Leading weather agency selects
Bright Computing, DataDirect Networks, and SGI to provide
innovative solution
MILPITAS, Calif., Oct. 19, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE)
-- Today, SGI (NASDAQ:SGI), a global leader in high-performance
solutions for compute, data analytics, and data management,
together with Bright Computing and DataDirect Networks (DDN)
announced that the Met Office, the United Kingdom's national
weather service, selected the three HPC vendors to provide high
performance computing capabilities for its new Scientific
Processing and Intensive Compute Environment (SPICE) system. SPICE
will enable weather and climate researchers to dramatically reduce
time required to analyze massive amounts of climate simulation
data.
The Met Office is a world leading weather
forecasting and climate prediction organization that conducts
research designed to protect lives and increase prosperity. The
institution's 500 scientists conduct research using data-intensive,
high-resolution models to increase forecast accuracy and provide a
deeper understanding of climate change. The Met Office required a
powerful system for post-processing data and analysis downstream of
the primary HPC facility. As a result, the UK Met chose SGI to
power its SPICE initiative and upgrade its Managed Archive Storage
System (MASS).
SGI was selected by the Met Office for its value
and performance, allowing users to more easily manage multiple
servers and increase system utilization rates. Following the
installation in April 2016, the Met Office's researchers
experienced a positive increase in processing capacity, furthering
their understanding of meteorology on a global scale.
To support the growth in its MASS which is a
critical adjunct to the Met Office's supercomputer system archive,
the Met Office selected SGI's solution with DDN storage. MASS acts
as a repository or archive for the data resulting from scientific
research carried out on the supercomputer as well as global
observational data. By 2020, this crucial storage archive is
predicted to grow to about 300 Petabytes of weather and climate
research data.
To build a well-rounded, turnkey system, the Met
Office chose to integrate Bright Cluster Manager for
HPC to deploy the new SPICE cluster over bare metal, providing
single-pane-of-glass management for the hardware, operating system,
HPC software, and users. The Met Office also chose to
install Bright OpenStack to enable the IT team easy
deployment, provision, and management of its OpenStack-based
private-cloud infrastructure.
The fact that Bright's solutions can be
administered from a single point of control was a consideration in
the Met Office's decision-making process. With the combined
solution of compute, OpenStack, and storage, the Met Office can
scale SPICE storage predictably while delivering high-throughput
performance to handle simultaneous data reads/writes. Using the SGI
system, the Met Office's researchers can spin up virtual machines
easily and operate their own private virtual environment with full
control and direct access to their local network. In addition, they
can easily increase the capacity of the virtual environment merely
by adding more servers to the OpenStack environments.
Scientists using SPICE have already noted
significant performance advantages over previous systems, enabling
far quicker analysis to support ongoing research. Massive volumes
of data are now analyzed in several hours, rather than days. The
improvements support and enhance ongoing development of
meteorological and climate change research.
Announcement
Highlights
- The UK Met Office has selected SGI
to power its new Scientific Processing and Intensive Compute
Environment (SPICE), enabling weather and climate researchers to
dramatically reduce time required for analyzing climate simulation
data.
- To upgrade its MASS archive, the Met
Office has selected SGI together with DDN's Storage architecture.
Currently, the archive stores about 100TB each day and is expected
to increase to 200TB per day by 2017.
- The Met Office has
chosen Bright Cluster Manager for HPC to deploy the new
SPICE cluster over bare metal, providing single-pane-of-glass
management for the hardware, operating system, HPC software, and
users. The Met Office has also chosen to install Bright
OpenStack, enabling the IT team's easy deployment, provision, and
management of its OpenStack-based private-cloud
infrastructure.
Technical
Information
- The SGI Rackable system for SPICE
has 36 nodes Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2690 v4, achieving
performance of up to 30,000 Gigaflops
- Data access and storage for MASS is
provided by 3.5 PB of DDN Disk (models GS7K(TM), GS12K(TM)) to
support disk cache
- ConnectX®-3 Pro Adapter with Virtual
Protocol Interconnect® for both IP and InfiniBand®
communication
- Bright Cluster Manager for HPC and
Bright OpenStack
Supporting
Quotes
"With the new SPICE system from SGI, we have seen
a step-change in performance for our researchers and scientists
doing post-processing of weather and climate data," said Richard
Bevan, Head of Operational Technology at the Met Office. "Tasks
that used to take 1-2 days to complete are now done in a fraction
of that time, allowing scientists to perform multiple runs in one
day."
