Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility

Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) was established at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to accelerate scientific discovery and engineering progress by providing world-leading computational performance and advanced data infrastructure. As a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility, the OLCF offers leadership-class computing resources to researchers from government, academia, and industry who have many of the largest computing problems in science.
Spectra Tfinity Tape Library

The new library has just shy of 14,000 slots for tapes. We were able to easily move all 70 petabytes of existing data into the new system and have grown to 104 petabytes in size and have plenty of room for at least a year or two before we have to start thinking about expanding.

– HPC Linux Systems Engineer, OLCF

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The Challenge

OLCF tape libraries primarily store user data accumulated from applications run on the Summit supercomputer and the now retired Titan supercomputer, as well as some information from other OLCF computing resources and different user facilities. Although tape drives and other individual storage components are typically replaced about every 5 years, libraries can operate much longer. Updates are periodically required to incorporate new technologies and enhance efficiency. Most of the OLCF’s six existing systems had been operating for 10 years or longer, making this large-scale upgrade an infrequent and significant undertaking.

Once the data is transferred from disk storage to the tape archive, users have assurance that we are doing everything possible to keep that data safe and secure.

– HPC Linux Systems Engineer, OLCF

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The Solution

At the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), the Archive team in the HPC Operations Group replaced the previous tape libraries with a new library system produced by Spectra Logic Corporation. The Spectra Logic system will improve storage efficiency by consolidating data from all of the OLCF’s current data storage systems into this single library, reducing the physical footprint by 85 percent. Still, the system will be capable of holding over 150 petabytes of data, and the compact configuration provides the team with substantial space to eventually expand the machine to a maximum capacity of 1.52 exabytes.

Environment Snapshot

  • 17-frame Spectra® TFinity ExaScale Tape Library
  • 85 IBM® TS1155 tape drives
  • Two High Performance Transporters (HPT)
  • BlueScale® Vision Camera
  • BlueScale® Standard Encryption
  • High Performance Storage System (HPSS) software

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"When we set out on our search to find a storage solution capable of preserving Imperial War Museums’ substantial digital archive, there were specific criteria on which we were not willing to compromise. Spectra met all of our requirements and then some, and now continues to deliver with StorCycle’s storage lifecycle management capabilities."

– Ian Crawford, Chief Information Officer, Imperial War Museums

"We appreciate the collaborative relationship and Spectra’s attentiveness to incorporating our feedback and ideas into solution enhancements. Our continuing investment into Spectra technology on behalf of our organization has proven invaluable in helping us implement the next level architectural model taking us into the future."

– Eric Grau, Manager – Media Asset Management, Joyce Meyer Ministries

"The new library has just shy of 14,000 slots for tapes. We were able to easily move all 70 petabytes of existing data into the new system and have grown to 104 petabytes in size and have plenty of room for at least a year or two before we have to start thinking about expanding."

– HPC Linux Systems Engineer, OLCF

"We have to store a lot of data for long periods of time. A single microscope can capture 10TB of data in as little as a few hours, and a published breakthrough on cancer research can take anywhere from a few years to a couple of decades. The BlackPearl and tape solution from Spectra provides a scalable and cost-effective way to store multiple data workflows with varying retention requirements."

– Jeffrey McDonald, director of IT, Hormel Institute at University of Minnesota

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