Collaboration Between Quanta QCT, Intel and Amplidata

Quanta QCT, Intel Corp. and Amplidata have published a reference architecture to deliver a storage solution aimed at managing the growth of unstructured data.

The solution is targeted at vertical markets where large-scale object storage solutions are needed to stay ahead of an accelerating demand for applications that wring business value from these growing mountains of data with data durability up to fifteen 9s.

A live demo of the reference architecture will be shown at the Intel Developer Forum, September 11-13 in San Francisco, CA. The demo will be located in the Intel Data Center Community area.

An estimate by IDC reports that in 2011 there was 1.8 zettabytes of data (created and replicated) worldwide, growing to 7.9 zettabytes by 2015. The report notes that by 2020, IT departments worldwide will need to administer 50 times the amount of data compared to 2011.

Some of the largest contributors to this trend are massive amounts of unstructured data driving applications in media, entertainment and scientific research. The size of these datasets is hitting the limits of traditional file based storage. Therefore there is a growing demand for efficient and reliable object storage platforms.

The reference architecture published on Intel’s CloudBuilders website is based on Amplidata’s Amplistor solution that runs on Xeon processor-based platforms, which provide all the necessary performance and power savings such that data center applications can scale on performance and capacity scale independently. It utilizes Quanta QCT’s STRATOS S210-X12MS servers and STRATOS S100-L11SL storage nodes. The reference architecture presents a data durability policy option that enables fifteen 9s (99.9999999999999%) statistical data durability.

Applications that manage massive data sets are driving a new generation of cloud-enabled datacenters with the need for more scalable, durable and easy to manage storage with very low cost of ownership. To meet these exploding capacity requirements in both public and private clouds, service providers and enterprises alike are turning to a ‘scale-out’ storage infrastructure that combines Amplidata’s technology with industry-standard servers and storage components.

The AmpliStor platform counters the data protection and scalability limitations, inefficiencies, management burdens, and high-cost of ownership of traditional proprietary storage. Previously, cloud service providers have had to rely on rigid, non-scalable, expensive and proprietary storage to provide scalability, durability and high performance for private and public nearline and archival storage.

The server for the reference architecture is the Quanta STRATOS S210-X12MS with dual Intel Xeon E5-2640 processors and Intel 520 Series SSDs for AmpliStor controller hosts with Intel 10GbE and GbE. It is a 16 DIMM slot design (2 DIMM per channel) which can run up to 1600 MHz and is for compute intensive applications demanding high memory bandwidth. The server is designed to minimize acquisition and operating expenses, with datacenter-optimized features that include Intel 82599ES 10Gb SFP+ 10GE onboard and a single PCIe slot.

The Quanta STRATOS S100-L11SL storage nodes are equipped with Xeon E3-1220L v2 processors. The unit places most controllers on board to reduce cost in a design that is integrated and optimized for data center storage demands. It has high storage density, which makes the node ideal for applications that require high storage density, capacity, power efficiency, and cost effectiveness. Drive configuration includes 12 3.5" SATA HDDs, one 2.5" SSD and one SATDOM. The server also features four Intel 82574 1Gb Ethernet RJ45 ports for accessing or managing the server from multiple networks.