According to Bob Maynard, storage team technical
lead for the Met Office, DDN's robust, scalable storage for both
archive and post-processing delivers exceptional value and
unparalleled performance. "No matter how much we grow, DDN will
continue to provide a performance step-change that will enable
scientists to collect and make sense of massive amounts of data
every day for the benefit of mankind and our planet," he said.
"Everyone who uses Bright technology says it's
impressive, but you really start seeing the power of our technology
when you seamlessly connect solutions together," said Lee Carter,
VP EMEA at Bright Computing. "By coupling its HPC and OpenStack
environments with Bright management, the Met Office is in a strong
position to accelerate research, and provide world leading
applications and climate models to both internal as well as
external users."
"The Met Office is driving intensive climate
research around the globe, and we're pleased to provide them with
an all-inclusive system to power the SPICE program," said Gabriel
Broner, vice president and general manager, HPC at SGI. "By
combining our SGI Rackable solution with Bright Computing and DDN
technologies, we're able to provide the Met Office a strong HPC
system that not only handles massive data workloads, but also
allows easier manageability for researchers and IT managers to
operate the computer simultaneously."
Suggested
Tweets
- UK Met Office deploys new HPC System
@SGI_Corp, @DDN_limitless @Brightcomputing @metoffice
#BritainsWeatherExpert http://bit.ly/2dWYvQK
- UK Met Office chooses @SGI_Corp
@DDN_limitless @Brightcomputing for more accurate weather
prediction @metoffice http://bit.ly/2dWYvQK
About DDN
DataDirect Networks (DDN) is the world's leading big data storage
supplier to data-intensive, global organizations. For more than 15
years, DDN storage has designed, developed, deployed, and optimized
systems, software, and storage solutions that enable enterprises,
service providers, universities, and government agencies to
generate more value and to accelerate time to insight from their
data and information, on premise and in the cloud. Organizations
leverage the power of DDN storage technology and the deep technical
expertise of its team to capture, store, process, analyze,
collaborate, and distribute data, information, and content at
largest scale in the most efficient, reliable, and cost-effective
manner. DDN customers include many of the world's leading financial
services firms and banks, healthcare and life science
organizations, manufacturing and energy companies, government and
research facilities, and web and cloud service providers. For more
information, go to www.ddn.com or call 1-800-837-2298,
and follow DDN
via Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
About Bright
Computing
Bright Computing is the leading independent provider of cluster and
cloud management software. Bright Cluster Manager(TM), Bright
Cluster Manager for Big Data(TM), and Bright OpenStack(TM) provide
a unified, hardware-agnostic approach to installing, provisioning,
configuring, managing, and monitoring HPC clusters, big data
clusters, and OpenStack clouds. Bright's products are currently
deployed in more than 500 data centers around the world. Bright
Computing's customer base includes global academic, governmental,
financial, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, and pharmaceutical
organizations such as Boeing, NASA, Stanford University, Roche, and
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Bright partners with Amazon,
Cray, Dell, Intel, NVIDIA, SGI, and other leading vendors to
deliver powerful, integrated solutions for managing advanced IT
infrastructure such as high performance computing clusters, big
data clusters, and OpenStack-based private
clouds. www.brightcomputing.com
About SGI
SGI is a global leader in high-performance solutions for compute,
data analytics, and data management that enable customers to
accelerate time to discovery, innovation, and profitability. Visit
sgi.com (sgi.com/) for more information.
Connect with SGI
on Twitter (@sgi_corp), YouTube (youtube.com/sgicorp),
Facebook (facebook.com/sgiglobal)
and LinkedIn(linkedin.com/company/sgi).
Grayling Public Relations: Crystal Yang | (415)
593-1188 | sgi@grayling.com
SGI Investor Relations Contact: Ben Liao | (669) 900-8090
| bliao@sgi.com
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