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German Researchers Use IBM big Data Solution

Archive of more than 40PB projected to grow by 75PB annually over next five years

The German Climate Computing Center is using technology from IBM Corporation to manage the world’s largest climate simulation data archive, used by climate researchers worldwide.

ibm,German Climate Computing Center

This image shows a simulation of the earth’s temperature in the year 2090, based on research conducted on data at the German center. Such simulations and other research on the more than 40PB of data at the center require technology and services from IBM to provide access to such a large archive of information.

The archive currently consists of more than 40PB of data and is projected to grow by roughly 75PB annually over the next five years. As climate simulations are carried out on increasingly powerful supercomputers, massive amounts of data are produced that must be stored and analyzed.

To efficiently manage and provide quick access to this amount of data for analysis and research through its HSM system, the center has selected the performance storage system software solution developed by IBM and the US Department of Energy. Supported by IBM services, this solution is capable of handling more than 500PB of data.

Organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, the University of Hamburg, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Center for Materials and Coastal Research, the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, the West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use, The Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observation Project, the Program For Earth System Modeling, and the center itself use data in the archive for a range of research and reporting activities, including:

  • IPCC research and reporting on the increase in the earth’s temperature and its impact on the climate;
  • Simulations to help predict the geographical and environmental impact of oil spills;
  • The impact of climate change on West Africa, the Mediterranean, Central Europe, Indonesia and other key global regions to determine how to adapt to it;
  • Analysis for airplane traffic routes and altitudes to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases that may impact climate;
  • Developing 3D models and visualizations for creating smarter cities and more energy-efficient buildings;
  • HD modeling for the formation of clouds and precipitation to improve the accuracy of weather and climate prediction.

“Addressing the challenges of climate change and its impact on the environment and daily life for everyone on the planet requires gathering, storing and analyzing massive amounts of data,” said professor Thomas Ludwig, director, German Climate Computing Center, and professor of computer science, the University of Hamburg. “We rely on the technology and the expertise of IBM to help us provide this essential service to the world’s foremost climate and environmental research institutions.

The upgrade of the center’s HSM system includes a solution consisting of the latest x86 servers and Red Hat Linux OS running the HPSS software. This solution manages all simulation data and serves as the input and output interface between the center’s HPC systems and the tape storage library where the climate data is stored.

At IBM, one of the values we try to live up to daily is providing innovation that matters for our company and the world,” said Markus Koerner, VP, IBM Global Technology Services. “I can think nothing that matters more than helping to effectively predict and mitigate the impact of climate change, and we believe the technology and services we provide for this big data challenge will help advance the science of climate change.

The solution uses a disk cache of 5PB of storage capacity and is capable of providing data access speeds of up to 12GB/s, which will be upgraded to 18GB/s later this year.

IBM Global Technology Services supports this solution with data center managed services on site, project management services, and hardware vendor management services, and the HPSS solution incorporates DB2 scalable relational database software.

HPSS technology is the result of a 20-year collaborative effort between IBM and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Los Alamos, Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge National Laboratories of the US Department of Energy. It is used for large scientific data archives at research facilities and universities, and for weather forecast systems.

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