Complete Genomics Chooses Isilon IQ

Isilon Systems announced that Complete Genomics, provider of large-scale human genome sequencing services, has deployed more than 700 Terabytes of Isilon IQ clustered storage to unify its vast stores of mission-critical genetic data and help power its groundbreaking DNA sequencing pipeline. With Isilon IQ, Complete Genomics has accelerated its research and development operations — including DNA sequencing, software development and large-scale bioinformatics simulations — while eliminating the requirement for a full-time storage administrator. Additionally, Isilon IQ, featuring its OneFS operating system software, provides Complete Genomics’ massive Linux clustered compute farm with a centralized, near-line storage archive for immediate and reliable access to its DNA sequencing data.

"By mid-2009, we will deliver a $5000 genome, dramatically lowering the cost of complete genome sequencing, and providing this powerful genetic information to a much larger constituency of researchers, scientists and life sciences organizations for use in solving some of our greatest medical challenges," said Bruce Martin, Vice President of Software, Complete Genomics. "However, such a feat requires enormous amounts of genetic data to be accessed, analyzed and stored on an around-the-clock basis, making a highly scalable, high-performance and easy to use storage solution critical to our workflow. With Isilon IQ, we have unified our data onto a single, pay-as-you-grow storage repository to support our staggering data growth without requiring a full-time storage administrator."

Complete Genomics will offer large-scale, affordable human genome sequencing services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as other medical researchers, which were previously priced out of the market. By offering a sequencing service instead of the traditional instrument sales model, Complete Genomics is eliminating the operational, computational and resource limitations associated with large-scale DNA sequencing. As a result of its plans, Complete Genomics is facing unprecedented growth of genetic data sets, necessitating a storage solution that removes the costly capacity, performance and management constraints of traditional SAN and NAS systems.

"Complete Genomics’ transformative service has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of a wide range of genetically-based, life-threatening illnesses, enabling accelerated progress in combating these diseases," said Steve Fitz, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, Isilon Systems. "By using Isilon clustered storage to help maximize the value of its mission-critical data, Complete Genomics is demonstrating the tremendous scalability, performance and ease of management benefits possible with Isilon IQ in bioinformatics environments."

By deploying a highly scalable, high-performance, shared pool of Isilon IQ storage, Complete Genomics has simplified its research and development workflows, and reduced IT cost and complexity. Additionally, Isilon IQ, featuring the storage industry’s only implementation of N+3 and N+4 data protection, provides Complete Genomics with the highest levels of data availability and reliability to ensure the integrity of its critical information.

Powered by OneFS, Isilon IQ X-Series delivers the industry’s first single file system that unifies and provides instant and ubiquitous access to the rapidly growing stores of file-based data, setting the standard for scale out file storage. OneFS is a unified operating system software layer that powers all of Isilon’s award-winning IQ family of clustered storage systems including the Isilon IQ 1920, 3000, 6000, 9000, 12000, Accelerator-x, and EX 6000, 9000 and 12000. Isilon also provides a robust suite of software applications including SnapshotIQ, SmartConnect, SmartQuotas and SyncIQ that leverage OneFS and clustered storage, providing the highest levels of data protection and automated data management.