Cray Launches Lustre Storage Solution Across HPC

At the 2013 International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig, Germany, Cray Inc. announced the launch of Cray Cluster Connect – a Lustre storage solution for x86 Linux clusters.

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A compute agnostic storage and data management offering, Cluster Connect allows customers to utilize their Linux compute environment of choice, while also leveraging Cray’s scalable storage expertise in big data and supercomputing.

"Cray has a long, rich history in the HPC storage space, and we have built some of the largest and fastest Lustre file systems in the world," said Barry Bolding, Cray’s VP of storage and data management. "With Cray Cluster Connect, we are applying our Lustre expertise and innovation, and taking all that we have learned, developed and invested in parallel storage solutions to an expanded customer base. We can now deliver end-to-end, Lustre storage solutions for customers’ existing x86 Linux environments. With the launch of Cray Cluster Connect, our storage and data management solutions are no longer limited to Cray supercomputer customers."

Available, Cluster Connect provides customers with a complete Lustre solution consisting of hardware, networking, software, architecture and support. Compatible with commodity x86 Linux clusters to HPC, Cluster Connect is designed to provide an optimal experience and a single point of service. Cray performs testing and qualification of systems at scale, ensuring a reliable and available storage solution. Customers also receive a single point of service and support, available globally, covering all aspects of their Lustre storage solution, including hardware, software and integration.

With Cluster Connect, customers can choose from a range of storage options, including block storage components from DataDirect Networks Inc. and NetApp Inc., as well as the Cray Sonexion storage system. Cluster Connect includes the Lustre Client by Cray for x86 Linux, a choice of Cray supplied Lustre storage systems (both appliance and component-based offerings), and also data management and storage connectivity tools for data movement, archiving and management.

"Based on its acceptance in research environments, Lustre is already the most commonly named technology for scaling data infrastructures in the HPC industry," said Addison Snell, CEO of Intersect360 Research. "With the supported, optimized Cray Cluster Connect solution, Cray is leveraging its storage experience and has the opportunity to increase Lustre’s presence in commercial environments with a wider range of production workloads in HPC and big data."

"Sophisticated, scale-out file system technologies deliver the highest customer value when the efficient, high performance storage is combined with deep systems-level architecture, delivery and support expertise," said Jeff Denworth, VP marketing, DataDirect Networks. "DDN is pleased to further its partnership with Cray through today’s Cluster Connect announcement. A broad number of industries and applications can now easily implement and benefit from DDN file storage technologies that have been tested at the highest levels of the scalability spectrum where Cray has a rich history of proven performance and expertise."

"NetApp is pleased to be part of the Cray Cluster Connect solution," said Dave Mooney, VP, WW E-Series sales specialist team, NetApp. "Our E-Series technology enables this end-to-end solution for production-level Lustre environments – providing the performance needed in high performance environments with ease-of-use and data protection through our Dynamic Disk Pool technology."

The introduction of Cluster Connect is the company’s latest storage and data management offering. Cray offers an appliance option using Sonexion – a scale-out storage system that reduces deployment time and simplifies storage management for petascale solutions. Sonexion addresses a range of customers as it provides performance scalability from 5GB/s to 1TB/s in a single file system and performs optimally at scale. Cray is also an original founder and board member of OpenSFS – a consortium focused on advancing Lustre capabilities and keeping Lustre open – and will follow the OpenSFS roadmap for Lustre.