Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/247471
4 Mo n d a y, N o ve m b e r 1 8 , 2 0 1 3 CLUSTERED SYSTEMS INTRODUCES SUPER-NODE PLATFORM Application-specific compute clusters have been around for a long time as ad hoc assemblies of equipment to meet diverse compute, storage and networking needs. A cohesive specification and deployment approach encompassing hardware, software and networking has been absent. Clustered Systems and Infiscale have cooperatively developed Super Nodes to address these issues. A Super Node comprises an intelligently managed cluster. It can be stand alone, or more commonly, an element of a much larger compute system. It is instantiated within an integrated power, cooling and networking infrastructure in which any compute and storage module can be deployed. Super Nodes are readily optimized for specific workloads and general purpose shared computing environments by adding blades comprising multi-core, multiple CPU servers, manycore accelerators, high-density microservers, large RAM footprint servers, multi-terabyte disk storage units, SSD acceleration/cache units, and networking switches and interfaces. Infiscale's Software Defined Scalable ABERDEEN FINDS BALANCE FOR SSD DATA STORAGE By Niso Levitas, Research and Development Manager, Aberdeen LLC It is getting harder to pick the right SSD storage these days. It is possible to buy a shared storage completely made of PCIE Memory cards at the cutting edge. You can buy a solution completely made of enterprise level SSD drives, or you can go for a hybrid, with a couple of SSDs for caching and good old mechanical hard drives for the rest. This line-up starts from extremely expensive and goes down to cheap. The key is to target your performance, capacity and your budget. In our labs, we explored all the options for affordable shared SSD storage that does not break the bank. The test results, comparing only mechanical with hybrid SSD solutions, were disappointing. All of the buzz about hybrid RAID controllers went down the drain. We started testing all SSD drive arrays. We tested a set of 16 drives with good endurance for shared storage. It started around 500K IOPS and after an hour of data bombarding, the perform- Su p e r C o m p u te r Sh o w D a ily Infrastructure (SDSI) knits the whole thing together with Super Node Manager (SNM), easy-to-use configuration, optimization, and I/O of all control deployed Super Nodes; PERCEUS, whole infrastructure OS and application stack provisioning; Abstractual, intelligent system management and workload scheduling; GravityFS, distributed, parallel file system; and GravityPark Open Parallel Toolkit, advanced, next-generation Continued on Page 17 ance declined and leveled off at 100K IOPS. The choice of drives was not good. We needed to find the right drives to keep the performance high, and the life of the drives should be suitable for shared enterprise use. After testing numerous sets of drives, we hit 320K IOPS and once the results stayed there for a day, we were happy. This is the sweet spot for 4K Random Reads, sustained. It is the perfect performance for applications up to 14-15TB on an Continued on Page 17 AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION NOT AFFILIATED WITH SC Lee M. Oser CEO and Editor-in-Chief Lyle Sapp Senior Associate Publisher Director of Sales Kim Forrester Jeff Rosano Associate Publishers Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director Hayden Neeley Senior Associate Editor Jeanie Catron Associate Editor Yasmine Brown Keaton Kohl Graphic Designers Ruth Haltiwanger Customer Service Managers Lynn Hilton Jeff Meyer Account Managers Enrico Cecchi European Sales Super Computer Show Daily is published by Oser Communications Group ©2013. All rights reserved. Executive and editorial offices at: 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300/Fax: 520.721.6300 www.oser.com European offices located at Lungarno Benvenuto Cellini, 11, 50125 Florence, Italy.