with many industry and press outlets detailing how Spectra’s non-proprietary and genetically diverse solution will enable the BFI to protect and preserve its valuable digital assets for decades to come, making its archives easily accessible to filmmakers, researchers and the general public. Read More